Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

When I try to think back to the things I loved watching the most when I was young, I tend to think back to what my family had on VHS.  Y'see, way back in the 80s, large plastic tapes were the only way to watch something more than once unless you got lucky and the show you liked would air reruns.  This almost never happened when it came to things like most kids cartoons or TV specials.

Here's a real confession, up until I was almost ten, I had no idea how television worked.  I didn't know about "seasons" of a show.  I just knew that sometimes a show I liked was on, and sometimes it wasn't.  Sometimes there would be new episodes, and other times they just aired the same ones again.  Eventually I started to put together that maybe they just wanted to air each set of stories more than once in case somebody missed one, then they could resume airing new ones so everybody would be caught up.  I was so naive.

Which is why, when I was young, I would get so upset when a show I liked was taken off the air.  For example, I distinctively remember being a fan of the Battletoads cartoon, but one day it was just gone, replaced with, if I remember correctly, was the Country Bear Jamboree cartoon.  I tried watching it for five minutes and then left in disgust.

What does this have to do with anything?

Well, one tape I remember us either owning or renting all the time was Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

D'aww.