Googie's Superhero Award

With this year's Oscars behind us, the time is right to focus our attention on the much coveted Superhero Award.  My name is Googie, and I am your emcee.  Welcome to our show.

Actually, the show is coming to you on tape-delay, as the actual event occurred two days ago.  Last Saturday, our local Parks and Recreation Department hosted a Superhero Party for children ages 2 through 7.  Held at a convention center in one of our city parks, the party consisted of three large rooms filled with games and craft activities for children to engage in on a walk-up basis. 

Manned by young men and women in superhero attire, the carnival-like stations invited children, most of whom were also costumed, to deflect balls, throw foam mallets at balloons, or shoot flying disks at targets depicting the evil Joker.  At the craft tables the kids could choose stickers and markers to decorate cardboard masks, swords, and shields, or to put their personal touches on a fabric cape. 

They could get tattoos, run an obstacle course, or get their pictures taken with the Superhero cast.  In short, the party was an hour and a half of pure Superhero-themed fun topped off with a cookie and a juice drink.  (At this point, just let me pause to thank our sponsors for the hours of effort that went into creating such a fun, memorable time for these kids.)  And now, back to our program.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure and self-appointed task to introduce to you the three finalists for Googie's Superhero Award.  First, we have the inimitable Pooh, clad as Spiderman from the shoulders down, but jauntily sporting the mask he colored at the party:

Next is Miss Sooby, who purports the highly contested theory that Buzz Lightyear could, in fact, under that space suit and all that buzzamatazz, have been female:

And finally, the reticent Bootsie, illustrating that even Supergirl can suffer a moment of weakness.  However, after receiving a much-needed dose of Kryptonite from her mother's pants leg, you will be relieved to know, she recovered sufficiently to hurl a foam bat-a-rang and knock over a tower of upside-down solo cups in true Supergirl fashion:

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you have all been waiting for.  Although all three are deserving, only one of these three finalists will be awarded Googie's Superhero Award.  Drum roll, please.  And the winner is--

Wait!  It seems we have a write-in candidate.  Yes, folks, yet another Superhero has clawed her way to the top of the competitive heap to garner this most prestigious honor.  And here she is:

Yes!  I am proud to announce that Googie's Superhero Award goes to Cookie, the kids' mother.  Cookie braved the aftermath of a huge winter snowstorm to undertake a three-hour one-way drive with four children ages five and under just so that we could all go to this party and make this wonderful memory. 

In the picture she appears to be holding up a vehicle, but I guarantee you this is nothing compared to the weight she shoulders every single day in the anything-but-simple act of being mama to the other three finalists and their baby brother.

Take a bow, Cookie.  You are a Superhero in every sense of the word.







  
 

All Abuzz

Last week, Buzz Lightyear looked more dejected than he did when Andy left for college.  There he lay, on a crowded shelf of used toys at a local thrift shop, just waiting for someone to switch him on and push his buttons to initiate some amazing intergalactic conversation. Take heart, Ranger.  Captain Googie to the rescue. 

It didn't require the activation of too many systems before I realized that this was no ordinary Buzz.  Push a red button on his chest and his wings pop out, complete with flashing lights, red on the starboard side and green on the port.  Push the red button on his sleeve and his laser flashes into action.  Open his helmet and you get an interplanetary tongue-lashing:  "How dare you open a spaceman's helmet in uncharted space!"  Several other buttons located here and there on his space suit provide the impetus for an unbelievable number of other Buzzisms, including the famous "To infinity--and beyond!"  He even emits "flying" sound effects when moving in a horizontal position.

With one cursory glance at the $5 price scrawled on the bottom of his boot, I knew that my mission was to buy this Buzz for Pooh.  A later check online confirmed that I had gotten a great deal, with the new version of this same toy going for over $50.  The fact that his batteries still seemed to be going strong made him even more valuable.  Pooh's response when I gave Buzz to him a couple days ago made him priceless. 

It was a day like Andy's birthday in the first Toy Story movie, a day that was all about Buzz.  At one point that afternoon, I had just wrangled 16-month-old Bootsie to the floor for a much-needed diaper change.  As I was rather immersed in this project, I heard a familiar voice from somewhere just behind me.  It was Buzz.  Apparently, Pooh had lifted his helmet, prompting him to say, quite emphatically and appropriately, "I SMELL EVIL."  Well put, Buzz old buddy.  Don't we all.

Funny as this was, however, it didn't come close to what I will refer to here, with apologies to Kmarts everywhere, as "The Blue Light Special."  Our Buzz has a blue button on his dropped-waist belt about where the buckle should be.  Somehow, Pooh got the idea that this must be--uh--how Buzz potties.  So at random times during the day, Buzz would lean over, Pooh would push the blue button, and you would hear something like, "Wheesh.  Whoosh.  Zappa-zappa-zap.  Wheeew."

I tell you, I laughed until tears streamed down my face and the kids asked me why I was crying.  I either have an oddly perverse sense of humor, or I have lived a rather sheltered life.  It's just that I'd never before seen anyone, male or female, go to the bathroom accompanied by flashing blue lights and precisely these kinds of sound effects.

If Pooh's thrift-store Buzz should suddenly stop working forever, he will still be worth the $5 I paid for him many times over.  If he never gives us more than this one full, unforgettable day of imagination and laughter, he will still be the most valuable piece of space junk I have ever encountered.

Thanks, Buzz.  You lit up our day.  Your mission is accomplished.