There is a very funny, to me anyway, story from my childhood that I've always wanted to write about somewhere. I don't think this ever made it into my old LiveJournal or Dreamwidth accounts, and it certainly didn't feel like something I could talk about on my Halloween-centric forms of social media, so I'm happy to finally have a place to share it. I hope someone out there finds this as amusing as I do.
I was born in 1987. I am a 90s kid through and through, but being born at the tail end of the 80s, also meant that I got to experience some iconic 80s staples in reruns and random finds at the video store. I was born too late for toy lines or regularly scheduled broadcasts of things like Rainbow Brite or the first generation of My Little Pony, but that didn't stop me from falling in love with them.
One such instance was with a short-lived Hanna-Barbera cartoon called Paw Paws.
There was absolutely no rhyme or reason to how Paw Paws would air...It only ran for 21 episodes, so it was thrown randomly into whatever programming block it was in, sometimes starting right as I would have to leave for school. I always hoped to catch an episode, but I rarely was lucky enough.
One day when I was about nine, though, everything changed. There used to be a cable access show in my area that would have these trivia nights, and you could call in and win a brief trial subscription to some premium television channels. My mother has always been very good at trivia (She even won a set of encyclopedias from Regis & Kathie Lee back in the day!) and one night she called in, and won a free trial subscription to Cartoon Network.
I was absolutely ecstatic to have another kids' network to watch for a bit, as the Disney Channel was also premium subscription at the time so I was mainly a Nickelodeon kid. But I was even more ecstatic to find that Cartoon Network, at this point in time, had a daily Hanna-Barbera programming block that regularly included Paw Paws!
I felt like I'd won the lottery. My elusive favorite vintage cartoon was finally available to watch daily! I recorded some episodes, wrote about in my diary, and often even dreamed about the show at night. I was constantly playing at being a part of this universe, particularly a character similar to Princess Paw Paw, who was my absolute favorite.
However, being that we only had a small trial subscription, my time with my beloved Paw Paws was limited. I don't remember how long the freebie lasted; somewhere between two weeks and a month I think, but nonetheless, the end came. And, if I recall correctly, the cable company actually pulled the plug just before what would have been my final episode of Paw Paws started.
It's probably worth noting that I am neurodivergent and I get very attached to fictional things. I still do this as an adult, but it was even more intense when I was a child. So to say losing Paw Paws devastated me, was an absolute understatement. I literally had no idea what to do without my beloved Native American-inspired bears in my life every day. I rewatched episodes I'd recorded, of course, but it wasn't the same.
And I guess, though I don't remember any specific details of this, it eventually got to me to the point where I was lashing out at my family, badly. I believe I blamed my parents for not wanting to pay for the premium subscription so I wouldn't have to give up watching the show.
One day it finally came to a head; I don't remember how. But I did or said something awful, and my father pulled me aside and demanded to know what was going on with me and why I'd been acting like such a menace for the past several weeks.
I don't know why I didn't just answer honestly, and say I was sad that I could no longer watch my favorite show. I'm not sure if it was some kind of neurodivergent brain response, or if, in that moment, being called out for my behavior, I simply felt stupid about it, but rather than just explain how I felt, I wound up saying this to my father instead:
"There's something bad that happened recently, that I've been trying to get around."
Needless to say, this worried my father greatly. We've never discussed it in detail, but I'm pretty sure, in that moment, he thought I was trying to say I'd been molested, or something along those lines. Looking back on it, it was such a dramatic thing to say, I truly don't know why I worded it like that, but I guess, I've always had issues with answering a question straight, especially if I feel like I'm going to be judged for my answer. And no one ever really did understand my deep connections to fictional things.
My father immediately called my mother over and insisted we go into my parents' bedroom to talk privately. This again supports my theory that my father believed something awful had happened to me, and he thought I'd be more comfortable having a conversation with my mother about it. I just remember him saying that I wasn't allowed to come out until I told my mother what was going on.
Truthfully, I don't remember much of how the conversation with my mother went, but I know I didn't flat-out tell her immediately that my problem was that I could no longer watch Paw Paws. I think I spoke in almost-riddles until she figured out that I was mad about my parents' refusal to buy a cable box that would allow us access to the premium subscription channels. My mother decided she couldn't tell my father this, I guess because she didn't think he'd appreciate a nine-year-old trying to make such a huge financial household decision for the sake of watching reruns of a short-lived old cartoon. I believe what we ultimately told him was that I was being bratty due to being overexcited about Christmas coming. How this was an acceptable answer after what I'd initially said, I don't know, but that's what I remember.
The crazy thing is, despite my mother promising we'd get the cable box, and the fact that I know my parents talked about it, though not in reference to that little breakdown of mine that I'm aware of, I don't think we ever actually got it. I actually have no memory of ever seeing an episode of Paw Paws again besides the ones I'd managed to tape, after that day, until I was much, much older. I have absolutely no memory of how I moved on from it, or what my next big hyperfixation was, but once the initial drama of losing Paw Paws passed, I don't think I even really thought about it again until a few years ago, when I stumbled across a random Hanna-Barbera cartoon compilation on one of the streaming services. That brought the whole experience rushing back, and every so often I can't help but think about it laugh.
One such time, I actually finally found out that there had been a toy line, something I absolutely would have died for during that phase in my childhood, and managed to find a plushie of Princess Paw Paw, finally, after all these years. I do hope to collect more eventually, but I'm happy to have my childhood favorite. (Though when I watch the show now, I'm pretty sure my favorite is actually Dark Paw!) I have a very distinct memory of dressing up a different teddy bear of mine in an outfit from a Native American doll I had in childhood and pretending it was Princess. I do also remember getting a Native American bear plushie from a local gift shop at one point, who I believe I named after another character on the show, Laughing Paw.
It's interesting to me to think that this short-lived TV series from two years before I was even born, that I doubt many other people would even fully remember, made such an impression on me. Every so often I think about it, and wonder if there's anyone else out there who felt a connection to it. It's not something I've ever really heard talked about, but it's definitely something I'll never forget!
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