Hello, Ruby Tuesday. I bet you don't get that too often. Yep, that's the kind of fresh thinking that I bring to the table. So here I am in Vegas again, heading back to the greater Los Angeles area this evening. I'm so glad I don't live in the worse Los Angeles area. In any case, I can't think of anything to write about, so I found a post I started a couple of months ago but got sidetracked by some larger-than-average tangent.
I wrote a post about Encyclopedia Brown and said I wanted to continue with a discourse on children's books. I then failed to pick up what I was putting down. Here I am to pick it up again. When I think about my reading habits around the time of Encyclopedia Brown and his possibly-lesbionic pal Sally foiling Bugs Meaney's plans, I also think of another series. So does my co-worker Rob, incidentally. "You're going to write about 'Choose Your Own Adventure' next, aren't you?" he asked me back after the EB post. Damn skippy.
I think it's fair to assume that most of my gentle readers are already well-acquainted with CYOA, but in case you're not, here's a brief rundown: There's a story going on, and some pivotal decision comes up. For example, something like "Do you go through that door or continue down the hallway?" If you go through it, you turn to page X to continue your journey; if not, page Y. Variables are fun. Inevitably, one of the choices leads to certain death and you have to go back to the previous choice. It's not always immediate though, and you might choose three or four paths before the character dies and then start back somewhere else. Great concept, and I had fun reading a great number of those books.
I did have a little problem reading them though. I'm sure I'm not the only kid with this problem, but I can hardly think of CYOA without it. I'd choose a way to move the story along, but then I'd be afraid that I hadn't made the right choice. Therefore, I'd keep a finger on that first page so that if death awaited the character, I could easily go back. Usually, that page I'd choose would lead me to another choice and then another, so I'd end up simultaneously saving five or six spots in the book. This led to some serious hand-contorting to the point that I probably resembled Richard III to any passers-by.
Meanwhile, as I was busy doing that crazy hand jive with my reading material, the pre-teen version of my lovely wife took a different approach: she created her own version of the book. I don't think she still has it or even remembers the content too much, and that's a shame. When I learned what she had done several years ago, my first thought was, "Hey, why didn't I do that?" I still don't know why my childhood self never made the leap to penning my own. I know how it would've gone down. I would've had choices like, "Do you want to stand in the pit of fire or eat a cheeseburger?" The pit of fire would end up being a hologram and the cheeseburger would've been a grenade or rat poison or something. Then I probably would've had some awful decisions to force my reader to make: "Do you hack off your pinky toe or watch your parents doing it?" I think both would cause the character to die. The fun would've been seemingly endless.
Recently, I saw another thing having to do with CYOA that made me wonder why I had never thought of it: a fully interactive DVD version of the books. Those magnificent bastards. They took CYOA #1 ("The Abominable Snowman") and made a CGI animated feature in which the viewer selects the path that the plot takes. They created every scene, so kids (or I) can watch it over and over and have it end differently based on what was chosen. Not only that, they got William H. Macy, Felicity Huffman, Frankie "Stop Calling Me Malcolm" Muniz, Lacey Chabert, and...Mark Hamill. How frickin' sweet is that action? Very, friends, the answer is very.
I admit I'm kind of rambling here, but I really like the whole "interactive DVD" category of things. I remember when the first VCR games came out, and you had to keep pausing it every few minutes to play the necessary supplemental board game part of it. Now with the nature of DVDs, we have board games like "Scene It," "Quip It," and others that not only are different every time, but they can keep score as well. For board game geeks like several of my friends (and me, of course), that's revolutionary.
Ok, I shall cease le rambling for now and bid you all a fond adieu. Oui oui, it's true. Ha, I just said "wee wee." Have a good Tuesday, and I'll be posting from my familiar home tomorrow. Meanwhile, email ptklein@gmail.com with anything at all please; I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel here and might not make it to my one year anniversary of bloggery. It doesn't need to be anything fabulous, but any thoughts you have might help me connect some abstract ones I have here into an entire post. Thanks in advance, and I'll see you here tomorrow.
I wrote a post about Encyclopedia Brown and said I wanted to continue with a discourse on children's books. I then failed to pick up what I was putting down. Here I am to pick it up again. When I think about my reading habits around the time of Encyclopedia Brown and his possibly-lesbionic pal Sally foiling Bugs Meaney's plans, I also think of another series. So does my co-worker Rob, incidentally. "You're going to write about 'Choose Your Own Adventure' next, aren't you?" he asked me back after the EB post. Damn skippy.
I think it's fair to assume that most of my gentle readers are already well-acquainted with CYOA, but in case you're not, here's a brief rundown: There's a story going on, and some pivotal decision comes up. For example, something like "Do you go through that door or continue down the hallway?" If you go through it, you turn to page X to continue your journey; if not, page Y. Variables are fun. Inevitably, one of the choices leads to certain death and you have to go back to the previous choice. It's not always immediate though, and you might choose three or four paths before the character dies and then start back somewhere else. Great concept, and I had fun reading a great number of those books.
I did have a little problem reading them though. I'm sure I'm not the only kid with this problem, but I can hardly think of CYOA without it. I'd choose a way to move the story along, but then I'd be afraid that I hadn't made the right choice. Therefore, I'd keep a finger on that first page so that if death awaited the character, I could easily go back. Usually, that page I'd choose would lead me to another choice and then another, so I'd end up simultaneously saving five or six spots in the book. This led to some serious hand-contorting to the point that I probably resembled Richard III to any passers-by.
Meanwhile, as I was busy doing that crazy hand jive with my reading material, the pre-teen version of my lovely wife took a different approach: she created her own version of the book. I don't think she still has it or even remembers the content too much, and that's a shame. When I learned what she had done several years ago, my first thought was, "Hey, why didn't I do that?" I still don't know why my childhood self never made the leap to penning my own. I know how it would've gone down. I would've had choices like, "Do you want to stand in the pit of fire or eat a cheeseburger?" The pit of fire would end up being a hologram and the cheeseburger would've been a grenade or rat poison or something. Then I probably would've had some awful decisions to force my reader to make: "Do you hack off your pinky toe or watch your parents doing it?" I think both would cause the character to die. The fun would've been seemingly endless.
Recently, I saw another thing having to do with CYOA that made me wonder why I had never thought of it: a fully interactive DVD version of the books. Those magnificent bastards. They took CYOA #1 ("The Abominable Snowman") and made a CGI animated feature in which the viewer selects the path that the plot takes. They created every scene, so kids (or I) can watch it over and over and have it end differently based on what was chosen. Not only that, they got William H. Macy, Felicity Huffman, Frankie "Stop Calling Me Malcolm" Muniz, Lacey Chabert, and...Mark Hamill. How frickin' sweet is that action? Very, friends, the answer is very.
I admit I'm kind of rambling here, but I really like the whole "interactive DVD" category of things. I remember when the first VCR games came out, and you had to keep pausing it every few minutes to play the necessary supplemental board game part of it. Now with the nature of DVDs, we have board games like "Scene It," "Quip It," and others that not only are different every time, but they can keep score as well. For board game geeks like several of my friends (and me, of course), that's revolutionary.
Ok, I shall cease le rambling for now and bid you all a fond adieu. Oui oui, it's true. Ha, I just said "wee wee." Have a good Tuesday, and I'll be posting from my familiar home tomorrow. Meanwhile, email ptklein@gmail.com with anything at all please; I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel here and might not make it to my one year anniversary of bloggery. It doesn't need to be anything fabulous, but any thoughts you have might help me connect some abstract ones I have here into an entire post. Thanks in advance, and I'll see you here tomorrow.
5 comments:
I remember having a Supergirl choose your own adventure book -- I don't think it was a comic book, but more of a "chapter book." There was one particular scene at the end that I really wanted to get to, but, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out which other choices to make in order to get to that scene. I even tried to work backwards from that scene to see how to get there. Still puzzles me. I'll have to see if I still have the book somewhere.
Well, you're more than welcome to steal my most recent idea and run with it - doctors who are nuts.
Don't run out of material though, it's an enjoyable daily read (and a nice way to pass a few moments at work) - RL
If you decide to go for the option "watch your parents doing it", let me know. It can be arranged.
You really think passersby will _recognize_ that you look like Richard III?
What a day of comments! We had a Supergirl signting, some UOPTA praise, someone calling me out for my Shakespeare nerdiness, and my mom making every reader think, "Ok, maybe that's a bit much." Thank you all, and RighterLady, I appreciate the kind words. I'll keep plugging along as long as I can. My dad sent me some ideas last night that might sustain me for a little bit.
Post a Comment