By-Products of an Overactive Imagination #1

Turning back the clock until the minute hand breaks lands us in 1990. 1st Grade. I lived in a house with at least three cats, one of whom we called "Daniel Stri-ped Tiger", or just plain Daniel for short. So it makes sense that as part of an in-class assignment, I wrote a little story about a brown-striped tabby kitten named Teasy.

...Actually, this is where it's supposed to quit making sense.

As the months went by I wrote more about him and drew pictures of him, either on paper or on my family's Tandy 1000; I made him capable of talking like a human, giving them two-legged appearances. Over time I expanded on his family, providing the names of his parents (Aby-Dubious and Pumkin, which were the names of the other two cats we had at the time) and siblings, both older and younger. There was Bernard, a motorcycle-loving cat that was later killed by a drunk driver; Alice, an outgoing Siamese; Chico, rarely seen without Teasy; Daniel, the runt of the family; Runner, a color-shifter; and Silky (later Sylvia), a beautiful white Persian.

Around this time, two sources of entertainment started influencing how I wrote about my creations. One was a cartoon called "The Adventures of T-Rex", dealing with a team of vaudeville-performing dinosaurs who could transform into crimefighting superheroes. My childish mind liked the concept, so I turned Teasy, Chico, Daniel, and Runner into a similar team; this was closely followed by a team of villains, as well.

The other source was Sonic the Hedgehog, which one of my brother's friends occasionally left at the house for me to play. I liked the fast-paced flow of the game and the idea of animals running really quick. Put two and two together, people, and I hope you didn't come up with five.

In the meantime I continued coming up with designs for new characters, making up stories about them and giving them weird abilities; one cat carried a scorepad (as opposed to a scorecard) with him that would change what superpower he had depending on the score that was listed. A new world started settling into place without me being aware of it, one where these characters lived their daily lives before spilling onto Earth. It wasn't until much later that I gave the world a name, but at that point the world of Kittenoa was firmly entrenched in my brain.

And to think that it all started with a childish infatuation with cats. Go figure.

In Part #2 of this series, to be posted at an undetermined date, I continue rambling more about the characters' evolutionary processes and talk about how my friends at elementary school contributed to this.