-take note that most of the accounts below are that from a perspective of a 12 year old boy from 1985. 25 years have past and much as been learned. Yet, this is what I thought back then. Stay with me and I'll show you how it changed my life...
Although I was upset in missing the conclusion of the 3rd Robotech War, I was confident I would see it within the next couple months. Then by that time, I would be consumed by the second season of Robotech. My imagination had already started working overdrive. The story and every generation so far had an enemy of the previous enemy attacking the Earth. So, I could only imagine what the enemy of the Invid would be like. The Invid were the scariest alien to attack our Robotech defenders so far. Thus anything that would be feared by the Invid must be totally horrific. (To note: years later and after reading and realizing that the Invid mentioned in the New Generation that they feared the Children of the Shadow, I figured this would have been the villain of a 4th Generation Robotech had it been done. Funny thing, that was the plot of the Robotech rebirth sequel, The Shadow Chronicles. Now back to 1985!) I thought the Summer of 1985 would be one of me watching Robotech every afternoon, drawing veritech fighters and finally seeing what happened to Scott Bernard. Well, I thought wrong.
As I returned home from my visit to my Grandmother's house, I was informed from my mother that the local Cable Provider had decided to nix two of the four Los Angeles affiliates. I found this very disconcerting. These stations were my life bread of after school programing. Outside of watching Knight Rider and Riptipe and a various few other shows in primetime, I watched KCOP, KTTV or KTLA (I mentioned before that I rarely watched the KHJ [later KCAL] as it played an odd format of older movies and 70s sitcoms.) The only saving grace to this sad news was that the Cable Provider had placed a subscriber poll of which two channels would get the axe. My mother allowed me to pick the channels. So we sent in our ballet with the order of channels (top being the most liked and the last being the least): KCOP, KTTV, KTLA and KHJ. The letter said that the results would be sent out in two weeks. I was confident that my channels would make the cut. Again my confidence was misplaced.
The results were in. The channels staying: KTTV and KHJ. The channels leaving: KCOP and KTLA. So that meant that my afternoon fix of Robetech was ending. The cable provider had placed a the date of the channels departure: August 1, 1985. And this date would arrive much sooner than I would see the 3rd Robotech War rebroadcast. If I could have stayed home in my PJs and only survived on Twinkies and Ding Dongs as my sorrow festered, I would have. Yet, I was only 12 and my mother forced me to get dressed, go outside to play and eat my sustaining dinner every day.
As my anger for the old farts of the Roswell community (as it must have been the retirees that wanted KHJ over KCOP-dang them and their old black and white movies!), I had to cope with no Robotech in my life. This was the first tragedy of my Robotech fandom.
If our Cable Provider had kept the channel lineup unaltered, the original run of Robotech on KCOP would have ended sometime in October 1985. See, I would learn a couple decades later while reading an article on Robotech, KCOP only played the show through two cycles of the 85 episodes. Since KCOP was one of the original broadcasters and they had giving Robotech 150 week days, we in fandom call this the Original Run. It would be months and sometimes years before Robotech would be back on television.
But back in 1985, the 12 year old version of me, was dismayed and disappointed he was missing the second season of the coolest show ever. Just as he never got get closure on the Invid Invasion. My only hope was to find another way to watch Robotech. But how to do it???
-stay tuned, as the tale of how the Second Run of Robotech would magically appear and then disappear....
Denver Comic Con
