My 90s and 2000s Experience: Toys I Played with Growing Up That I Didn't Own

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm going to be talking about some toys that I never owned when I was a kid, but got to play with either at school or at the hospital. There are 18 of them in total. I'm only gonna pick five of them for today though, just so I can split this up into three parts. The other two parts I'll do some other time in the future. This part is just going to be the playsets and one vehicle, but no figures. So let's get into it.

The first one I wanna talk about is the Sewer Playset from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toyline produced by Playmates Toys in the late 80s and early 90s. I played with it once when I was in the Intensive Care Unit at CHEO for some reason or another. It was super late at night and I was having problems sleeping as I usually did when I was in the ICU. Being that usually people are in the ICU and can't get out of bed, the one at CHEO didn't have a dedicated playroom like the regular units did. They did have an area where toys, books, and VHS tapes were kept. So that night one of the nurses, probably my nurse, brought me this sewer playset and the talking Michaelangelo figure with the rip cord that you put through the shells to make them talk. I think that was the figure that she brought to me to play with until I was ready to fall asleep. Regardless, this is the only time I ever got to see the Sewer Playset in person.

Next is the Batcave Command Center playset from the Batman Returns toyline. This one was owned by a roommate I had at the hospital. His name was Justin, and he was my hospital roommate several times through those early years. Anyway, one of those times, his parents had brought in a number of his Batman toys, and the Batcave Command Center was one of them. We were friends, so he let me play with it along with one of the many figure variants of Batman that got released for Batman Returns and Batman: The Animated Series in 1992 and 1993. 

Now we come to the Fisher Price Play Family Castle, which was the #1 toy that I played with when I was in the hospital growing up. Every chance I got I'd play with it. Especially when I was stuck in my hospital room and couldn't go to the playroom. The volunteers would always bring it to me for a little while. I absolutely loved it. To the point where I honestly don't remember playing with it for the first time. I just remember playing with it.

Oddly enough, I also played with the Playmobil Operating Room set when I was in the hospital. I know, I don't understand it either considering just how many operations I had during my childhood and how well I knew the CHEO operating rooms, but I had a lot of fun playing with this set. This is another one where I don't remember the first time I played with it, just how often I played with it.

You didn't think I'd do this blog post and NOT bring up Mighty Morphin Power Rangers did you? So I first saw the original Deluxe Megazord toy at CHEO. I was there for an appointment in the Medical Day Unit (MDU) and one of the other kids was playing with their Deluxe Megazord. And this was fascinating to me because I'd never seen the toy in person before. They separated it and transformed the individual Zords into their separate forms, and then recombined them. Which was cool to me because you only see the Megazord combination on the show from certain angles, so you don't see everything. So seeing the toy was really cool to me. I own it now as an adult, but I never got to own it as a kid.

That's all for me for today. I'll do part 2 another time, but I wanted to talk about these five toys in particular because I feel they had the most impact on me when I was a kid. So until then have a great rest of the day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

My 90s and 2000s Experience: CJOH TV (Cable 7)

 Hey everyone, how were your weekends? Mine was pretty quiet. It was at least nice outside on Saturday so I could go outside for some fresh air. Today I'm going to be talking about a local TV station that I watched for as long as I can remember. It's known as CTV Ottawa now, but up until 2011, it was known simply as CJOH TV, Cable 7. Out of all of the local TV channels and national TV networks, CJOH is the one I have the most experience with. So, let's get into it!

Originally debuting in 1961, CJOH TV was a huge staple here in Ottawa, particularly in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s. In fact many of us who grew up in Ottawa in those decades, grew up with this station. For me it was the home of many of my favourite TV shows. Disney shows, teen dramas, sitcoms, both Star Trek and Star Wars shows aired on CJOH at one time or another. In fact, the last time I watched CJOH (now CTV Ottawa) was in 2023 when the series finale of The Goldbergs aired. It was also one of the channels that I got on the TV in my bedroom, both the original one that I got in the summer of 2001, when I was going to have surgery on my right knee and would be stuck in bed for a couple of weeks, and the TV/VCR combo set that I got for my 16th birthday in 2002. But, what made it so special?

Aside from the numerous TV shows I watched on that channel, from Degrassi: The Next Generation and The Big Bang Theory to Star Wars: The Clone Wars (first season and a half only) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (1989-1990), what made CJOH special, and different from CBC and The Global Television Network, was the people. Specifically the news anchors and the news reporters. It wasn't just that they were good at their jobs, but they were involved in the community. From 1989 to 2010, CJOH News, originally known as Newsline, Max Keeping and Carol Anne Meehan were the news anchors, along with J.J. Clarke as the weather reporter. There were others, some I met, others I never got the opportunity to meet, but Max, Carol Anne, and J.J. were the core trio, and the ones I interacted with the most, besides reporter Leanne Cusack.

My personal involvement with CJOH comes through my childhood as a disabled person, who spent my entire childhood being in and out of the local children's hospital, CHEO. Everyone at CJOH worked at the CHEO Telethon every year, and I was one of the many children whose story was told by CJOH. I even visited the studio (the one that was on Merivale Road) so I could be interviewed for the Telethon. Leanne Cusack, the reporter I mentioned earlier, was the one who interviewed me the most when it came to stories about CHEO. In fact, I remember one time where I was at the hospital for an appointment, and we happened to run into Leanne in the lobby as she was there to do a story for one of CHEO's anniversaries, and she asked if she could interview me quickly for the story. I agreed and we went upstairs to the 6th floor and she interviewed me near the nurse's station of the Medical Day Unit, a place where I spent a lot of my later childhood days.

During my many interactions with J.J., he would often joke with my parents that I might actually replace him as the weather reporter for CJOH News when he retired, being that my weather "predictions" that I would make in jest, would actually be right sometimes. I think that's one of the reasons I leaned towards being in the media, either TV or Radio, when I was deciding which program to apply to for my college application in the mid 2000s. Unfortunately, the TV Broadcasting program required students to carry heavy equipment around as part of the training, and even in my wheelchair, I wasn't able to lift and carry heavy equipment. But, I loved listening to the radio, so I ended up going for Radio Broadcasting instead of TV Broadcasting.

All of the people I've mentioned have either retired from broadcasting, left CTV Ottawa, or have passed away, but the CHUM Media Mall (now known as the Bell Media Mall) in the Byward Market, in Downtown Ottawa, had an open door event where the public could go in and meet the personalities both in front and behind the cameras and microphones (radio stations are in that building too), in 2010, and Brad took me. We were waiting in line to go in, and Max had come out to say hi to the people waiting in line, but, when he saw me he came right over, said hi, and then proceeded to lead Brad and I ahead into the building as if I was royalty. I got to see the people who I met growing up, as well as some of the radio hosts that I'd been listening to on MAJIC 100 since the station began in 1991, AND some of the TV hosts from CJOH's sister station, CHRO/The New RO/A Channel (now known as CTV 2). Max and Carol Anne both remembered me (I missed J.J.) and they were absolutely blown away that I was 23 years old, had been in college for Radio Broadcasting until I got sick, and how well I was thriving compared to the sick boy they met almost twenty years earlier. 

Growing up though CJOH was the channel where I watched all of the Disney Afternoon cartoons since we didn't have the American networks that aired that block. The first cartoons I remember watching on CJOH were The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, which were aired in an hour long block known as the Gummi Bears-Winnie the Pooh Hour. Later on, during the mid 90s, CJOH, as part of CTV, was owned by the Baton Broadcast System (BBS), and on weekend mornings they would air a children's programming block called BBS Master Control, hosted by former YTV Program Jockey, Jenn Beech, which aired all the Disney Afternoon and One Saturday Morning (which became ABC Kids in 2002) animated shows like Gargoyles, Timon & Pumbaa, Jungle Cubs, Aladdin: The Animated Series, and the Disney produced seasons of Doug.

There were also two local shows that we watched on CJOH when I was growing up. The first was Homegrown Cafe, which was basically a local variety show hosted by J.J. Clarke, and featured many singers and actors, including Ryan Gosling. Which is crazy to me. The second was called Regional Contact, which was hosted by Joel Haslam and Kathie Donovan, and they went to different locations in the Ottawa Region to try out different foods, and other activities run by local people. It used to air on Saturday nights at 6:30 pm, between Newsline/CJOH News and airings of Star Trek: The Next Generation (in the early 90s obviously) since the Saturday night newscasts were only half an hour long while the weeknight newscasts were an hour long.

I could go on and on about all the shows I watched on CJOH over the years, but, I think I'll leave it off here. The channel was a huge part of my life for so many years, between the CHEO Telethons, watching the news with my parents, watching everything from sitcoms to Star Trek, to knowing the on air personalities.

Alright my friends, that's it for me for today. I'm not sure if I'll have more blog posts for you this week, but my next post is going to be my 400th post on this blog, so I might do that post later this week or wait until next week, I dunno yet. Until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Why I Started Blogging: A Josh's Geek Cave and Review Basement Retrospective

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. The week started off pretty busy, so that's why I'm just getting around to doing this post today. It's also not going to be a long post either. With this week being the 10th anniversary of me starting my blog over on Word Press, as The Geek Outpost, I just wanted to talk a little bit about why I started blogging in the first place. So, let's get into it!

To start off we need to go back to February, 2015. I was 28 years old, lived with my parents, had a girlfriend, and had been out of college for almost five years. I can't work, and I was encouraged by my girlfriend at the time to write reviews and post them. I'd kinda started doing this in the Notes section on Facebook back in like 2010 or 2011, but I didn't continue with them. Also at this time, superhero movies and TV shows were extremely popular thanks to the huge success of the MCU, which had started with Iron Man in 2008, but had really taken off with The Avengers in 2012, and the success of Arrow on The CW, which had debuted in October, 2012. I was also heavily into YouTube channels such as Geekvolution, The Nostalgia Critic, ComicPop, Comicstorian, and Comics Explained at this time. So my goal was simple: write reviews about comics, books, TV shows and movies that I had access to, mainly what I could borrow from friends, owned physical copies of, owned on DVD, watched on TV, or went to see in theatres.

I was also steeped in geek culture in 2015. Not only because the MCU was everywhere, and DC Comics based TV shows were coming out, but I was attending Ottawa Comiccon every year for the entire weekend it was scheduled for. I ended up getting a lot of content for my blog from my attendance of Ottawa Comiccon. These first two years were filled with uncertainty because I got really sick and my parents and I were getting ready to move into the city after 23 years of living out in the rural area where we'd been living. So I wasn't sure if I'd be able to continue doing the blog since I couldn't fit it into my schedule because of showings, hospital stays, and the actual moving part. But, once we got settled into the new house (not so new now though), and I had fully recovered from my medical issues, I got back on track.

Then the pandemic hit and suddenly I found I had a lot more time on my hands than I ever had before so I moved over here to Blogger and set up The Review Basement, which I ran for almost two years before I started Josh's Geek Cave. Though it'd still be another few years before I finally settled into how the blog is now.

I started this blog because, aside from having a girlfriend who encouraged me to do so, I had the time to do it. I had the time to put as much effort into it as I do. I have the time to sit here, and type out blog posts the way I want to do it. In a way I really do think of this as my job. While I don't post daily like I used to and most weeks I don't post more than once a week, even when I'm not posting I'm thinking about what I'm writing about that week, gathering the images I need for each post, and even looking information up for said posts. I don't commit anything to paper in terms of planning my week of posts out. Normally on Thursday or Friday every two weeks I decide what I'm going to post for the next two weeks and then I do the work to get what I need for said post, such as images and looking stuff up to make sure I'm remembering correctly what channel a show aired on, or what VHS or DVD release I first saw a movie on, that sort of thing. 

Most of all though, I keep this blog going because it's fun. I never expected to have more than a couple of readers. Namely a few close friends and my family. Instead I people who read my blog all over Canada and the United States, and probably in other countries too. Which is super cool. I've also been on podcasts and my blog has been featured on other blogs too. 

I've been asked before why I didn't do YouTube or my own podcast. The answer is that, YouTube is not what it was back when it first started in the late 2000s. Plus I've always felt I can get my ideas and opinions out in writing better than I can in a video. As for doing my own podcast, it's pretty much the same reason. I've found it easier to get my thoughts and opinions out in writing than I have speaking. Also, I can do it anytime, be it day or night without disturbing anyone. And that would be the case whether or not I was living with my parents. It also gives me the chance to do this however I want, and allows me to take my time writing the posts as well.

I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back soon with lots more blog posts. Until then, have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.