Sit back, have a drink, and swim with me down the channels of nostalgia.  What that trip entails – a fleeting thought, a jotted note in the ol’ iPhone, and Google research later.

1) “What were those holographic, flat-front action figures called?”

A good question, with a simple answer: Visionaries.  They had a cartoon and a comic book series (which I still own)!

But that wasn’t the answer being looked for.  The correct answer to the question in question: Tonka put out a series called Super Naturals.

Sure, holograms were a fad in the 80’s, but so were 3D stereograms in the 90’s, and no one made toys based around them. (Probably because companies were too busy ripping off updating successful 80’s lines… of which the neither Visionaries of Super Naturals were a part.)

2) “Does anybody remember St. Elsewhere?  Anybody?”

Every once and awhile it becomes apparent that I’m older than I pay more attention to pop culture than the people around me.  I was wondering if St. Elsewhere was available on DVD, and no one knew anything about it.  Answer: only the first season.

Why I wanted to know is because I never watched the show (because I was too young… srsly), and I wondered if it was any good.

There were only two things I knew about the show:

• Howie Mandel was on the show.  I knew of him because he’d put a rubber glove over his head and blow it up with his nose.  He was famous for this.

• The entire show ended up taking place within the mind of an autistic patient.  SPOILER ALERT.  (Did I do that right?)

What I learned after researching the existence of the DVD:

• Mark Harmon (the main dude from NCIS) was on it.  His character died from AIDS, and was one of the first major characters to contract HIV (heterosexually, of course… it was the 80’s).
• Denzel Washington also got his start on the show.  Denzel!  That just blows my mind.  Next you’ll be telling me Will Smith or George Clooney got started on TV.  Or 30 Rock’s Alec Baldwin got started in film.  Crazy!

3) “What was the name of that famous midget little person from the 80’s?”

This inquiry arose out of a terribly written trivia question that confused Tiptoe Through the Tulips’ Tiny Tim with a little person.  Come on.  You’ve got to know Tiny Tim (not the “God bless us, every one” one).  He was like the Marilyn Manson of the 60’s and 70’s, in that was as shocking as he was able to be.

Anyukulele, I knew there was a little person that was so beloved in my youth that even as I child, I knew his name, but it escaped me.  I knew he was in a Wizard of Oz spoof I had never fully seen.  So I started with that and found:

And that lead me to the recesses of my memory.  Without further research, it hit me!  Billy Barty!

And on that note, I shall pour out some of my next drink in your honor, Gwildor…