Sonic Youth

I was a child star.

It's true. Perhaps not the international superstardom of say, Dana Plato, but definitely a TV personality to contend with. And now it's all coming back to haunt me.

I was recently hit with a deeply repressed memory that took place in 5th grade in the early 80s. As a middle-of-the road student, I was greatly surprised to be chosen to represent the great Georgian Forest Elementary School as a special guest host on "The Captain 20 Show."

Imagine! Not only would I get to be on television, but I'd get to meet Captain 20, too! It was nearly too much for my flat-chested, henna-haired, 10-year-old heart to handle.

When the big day came, it was marked by fascinating vehicles with strange antennae parked in the school parking lot, plus lots of very important-looking cords and wires and cameras. The kindergarteners were gathered to dance on stage in the multi-purpose room (cafeteria at lunchtime; assembly room and performance venue plagued with the stench of rotten milk at other times).

Suckers. Dance? I was going to be HOST!

My job was to introduce myself, the performers, and my school. Then I was to come on at the end and thank everyone for watching. Heady stuff, remembering all of those lines, I tell ya.

It all went pretty well, as far as I could tell, and from there it was a torturous waiting game until the show aired the following week. This predates any VCRs, at least in my short-pocketed household, so when the show started and my face zoomed larger than life on the screen, I was forced to commit the experience to memory.

It was bad. So bad. I was so overly enthusiastic I sounded like a coked-up Barbie doll, and I was certain that someone had taken my face and replaced it with another, fatter version of mine just for the occasion.

The notoriety at school cooled down after about a week, and the whole event was forgotten about...until I was surfing recently and saw something about channel 20 in Washington, DC, and started to get sucked into some research.

After numerous e-mails to web masters, I was actually honored to hear from Captain 20 himself in response to my requests for a copy of the show. Here's a summary of our exchange:

Dear Kaptain Kidshows:
I have no idea if you'll be able to help, but the web site is great and exactly what I've been looking for.

I'm trying to track down an episode of "The Captain 20 Show" that I was on ("guest host") in 5th grade....either late 1979 or early 1980. The show came to us at Georgian Forest Elementary school in Silver Spring, MD.

Any advice on how I might find a tape of this? Anything you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

And his response:

Hi Jennifer,
Thanks for the note and it's clear you have fond memories of your appearance on the program. Unfortunately, there are only scattered video remnants of most of the shows. We reused the tapes every other week and didn't save much. Sorry I couldn't bring you better news! Please share any memories you have so we can post them on our website.

I hope to hear from you.
Stay forever young,

Dick Dyszel
Captain 20

He also shared this link to a news story that aired just the day before, where my old elementary school was featured on Trading Spaces. It seems the high-powered Hollywood connections are still holding strong at Georgian Forest.