My parents didn’t decide to get the internet until 2000, and they absolutely refused to get cable.
“Too much garbage on TV,” my mom explained, forgetting that we still had access to Jerry Springer and Maury on the local channels.
So, as kids, my friends and I spent a lot of time outside.
We ran the usual gamut: hide and seek, tag, freeze tag, elbow tag, etc.
When we got bored with those, we started making up stuff. The greatest game we ever came up with was something called 1-800-HERCULES.
Hey, it was the 90s, and we had Hercules: The Legendary Journeys starring Kevin Sorbo. We were just jumping on the bandwagon. I mean, the Disney version of Hercules was okay, too, but it simply couldn’t compete with Mr. Sorbo.
Anyway, this is how the game went:
Two of us would wrestle with a third and it would get to the point where the third guy was overpowered. When he got to the point of absolute despair, he would cry out “1-800-HERCULES!”
Suddenly, a fourth guy would burst onto the scene, trumpeting out “Herculeeeeeees strongest man aliiiiiiiive!”
He would proceed to whoop on the first two guys until they gave up. Then we would just change roles.
So basically it was just 2-on-1 wrestling combined with tag-team wrestling. Minus the ring and those weird trunks that look like underwear.
It was best played indoors, where Hercules could bust through a door with more dramatic flair. However, when we would inevitably get kicked out of the house, it was still fun outdoors.
I mean come on, at least we weren’t eating Tide pods or shooting Heroin. To be fair, I’m not sure Tide pods were around back then.
That’s probably a good thing.
yonkaholic 