STORY DETAILS
Storyline Creation Date:
Idea: circa 1980s
First known writing: circa 1980s
Stories:
WTNT TV
(Various short stories)
CONTENT WARNINGS
Generic warnings: None.
DISCLAIMERS
Certain characters in this storyline are based on real people, but are not intended to be accurate representations of said people.
STORYLINE HISTORY/INSPIRATION
This is a weird complicated one to explain, as, unlike most of my other childhood series, the WTNT TV-set storyline had a LOT of development put into it, and not only that, it had LOADS of content. There's just one thing...almost all of that was audio content. This series existed almost exclusively on audiocassette tape...all of which is likely lost. (Oh, I rescued most of the tapes!...just that they've since been improperly stored, and are VERY old; even before they were stored away where pests might have gotten to them (not to mention humidity), I listened to possibly the first tape in the series and the audio was woefully muffled. I doubt any of the elaborate, goofy audio plotline will ever again see the light of day. There WAS a bit of written material produced. But most of what shows up here will be based on memory. While I don't recall all the weird, impromptu stuff I said on tape, I do largely recall the characters. WTNT TV was sort of what took the place of the Animals and Bed Toys when I stopped playing with them.
I still remember the EXACT inspiration for this series, decades later! I must have been around ten or under. Probably under, since 1986 was when I was introduced to King Kuts. I used to carry around this big clunky tape recorder and say funny things in it. One day my brother told me about the Loch Ness Monster. For some reason I was captivated by this creature which I always pictured as a plesiosaur with a long tail, and I incorporated this into my recording. I had a tiny little train engine figurine, and I would rub it back and forth over the microphone to make scraping noises which were the Loch Ness Monster's tail, which he dragged along the ground as he approached. My Ness, a male, quickly became a recurring character...and soon a bizarre storyline developed around him. Ness became the guy in charge of a silly little TV studio called WTNT. (This was before we had cable. My WTNT has no relation to the real TNT.)
The WTNT studio gained a big, diverse cast of characters, chief among them Scaredy Question Kitten, Bal Val Hal, Ride-Um Cowboy, Roving Reporter, and Chef Boo; though there were many lesser characters (including Hitler...yes...THE Hitler 😕 ) as well as random little interludes like "Remedy & A Cure!" and commercials for various products, like Romance Perfume and "Your Stereo & You." Scaredy was inspired by a children's book I loved at the time, let's see if I can find it via Google...okay. It's Fraidy Cat by Sara Asheron. Scaredy was inspired by that gray tabby on the cover. He was terrified of EVERYTHING. Scaredy had the habit of speaking too close to the microphone, resulting in really garbled dialogue, as he was constantly worried about being unheard; he mellowed out a bit over time, though was still always neurotic. Oh, right--also, he was called Scaredy Question Kitten as, at least early on, he was constantly asking worried questions, a trait that was also toned down over time.
I don't recall the exact inspiration for any of the other characters, though there's a weird tidbit involving news anchor Bal Val Hal. Despite the name's similarity to "Valhalla," I doubt I knew of this concept at that age, and even if I heard the word and unconsciously used it for my character (similar with Fredestaire--I just heard "Fred Astaire" combined so often I assumed it was one name!), it was completely unintentional and unrelated. Well...there's a possibility Bal recycled his name from ANOTHER character of mine. When little, I feigned having a few imaginary friends I would talk to and blame for things; I didn't really believe this, I just thought every kid was supposed to have imaginary friends, so I faked it. (I did this again when I faked having a crush on my older brother's friend; I thought every young girl was supposed to have a crush, and I wanted to be like every young girl, so I pretended.) One of these was a tall, mostly silent creature covered in long orange hair/fur. I think it might have spoken in soft "meeps" now and then but am unsure. I seem to recall I was unfairly mean to this creature, which was quite shy and gentle natured. I stopped with the imaginary friends eventually (contrary to my expectations, feigning being like other children didn't make me any friends or earn me any attention); though a few years ago, I drew this orange creature. For some reason I showed it to my mother or else mentioned it to her, and kind of offhandedly, she said, "Oh, you mean Bal Val Hal?--yeah, you talked about that thing all the time."
O_o I was stunned hearing my mother say the name Bal Val Hal--I NEVER discussed my imaginings with my family, not out of any sense of secrecy, but because no one was interested, the only reason I recorded myself on tape all the time was because I had no one else to talk to! So how on earth would she know Bal Val Hal?--and why did she attribute the name to this orange creature?? The only two explanations are that one, I did mention Bal the news anchor to my mother once and for some reason she just conflated this with the orange guy I used to blame for things (highly unlikely--my mother never paid enough attention to my rambling, she'd almost surely not remember the name so long after, following merely one mention), or two, the orange creature WAS originally named Bal Val Hal, I frequently mentioned this when pretending to talk to it, and then somehow just...forgot, recycling the name unintentionally once I dropped the orange creature, and assigning it to WTNT's news anchor. Hard for me to believe, but the latter is the likely explanation. I have no idea how or why I may have forgotten such an important detail about a character.
I amassed quite a collection of audiotapes--over a hundred--featuring a mix of the WTNT characters and, toward the end, characters from the King Kuts and D Is For Damien storylines. Straitjacket, Pipsqueak, Chernobyl Cat, and Amy were especially frequent visitors. My former friend Mya S. collaborated with me on a few of these, though in retrospect I get the feeling she wasn't really into it. The WTNT characters slowly faded out while the newer characters faded in. I recall that I even staged the beginning of D Is For Damien itself on tape; read the first chapter of the original version or the current version to see how I wrote it. Probably in late junior high/early high school (circa 1990-2) I gradually lost interest in the tapes and focused more on writing. The tapes ended up in the basement; I rescued most or all of them--though a few might have been slightly moisture damaged--then stored them upstairs. It gets very hot up there and we have humidity and pests, plus these are cheap 1980s-90s audiocassettes we're talking about, so, my hopes for them having survived intact all this time are slim.
I believe I tried to revisit WTNT in a short piece written in the 2000s but it didn't really go anywhere; or maybe I'm misremembering? In any case, although the storyline was always (and still is) close to my heart, it faded into the background and let other material step forward.
RANDOM OBSERVATIONS
Wackiness! Fun! WTF is even going on here?!
Character InformationCharacter profiles and brainstorming infodumps.
Storyline InformationEssays and info.