Four years ago, right before the new Steven Spielberg movie of Tintin came out, my son and I headed over to Best Buy to browse for something new to watch. It was the day before Thanksgiving, and we were looking for something new to binge watch.
We strolled around the DVD section but nothing really jumped out at us. But as we moseyed over to the kids section we noticed, facing out in front of us, the animated version of Tintin that came out in the early 1990's.
We both noticed it at the same time, and both of us picked up a copy to look at.
To be honest, up until that point I had never heard of Tintin. I had seen drawings that Herge, the creator of Tintin, had made, but I had never experienced any of the stories before. And even when I heard that Steven Spielberg was making a movie on it, I still didn't have a handle on what even Tintin was.
So as my son and I were looking at the DVD case, I couldn't help but think that it looked like a good deal. A whole season for ten bucks? Sign me up. Apparently in preparation for the new movie they had we released the cartoon and it was at a good price. So it was a win-win situation for us.
We got home and unwrapped the cellophane from the case, and got things ready to watch.
Starting off with, “The Crab with the Golden Claws”, we watched as a man in a trench coat peered around the corner and watched as a man emerged from the fog. The two men met in a clandestine sort of way, and were soon ambushed. And eventually you see in silhouette the men throw a dead body into the sea.
To be honest, this was not exactly what I was expecting. As an animated children's show, I wasn't expecting good storytelling. But that is what we were experiencing. And from then on out, after that prologue, we were both hooked.
With the exception of taking a break to make dinner that night, we watched the first out of two discs all the way through. We watched the high adventure, and the slapstick comedy. It didn't take long for either one of us to become a Tintin fan.
But wait! You might not know who Tintin is either. As I mentioned, Tintin was created by author illustrator Herge, back in the late 1920’s. And it follows the adventures of a young reporter named Tintin and his little white terrier dog, Snowy. In fact, after the release of Raiders of the lost Ark came out in 1981, some of the reviews from Europe had mentioned that Raiders reminded them of Tintin. And Steven Spielberg, at the time, wasn't familiar with the stories either. And had soon afterward he obtained European copies of the the books and became an instant fan as well.
But for a father and son who love good stories, high adventure, and slapstick comedy, this was absolutely perfect for us. And the next day, as I rattled my way through our small kitchen, to get our Thanksgiving dinner ready, my son put in the second disc and eagerly ate the stories up.
The following year, the night before Thanksgiving, we ended up getting the fourth season of Star Wars clone wars to watch. Which was something that we were both looking forward to. And pretty much like the year before, like we did with Tintin, we binge watched the adventures the continuing adventures of Anakin Skywalker, Ben Kenobi and Asoka.
But even though we both had a great time catching up on these episodes that we hadn't watched before, there were something special about the year before in the awesome adventures that we watched in Tin Tin. And after we binge watched the clone Wars, we put in Tintin that next morning as I got our Thanksgiving dinner ready.
And he's been a part of our Thanksgiving day, and our holiday ever since. I can't tell you why we took to it like we did. Or even why we always end up talking about it late fall of the year. But we do.
And as a divorced father of an only child, you have to get used to splitting your time up during the holidays. You have to get used to taking the time that you have and making it everything you can. And you have to get used to how quiet things get when your child isn't around. It never gets easy, for anyone who lives through the same thing. But we make it work.
And it wasn't until this year that, while we still acknowledge that is Thanksgiving time, we've lovingly adopted the day as Tintin day. Which seems to honor, at least to us, our little family, and own traditions.
And, no doubt, my son will grow up, and maybe have a family of his own one day. And from there he will develop his own traditions. But I hope, in the back of his mind--even years from now--he will always think back on this holiday and remember all the adventures that we had.
