Don’t forget the parts where we get to watch the dust settle

I do remember one episode where the pink guy turns others into a candy and eats them. I think he was called Evil Boo? That was about a Goku+Vegeta fusion, Gogeta or something (one with red suit?) beating the crap out of that alien creature in candy form? Then there was also this green hair, super tall guy, Brolly was his name? What else, emo-edgy Goku with tail? And something about capsule turning into futuristic vehicle. I also saw the Hollywood movie accidentally. It was pretty bad. Just seen glimpses and a few episodes here and there. Kids in my school would spoil it, but then again, I could never afford a cable, so I can’t complain.

Actually, for me, it was during the early 2010s, when set-top box because a compulsory purchase in India for local operators. Yes, there were flagship satellite TV operators like DishTV, SunDirect and TataSky (joint venture because Tata and Sky), but owning them was a privilege, cuz they were too expensive. Obviously, they had a lot of channels (about 500+, I guess?).

All of a sudden, our channels went from around 100+ to just a mere 30. It was just too expensive for us. Yes, there were a bunch of free channels still available, but they were mostly news channels. Cartoon channels used to alternate every six months or after a few years between Hungama, Pogo and Nickelodeon. They were Hindi dubs, but a few were in English, I think.

Hungama had a lot of old-school 70s anime like Doraemon, Kiteretsu, Shin-Chan, Maruko-Chan and Kochikame. There was also a Hindi dub of “Backyard Science”, “Are you afraid of the Dark” and a few other shows I cannot remember. Oh yes, Takeshi’s Castle - I heard that Netflix is bringing them back?

Nickelodeon had Power Rangers and a bunch of live action and Super Sentai clones like Ultraman Moebius, Magic Bullet Chronicles: Ryukendo and Rescue Force. I think Nickelodeon also had Perman.

Pogo had old-school anime stuff like HageMaru, Ultimate Muscle and The Genie Family and live action like Justirizers. But the best part about Pogo was MAD by Harun “Rob” Robert.

Cartoon Network and Disney were a both a set-top box exclusive. I’ve missed out on Hannah Montana, Josh and Drake (hope I got the name right?), and a bunch of other Disney-exclusive stuff.

Also missed out on Naruto, DBZ, Pokemon, Digimon and a bunch of other stuff which were Cartoon-Network exclusive, and how could I forget Animax? We had that in India too, there were a bunch of serious anime series like Copellion, 07-Ghost, D-Gray Man Hallow, Kindaichi Case files, Cross Ange and City Hunter, but sadly that channel is no longer operational here in India.

We still don’t have cable subscription, even to this day lol.

Funny enough, I used to collect Pokemon cards too. They were pretty expensive, to be honest, so me and my sibling were able to collect like what, two to four packs? After which, we stopped buying them. There was a kid in our cooperative society I used to live, his daddy was loaded, and he gave me his entire stack of card, which was eventually confiscated by our school, cuz they thought that those were gambling cards lol. There were also other UK-based topps cards like Cricket Attax and Slam Attax, but they were kinda cheaper than Pokemon. Honestly, I never enjoyed either of wrestling or cricket, just got them for free from those fancy Kellogs Chocos cereals we used to buy once in a while.

I was the oldest, so it was mostly me getting sick of sitting on my siblings every time I wanted to watch south park