If I stop and think about it, I really don’t think my brain has developed too much past the year 1999. I still watch the same shows, eat the same foods, and wear the same graphic T-Shirts, albeit a few sizes up. Hell I even play with the same toys, much to the embarrassment of my wife. Darth Vader and the Batmobile have ruined more than their fair share of romantic moments; as is their right, because I loved them first.

It has taken me quite sometime to figure out what niche I wanted to carve out for myself on this page. What do I care enough about to share with you every week? I think the answer was staring me in the face all along. We fanboys are a breed so obsessed with the nostalgia of our respective generations, because they are the building blocks of our fandom. We live in the past because the feelings associated with “simpler times” are what truly resonates the most in our souls.

That is where AC’s Throwback Thursdays comes into play. Every week I will dig up some gems of the past and reminisce on those “simpler times’, when we were little fanboys and girls in training.

Now that I am done waxing poetic, lets get into the meat of the matter. For today’s throwback, I dug deep and remembered a very obscure little Saturday morning cartoon called, King Arther and the Knights of Justice. The series lasted for two seasons between 1992 and 1993 and produced a total of 26 episodes. It was inspired loosely by traditional Arthurian legend.

The plot centered around the imprisonment of the real King Arthur and his knights of the round table, by the evil Queen Morgana. Merlin, unable to use his magic to free them, did what any rational wizard would. That is of course, search through time and find a 20th century football team to take their place. Thus quarterback Arthur King (Yup that really was his name) and the New York Knights would become King Arthur and the Knights of Justice. Merlin equipped each knight with mystical armor and weapons, which they would summon with an oath at the round table. Their quest was to acquire 12 magical keys that would free the true King and Knights, while defending Camelot from Morgana’s evil warlords, lead by the nefarious Lord Viper.

Um…Wrong snake based bad guy…Though puppy kicking is way more evil than any of Viper’s schemes. He was kind of a chump.

Interestingly enough the only person in Camelot who was aware of the quest to free the original Knights was Merlin. Even Guinevere had no idea that her “husband” was an impostor, a fact that was not lost on me even in my naive youth. If you know your Arthurian lore you know Guinevere was no stranger to infidelity.

Arthur should have probably fitted her with one of these bad boys and maybe she would not have gotten lanced…a lot…heh heh heh. In any event, sharing a bed with a man you presume is your husband and isn’t, is a fairly disturbing concept. The show obviously steers away from any and all carnal allusions, but between you and I, there was no way in hell a 20th century football team would not having debaucherous sex throughout all of Camelot.

King Arthur and the Knights of Justice was not a revolutionary show by any means, but it was one of those random cartoons that struck a nerve with me. Like other toons of the era it spawned a cool action figure line and even a game for SNES, which gave the story a proper conclusion. However it did more than just that, it genuinely interested me in the stories of King Arthur and Camelot. As a cartoon it did the unthinkable, it made me read. Even all these years later I still remember it fondly, especially the cheesetasticly- face melting opening theme song, which I will always cite as one of the greatest intro songs to a cartoon of all time.