bugs.jpgFor years my husband Andy has been telling me about his favorite TV show growing up, Ultraman.

I actually thought he made this character up because I had never heard of him. Turns out it never aired in New York City so I missed it, but it was big in the Philadelphia area, where my husband grew up.

Many times Andy described the character’s red suit and how he shot rays out of his hands, but, as you can imagine, this was difficult to visualize.

That is until recently, when Andy unearthed a YouTube video of his childhood hero.

Here it is:


This is the strangest and weirdest video, and the music, so corny. But when I watched this odd character on my computer screen I understood my husband better than I had before. Trust me, Ultraman says a lot about my husband and his personality.

So, I decided to ask some successful people what their favorite TV characters were growing up.

Why? Because I can. Just kidding.

I figured it might help all of us get a tiny glimpse into what has shaped motivated individuals.

OK, this is some of what I got:

“My favorite childhood show was the Jetsons because it inspired me to think about how technology might be used in the future to improve peoples’ lives. I also liked that George Jetson only worked 3 hours per day, 3 days per week, a lot less than most of us work now!”

– Dan Abelon,
 Founder of SpeedDate.com


“Pogo and his friends - because there was always a lot of wise-cracking and there never appeared to be parents around!!!”

–Charlie MacCormack, president and CEO of Save the Children

“My favorite show: Bozo’s Circus, the most popular show on Chicago’s WGN-TV.
Parents waited for years to get tickets to the show. I never got into the show, so I finally got tickets for my sons, wife and me 15 years ago. However, a crisis at work (Sears), kept me from attending with them. My younger son, Brad, was selected from the audience to play the “bucket game,” which he won. I was crushed on many levels. And the show was finally canceled about five years ago.”

–Ron Culp, managing director, Ketchum’s Midwest operations

“I was a young kid in South Africa, we did not have any television at all. It was the governments policy at the time not to allow television and it was only in the mid 70’s when I was about 20, that television was finally introduced. I well remember that we all sat glued to our newly bought television sets when the first broadcast was aired. It started with a single program at 8 pm every night and that was it. The program was ‘The Brady Bunch’ and that was the sum total of the programming for much of the first year. I remember watching the program with my family almost every night and it was the talk of the town, since there was no other TV programs to talk about.”

– Anthony Viderqauz, CEO of California Closets

“As a very teeny girl I always loved Wonder Woman. I’m not sure if it’s because as a child of Holocaust Survivors I loved that a woman could take on the evil Nazis, or if it was because Lynda Carter was such a mellow superhero- and always so well accessorized (I even mention that in my book!) Seriously, I joke about finding your superpowers but I think that I learned a lot from Wonder Woman about how to be a woman in business.
-Wonder Woman worked in a male dominated industry, and while most people underestimated her, she was always the one to save the day
-Wonder Woman understood the notion of sisterhood being powerful (um, guess she’d have had to coming from an island of women) and yet she was gracious and always appreciative of the strength of others
-She started out as a privileged princess and yet was able to carve out her niche in the professional world (with the career available to her during that era)
-Her superpowers very much reflected the intuition and skills attributed to women, only to the nth degree.”

–Rachel Weingarten, president of GTK Marketing Group and author of “Career and Corporate Cool”

Our role models do say something about us, acknowledges psychologist and career coach Debra Condren, who is also the author of “Ambition is Not a Dirty Word.” “But it’s just one piece,” she adds.

Since many of the business leaders today are in their 40s and 50s and grew up on shows like Superman and Wonder Woman, it will be interesting to see what the next few generations, brought up on Barney and Hanna Montana, bring to the world of business.

No matter who we connect with, these characters may be a good way of getting back to our “inner child,” explains Nancy D. O’Reilly, a clinical psychologist and founder of womenspeak.com. She suggests going back and remembering your childhood hero and even hanging a picture up to motivate you in your life today.

“We would all like to think of ourselves as either possessing or wishing to possess certain characteristics we see in these characters,” she explains.

Hmm. Where does that leave me?, I asked O’Reilly. I identified with Bugs Bunny.

“Bugs Bunny is cute and funny,” she answers, “but he can kind of be a pain in the butt.”

OK, I’ve revealed too much.

What was your favorite TV show character or superhero?

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