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October 13th, 2004
SHAZAM!: THE
SLEEPLESS NIGHTS OF THE POP CULTURE ADDICT
 The shrill sound of the ringing telephone split through the
darkness of my apartment waking me up from a vivid dream. I rolled over to look
at the clock next to my bed. The bright red numbers glowed 4:30 am. "Christ!" I
thought to myself, "who the hell is calling me at this ungodly hour?" Just in
case it was an emergency I crawled out of bed and lumbered into the living room,
cursing the fact that I did not keep a phone next to my bed. Arriving at the
phone I picked up the receiver.
"Hello?" I moaned into the
phone.
"Sam? Is that you?" a voice inquired at the other end.
"Who
is this?" I asked.
"It's Al. I gotta ask you a question," the voice
said.
Christ. My good buddy Al. I hadn't heard from him in months and
months. Well I wasn't about to berate him for calling me so late this time.
"What do you need?" I asked Al.
"You know Shazam?" Al said.
"You
mean Captain Marvel," I replied.
"No. Shazam. You know him?" Al
said.
"You m ean Captain Marvel," I reasoned with Al
again.
"No. Not Captain Marvel. I mean Shazam. You know him!" Al replied
again.
"Yeah. Okay... Shazam... sure," I muttered. It was far too early
in the morning to explain to Al that the character's name was in fact Captain
Marvel and that Shazam was both the wizard that gave Billy Batson his powers, as
well as the magical word he spoke to gain those abilities.
"Okay, well
was Shazam in the Superfriends?" Al asked.
"No," I replied.
"Are
you sure?" Al asked.
"Yeah. I'm sure," I said wearily, wondering why the
hell Al needed to know this at 4:30 am.
 "Who was in
the Superfriends then?" Al said.
"Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman,
Aquaman and Wendy and Marvin or the Wonder Twins depending on what season you're
watching," I said.
"But not Shazam. Are you completely sure?" Al said. I
was a bit humored that Al would question whether I might be wrong when he didn't
even know the difference between Captain Marvel and Shazam.
"Yes I am
completely sure," I assured him. Then I had a sudden thought, "Al... you don't
have money riding on this - do you?"
"Yes, twenty bucks," Al answered
meekly.
"Well buddy, sorry to say but you better pay up because you
lost," I said. Then I hung up the phone and slogged my way back to my bed to try
to fall back to sleep.
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