I kept seeing promos for it throughout the summer of 1993, and all I could think was "ugh, ANOTHER Superman show?" (Yeah, because Superfriends and Superboy = sooo many shows.) I was 12. I was a bit dumb. So when the pilot aired, my mom and younger brother decided to watch it, and I didn't want to have it on, but they overruled me (and we only had one TV) so I sat there and watched it until the part with the snake, which freaked me out so much that I fled the room!
Throughout the first half of season 1, my mom and brother watched the show faithfully, and occasionally I would slip in to see what was going on. I remember seeing the part in GGGOH where Lois has to choose between a stuffed animal and a Superman doll, and thinking that was hilarious. By the end of season 1, I'd started watching it regularly, too. Barbarians at the Planet and House of Luthor were great episodes. Then the reruns began, and I caught them when I could. At some point, I began taping eps when I couldn't watch them, then taping over them with later eps (which I would come to regret, of course. D'oh.)
Sometime around late August or early September 1994, BATP and HoL were about to re-run, and something clicked inside me. I realized that I loved, really really loved, L&C. I found a brand-new tape and began taping all the episodes. After school on Mondays, I'd run home to re-watch the previous night's episode... then watch it again and again as the week went on. Season 2 is my favorite to this day, and I have a lot of great memories associated with watching it... Crying when Mayson died. Flipping out when I saw the promo for Tempus Fugitive. Obsessively studying the promo for Return Of The Prankster with my brother, watching as Superman, then Lois, were pushed off the balcony, and wondering "How're they going to get out of THIS one?" Screaming when And The Answer Is... ended the way it did.
At the beginning of season 3, we finally got online and I found a forum of fellow FOLCs. One of the first things I did was download an episode guide, so I could read about season 1 episodes (I hadn't seen them all, and had forgotten others.) One of the novelties of being online at that time was that there were spoilers galore. I lived for spoilers. Then I found fanfic. There was no archive yet, but there was an email list. I consumed stories, and started writing my own.
I really wanted to get my hands on the season 1 episodes I hadn't taped, so I organized a tape-trading system among other FOLCS. They'd send me a few eps they had; I'd copy them (using two VCRs) for myself, then copy my own episodes for them. Within six months, I had every episode on tape. (It seems so crazy, now, that I can just hop onto Netflix, and with the click of a button, watch ANY EPISODE I WANT. If only they'd had that back then!)
Season 3 had the ARGH and season 4 had its weirdnesses, but I stuck by it 'til the end, even sending letters to ABC, the WB, etc. when the show was facing cancellation. My biggest regret is never visiting the WB studios when L&C was on the air (my family visited Universal Studios in 1996 -- you could see the WB studios FROM there -- sooo close!). In the fall of 1997, the TNT episodes began and I was there every day, watching them as if I had never seen them (100 times) before.
There's never been another show that has captured my emotions, attention, imagination, so well. Never been another show that I can watch repeatedly and not get tired of it. Never been another show for which I am inspired to write fanfic or make music videos. Even though my obsession level isn't near what it was back in the 90's, this is still my favorite show and I am still proud to be a FOLC.
