Case Closed
When I was between six and eight years old I used to play an educational computer game on our Windows 98 computer. The game’s introductory film was seared into my memory. A spotless white museum setting; a colorful bird; an old tv camera; an elephant; and, yes, how could I forget that majestic yellow biplane. The whole scene was backdropped by a catchy pan flute-driven melody, dimmed in my mind only by the passage of time.
Indeed, I’ve tried to remember the game associated with that catchy theme for decades now. Every few years I’d have a fragmented flashback, only to search and scour the internet in vain.
That is, until tonight.
It all started with a random converstation between my sister and her husband, who were discussing old computer games they played in elementary school.
Everything changed when she mentioned Dorling Kindersley. “DK” had been on the tip of my tongue throughout this entire saga; I’d always subliminally associated the unmistakeable DK logo with that strange suspended biplane, but could never make the connection concrete.1
Turns out they were connected: The game in question was part of the “DK Eyewitness Virtual Reality Series” (virtual reality in its most primitive form). It was a game I’d obsess over for days on end in an age when we played any computer game we could get our hands on–when Microsoft Paint was up there among the best in terms of creative possibilities and one could easily sink hours into Windows’ default pinball game. Yes, that pinball game.
Anyway, Dorling Kindersley sent me down a crazy internet rabbit hole that ultimately ended with this glorious video.
Ladies and gentlemen: Case closed.2
One of the top comments on another version of the theme song was “You don’t know how long it’s taken me to find this song.” Apparently there were more than 700 other Millennials in the same boat as me!↩︎
Oh, and you may as well catch the jazzy end-credit finale while you’re here.↩︎