Zack Morris. And, yes, it was because of his power to stop time and Kelly
I also wanted to be Darren Stephens or Tony Nelson, but I didn’t identify with them. I just thought they were so stupid, freaking out over every magical thing, and that I would handle it better.
I’m not sure who I merely identified with. Probably one of those nerd characters who knew everything (as I definitely believed that to be the case).
Magnum from Magnum PI, Recardo Tubbs from Miami Vice and, depending on my mood, either Joe Coffee or Bobby Hill from Hill Street Blues.
Hell, I wanted to have Barbara Cooper. Fact is, Ms. Bertinelli still looks pretty damned fine…
As to who I wanted to be? Napoleon Solo.
(My wife says that in her group, they all wanted to be Mr. Waverly and be the boss.)
50’s kid here. I used to love “Combat”, and also used to notice Cage more than the others. There was something appealing about the character; I think you just put it into words.
.
That’s weird.
See, I didn’t like playing girly-girl stuff. I hated playing house, and I don’t believe I ever threw a tea party for my toys. I wanted to go out and have adventures…but it seemed that only boys (or only males) did that. Debbie Reynolds never appealed to me.
Great minds think alike.
Also, it probably means we’re abou the same age.
Catwoman. Specifically, Catwoman as portrayed by Eartha Kitt.
Me again. You got me interested, so I read up on Jalbert a little. He was in fact the Captain of Canada’s 1948 Olympic Ski Team. Couldn’t compete because of breaking his leg five days before the games. Interesting guy.
Living in my house was kind of like being in a POW camp, so I guess I identified with Col. Hogan. Nice uniform, too. But he could escape whenever he wanted to.
I didn’t want to be a specific character from The Tomorrow People(the 70’s series, not the 90’s), but I desperately wanted to be one of them.
I identified with Daniel Tiger from Mr. Rogers’s Land of Make Believe. Shy, quiet, but very smart.
And Nuveena just beat me on wanting to be a Tomorrow Person. I’d love to jaunt to work, besides all the other fun abilities.
Steve Austin. Not the fuckin’ wrestler, the bionic man.
Will Robinson, boy astronaut, explorer, and scientist.
Only I would have tried to lose Dr. Smith right off.
Mrs. Cretin tells me that she always wanted to be “California”, Hopalong Cassidy’s sidekick. She wanted to be the sidekick so she hang out with Hoppy. “If I was Hoppy, I wouldn’t be able to look at him.”
.
Makepeace from Dempsey and Makepeace. I had a bit of a crush on her and on Dempsey, combined with really wanting to be Makepeace. Tough, cool, sexy, posh, always a little out of reach but good in a fight.
When I was 8-9 years old, I used to carry the portable TV up to the pub every Thursday night just so I could watch Dempsey and Makepeace.
When I was a kid I wanted to be Jem or Wonder Woman.
In my teens I wanted to be Saavik. The Kirstie Alley version, not the other one.
Currently I want to be either Jean Grey from X-Men or Catwoman.
I wanted to be Phoebe Figalilly or later Samantha Stevens, because they could do magic. For many years, I tried very, very hard to believe in magic and thought that there just might be some secret I could discover that would allow it to be real.
I identified with Prudence, the little girl from Nanny and the Professor, and later Jan Brady. I am utterly horrified that Prudence (Kim Richards) grew up to be one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
I wanted to be Morticia Addams. She was (to my eyes) the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and was an exemplary model of a gracious, kind, considerate woman. Plus she was very wealthy and had a husband who doted on her, both kind of fringe benefits. I wasn’t all that into the Addams family aesthetic, but I certainly could have lived with it in order to be the ultimate “lady.”
Oddly, I saw Carolyn Jones, who played Morticia, on a talk show around that time, and while she was adequately good looking by normal standards, she wasn’t nearly the beauty that Morticia was.
When I was 10 or so I really wanted to be the sister from The Little Vampire. I can’t remember her name now. They could fly, stay out late and no whiny angsting about sex either.
Later on I identified with Darlene out of Roseanne.