According to my mother, when I was VERY young I apparently just found the show on tv by turning it on and/or channel surfing. That was when I originally got hooked. I would always watch VHS tapes of it, play with the toys, and play a lot of the N64 games.
...However, there was a period of time when I was out of it for a little while, until some of my friends who lived pretty close by came over with their Gameboy SPs, both with Pokemon Emerald. I saw them playing it, and one encountered Minun, and I thought it was the cutest thing ever and I wanted to get Emerald now too. (That, and overall it looked really fun.) He saved, and let me play a bit of his file to catch a Minun, but I couldn't save. Not too long after I got Emerald and haven't left Pokemon since.