The first time I encountered an actual pokémon in the forum was when I saw Bibs posting in a topic and he was called Bibar...
oh wait that's not what this about
I'm not sure when was my first contact with the Pokémon franchise, but my brother was a huge fan of the 1st season of the anime, so that's probably where I first saw it. I do remember watching episodes of it with him, in fact.