Yup. I’m gonna crab about how good stuff used to be. (Plus a Book Announcement!)
Lately, and more so than I do usually, I’ve been digging around YouTube watching things from televisions past. I’m a nostalgic cuss that every so often likes to reminded of things from my younger days especially things that aren’t around anymore. But I think every one of us has at least a little bit of that in us. It doesn’t matter how old we get (I suppose the older the better) but having a flashback of younger and hopefully better days by way of media always puts a smile on people’s faces. How many times have you been sitting with your friends or chatting online and someone brings up some old ancient kids show and you reacted with “I LOVED that show! It was awesome!”. Reboots and retellings often try to capitalize on that feeling, but it’s never the same as the real thing. No matter how good the reboot is, they can’t replace the feeling and associated experience that you felt “back in the day”. I also feel that if the media hearkens to something that is no longer around, it makes the experience of watching it again even more fun. So I figured I’d go over some things from the past that bring nostalgic feelings to my inner soul.
2D cell animated cartoons. Talk about a lost art. CGI and that has it’s place, As the technology gets better and people know how to use it effectively the output can be very enjoyable. But sometimes you just want to sit back and not feel like you are watching a demo real for the latest version of Poser or Flash. Sure they got grainy, sometimes filled with mistakes, but you know, those kinds of things made it feel like there was more to it than point and click. Someone actually sat down with pen and material and drew something, not scanned it from a pre conceived template. CG stuff is great, looks amazing, and can do stuff that cel animation couldn’t even dream of, but every so often I just like to go back to basics and enjoy something simpler.
80’s cartoons. I know, I can hear people screaming, “Those were just commercials for toys!” and you are totally right, but you know what? We knew that. The producers knew it, the TV stations knew it and so did our parents. No one tried to hide that fact. Sure some cartoons tried to “educate” with those tacked on bits and the end of the show explaining a lesson, but no one took those seriously. I was only mildly interested in the Hanna Barbara stuff of the 60’s and 70’s, and The “Educational requirement” stuff of the 90’s were just terrifying. The toons of the 80’s were just 30 minute commercials but they didn’t try to be anything but. They were full of loud colors, lots of action, somewhat cookie cutter storylines, but still weren’t trying to be our teacher or our parents. You look at some of the stuff that came after and even today. Producers and networks try to package this stuff and education and for the betterment of children but guess what, they are just 30 minute commercials as well. Walk down the toy section of Wal-mart sometime and see all the merch they have for these “educational” shows that are just as insulting to the parents intelligence as they are for the kids.
Cable Networks with a format. I know i’m not the only one who has felt this feeling over the last number of years. There used to be a time when a cable channel used to have a format that they stuck to. News, Sports, music, movies, Science fiction, animation, religion, heck, even the more varied channels would be classified as “General Entertainment”. You wanted news? You went to CNN. You wanted movies? HBO. You wanted the latest music videos? MTV. you wanted older music videos? VH-1. You get the point. But now with big cable conglomerates desperate to bring in mythical larger audiences to compete in an ever changing marketplace (Not really growing since most new cable networks are just bought out old ones) everything just kind of fell apart. News networks are now homes to mostly talking heads and sketchy documentary shows. Food Network is most reality shows now (centered around food at least), I haven’t learned a damn thing from TLC in 20 years other than how desperate people are to get their own reality shows and big money from them. and BBC is now more Science Fiction than what is now called Syfy. MTV now has quotas of how little music they play so much so they sued one of their own international affiliates for playing too much music. And you know what? Not only are you getting less actual product, you are paying a LOT more for it! Oddly the one cable channel I found that hasn’t done this at all? Turner Classic Movies. Seriously. They survived doomed corporate mergers, buyouts and changes of corporate leadership and the only thing that changed on that channel was the addition of a second host a number of years ago. They still air the same older movies, they still air great features, still show the old movie trailers, even have the same presentation and graphics. Ironic that the symbol of cable stability and anti network decay is a Turner network.
Sporting arenas/events that weren’t just corporate logos. Yeah, that drives me nuts. I don’t care what company sunk their money for tax kickbacks into a sporting arena, I’m not calling it by a company’s name. To me, it’s the Rosemont Horizon in suburban Chicago, The Skydome in Toronto, and the Garden in Boston. Most of the time the local taxpayers are still funding most of these places so I don’t care what company name is slapped on a sign. Same goes for some of these sporting events. When you here of College footballers going pro, they talk about Rose Bowls, Orange Bowls and so forth. Not “Tostitos fiesta bowls” or some such nonsense.
And there are a bunch of other things as well but these are just some of the things that my crogity old ass misses. Seeing reminders of these things on places like YouTube make me think back and maybe through the veil of nostalgia make me smile remembering things. We all have that inside us and it’s fun sometimes to indulge in that feeling inside ever so often. Now if you exscuse me, I’m going to eat my bowl of wheat bran and tell kids to get off my lawn.
Now, before I go I want to make an announcement. My next book kRaveings 3: Star Power will be released next week on September 9th! This is the third book in my kRaveings super hero series featuring kRaven, the cybergoth former villain and drug addict who has had a change of perspective after time in prison. Along with the mysterious ghost Mirakoshi at his side, this time the boys find themselves dealing with the effects of the murder of a state senator’s daughter. After being asked to help on the case both are struggling to deal with what should be done. When the city’s superhero The Star arrives to give advice to kRaven, all hell breaks lose inside the abandoned factory that kRaven calls home.
And personally folks, writing is my source of income. Any income means that I can keep writing, keep creating, and bring not only thse articles to you, but give me a chance to bring more and better things to you as well. So please if you haven’t checked out my other books such as the first two kRaveings books and my full length e-novel Cityscape Tokyo, please do. Every little bit helps. You can find my books here or you can help by contributing to my Patreon account here.
Thank you and keep on reading folks!
RT Gomer Productions 