My Childhood in a Box
This weekend is the premier of the new Adult Swim show, Titan Maximums, by the makers of Robot Chicken. It’s a parody of children’s programs like Power Rangers and Voltron and will be a seriously awesome bit of nostalgia-joy for anyone who grew up watching those shows.
This got me talking with other people about my own beloved childhood programs and which ones still make me happy today. This also made me realize – NO ONE WATCHED THE SHOWS I DID AS A KID! I’ve gotten more blank stares in the last week than I ever have in my life.
This is how all my conversations have been going:
Me: Aw, you know what show was awesome? “The Pirates of Dark Water.”
Them: Ummmmm…
Me: You know – pirates, searching for 13 pieces of treasure in order to save the world. There was a sorceress and a dude with one eye and a monkey-bird.
Them: Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm….
Me: Half monkey…half bird? … He liked to eat a lot.
Them: *turning to talk to someone else* So, how ‘bout dem Yankees. Buncha bums dey are.
Me: *swearing under my breath*
And so, in honor of all the ridiculous conversations I’ve had this week. I present to you: MY TOP TEN (UNKNOWN) CHILDHOOD TV SHOWS.
I was so cute back then…
…
10. Johnny Quest.
Technically not from my era, which is why it ranks so low on the list, but this show was awesome. Boy adventurer explores the world with his scientist father, creepy older bodyguard and racially stereotyped Indian best friend, being hunter/kidnapped by African tribesmen, mummies, swamp creatures, terrorists, dinosaurs, cavemen, animals, animal-people-hybrids, mad scientists and regular scientists up to no good, it was amazing. Hot damn did I want to be Johnny Quest. This show was also suuuuuper controversial, as people constantly and brutally died and 11-year-old Johnny shot a gun at least once an episode. While everyone has at least heard of this show, no one has actually seen an episode, and for that, you’re missing out.
Note: This show is not to be confused with Johnny Quest: The Real Adventures, which took the same concept but modernized it – and by that, I mean, turned it into super ‘90s cheesy CGI. More on that theme later.
9. Widget: The World Watcher
The poor man’s Captain Planet. A four-foot-tall purple shape changing alien befriended some kids and stopped mean-old adults from destroying the environment. Oh man, I wanted a Widget of my own so bad. I would’ve been all like, “No mom, I’m not taking out the trash. Why? Because my 300-pound-purple-gorilla-who-also-breathes-fire says I don’t have to.” Who’s going to mess with you if you have a 300-pound-purple-gorilla-who-also-breathes-fire? No one, that’s who. Come to think of it, I still want a Widget of my own. Screw ET, this is the best alien friend ever.
8. The Real Ghostbusters
Who you gonna call? Not me, I’m watching the hell out of this show. Yes, they did make a cartoon out of the classic film, and yes, it’s just as terrible as you think it is. For some reason, the creators decided to make Slimer the Ghost into the show’s plucky comic relief. He would slime you, eat everything and then help the team capture and kill other ghosts - talk about some serious self-hate. This show gave me more nightmares than any other cartoon - basically because I believed ghosts were real, but the Ghostbusters were not, and therefore, I had no one to call if actually paranormally attacked… I was a strange child.
Also, they had an episode called “The Grundel” where the Ghostbusters fought, yes, The Grundel. You can’t make this stuff up…at least not any more, damn censors.
7. Roundhouse
Who didn’t love the Saturday Night Nickelodeon lineup (commonly and affectionately referred to as SNICK)? I blew off many-a-playdate just to stay at home on Saturday night and watch TV, and didn’t regret it for a moment (still don’t). Now, everyone seems to remember the basic line-up of fantastic shows that came and went: Ren and Stimpy, Are You Afraid of the Dark, Clarissa Explains It All, All That, etc. But there was a little show called Roundhouse that seems to slip everyone’s mind. This sketch comedy/dance show revolved around the Anyfamily and their daily problems. I’m sure almost all the jokes went way over my head, but still I loved it. Looking back, I have zero idea why.
6. Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego
Now hold on there gumshoes, this isn’t the popular game show that I also loved and wanted to be on (but, oh my would I have been terrible. I don’t think I could have pointed out San Diego, California on a map, much less find the supervillan). This was the trippy educational cartoon with the same premise – Carmen and her evil thugs have kidnapped world treasures and two agents teleport around the globe, finding clues and tracking her down. Much more interesting to me, actually, is the show’s theme song. Who decided that crescendoing gospel was the right way to go on that one? Just another mystery we’ll have to solve before the 30 minutes are up.
5. Gargoyles
Ok, let me see if I can accurately give you the premise of this one. You know what, no, I’m going to let the narrator do it for me:
One thousand years ago, superstition and the sword ruled.
It was a time of darkness. It was a world of fear. It was the age of Gargoyles!
Stone by day, warriors by night, we were betrayed by the humans we had sworn to protect. Frozen in stone by a magic spell for a thousand years. Now, here in Manhattan, the spell is broken, and we live again!
We are defenders of the night!
We are Gargoyles!
Everyone got that? Ancient mythical protectors of bookshelves come to live in modern day New York and save the world against other monsters - but only at night, during the day they’re still rock. Also, ST:TNG’s Troi and Riker do voices. It was pretty much the tops.
4. The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
Part live-action, part-cartoon drug-trip insanity, part-professional-wrestler “Captain” Lou Albano doing a terrible faux-Italian accent, all weekday awesome. This show had a special celebrity guest star each week, which was neat but I really had no idea who Vanna White or Roddy Piper was at the time (I did, however, like when Whinney Cooper, a la Danica McKellar, came to visit – that was a very special episode indeed). The show even had its own dance. Yep, for a time, everyone was doing The Mario. True story.
3. The Pirates of Dark Water
THEY’RE PIRATES, IN DARK WATER! How does no one know this show!!!!!
2. Space Cases
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaah. Ok, so, in the future, five kids from different planets sneak onto a ship followed by their two teachers, get lost in space and now have to try to find the way back home. Also, there’s a malfunctioning female android for some reason. The writing is as cheesy as its special effects and storylines taught valuable life lessons about what is was to be “human,” even if you weren’t from Earth. Basically, it was Star Trek for kids. To further this point, the crew was always trying to fight/avoid the evil Spung race (soooooo evil), whose commander was played by none other than George Takai! I’m going through it now, and I don’t think I missed a single one of these episodes… but I sure miss it now. (awwwww).
Fun Fact: Young possibly-crazy rainbow-haired ship’s engineer Catalina, who was a technical genius, was played by Jewel Staite, who would later go on to play young ship’s engineer and technical genius Kaylee on Firefly. Crazy, right? I wonder if Joss Whedon was as big a fan of Space Cases as I was…probably not.
…And the best show (that you don’t know about) that I watched as a child:
1. Reboot!
Imagine if the inside of your computer was a living civilization. Viruses were evil, guardians fought them and the all-mighty “User” controlled everything. So was life in Mainframe, a city like any other. This show began as a kid-friendly adventure – Bob, the hero, would go play the games that invaded his city, fighting against The User and trying to save the day. At the same time, the evil Megabyte and his crazy-sister Hexadecimal were up to no good. Ah, computer terms.
Reboot was filled with crazy pop-culture references (everything from The X-Files to The Three Stooges) and really bad-but-fun-to-watch-anyway 3D Animation. I remember being mesmerized by every episode, unable to look away for a second for fear of missing anything.
And then the show got weird.
Bob was tossed into The Web and lost for what seemed like forever. The two child characters, Enzo and AndrAIa, had to then play the games, but lost in a Mortal Kombat rip-off when Enzo got his eye slashed out…seriously. Then, instead of being killed, they too got lost in the Web for years, trying desperately to get back home.
At this point the kids went from this:
To this:
Also, they apparently started dating… which is the actually the nice way of saying it. From this point on, AndrAIa began to refer to Enzo only as “lover”… Just a reminder, this is a kid’s show. Eventually the two stopped a sexy female super-virus who was destroying the Web, made their way back home, only to come to an intense cliffhanger and then - canceled! The fact is that the show got too weird and too expensive to produce and that was the end. Rumors keep popping up that they’re going to start it again, but I gave up hope a long time ago.
Reboot! was and forever shall be, amazing. I’m not ashamed to say that, occasionally, when I boot-up my computer, I wonder if I’m giving life to a tiny civilization… Oh, come on, everyone enjoys feeling like a god now and again.That’s not crazy, right? Right?
So that’s it. Turns out nostalgia is a warm, sleepy feeling… Also, I wrote this on three hours of sleep – that’s a warm sleepy feeling too.
-Alex
Oh, and for the record:
Shows that almost made it, but didn’t
Beetlejuice (the really dark animated series where Beetlejuice was a good guy, for some unexplained reason.)
The Mighty Ducks (with hockey playing cartoon duck-men.)
Street Sharks (with mutated crime-fighting shark-men.)
Legends of Zelda (Link’s catchphrase: “Excuuuuuuuuuuse me, Princess.” Seriously, watch the video.)
X-Men (the original one, none of this, “We’re in high school” crap.)
Mighty Max (kid with a magically powered hat…I think. This one never made a lot of sense.)
Chip N’ Dale, Rescue Rangers (Rodents solve mysteries - more engaging than one might initially think.)
Swat Cats (Cat people fly jets to battle monsters. You bet it was awesome.)
The Impossibles (’60s cartoon about three professional rockers who are also superheroes, but the lamest ones ever. Coil-man? What the junk is that?)
Double Dragon (Power of the dragon! Also, what the heck is with that Batmobile rip-off? Either you have super powers or you don’t - pick one.)
Mega Man (Robot fights other robots. Awesome.)
King Arthur and the Knights of Justice (The football team The Knights, lead by quarterback Arthur, get pulled back into medieval times by magic. This one came so close to making the list, you have no idea.)
Anything I missed or you want to add? Go ahead, throw it in the comment section.
