Things from Your Childhood that Did Not Age Well
The Blind Eternities forum
Posted on Dec. 6, 2021, 6:58 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
I am certain that anyone who has reached a certain age (such as 25 or above) has felt nostalgia for their childhood at least once, and desired to revisit elements of their childhood, such as a favorite movie or television series. In some of those instances, the element that the person is revisiting proves to be as excellent as it was when they first experienced it, but, in other instances, the element has not aged well; perhaps the person never noticed how poorly-made the item was, or the item is representative of a time when society was very different from how it is, now.
Therefore, I wish to ask any user here above the age of 25 if they have revisited elements of their childhood, only to be horrified to learn that those elements do not match the fond memories of them that those users hold.
During my childhood, I watched Saturday morning cartoons, as did many people around my age at that time (but do not worry, I still was very active and got plenty of exercise), which I enjoyed very much. Recently, over the past several years, I have been re-watching some of those series, and several of them, such as Street Sharks, Extreme Dinosaurs, and the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, are not nearly as good as I remember them being; they are incredibly corny and campy, with flat characters and very little depth in their plots, and could be very repetitive, at times. I am glad that I have been able to revisit them, but I have no intention to do so, again. Thankfully, however, some other series from my childhood, such as Reboot, Gargoyles, and Swat Kats, are as excellent as I remember them being, so I shall have no problem watching them numerous times. I plan to rewatch both Mighty Max and Mummies Alive at some point, so I hope that they are as good as I remember to be.
The original Space Jam, The Pagemaster, and Richie Rich are some movies that I enjoyed during my childhood, but I shall admit are not exactly masterpieces. Now that I am an adult, I see that Space Jam was an attempt to capitalize on Michael Jordan’s celebrity status at that time to rebrand the Loony Toons franchise for new and younger audiences by making the characters seem to be "cool" and "hip," with basketball (which was insanely popular at that time) as the vessel for their rebranding. The Pagemaster and Richie Rich similarly capitalized on Macaulay Culkin’s popularity during the 1990’s; The Pagemaster has a jumbled plot of random adventures with only a vague central narrative. Richie Rich has a coherent plot, but is really nothing spectacular. However, I own all three movies and still watch them, on occasion.
Thankfully, there are not too many aspects of my childhood that have proven to be worse than how I remembered them; nearly everything from my childhood is as great as I remembered it being.
What does everyone else here say about this? What are some aspects of your childhood that simply are not as great as you remembered them to be?
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Mighty Max was sweet, I still enjoyed it on limited rewatch. You know Norm was basically Thor/Hercules/etc?...
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I do not know about The Adventures of Conan or Pirates of Dark Water... I have a hard time finding those.
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Beast Wars, particularly the one with DepthCharge & Rampage seemed awesome.
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Mutant League is another that I am unsure if it would hold up
December 6, 2021 11:11 p.m.
SteelSentry says... #4
The two properties I really remember that qualify are the original runs of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Transformers. The movies for both shows are still watchable, even if the Power Rangers movie gets a little cornball. The shows, however, are very hit and miss, the worst of which are little more than ham-fisted toy commercials.
December 7, 2021 5:34 a.m.
Was The Adventures of Conan a show? I can't believe I missed it :) The old RE Howard Conan books were some of my favorite things ever when I was a kid, and the original John Millius Conan is to this day maybe my favorite movie, but I never heard of a show.
And yep, especially when Rampage showed up on beast wars was when it got good. Things really, really scaled up right to the end.
December 7, 2021 7:46 a.m.
Niko9 you just pierced my heart with a raw Energon core :)
Niko9 I looked it up again. It was "Conan The Adventurer". I think it was on during this DIC power hour & it had the most badass & deep-voiced theme song of our time. There was a Phoenix named "Needle" that would sometimes fly out of his shield & desired pomegranites. RE Howard books were great, I had a bunch of the old 'Savage Sword' comics when I was a wee little dude because of my uncle (sometimes they had boobies :) ).. I usually like all the Conan movies, remakes, etc... Just really good Sword & Sorcery. Conan would have made a great TV series with the quality of shows they have now. I could type up way too much on how interesting Howard was
December 7, 2021 12:45 p.m.
Gleeock Bwhaha! Nice. Got to watch out though, raw energon straight to the heart might lead to stasis lock :)
My favorite part of the Conan lore was that there was magic but Conan didn't understand any of that. He just knew that it could exist. I always felt like that made it all oddly believable. Like, if there was magic, most people walking around would have no idea how it works. The only rough patch of Conan was the second movie. It's a fun beers and friends movie, but high fantasy adventures, it is not.
Also, Mako was an amazing narrator in the first movie. He added such a great weight and atmosphere to everything, just like he did in Avatar the last airbender. I don't know what it is that makes a great storyteller, but he had it in an instant.
December 7, 2021 1:45 p.m.
Grubbernaut says... #8
I thought Young Frankenstein was incredibly dry and awkward after rewatching it. Princess Bride will always be the GOAT, for me.
December 7, 2021 4:33 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #9
When I was younger, I found Three Ninjas to be a fun and comedic family movie, but, having rewatched it as an adult, it seems to be a cheap combination of Home Alone and The Karate Kid, with none of the charm or emotional depth of those films.
December 8, 2021 6:02 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #10
Onegai Teacher actually premiered during my adolescence, not my childhood, but I still wish to mention it, here, since I do not feel that it aged well. I was in high school when that series premiered, so the idea of a high school student entering into a relationship with his amazingly attractive teacher definitely appealed to me, since I actually had several female teachers who were only slightly older than men and whom I found to be attractive. However, I now find the series to be very dull and melodramatic, selling itself on its premise of a "forbidden relationship" between a teacher and student, plus occasional fanservice, as well.
December 11, 2021 9:49 a.m.
jethstriker says... #11
Watching Hulk Hogan wrestling matches as an adult feels so different as I remembered it when I was watching it as a kid.
Niko9 says... #2
Ha, there's always some like that, aren't there? I remember watching the original He-man with my brother and that is really hard to take a look back at. But there are some really good ones too. You mentioned Gargoyles which is so enjoyable today and things like Disney's Robin Hood, The Princess Bride, and Spaceballs are still some of my favorites. So, it wasn't always the dark ages, but there were some groaners back then for sure.
One that I still love to watch, and this is purely just me, is Beast Wars Transformers. Like, there was a lot of goof in it, and sometimes it can make you cringe, but there's a lot of legit good there too. A surprisingly complex time travel story, characters who think for themselves, form relationships, and express who they are rather than what side they are on. And Megatron :) I could watch huffy snarky purple T-Rex beast wars megatron all day.
Oh, heh, I feel like I am just saying good now. How about the adventures of hercules with kevin sorbo? Xena was one of my fav shows and I remember watching hercules and thinking, yeah, this is Xena if no one really gave a poot.
All in all, I think it was a time of experimentation and it lead to some really good things and some really bad things. Who would have thought that something called Robocop would be big? But someone had to try it.
And, slight side note, but there are some newer nostalgic things that I enjoy. I guess it's the thing to remake everything, and I don't like a lot of them, but the netflix Voltron was really fun and Dragon Prince feels like a big idea take on old sword and sorcery cartoons and comics.
December 6, 2021 7:55 p.m.