evrwrldBB has been with us for some time now, patiently lying in wait to spring. Now, he has sprungified. Please welcome him with something I hope will be an ongoing series of bits: NostalgiAwesome! Which he calls… Products from your childhood, for all mankind. Give him a warm, espresso-heated welcome, would you?
Here at Needcoffee, we try to prevent the world from spiraling to uncertain doom on many fronts, and one front that is currently not being addressed is children. The children are our future as they say, and an apocalypse is looming out beyond the horizon which threatens the future of life on planet Earth as we know it.
Namely, smart people aren’t having babies.
[ad#longpost]Yes, Mike Judge’s Idiocracy said it first, but it’s true: our gene pool is being drained out by morons who can’t decide not to reproduce while intellectuals and generally normal people have two children or fewer, thus keeping their USDA-choice genes to themselves. There’s only one solution: smart people must have lots and lots of babies, now, or at least soon. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the apprehension; most of us don’t want our kids to become the asshats we all fear them to be. (Or perhaps we were at their age–or still are.) Not to mention, if you occasionally have left your television on Nickelodeon, you know today’s children’s programming sucks. So how do we prevent having douche children raised on mediocrity?
Enter: NostalgiAwesome, Needcoffee’s guide to all things past and purchasable–the goal being nothing less than the salvation of humanity.
So before we begin, please join with me in the NostalgiAwesome pledge
“I, State Your Name, do hereby pledge as a person of average or above intellect that I will bring forth spawn in to this world the more the better, and I will raise them to be people who don’t suck.”
Alright? Everyone settled? Well on with today’s selection, a series of DVDs that every child must at some point watch.
The Adventures of Pete & Pete
Direct link for the feedreaders.
First and foremost, more so than anything else on this list, Pete & Pete holds up the best today, this is the show you used to commando in to a friend’s window to watch on Saturday nights–and yes, they are as good as you remember. Featuring guest stars like Steve Buscemi, Iggy Pop, Janeane Garofalo, and plenty of others, Pete and Pete knew what it was like to live in a small town, and knew how to teach you about the greatest parts of life. If you, as an adult, can sit through every episode without tearing up, then you are a robot…and will be removed from existence through violence. You can buy Season 1 and Season 2 from Amazon. No sign of Season 3 hitting DVD, I’m afraid.
Gargoyles
One thousand years ago, superstition and the sword ruled.
Direct link for the feedreaders.
And ten years ago, Gargoyles ruled television. How many cartoons included Native American folklore, robots, time travel, and characters from Shakespeare? None. None at all. Not to mention most of the cast of Star Trek: TNG on their days off. Pick up seasons 1 & 2 and keep the children slightly, but just slightly off balance. Especially when they have to watch Macbeth’s origin story. You can grab Season 1 here from Amazon and the first volume of Season 2 here. No sign of the second volume of Season 2 or Season 3 yet, though.
Batman: The Animated Series
Direct link for the feedreaders.
First of all, for those of you that would argue, Batman: TAS is the definitive Batman no matter how good Dark Knight was. Paul Dini and Bruce Timm used to crank out cartoon shorts that understood the nature of Batman characters better than the comics ever did. Every child should have the opportunity to watch art like this. This used to be a tad pricey, five seasons each individually. The whole series is now in a boxed set, with nifty packaging worthy of the content. The boxed set is available here from Amazon, even though it’s out of print. And other Batman stuff can be found here on Amazon.
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
If you have never seen Are You Afraid of the Dark?, you obviously didn’t have cable in those years, or you couldn’t con anyone in to letting you watch it at their house. It was like The Twilight Zone tamed down for children, but still oddly terrifying when you’re a child. Go ahead, pick them up and give your kid a taste of The Outer Limits at age nine. Make sure to tell your child you’re just trying to make them feel better as you hide under a pile of blankets during “Laughing in the Dark” (see the snippet below). These are by far the hardest part of the list–but still doable. You can buy them used from Amazon.
Direct link for the feedreaders.
Stay tuned for next week’s installment of NostalgiAwesome! where we explore your suggestions for movies that every child must see to become someone their geek parent can stand to be near. So coming next week…Movies.
great post neighbour! but didn’t totally agree with the choices. I guess I’m slightly older tahn you, what about the 80’s? late 70’s? I’d like to give a suggestion myself, I’m about to watch again a great cartoon series from 1978. I think the british title was Future Boy Conan from the great Hayao Miyazaki. You can get it here