Tuesday, July 19, 2011

You Know You're Getting Old When...

Back in the day, Nickelodeon reserved the late at night time slots for "Nick at Nite." Do you remember that? It was when they replayed all of the TV shows that had their heydays when your mom was a little girl, before TVs had color. We used to have sleepovers at my grandma's house with our two aunts, and we would cuddle up on the couch under the blankets long past our bedtimes and try really hard to stay awake through Bewitched so that we could get to the really good stuff - I Love Lucy (the chocolate factory episode was my all-time favorite). We learned the words to the Green Acres theme song and sang it constantly, making sure to crack our voices on "Faaaa-arm livin' is the life for me!" We danced to the opening sequences of I Dream of Jeannie and The Monkees.

I mean, really. How could you not?



And it was all so funny, because look at the funny clothes they're wearing! And look at how grainy the picture is! Ha ha ha, life was so weird back then!

But today. Oh, today. Well, well, well. How the turntables... (bonus points for guessing the reference).

The 90s Are All That.




Classic
Nick? Are you kidding me? Just in time for my 30th birthday. I'm looking forward to catching old episodes of Clarissa and Doug and Pete and Pete, but I'm also feeling fiercely protective over my old favorites. All the kids will be making fun of old TV shows. But now they're MY old TV shows! I don't want some teeny bopper giggling over Clarissa's outdated fashion sense. I loved her. I wanted to dress like her. I wanted those super freaking cool clothes that she always wore, and a funky headband and choker necklaces. I mean, really. LOOK AT THOSE RIPPED JEANS THAT SAM HAS ON! Those were so cool. How much cooler could one person be?? (I also wanted a best friend who was a boy and lived next door and climbed a ladder up to my window every day to visit like Sam did, but there was a shortage of boys next door. Probably a shortage of ladders, too. And WHY did Clarissa and Sam never hook up? It just always seemed like the next logical step.)



And the high tops. Oh, the high tops!



Clarissa wore Chucks. She was the bomb dot com. (not that we would have even known what a "dot com" meant in the early 90s)

I'm hoping for a resurrection of Are You Afraid of the Dark. I always wanted to start my own club. I mean, really, who among us didn't dream of throwing magic dust over a campfire and uttering those so important opening words - "Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society..."

Also missing? Ren and Stimpy. It's just not the same without them.



What's next? Nirvana on the classic rock station? Oh, wait....

6 comments:

  1. turntables  -  good play on words - yes those machines that would spin the disc with the recorded sounds on it - magical.
    BTW - for the record - I Love Lucy was in reruns when I watched it.
    Did you know many shows, for example All in the Family, trace their ideas back to the Honeymooners?  I like that one better than Lucy.
     

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  2. I am about to die!  I love those shows...what 30ish person doesn't!? This made my day.

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  3. michelle sj brunnerJuly 20, 2011 at 7:40 PM

    Awesome post!  I LOVE and totally miss Are you Afraid of the Dark!  It used to totally freak me out!  Also Clarissa Explains it All is epic!  I loved her sense of style!  I actually heard U2 on the oldies station the other day...craziness!

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  4. That show was terrifying sometimes. Do you remember the clown episode? I swear it scarred me for life.

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  5. My husband finds it incredibly disturbing that I can sing the theme songs from Hey Dude and Salute Your Shorts in their entirety.

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  6. Led Zepplin still sounds best on a record player.

    I did like the Honeymooners, my uncle Ray used to say "To the moon" all the time (he was a teenager when I was little). Lucy was always my favorite, though.

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