Back in May, as my friends and I applauded the particularly clever scenes in Iron Man, I had two startling realizations. First, the clapping itself amused me. The movie was great, but nobody in Hollywood heard our applause. I guess we were clapping for the theater’s projectionist. Second, even though my friends and I never read the Iron Man comic strips, we were familiar with the cartoon series from the early 1990s; now we were reliving the excitement we felt as kids eating Lucky Charms and watching Saturday morning cartoons. Our childhood nostalgia prompted elation at seeing one of our favorite cartoons on the “big screen.” This is the point at which one realizes he is culturally old.
The conversation following the movie confirmed my suspicion that at twenty-something years of age, my friends and I are nostalgic old-timers: “Remember the Saturday morning lineup on Fox? First came ‘Iron Man,’ then the ‘Fantastic Four,’ then ‘Spiderman’! On weekdays I watched ‘Ducktales,’ ‘Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers’ and ‘Talespin’! Man, who could forget ‘Darkwing Duck’? Now that’s a movie I’d love to see!” The only thing that differentiated the quality of our musings from our grandparents’ is that we did not have to walk five miles barefoot in the snow through south Louisiana bayous.
When older people reminisce about the “Good Ol’ Days,” they usually refer to lower crime rates (Al Capone notwithstanding), higher patriotism, and less sex and violence in the mainstream media. My generation cannot claim to remember any of this, because America was already inundated with the cultural problems resulting from the loss of the “Good Ol’ Days.” Furthermore, since we grew up after the Cold War and before the 9/11 attacks, our collective childhood memories basically consist of pop culture, not war bonds or flag burnings.
But let’s get back to today. A friend recently lamented that retailers are carrying late 80s and early 90s fashions for retro appeal. (Incidentally, these styles should be burned and forgotten as quickly as possible.) Even though most of my memories are from the 90s, I was born in the 80s, a time of Teddy Ruxpin and Glo-Worms. Is that era already considered retro? Most people my age are just graduating college and getting their first jobs; we don’t even have children yet!
Part of our young nostalgia exists because modern kid culture is incredibly boring and unimaginative. My generation remembers “Animaniacs,” the “Adventures of Batman and Robin,” “Ducktales” and Trix cereal that was actually shaped like fruit. Even our educational programs were better, since Mr. Rogers, Lamb Chop and Pooh Corner actually spoke in full sentences and did not have crack teams of so-called “Child Development Experts” dumbing down children’s IQs. My generation had its share of low points, too, but no one in his right mind could compare the comic genius of “Tiny Toon Adventures” to “Hannah Montana”; and Babs and Buster Bunny never posed naked.
Now, at merely twenty-something years old, my friends and I feel like sentimental representatives of a bygone era. We decided that today’s pop culture is ridiculously mediocre compared to the unique entertainment of our time. Video games are perhaps the only media that has progressed significantly, and we still play those. Thus, as today’s kids run around enamored with Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers, we old-timers will sit in our rocking chairs on the front porch. But instead of playing checkers, we’ll be playing Mario Kart.
© Timothy Samaha. First published in PoV Magazine.
