Stuff most kids will never know

[anarky]

I'm not trying to sound like an old fart, but I was just thinking about the things kids won't know about at all unless their parents make an effort to teach them. Some are good, some not so good. Here's a few:

Phones with cords
Having your mom yell at you to get off the phone because she needs to use it
Waking up on Saturday morning early because all the channels had a full half-day of programming just for you
Going without dessert every day at school and not telling your mom, then using the change on the weekend to buy a Spider-Man comic
Not having to compete with fat losers who live in their parents' basements to find the best toys
Picture Pages with Bill Cosby
Gilligan's Isle
The Beverly Hillbillies
Heckle and Jekkyl
Bugs Bunny
The Muppets
The Three Stooges
The Little Rascals
Mickey Mouse being anything other than a mascot at a theme park
Book fairs
Playing outside
Riding bikes without helmets, and doing all sorts of "tricks" that result in you flat on your ass and in serious pain
Going into the woods with the express purpose of finding snakes and frogs
Lying to your mom about going in the woods and telling her you're visiting a friend in the next block
Visiting a friend in the next block
Spankings
Being able to play videogames and still go outside and lose at dodgeball in the same day
The card catalog system at the library
The library
Cartoons all afternoon, with all sorts of PSA's thrown in
One day every month or so where cartoons were preempted by "after school specials"
"Very special episodes" of just about any show that taught about the dangers of hiding in abandoned refrigerators
Primetime network programming that kids actually enjoyed

I know this is the tip of the iceberg. Help me out, foos. I could make this into one of those hella lame chain mails.

[Diabolical]

Most of that shit will still be there.
Bugs Bunny, The Muppets, ect will always be around.

[anarky]

With the TV shows, I meant that they're not on. They're around, but kids don't get exposed to them, especially since the DVD releases are more geared toward adults. There's a difference between having Bugs Bunny for an hour or two every Saturday morning, vs Mom and Dad having to buy a $60 DVD set to get them.

I would be surprised if the original Little Rascals ever aired again. I'll have to see if it's on YouTube. That is some funny shit.

[mabudon]

super elastic bubble plastic

Grahamwiches

Whatchimacallit

60 second commercials playing frequently

hour long shows being nearly an hour long

Being able to buy a pair of shoes fairly cheaply that actually function as shoes

Album covers with fold outs even

"dick pointing porn" wherein all sex is laughably implied and the guys were trying their best to "sell" their facial expressions whilst holding and pointing their members at some chick with big hair- and that was "hardcore" dammit

8-bit video games that were deadly simple yet TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Walking six blocks to elementary school without an armed escort.

Staying out after dark on Halloween getting candy

3 Week Christmas vacation

Playing hide and seek with the whole neighborhood, and being able to hide in your neighbors backyards without them calling the cops.

Girls wearing slutty clothes in school

ONE Top 40 list every week. Kasey Kasem's voice announcing said list.

Captain Kangaroo. Mr. Greenjeans, Bunny, Moose, pingpong balls...

3-2-1- Contact. The Electric Company

"Unsafe" playground equipment


Other assorted things...

[vynsane]

Waking up on Saturday morning early because all the channels had a full half-day of programming just for you

this still exists.

Going without dessert every day at school and not telling your mom, then using the change on the weekend to buy a Spider-Man comic

true, though julia will NEVER have to beg for a comic.

Not having to compete with fat losers who live in their parents' basements to find the best toys

TRUE!

The Muppets

julia already asks for fraggle rock by name, so i don't see this one.

Playing outside

she's also VERY much an outside kid. she's constantly standing at the top of the stairs yelling "side! SIDE!" (that's outside)

Riding bikes without helmets, and doing all sorts of "tricks" that result in you flat on your ass and in serious pain

TRUE!

Going into the woods with the express purpose of finding snakes and frogs
Lying to your mom about going in the woods and telling her you're visiting a friend in the next block
Visiting a friend in the next block
Being able to play videogames and still go outside and lose at dodgeball in the same day

part of the going outside bit.

The library

libraries will always be in schools. always.

[Diabolical]

3 Week Christmas vacation

That has been gone for years now. "Winter Break" bullshit.

Other shit that's already dead:

Waiting a year or more (or only a year, if we were lucky) for a movie to be released on whatever form of home video there is. And the amazingly rare "Special Feature."

Rewinding the video tape.

Music Videos - unless some new network goes all retro.

Not knowing who is calling when the phone rings.

Prank calls.

Actually having to search for porn before you're 18 (not the Google type of search either)

[Ran]

Actually having to search for porn before you're 18 (not the Google type of search either)

As in watching the scrambled porn channel on cable or for magazines under your father's bed?

[Diabolical]

Actually having to search for porn before you're 18 (not the Google type of search either)

As in watching the scrambled porn channel on cable or for magazines under your father's bed?

Exactly.

[kidhuman]

A black Michael Jackson

[Diabolical]

A black Michael Jackson

Or a non-pedophile Michael Jackson or even a Michael Jackson that matters.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

Music Videos - unless some new network goes all retro.

We had "The Tube" last year, and it was awesome. All they played was music videos. It went off the air, though, unfortunately.

[anarky]

Vyn, I said "most kids." Not "the few kids lucky enough to be raised by smart people like us vynsaniacs."

There are dozens of kids in the neighborhood here. I've seen kids playing outside three times in as many years.

Saturday morning cartoons exist, but I said "all the channels" and "a half day."

I'm impressed Julia knows Fraggle Rock. I can't get A Jr to stop demanding Elmo. She can find Elmo merchandise in a store through a brick wall, swear to God. Though she also likes "GO GO GO GO GO!!" (Speed Racer) and started demanding Batman stuff after getting one of the new Happy Meal toys. (Believe me, that will be developed upon. She will be the only kid in her kindergarten who will answer the question "Who's you favorite cartoon character?" with something like "The Grey Ghost from that one episode of Batman, though his story is kinda sad, so maybe it's really the Joker, but before they made him all angular.")

I brought up the Muppets because my niece is turning 16 in a few months. We were in a store about a year ago, and she saw one of the Muppet Show DVDs. "Oh, they have a TV show now?" She only knew them from the Disneyland attraction. I realize this was a serious failure of parenting, but there is precious little exposure to Muppets in mainstream society nowadays. For the love of God, does anyone under the age of 30 remember the janitor was named Beauregard?

And I've not been to a non-school library that wasn't a fucking joke in over a decade. Remember you used to actually be able to find books you want to read? And, mind you, I'll read practically anything.

[Ran]

I'm impressed Julia knows Fraggle Rock. I can't get A Jr to stop demanding Elmo. She can find Elmo merchandise in a store through a brick wall, swear to God.

It is just a phase. If she's like my kids, she will burn out on it soon enough. My little one wanted to watch Elmo every day for about 3 months but hasn't asked to watch it since.

[anarky]

I just don't know where she got it from. You can't buy hardly anything (even diapers) that doesn't have Elmo. But we never told her who it is. She's watched Sesame Street maybe ten times, and was begging for Elmo before. But she can't name any other character from Sesame Street.

And, swear to God, yesterday we were in Costco, and she somehow saw an Elmo book someone had put back on the wrong shelf, about six feet up. How she did that when she's only two feet tall and it was a small book with a tiny picture of Elmo on the spine, I don't know.