Lies My Parents Told Me
I wanted to share some childhood classics with my own kids. While watching, I kept coming back to the same thought: Did our parents really let us watch this stuff?
We’ve been on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles kick around the house. It started last year with my son discovering my DVD set of the late 1980s cartoon, impractically shaped like the gang’s yellow van. Last year we took the kids to see the movie in theaters, which was just followed up with a streaming series. There has also been a feast of games, including a collection of classic vintage titles, an updated spin on the arcade classic, and even a roguelike. There’s something for everyone here.
There's been a lot of that, with vestiges of my youth getting a fresh coat of paint, updated computer wizardry and resold to me - to sell to my kids. My kids are into Mario, Pokemon; hell, they might be getting into Yu-Gi-Oh because of a happy meal. What's old is new again, prompting me to evaluate these products through the lens of being a parent but also giving me a chance to revisit these favorites rather than just fondly remembering the idea of them. Luckily, raising three children has giving me plenty of opportunities - if not time - to revisit shows I watched as a kid. Watching them again now, I can’t help but wonder just how kid-friendly they really are.
After watching the TMNT movie last year with my kids, they wanted to watch more of it, so I thought I would tune them into the shows I grew up on. Likewise, after we’ve seen the Mario movie one too many times and want something else, why not the Super Mario Super Show? Perhaps give the Jaleel White headliner Sonic Underground a go? I used to love these shows as a kid, so it only seemed natural to give the little people what they wanted. Cocksure, I loaded up these vintage throwbacks, convinced my kids would fall in love with them too. After all, nothing is better than the original. A minute into the first episode of TMNT, my son looked up at me with a puzzled look. "Why is it so blurry?" It turns out, they really weren't that interested in what I enjoyed so much as a kid.
Let’s-a-go…away
The Super Mario Super Show certainly seems like it was a figment of the imagination conjured up in a fever dream. Lou Albano cosplaying Mario in live action sequences bookending animated exploits of Mario and the gang? A revolving door of 80’s pop culture icons appearing as… themselves? It boggles the mind, even today. It certainly boggled the mind of my son, who wanted to know why a man who looks like his grandfather is dressing up like Mario. The entire series is free to stream.
When Albano wasn’t cozying up with Nicole Eggert, he was warping into the Mushroom Kingdom for animated sequences. Subsequent seasons would ditch the live action portions while focusing on the expanded cast of Super Mario Bros 3 and then Super Mario World, respectively. I have fuzzy memories of watching the show when I was younger, the same way I can recall getting Mario toys from Pizza Hut. My mind can hazily recall these episodes or toys, but did they actually happen?
It’s hard to tell. While Super Show may have cult status, it isn’t that fun to actually watch. The animation is janky, the language is typical for the time - meaning full of language I don’t want my children using at school - and the voice acting outside the main cast is shoddy. Yet the colorful backgrounds, Hollywood parodies, and sampling of music from the games activate every single one of my powerful nostalgia receptors. It still has its hooks - into me, at least.
Turtles in time
There are many iterations of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but revisiting the series history with my kids at this stage in their lives is a bit of a hard sell. I remember being in Kindergarten and wanting their communicator toys (that and Power Ranger transformation bracelets). Thirty years later though, I’m not sure it’s necessarily something I want my kindergartener watching.
The language is a bit trickier than I recall, especially in the earlier versions of the show. While I expect some animated violence, I was also surprised by all of the guns? I didn’t remember them at all, and yet while watching some episodes recently it was all I could see. That and some standard 1980’s overt sexism, and a handful of other harmful tropes that have thankfully been excised from children’s programming since.
I never picked up on the subsequent series in the early 2000s or over the last decade, and my kids seem turned off by their animation styles. It was a treat to take them to the film last year, and it is a family favorite every time we go to the arcade. For now at least, it seems we are going to stick to the new Paramount series and occasional foray into the games on the Switch.
Sonic and his (not so) amazing friends
The list goes on and on. Fond memories of watching Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog while at my Nana’s house? Dashed by the sound of Jaleel White’s portrayal. This show absolutely sucks, even moreso for Sonic Underground which had Steve Urkel voicing Sonic as well as his brother AND sister. It was during this low point in our lives we found Sonic Boom, an odd 2016 reboot as this kinda workplace comedy released in tandem with a disastrous trio of Sonic Boom games for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS games. Now that show has been a hit with kids and dad alike.
I was blissfully unaware of the existence of a Donkey Kong Country TV show until recently, when my son and I stumbled on it and I regretfully violated my Golden Rule for my children’s media consumption - when in doubt, Dad watches first and reports back. It was a disaster: it looks like absolute trash, the voice acting is abysmal, and the show is oddly horny, with Donkey Kong openly lusting after his girlfriend whenever she’s on screen.
Aesthetic complaints aside, most of my complaints are the reflection of cultural progress over the last thirty years. 1990s in America, yikes. Many things deemed culturally acceptable in 1994 and present in these vintage children’s programming - epithets, racially-coded language, some very clear stereotypes - are thankfully unacceptable now. It’s always a shock when I watch an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and someone casually calls someone “retarded,” without admonition from Giles or another authority figure.
While these programs should be judged against the merits of culture during their time, I’m less interested in cultural relativism when determining whether this is something I want my young kids watching right now. As much as I may have enjoyed these shows when I was a child, that was when you could still smoke cigarettes indoors in public places. Times, attitudes, and cultural norms have changed and there are thankfully more relevant interpretations available to enjoy as a family now.
Sonic, Mario and the other franchises aren’t going anywhere, yet this phase of my life with my kids certainly will. I’ll catch myself ruminating on my own childhood, thinking about times watching these shows on the couch with my sister before breakfast and hockey on a Saturday morning. In twenty-five years, I hope my kids are able to think back and remember not only which show was their favorite, but also this time together. The past was awesome - even if these shows haven’t held up quite like I expected - but I’m happy to be here in the present.