Since its retro week, we’ve been taking a trip down memory lane at the @rcade, obviously! We’ve been reminiscing about when times were easy, and we didn’t have that twinge in our back if we sat down for too long. It got us thinking about when we were kids and had lots of spare time on our hands. Saturday mornings were spent watching cartoons and TV shows that made us aspire to be something great. Personally, this girl wanted to be Trini, the original yellow Power Ranger (it’s a little secret in the office but our Editor always fancied himself as Kimberly, the Pink Power Ranger…no joke!) and everyone’s little brothers, always wanted to be Big Bad Beetle Borgs or the Turtles. Time spent with friends was time locked in great adventures to save the earth with Captain Planet, complete with plastic rings. Empty cardboard boxes were turned into spaceships, hovercrafts or very loose resemblances to Optimus Prime. It made us realise that the kids of this decade are missing out. Big time!
Taking a look at the kind of shows that studios have to offer kids today it makes us feel a little sad. Where is the heart? Where is the inspiration to go outside and save the world? Growing up, we watched “The Girl from Tomorrow” as she struggled to return to the year 3000 with only her friend Jenny from the year 1990, and a novice’s knowledge of a tool called a transducer to help her. What do the ‘kids of the naughties’ have? They get to watch Hannah Montana struggle to keep her ‘famous’ identity secret from everyone… with the help of a blonde wig… Right…
Mr Benn took us on great adventures through the hidden door in a mysterious costume shop. We became knights, astronauts and pirates with him. We flew on magic carpets, swam with mermaids, and went to the Stone Age. Where do shows like The Wiggles and Lazytown take you? Nowhere! Captain Planet and the Planeteers taught us how to defend the earth from the evil Eco Villains. While we were battling with Captain Pollution, we were also learning about radiation, deforestation and the importance of things like recycling and even touched on topics like HIV and AIDS.
It is with great disdain that we sit and watch the likes of Power Rangers RPM. They battle against… computer viruses! What are children ever going to learn from that?! (Apart from how to install a firewall!) Since Disney got their claws into it, the show has not been dropped from most TV stations. We don’t know whether to be happy or angry that one of our most cherished memories has been led into such questionable territory.
Even such fondly remembered characters as the likes of Sooty and Sweep and Basil Brush have been replaced by Socky, the atrociously annoying sock monster and Dustin the turkey. Zig and Zag, The Fraggles and Button Moon are nowhere to be seen. Instead we’re bombarded with Teletubbies, Waybuloos and Tweenies.
Unfortunately our Anime hasn’t exactly escaped either. These days if you stick huge colourful eyes on a badly voiced and an even more badly animated character and suddenly you’ve gotten yourself an ‘anime’ – someone really ought to slap the writers and animators of these American shows! There is nothing anime about 3 10year olds competing with spinning tops and 3D rendered graphics! Gone are the days of Mrs. Pepperpots, Samurai Pizza Cats, Mysterious Cities of Gold and old school Pokemon – when the characters and stories actually engaged and entertained us rather than numbed us with high powered action and flashy colours!
Don’t get us wrong there are some good ‘Anime inspired’ cartoons out there, Teen Titans and Avatar: The Last Air Bender are two of our favourite shows to come out of the animated world and both credit the work and art from Japan as inspiring their look and stories. However the current trend seems to be dishing the shows out as fast and cheaply made as possible and that is spoiling the image of REAL Anime for kids and adults alike.
It’s pretty safe to say that we’re not happy with the way TV shows treat kids today. The spark is gone. It feels like the studios’ sense of adventure was left with the Flinstones. No more counting with insomniac vampires on Sesame Street. No more eating pizza with the Ninja/Hero Turtles. Back when Tom and Jerry were just a cat and mouse with no voices and you could never forget you were once a Womble. Scooby and Shaggy are on a diet. Postman Pat is doing ads for Specsavers. It’s becoming less and less likely that you’ll ever get your Blue Peter Badge and the Clangers who were once so close, seem to be living on a planet in an unreachable galaxy. It has all been a sad series of realisations in the @rcade offices, but at least the Ed will always be our Moomin.
So enjoy the video below and relive your childhood one more time!
