Oh god, my childhood!

So I moved to San Francisco recently, but before I did, I had the opportunity to look at a box containing my old collection of VHS tapes. The top of the pile included The Phantom Menace, Batman and Robin, and the first five episodes of TMNT: The Next Mutation that had been edited into a TV movie. Also, yesterday I decided to start an ill-fated run at the original Crash Bandicoot which, as it turns out, is about as fun as a kitten strangling party. I've now come to the depressing realization that my childhood was filled with the most gut-wrenchingly terrible pieces of media known to exist.

My question to you guys is two-fold. What treasured piece of your childhood have you ever revisited only to realize that it sucks? *Puts on therapists hat* And how does that make you feel?

I've come to appreciate the Schumacher Batmen in a totally not-ironic way, actually. I think they're really flamboyant and theatrical. Compared to anything that comes out in that genre today, they're downright subversive. But I always respect a director who does something they want to and not just to appease a crowd.

A couple weeks back, my brother and his friend and I all went back and played some original Xbox games. We checked out Halo: Combat Evolved, Fusion Frenzy, Hunter: The Reckoning, and Kung Fu Chaos.

Let me tell you, Halo is still fucking awesome, of course. Kung Fu Chaos had its moments, but I didn't have really fond memories of that. Hunter was a game I remember playing through in like one long night with my neighbor and brother as a child and loved it. Now, however, it was just a terribly boring slog for the 30 minutes we played. And Fusion Frenzy...yeah.

A lot of stuff, really. Unlike one of my friends i really don't go in for nostalgia that much and can see some (quite a few) things age pretty terribly and are clearly mea,t for a younger audience.

Like, TMNT kinda sucks, truth be told. The first movie's still pretty impressive as an animatronics showcase.

Adventure Island isn't actually that good of a game. It was also the first video game I ever played on a bootleg 99 in 1 cartridge back in 1991.

I used to really like the marvel cartoons from the mid to late nineties as a kid. I had really fond memories of them until I tried to watch X-men and realised it was basically a terrible anime. Credits-to-credits just fight scenes where characters tell other characters who they are and why they are fighting. I was deeply disappointed.

A lot of my childhood stuff aged pretty well, I grew up playing with Transformers and collecting Garbage Pail Kids and playing a lot of Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania. Listening to 80s thrash metal. But: I only recently started watching You Can't Do That on Television after not having seen it in literally 30 years. I loved in when I was 6, but I can't tell what I think about it now.

If you don't dislike large swaths of what you enjoyed as a kid, you probably haven't grown much as a person. It's normal.

Similarly, the reason why it's so often cringe-inducing to look at the writing/art/etc. you did previously is because you're comparing your old work to what you're capable of now – having learned and practiced more since that original work was created.

For me, I look back at a number of games I had trouble with as a kid, and realize that I wasn't particularly bad at games – I was an average kid. It was those games that were garbage. (Looking at you, Return of the Jedi for the Game Boy)

Vic Reeves' Big Night Out. Oof.

Your childhood was my "ew, this thing is starting to really suck now." My childhood was the original Star Wars trilogy, Tim Burton Batman / Batman the Animated Series, and the original TMNT cartoons + The Arcade Game.

Not to mention The Princess Bride, Super Mario games, Big Trouble in Little China, Mega Man 2, The Goonies, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Terminator 2, Final Fantasy VI, Ghostbusters, Street Fighter II, War Games, Super Metroid, and the list goes on.

My childhood fucking rocked, and it makes me feel pretty happy. :)

Of course, that's being pretty selective. I'm sure you can find some truly terrible media in anyone's childhood.

@spaceinsomniac: That wasn't the only part of my childhood. I did get the LOTR trilogy, Gundam Wing, FFs VII X and XII, Ocarina of time, the Halos, RE4, the Prime series and a whole lot of Boston area sports parades. Also, the original Star Wars trilogy made it back into theaters for me, albeit a little tweaked. My childhood rocked too. It's just fun to see some of the things that I thought were cool but were actually fucking lame.

I was a big fan of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (which I watched dubbed), and in retrospect it was real trash. I still can enjoy watching it for different reasons, though.

I also remember enjoying Ninjabread Man on PS2. I was not even a child anymore at that point, really. I can't even remember anything about the game, only that I liked it. I had questionable taste.

I don't know about Crash Bandicoot being bad though. I think it's still a decent platformer. I may be a psychopath who would enjoy a kitten strangling party after all.

Man, I'm trying to think and I don't think I had anything that was truly terrible infiltrate my childhood that hasn't already be sloughed out of my mind due to the ravages of time and cholesterol. Maybe some of those cartoons I thought were awesome, but I barely remember a bunch of those, and the ones I do remember are legit incredible to this day.

The only thing I can think of is the Garfield cartoon. I've heard in the last few years several occasions of people saying it was awful, but I remember that I couldn't wait for it to come on. The StarGate tv show also came on in my early teen years and a lot of people hate it, but I watched it in its entirety about three years ago and still thought it was awesome.

There is nothing. I've always had impeccable taste.

I lie! I had a thing for the original My Little Pony cartoon. I'm not talking re-vamped "Brony" Pony cartoon that's on TV now. I'm talking incredibly poorly made, 1980s My Little Pony cartoon.

WTH was wrong with me?!??

Most 90's sitcoms I suppose.

There's really not that much I really look back on with disdain honestly. Sure, I liked Power Rangers as a kid and the old TMNT cartoon is kinda cheesy now, but whatever, they were kids shows and I was a kid. Who cares.

I regret nothing!

I feel that way about listening to 50 cent and Eminem when I was a kid. That crap is the worst. Why wasn't I listening to The Roots and Gang Starr and other stuff that was actually good?

On the other hand I DO NOT regret listening to Weird Al cause that shit is still dope.

Not sure how to feel about that Cartoon Planet album I had. I still get the songs stuck in my head 15+ years later.

I regret how way into austin powers I was.

Don't regret how way into Waynes World I was and still am.

I watched Friends I guess. Nowadays I think that sitcoms are among the worst TV has to offer.
Watched the shit out of Blues Brothers. Still one of the best films ever made and I won't hear otherwise. Samurai Jack is also still the bomb.

Yeah but Eminem was good. Like better than his newer stuff by a country mile.

Banjo-Tooie is not as good as I remember it being. There's something that I understand but also find irritating about the plodding pace at which that game doles out new moves that let you actually finish a level up without having to wait half the game to go back.

Rare's games, in general, seem to have aged rather poorly. Banjo-Kazooie is still pretty good and Viva Pinata is the shit but a lot, a LOT of their games are kinda... bad in retrospect.

I decided to blitz through The Dig in a single sitting a couple of weeks ago.

Let me tell you, that game has not aged well (and, truth be told, was heavily flawed the first time around, too) and is NOT made to be played in a single sitting (even if you remember the puzzle solutions and have UHS open in a second window).

@shindig: Are you really Graham Lister? That show was and still is amazing.

Having my teen years in the 90s was certainly a bad coincidence as a fan of comic books. Man there was some amazing shit published that decade. I blame it all of Rob Liefeld, personally.

I recently went back and watched some of the original Thundercats cartoon. Crushed to realize how unwatchable it is. Total bummer. I had plans to revisit Voltron as well but thought better of it. Better to keep the fond memories.

@rorie: I had so many Spawn comics.

Horror in particular has harshly aged. Resident Evil 1 genuinely terrified me, while nowadays it's basically a comedy.

I re-watched the first season of Ghostwriter recently and it was great.

No, I'm Wavey Davey. Hiya. It just didn't hit me much 15 years down the line.

I marathoned the entire Bucky O'Hare television show because I remembered it being super sick. Also because in my mind I thought I watched the whole show but as it turned out my young self only had been watching the same three episodes over and over again on VHS which were the only decent episodes. The show got unbearable very quick, they stopped writing a over arching plot and there was scenes just cut out of episodes.

At least the opening sequence is still pretty awesome. ;-;

I hate Eminem with such a fiery passion. And he headlined the only concert I have ever been to. His music just reminds me of being 13 and fuck being 13. But beyond my personal feelings his music is also just awful. I cant even listen to 2001 because of how much I hate Eminem now.

Has there ever been a remix of 2001 with all the Eminem parts swapped out for someone else? That would be rad.

You wouldn't let it lie...

If you think looking back on enjoying 50 Cent and Eminem is bad, you should try it with MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. In my defense, I was probably about 10 at the time.

In my late teens, I started listening to Beastie Boys albums, which brought me to Q-Tip's guest appearance on "Get it Together," which brought me to A Tribe Called Quest, which brought me to all sorts of great 90s rap artists, such as The Pharcyde, Big L, Ultramagnetic MCs Outkast, Public Enemy, Geto Boys, early Busta Rhymes, Wu-Tang Clan, DJ Quik, Ice Cube, the aforementioned Gang Starr, and so on.

Still like Eminem, though. At least his first two albums. It probably helps that I was in my early 20's when he started getting big, so I don't associate him with my childhood. When it comes to white rappers, I was always sad Princess Superstar wasn't more successful. That line about Small Wonder still makes me chuckle. She also did some work with Kool Keith.

Eh. My childhood in terms of entertainment still holds up for me considering that I grew up in the 90s; back when I used to fit in with people oddly enough.

I miss 90s R&B.

...And now I have "Where My Girls At?" by 702 in my head. Thanks nostalgia thread. Thanks a bunch.

I miss early 90s R&B, and New Jack Swing.

I can still go back and listen to a ton of late 80s and early 90s R&B music. So good.

@beerbaron17: Thundercats aged way better than Voltron, that's for sure.

I guess what I'd single out is a cartoon called ExoSquad - at the time (I was maybe 11?) It struck me as a remarkably mature show where characters actually died and it has a semi-legit take on race relations. While those memories were true, the execution of that and so many other cartoons before Batman was just so bad. Like, in order to hit their 20 minute run time, they just murder pacing and leave it lying in a puddle of blood on the floor. Not really a bad show, but definitely one that illustrates how bad an eye I had for artistic merit at that age.

Mortal Kombat, Primal Rage, Dragon Ball, Resident Evil, Godzilla, Alien, other classic horror movies...my childhood stuff is still awesome XD

The lamest thing in my tween years of the late 80's/early 90's I'll admit to liking was MC Hammer (probably for like 2 months, who knows, seemed like 2 years back then). The only real "oh shit this actually sucked real bad" moment I can really remember was when I was at my friends 13th birthday party in 94 we watched these GWAR "movies" that were full of bad blood and gore practical effects, foam rubber outfits and heavy metal. At the time we thought they were the coolest thing and sort of influenced our appreciation of tasteless stuff for a couple of years. Years later when were about 22 we ended up at a party together and got em off napster or something and turned em on and oh boy, felt like the air had been sucked out of the room.

The power rangers are so unwatchable, it makes me sad. Amazon prime video have all the seasons I believe. The dialogue is just...hard to explain. I guess this is what the 90's were all about. The opening theme music really does hold up though. At least the original season and Zeo.

I stand by the fact that RC Pro AM on the NES is a good game. No matter how many times a former moderator tells me it isn't.

P.S. I played a lot of hot garbage NES games that I think are pretty okay.

Hey now! I played through the first three Crash Bandicoot games no more than four or five years ago and had a fantastic time. I don't even have much nostalgia for them. They're good platformers.

Anyway, a LOT of what I liked as a kid still holds up. I don't know if I have low standards now, or had high standards then. When I was a little kid I was watching Batman: The Animated Series, Stargate SG-1, Angry Beavers, Rugrats, Samurai Jack, Darkwing Duck, etc. All of which I've watched in the last few years and I think they're still great. A few years later I was deep in my anime stride with Evangelion, Fullmetal Alchemist, Outlaw Star, Trigun, Escaflowne, Yu Yu Hakusho, etc. All of these I've re-watched in their entirety since and still think are great.

Probably the show I watched as a little kid that sticks out as being the hardest to watch now is DBZ. I used to be pretty into it, but now it's just a bore-fest. During my later anime phase I also watched Naruto up until Shippuden, and while I haven't gone back to that show yet I know it wouldn't hold up at all just because I remember almost nothing from it. I've come to recognize that as a bad sign.

How does it make me feel? Sad. I'm a nostalgia whore, and I love reveling in stuff I liked in the past. It always sucks when you've changed so much as a person that you can't enjoy something anymore, even ironically or w/e.

Crash Bandicoot was a good one. I used to visit my neighbor and play it all the time. When i got to play it a couple of years ago, I couldn't stand that game.

In most other cases, I feel pretty good about my childhood games and cartoons. Even if something is corny(like Turtles) or plain bad(like Super Putty Squad), I still have fond feelings of nostalgia for them if I used to have a good time with them. I experienced a ton of media I never really liked, too, and that stuff gets no nostalgia from me. I was lucky enough to get exposed to a lot of really good stuff too, like the Super Mario games and Street Fighter 2.

The nostalgia I feel worst about is anime I watched in my early teens. Most of that stuff was incredibly melodramatic, because that's what appealed to me. I think FMA is a good example, because that original anime adaptation is the biggest emo thing I ever watched, but at the time I loved it. These days, I'm all about the manga, but I don't know if I would have preferred it back then.

He-Man, it was just... so cheap.

True maturity is being able to look on something you loved, recognize the flaws for what they are but still find a way to love it anyway.

I remember being super into the Star Wars Extended Universe in middle school. I look back at it now and I shake my head at how silly that whole thing was. There were so many authors pulling and stretching it in a hundred different ways and trying to come up with the latest galaxy-destroying menace that it became little more than published fan-fiction. No wonder Disney put it out to pasture once they bought Star Wars. And I know everyone's legally obliged to say "but the Thrawn books were good!" but that's like 3 decent books out of a hundred or so.

Sonic. Sonic is terrible and even the 2D ones weren't "all that."

@davidh219: @audiobusting: You guys are insane. I don't know why I'm still playing this game. I seriously need to get my head check. This is one of the worst controlling unforgiving pieces of shit of a video game I have ever played. Your opinions on this subject are so bad that it's giving me and anxiety attack. I'm traumatized. Today I had to go to a puppy petting party at a PTSD center just so I could get through the day. A one-armed Iraq War vet hugged me and said he didn't want his kids to have to go through what I'm going through. You are both terrible, TERRIBLE people. Go to a psychiatrist. You are both definitely diagnosable psychopaths and a danger to our society. People who like Crash Bandicoot are akin to members of the KKK, neo nazi's, and Weezer fans. Stop before you kill us all.

@redhotchilimist: Thank you for bringing sanity back to this thread.

@slaps2: Unforgiving? I don't remember any of them really being that difficult. I beat them back to back over three of four days and I don't remember getting super frustrated or anything. The first one is definitely harder than the other two though. If I remember correctly, it's almost entirely because of the way that game saves your progress. Controls are a weird thing to talk about. A lot of people seem to think MGS2 and 3 have terrible controls, and I don't get that either.

@davidh219: The way the games saves is exactly it. I don't think four or five years is as short a time ago as you think. It's way worse than you remember. Seriously, this game is fucking awful and it hurts me. MGS2 and 3 do have terrible controls btw. If you aren't able to see any of that, than Dr. Slaps is gonna diagnose you with a more than mild case of nostalgia blindness. Crash and Burndicoot is legitimately about to send me into a hate-filled rage.

Glad i was too old for whatever that live action turtle monstrosity was, holy shit! Now, 80's Ninja turtles (cartoon and movie) are classics and while i've never went back and watched the cartoon the first movie still holds up really well, way better than that new age shit today.

The last Dragon, Ninja Turtles, The Princess bride, Terminator 2, Star Trek Next Gen.... I have found memories of my child hood movies and television.