Strollerderby : the 80's

Retro Electronic Toys

Brett Singer — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:36:00 GMT

Sometimes I think I might be psychic. For example, right now, you are reading this blog post. And you think the joke I just made wasn't all that funny.

See what I mean?

Anyway, I was talking to my son the other day about the handheld electronics I used to play with. Then I'm online, reading my email, and in my gmail toolbar I see the title of a Wired.com article: "Forgotten Electronic Games."

Hmmm. Maybe Google is reading my brain waves. Wouldn't put it past them.

But enough about my psychic ability. (I know that you don't want to hear any more about it. You see? You see what I mean?) What did Wired dig up? Here are some highlights:

Big Trak: Man, did I want one of these. You could program it to move around and stuff! And it had a laser! Well, it was just a little light that flashed, but it made a cool noise.

Vectrex: Another one that I didn't actually own. This little gem was a self-contained gaming system, complete with a monitor that displayed vector graphics (hence the name). The system is still popular with some folks -- Wired points out that there are even new games being made. http://www.classicgamecreations.com/

Microvision: This I had. And I wish I still did. The Microvision was really the first Gameboy, albeit a technologically inferior version. The controls consisted of a dial and a squishy membrane that became various buttons depending on which cartridge was inserted. The screen was a series of black squares on a gray background. But at the time, it was the coolest thing around.

Merlin: It seemed like everyone had one of these, except for me. I didn't care for it but it was hugely popular. Lots of beeping and more than one game to play. It looked (and sounded) like a futuristic telephone from a movie made in 1979.

Not on the list are some of my personal faves, like the Pac-Man knockoff Epoch Man:

"It's not just a game! It's a digital clock, with a musical alarm!" Things were much simpler in the early 80's.

Bring back any memories?

Source: Wired.com

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Maybe The 80s Are Retro

Brett Singer — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:30:00 GMT

When I first started to notice that television producers and marketing executive was using the 80's to induce nostalgia and/or referring to it as retro, I was annoyed. Eventually I got used to it, but still found it troubling. Come on, I said. It wasn't THAT long ago. Sure, lots of things have changed. But 1988 was only 20 years ago. That's not retro, is it? Translation: I'm not THAT old, am I?

Take a look at these TV commercials from 1988.

That hair. Joe Isuzu. Geraldo Rivera braying that our children may become victims of a Satanic cult.

Ouch. I guess I am that old.

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The Smurfs Turn 50

Brett Singer — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Here's my "I feel old" moment of the day: the Smurfs are celebrating their 50th anniversary.

Yes, the Smurfs. Those little blue creatures that live in a village with one elderly man and one female. They always say things are "smurfy", which means both nothing and anything. Some bizarre full-size man and his cat always want to eat them. This was a hugely popular Saturday morning cartoon in the early 80's (who could forget such classic lines as, "Nature Smurf, this time your love of animals has gone too far.") The toys – mostly immobile hard PVC figurines – were a major collectible among the under 10 set.

The 50th anniversary is of their first appearance in a Belgian comic strip called 'Johan et Pirlouit', or 'Johan and Peewit' in English. Eventually the cartoonist, Peyo, "introduced a new set of characters" to the strip called " Schtroumpf". They eventually became known as The Smurfs. In honor of the 50th anniversary, European celebrities have designed their own Smurfs, which were auctioned off for Unicef, which is, of course, a very smurfy thing to do.

Also of note is the fact that there is much speculation that the Smurfs were (are?) anti-Semitic communists (just like Obama! Kidding). I can't bring myself to summarize this theory, but you can read more about it here if you are interested.

If you want to show your children what you used to watch, you can get the cartoon on DVD. Or you could just wait for the film, which I hope will never actually get made.

Here's the intro to the cartoon if you don't remember it, never saw it, or just need some smurfs in your day:

For some real silliness, here's the SNL bit, "The Smurfette Show" featuring Anna Nicole Smurf. Verrry smurfy.

And here's some Smurfy video of the smurfy auction. If it doesn't smurfing embed, click here.

Sources: MSNBC, Smurf.com, Wikipedia,Happy Smurf Day, and other smurfy sources

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Return of the son of stuff YUPPIE parents like

Brett Singer — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Because too much is never enough. And besides, didn't you want to see this photo at least one more time?

1. Organic everything: from a commenter. I've succumbed to some of this, partly because, living in Manhattan, the cost difference isn't as great as it used to be, and sometimes the quality is better. I also admit that I feel less guilt giving my kids "organic" pre-packaged crap than I do giving them "chemical-laden" pre-packaged crap. It's still crap, but it's ORGANIC crap.

2. Classes and activities: yes, from the same commenter. She said, "mommy and me classes" but in my experience it's much more than that. Around here, it seems like everyone has their kids doing something all flippin' day. A parent once told me that she didn't understand why Kindergarten went until 3pm; she wished it ended at noon so her kid could take advantage of everything Manhattan had to offer. I replied that I thought Kindergarten should go until 8pm. We don't talk much anymore.

3. Kids' music that parents can enjoy: All parents have benefited from the boom in kiddie rock. While I am of course very glad that children's music has evolved beyond Raffi (who really isn't that bad) and Kidz Bop (which is), sometimes this preciousness can go a little too far. Sure, anything by Dan Zanes or The Dirty Sock Funtime Band is better than Barney's Greatest Hits, but a little James Taylor, Peter Paul and Mary, The Beatles – lots of great "adult" music out there that kids might like.

4. Taking their children to live rock 'n' roll shows: "Alternadad" Neal Pollack brought his little one to see The Hives, a rather loud quasi-punk act. I spotted two sets of parents who had dragged their children to see Yaz at the Beacon theater (I myself was dragged by my wife, but that's another story). When commenters on Gawker are giving good parenting advice ("Neil [sic], seriously--ear plugs"), you know something is out of whack in the universe.

5. Anything that isn't made of granite. At least after we found out about the radiation.

For more, click here.

image: nostalgiacentral.com

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More stuff YUPPIE parents like

Brett Singer — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

If you want to know why YUPPIE is written in CAPS, check out the comments on Redsy's post.

Also, a word of explanation for our younger readers: "yuppie" is a term that was coined in the 1980's. It means "Young Urban Professional." Obnoxious spin off terms include "buppie" (black urban professional) and "guppie" (gay urban professional, which is at least vaguely amusing). In general, I think that the term "yuppie" is (like myself) color-blind, so we'll just stick with that. (My color-blindness mostly means I need help choosing ties, but it also refers to non-clothing related issues.)

And now – the stuff!

1.   Fertility treatments: maybe this is a Manhattan thing, but I've seen several signs in drug store windows advertising help getting your health insurance to help pay to get you pregnant. My theory (unfounded and unresearched) is that there are a large number of parents having children later in life, and also a huge number of older dads starting second families with their second wives.
2.   Wooden toys: this is from a commenter, and it's totally true. I fully expect some "mompreneur" to start selling unadorned two-by-fours in colorful packaging. (Hang on, I need to copyright that idea.)
3.   SUV's: hopefully the price of gas will put the kibosh on these. There are other ways to schlep a family around town.
4.   Hybrid cars: for the parents who don't want SUV's. It's all about extremes, people.
5.   Feeling entitled to brunch: In some cases, even men want to emulate the Sex and the City gals.

For more, click here.

image: nostalgiacentral.com

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Family Movie Night: Short Circuit

Brett Singer — Mon, 05 May 2008 22:45:00 GMT

Once a week we try to sit down and watch a flick as a family. I will periodically post my thoughts about the films we see. This week: Short Circuit.

Believe it or not, it wasn't Jen's post about a pending remake that inspired us to see this 1986 Steve Guttenberg movie. Amazon.com has a video-on-demand service called UnBox, which you can use to download movies directly to your Tivo (or computer if you like that kind of thing). I had been meaning to give the service a try, and there was a 99-cent sale on sci-fi movies. Short Circuit was a choice, so we figured for a buck, why not?

The UnBox service worked great. I've heard mixed reviews about download speeds, but we were able to start watching the movie after about 3 minutes while it continued to download in the background. This is with a Tivo connected to the Internet via a cable modem. (As with all things technical, your mileage may vary.)

What about the movie? Well, it holds up pretty well after 20 years. The special effects aren't anything to get excited about, but the robot, Number Five, is mostly cute and reasonably charming. Fisher Stevens plays a somewhat politically incorrect engineer with a thick Hindi accent. A lot of his laugh lines come because of his accent ("Ooh. Her pants are blazing for you, Newton Crosby.") and/or the occasional malapropism ("Newton, we are wasting valueless time here.") It's basically the same kind of thing as Apu from The Simpsons (except that Short Circuit came out first). There are a few four-letter words, which I had forgotten about (Newton Crosby [Gutenberg]: Holy shit. Number 5 (robot): No shit. Where see shit?). My kids didn't think anything of the cussin'; we didn't make a big deal about it and so far no one has walked up to their teacher and used the s-word. The line "Life is NOT a malfunction," spoken by Stephanie Speck (played by Ally Sheedy) sounds very pro-life when seen today. That's probably reading too much into it (although looking at the image to the right, I'm wondering if I might be onto something.)

None of this would make me not recommend the film, which is refreshingly low-key compared to what comes out today (Speed Racer, I'm looking at you, although when I do I get a headache because there are so many colors on screen.) I like the big stuff too, but it's nice to take a break every now and then. Plus the soundtrack is so 80's I started seeing leg warmers everywhere I looked. Short Circuit is more of a "family movie" (think E.T.) rather than a "kids' movie". As for the remake, I don't see any reason to do one, but now that the kids have seen the original, they'll probably want to check out the copy as well. So like Jen said, it's probably a good business idea (though not much of an artistic one).

Bottom line: Recommended, with mild language reservations.

image: Amazon.com