Jump to content
Zeusthecat

I Had A Random Thought...

Recommended Posts

Posting again, because, there's so much goodness in this thread!

 

I *loved* Three Ninjas as a kid. Not only were these kids awesome Ninjas (and, inexplicably, all white, though their grandfather was a Japanese dude skilled in Ninjitsu and there's a throwaway line from the - white - mom about having a "Japanese side" and it's so dumb, god, but yeah, kids movies), but they were brothers and basically best friends. They had bunk beds and an NES in their BEDROOM and they had cool friends and got to ride their bikes wherever.

 

I think I had a crush on the oldest brother, Ninja codename: Rocky (Colt is the middle brother, Tum-Tum is the youngest, why do I remember these things), and I really liked that the girl he was in love with looked like a normal girl-next-door type, not a blonde bombshell 12-year-old. 8-year-old Danielle was a budding feminist.

 

There was something really appealing to me about the most boring parts of movies like that - the establishing shots, the hanging-out scenes. From a very young age, I was obsessed with the inner lives and worlds that characters lived in. Even in terrible movies like 3 Ninjas.

 

Surf Ninjas was pretty great when i was 11, but I only really remember the magical Game Gear.

 

I also have a strong love for Labyrinth, which I first saw at 13, so, kind of on the cusp. I thought it was really weird and colorful, and yes, I had a crush on David Bowie for years (forever) after that.

 

I think it holds up reasonably well, if you're into bizarro imagery. The acting is pretty decent, the soundtrack is amazing, and I actually really love the story itself.

 

--

 

Ok, and now I need to ask the important question, re: kids movies from this general era. Who here was into the animal stars? Homeward Bound? Beethoven? Air Bud? At Disney World last month, my girlfriend (jokingly) tried to convince my parents that Air Bud and his ouvre consisted of must-watch films. I was a little too old for Bud, but I think if I were tiny at the right time, I would've thought a golden retriever playing sports was pretty cool.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Air Bud and Homeward Bound and Dunston Checks In where my three animal movies, IIRC. I probably watched Homeward Bound the most out of them, and I think I liked it mostly because there were no dumb humans ruining the show, for the most part.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

When I was a kid everyone in my class went to see Babe and my parents took me to see Gordy instead.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnlgnwCzt4M

 

For some reason I made defending Gordy and tearing down Babe my 4th grade mission from God. I had all the best Babe slams. "It's not even a real pig in a lot of those scenes! It's a puppet! It's dumb kids stuff!" I would protest. 

 

I do identify with what you're saying about obsessing over the weird mundanities in the cracks of those kinds of movies. When I was a kid I would get so covetous any time there was a scene where kids were eating pizza or playing video games that none of my friends had*. I'd have long flights of fancy that were entirely based in how cool it'd be to have friends who swore and had snappy comebacks to lame things parents said and rode bikes in California, The Place Where All The Cool Hills Are.

 

That actually ties into my theory about slasher movies, and about how they were a tremendous catharsis when I was an anti-social teenager with depression, because it'd be all these beautiful people throwing parties I never got invited to, having sex I never got to have, drinking beer I didn't have the guts to drink. Then some maniac in a mask would dismember them and rain on their parade. 

 

 

*Actually, I just watched an episode of Brooklyn 99 and got insanely covetous of a character eating pizza, so I guess that part is still true.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Surf Ninjas was pretty great when i was 11, but I only really remember the magical Game Gear.

That's pretty much all I remember too. I think I also remember Rob Schneider, but I'm not sure. I just know that I freakin loved that movie for some reason.

Also, Monkey Trouble. Also, Baby's Day Out.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

If I even THINK about the ending to Homeward Bound ("He was just too old") I burst into tears. But yeah, I've seen every sappy animal movie ever made, including the very overlooked Legend of Lobo, which was one of those Disney docu-pics that was made with a story around probably nature footage but it's about a wolf. 

 

RE: Return to Oz

That movie gave me nightmares for a really long while because of the lady who has multiple heads. It's very dark.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Surf Ninjas did have Rob Schneider.  Also Kelly Hu, Tone Loc, and as I previously pointed out, Leslie Nielsen.

 

Regarding animal movies, I really liked Homeward Bound as a kid.  At the time I was reading a bunch of books/stories about animals, such as Call of the Wild, Where the Red Fern Grows, or one of those collections about memorable dogs like Balto or Hachiko.  I remember watching Beethoven but don't remember anything specific about it.  I was too old by the time Air Bud came out.  I also vaguely recall Look Who's Talking Now.  I never saw Babe.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Wasn't there a Mario cereal? WHERE IS IT?!

 

... Sort of like Aliens. Why maybe that's not the original intent, that's what it morphed into.

 

There was indeed a mario cereal! It was called the Nintendo Cereal System. They didn't have it when I went, but they did have a poster of it, or maybe it was just a framed box. It looked like this:

 

nintendo_cereal_system.jpg

 

What that ad doesn't show is how hilariously crappy the box art looked:

 

1.jpg

 

I think that a boxed version of the cereal is pretty hard to get hold of. It didn't sell very well.

 

Also as a kid I had a Xenomorph figurine, without knowing what aliens is or even that it came from aliens. I just thought it was cool, and I liked how you could press the stomach and his inner mouth thing would pop out.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Also is this stuff made out of the same extruded grain slurry that Froot Loops are made out of? I'm confident my parents wouldn't have a bar of this, and these days I can buy cereal with actual fruit in it. (I do, occasionally, decide I'm independent and can buy Pop-Tarts, then immediately burn them, then get worried they'll go off for some reason even though I bought them at the confectionary store, and resent the two Pop-Tarts left.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think that a boxed version of the cereal is pretty hard to get hold of. It didn't sell very well.

 

Is Link goose stepping?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Am I the only one who thinks that Charlie and The Chocolate Factory is a really sinister movie with brutal, joyful killings of children? I could never understand why people liked it so much.

 

It's weird, in hindsight I really can't think of a lot of family/kids movies that I actually liked when I was a kid. Disney movies resonated with me, but that's about it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Ok, and now I need to ask the important question, re: kids movies from this general era. Who here was into the animal stars? Homeward Bound? Beethoven? Air Bud? At Disney World last month, my girlfriend (jokingly) tried to convince my parents that Air Bud and his ouvre consisted of must-watch films. I was a little too old for Bud, but I think if I were tiny at the right time, I would've thought a golden retriever playing sports was pretty cool.

 

Air Bud gradually became the bane of my existence for a while. I remember thinking the original movie was alright when I was a kid, but by the time I got my first job at a video store, the "Buddies" spin-off series had started. They cranked those things out ridiculously fast, so every few months the trailer reel that plays 24/7 would include forever-looping footage of some hapless puppies that were clearly not enjoying themselves dressed up in uncomfortable-looking costumes and being dubbed over with terrible dialogue. Kids ate that shit up and we were constantly out of stock on most of them.

 

I remember enjoying Homeward Bound and Babe though.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Even as a kid I thought most of those Ninja movies were lame, though I did love the first two Ninja Turtle movies, and I think the first still holds up for the most part. ET freaked me out, as did the Wicked Witch of the West (though I got over it). My personal fave was (and still is) Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. I saw that movie before I even knew who Socrates was, and to this day I have to check myself before pronouncing his name. Second place would probably go to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

 

Edit: Re JonCole, all those kids totally had it coming.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

All of you were freaked out by the Wicked Witch.

 

Meanwhile I was crying because the Lion scared me so much and gave me nightmares. Literal nightmares.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Am I the only one who thinks that Charlie and The Chocolate Factory is a really sinister movie with brutal, joyful killings of children? 

 

I think all Rold Dahl stories have a sinister side to them, which is what makes them so great, even now. The witches to me was particularly terrifying, and the bitter-sweet ending was something that always creeped me out.

 

I also remember watching Men In Black when I was a kid and crying so hard I had to leave the screening for a bit. It wasn't even that the film was scary, it was just that they talk about poisoning people or something, and then I realised my coke tasted weird, and swore that I'd been poisoned, and therefore I was going to die. Turned out they just got my order wrong and gave me 7up instead.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

N1njaSquirrel, on 17 Feb 2015 - 07:53, said:

I think that a boxed version of the cereal is pretty hard to get hold of. It didn't sell very well.

Haha, wow, I didn't realize there were two choices. I am pretty sure I only had Mario cereal and one time only. I had to beg my mom to buy it for me because I was not allowed to eat sugary cereal as a kid. Well unless it was like Honey Bunches of Oats or something.

I generally hated animal movies except when that kid tells Beethoven to bite that kid's wiener. Classic.

Milo and Otis was good but it is probably actually not good when I found out a decade ago that it is some kind of redubbed and reedited Japanese movie.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Edit: Re JonCole, all those kids totally had it coming.

 

Yes they did.

 

I don't think I saw any of those animal movies as a kid.  The whole animal movie wave seemed to come late in my teen years. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I also vaguely recall Look Who's Talking Now.  I never saw Babe.

 

I'm just going to say it: both pig movies were garbage. Movies about talking pigs = movies that are really fucking stupid. Even as a kid I distinctly remember thinking "Why the fuck did they make 2 movies about talking pigs? Talking pigs are stupid!"

 

Look Who's Talking and Look Who's Talking Too though are fucking classics from my childhood. I like to think I sounded like Bruce Willis and my sister sounded like Roseanne Barr when we were babies. It's scary how many times I've seen the first Look Who's Talking movie. Look Who's Talking Now was alright too.

 

Beethoven was great. I always wanted a Saint Bernard after seeing that movie. Also, the dad in the movie was such a dream crushing asshole.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Oh man, I just remembered this for the first time in nearly twenty years. Curse you all.

 

 

These movies were almost certainly terrible (they were direct-to-VHS and produced by the Puppet Master guy), but I fucking loved dinosaurs as a kid so of course I was gonna love a trilogy of shitty films about kids with tiny dinosaur pals.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Am I the only one who thinks that Charlie and The Chocolate Factory is a really sinister movie with brutal, joyful killings of children? I could never understand why people liked it so much.

That's why people like it so much.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I hate children and bad children deserve comeuppance, but man... I was reading the plot synopsis of the movie on Wikipedia and it says that those children and their parents were "removed from the tour" but I never got any indication that those kids weren't just getting straight up killed by the crazy experimental candy that they couldn't resist. It just didn't seem... right? Was there any chance that Willy Wonka would have ever voluntarily picked any of those kids even if they didn't pass the obstacle course of the tour?

 

Maybe I just have trouble suspending my disbelief.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I hate children and bad children deserve comeuppance, but man... I was reading the plot synopsis of the movie on Wikipedia and it says that those children and their parents were "removed from the tour" but I never got any indication that those kids weren't just getting straight up killed by the crazy experimental candy that they couldn't resist. It just didn't seem... right? Was there any chance that Willy Wonka would have ever voluntarily picked any of those kids even if they didn't pass the obstacle course of the tour?

 

Maybe I just have trouble suspending my disbelief.

 

Earlier the idea of kids' stories often relying on wish fulfillment was brought up. That's what's happening in the factory. Shitty, selfish, bullying kids and their enabling parents are being taken down by their own arrogance. That's definitely a form of wish fulfillment for a lot of kids. Is it kinda evil? Maybe, but that doesn't mean it's not fun.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

These movies were almost certainly terrible (they were direct-to-VHS and produced by the Puppet Master guy), but I fucking loved dinosaurs as a kid so of course I was gonna love a trilogy of shitty films about kids with tiny dinosaur pals.

I really did not like those movies and I somehow put up with a lot of Roger Corman and general low budget kids shit in the 90s (MUNCHIE?!).

 

However, I loved Prehysteria 3. I don't know if it was the cute girl who was a better actress than the previous kids or the innocuous lowkey comedy nature of placing tiny dinosaurs on a minigolf course, but I rented Prehysteria 3 multiple times. Maybe it's just because I used to think Minigolf was a shitload of fun. It still is.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Back on the animated track, did anyone ever watch We're Back or Once Upon a Forest as a kid? All of this kid movie talk reminded me that I saw both of those movies approximately 5 dozen times. I had to actually look up a list of 90s animated movies to remember the names of these two but other than the names, I remember almost every fucking detail of them because they are permanently burned into my brain.

 

And for me, the movie that probably takes the cake that I feel like a fool for not mentioning is the 1994 remake of The Little Rascals. I watched that movie over and over and over through elementary school. I even once watched it three times back to back. My friend and I watched it so many times that we once went in the backyard and acted out the entire movie, line for line. I was so obsessed that my grandma even went and purchased the entire collection of 1920's and 1930's Little Rascals shorts presented by Leonard Maltin. Looking back, there was some pretty racist shit in there but I loved the hell out of them.

 

Then I hit rock bottom around 4th or 5th grade and went to the zoo with my hair done exactly like Alfalfa. I had freckles and everything so it was pretty spot on. But when people started pointing at me and chuckling I went to a bathroom and got rid of the sprout. Reality hit me hard that day.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×