In more
recent years in my life, I have begun to think a lot about how society has
changed since I was a child in the 1990s and early 2000s. I've spent hours, usually late at night,
comparing the time period of then to the time period of now in my head. Why does everything in the 1990s seem so much
better than that of today? Is it really
just the fact that I was a kid back then, and will be prone to seeing those
times as better? In this blog, clever
titled "Eric's Time Machine", I will examine this question, comparing
topics from back then to the same topics of today and seeing how the have
changed. Hopefully for us "90s
kids", this gives you a fresh perspective on things. And for people that are experiencing their
childhoods now or after that time period, I hope to give you a glimpse into
what life was like then.
That time I dressed up as Dopey for Halloween...
Listeners
of our podcast may remember me telling a story about myself dressing up as
Dopey, my favorite
dwarf featured in my favorite Disney animated movie
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", for Halloween when I was three
years old. Yes, that little guy in the
picture to the right really is me, on October 31, 1993. Now I know it is March, but we did just talk
about Snow White on our podcast, so what better time to bring up old 90s
Halloween memories, one of which involves me dressing up as Dopey, than
this? While I do not remember this exact
picture being taken, from the looks of it, I can imagine that my mom had me and
my sisters (only one of which you can see next to me in this photo), pose in
our Halloween costumes before we went around our neighborhood to get candy. Notice the plastic candy bucket in my hand,
which my family still has to this very day.
While Independence Day is my favorite holiday, Halloween has always been
my favorite time period during the year.
The crisp air, the colors of the leaves, the candy, dressing up as your
favorite movie character and seeing what everybody else in your class was
dressed up as, the great Halloween specials that used to come on TV all month
long. Ah, so many memories. Who could forget the famous Rugrats episode
where the kids are convinced there is a monster in the garage, where the
Pickles family has set up a haunted house?
Or, the Doug episode where Skeeter and Doug ride an attraction at
Funkytown that they get trapped in and have to escape from? Classics.
"Disney's Halloween Treat" remains one of my favorite specials
(look it up on YouTube kids), and featured some of the most classic
scary-themed early Disney cartoons and clips from movies that you can think of.
All of these shows had one thing in common:
imagination. All of them had such
creativity, that you were just lost in the stories and the fun. This is something that I have noticed missing
from TV during this time of the year more recently. Usually on Halloween now, not many TV specials
are run. Even if there is a Halloween
themed episode of a show on Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel, there is almost
no creativity involved in it and nothing to really grab the viewer. Most current specials that I have seen, which
are supposed to be for children, usually involve older teenagers (probably 19
or 20 year old actors, playing high-schoolers) involved in some drama about who
was going with who to what Halloween party.
Add in a mix up of everybody in the group wearing the same costume, and
boom, you have a current Halloween themed episode. Seriously?
Petty high school drama that no kid would ever care about? Where is the fun, the monsters, the
creativity, the supernatural elements, the IMAGINATION? I used to come home from elementary school on
Halloween in the 90s, already hyper from all of the sugar I ate during our
post-costume parade Halloween party, and experience a sensory overload from
what was on television. I would flip
through the channels not knowing which special to watch. Monster movie marathons, Halloween episode
marathons, awesome interactive Halloween themed game shows (Nick or Treat
anyone?), hosts sitting in a Halloween themed type setting that would introduce
what was coming up next and have little skits between commercials, what
happened to all of this? It would get me
so excited for the trick or treating that would happen later that night that I
could not contain myself.
Finally, as the night would grow dark, I would venture out
into the chilly October air of our dark neighborhood to collect candy and imagine
what terrors could be hiding in the woods.
Just look at that smile on my face in the picture, you can really see
how ready I am for all of it to take place.
Nowadays, the kids all have iPhones and look at Twitter and Facebook the
whole time and don't get to dive into the imaginative qualities of their brains. Parents are overly pre-occupied with trying
to take photos and videos of their kids in their costumes to get
"likes" on Facebook so that that can feel better about themselves,
that they actually miss out on the joy that their children are
experiencing. While in current times
Halloween is an unimaginative, uncreative bland day that seems like any other
day (unless you really take charge and make it different, of course), back in
the 90s, Halloween was filled with candy, fun costumes, a jam packed TV
schedule, and an imagination that you will never find on your Facebook or Twitter
feed.
This
post is brought to you from Eric's corner. Be sure to give this
post a plus if you liked it. Do you agree with Eric's points? Do
you disagree? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments!
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