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A former child's lament

 
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tmlindsey
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Joined: 18 Jul 2022
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 21, 2022 8:22 am    Post subject: A former child's lament Reply with quote

I don't normally start or get into philosophical discussions on forums, but my wife and I were discussing this and I'm curious what others think.

When we were growing up and Fall came, you could not wait for those JC Penney and Sears catalogs to come so you could drool over all of the new toys you were trying to decide you wanted. The arrival of the catalogs, themselves, was a source of great excitement and anticipation.

You also (in the days of three TV networks) got those "fall preview shows" giving you tantalizing glimpses of the new and returning Saturday morning cartoons/shows that you needed to be aware of so you could plan your Saturday morning viewing and what shows everyone would be talking about at school.

Another example, you had to wait 3 years between Star Wars movies which made it a special event; something you looked forward to and got excited about the closer the time came to a new release. Now they fart out SW "content" every five minutes (of greatly varying quality), over-saturating the market.

Now, everything is treated like it's special, and when everything is special, NOTHING is special.

These things, in our opinion, not only made that time of year special, built up a sense of anticipation and taught us about patience (to some degree) and made the payoff all the more exciting and meaningful.

But constant "connectedness", the merciless deluge of "entertainment content" being dumped out, and the ability to get anything you want with the swipe of a finger have, we think, robbed kids of the experience of anticipation and, more importantly, appreciation.

Anyone care to share your thoughts on this?

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 21, 2022 1:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Wonderful post, Tim! Cool

I totally agree with your contention that kids today have been robbed of the excitement we got as kids when we eagerly awaited some upcoming event.

One thing I have always strongly urged the members of All Sci-Fi to do is share the memories of their youth. My post for The Time Machine is a prime example, a very detailed description (with ample jpegs) of my first viewing of that great movie with my two best friends at the the Lowes Grand in Atlanta.






The posts by Rick Smith for several of this own fond movie memories are beautifully written descriptions his experiences at the LeRose Theater when he was a kid.





Take a look at his post for The Astounding She Monster and you'll see why I told Rick he should publish a book about his Monsterkid memories.

I even created a cover for it! Mr. Green






Tim, you'll also enjoy a thread I started called Share a few scary memories from your Monsterkid days! <— link

And concerning the way we had to wait to see the movies and shows we liked whenever the three networks decided to show them, my best example of that is from back on March 3rd, 1962 when NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies aired The Day the Earth Stood Still — after showing trailers for it four weeks in advance! Shocked

I'd never seen it before, and I nearly had a nervous breakdown waiting for the big day to arrive.

SN@tM's did that ever week, promoting the upcoming features a month in advance by showing a trailer for the next three Saturdays during four of the commercial breaks. And the announcer would kick off each trailer with a count down, like this.

"Four weeks from tonight, on Saturday Night at the Movies . . . " and then he'd say the title of the feature, after which the trailer would explode onto the TV screen!

The thread called NBC Saturday Night at the Movies talks about my own favorite features from SN@tM's. Very Happy

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sun Aug 21, 2022 2:41 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Pow
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 21, 2022 1:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

How right you are, Tim.

My folks had a subscription to the TV Guide for as long as I could remember.

I recall how exciting it was when the Fall Preview issue of the TVG was waiting there in our mailbox. I'd bring in the mail, and immediately plop myself down on our living room couch to read every page of it. Which shows that I enjoyed were returning? Did those shows have any cast changes to them, or its premise? What were the brand new series about and would I be interested in 'em?

I now wish I had saved and collected those TVG. They had pictures on the front (sometimes drawings) of shows I was a dedicated fan of. Inside there were reviews of TV series, although not always favorable to the shows I liked. Then there were interviews of the actors on shows I watched. It'd be so cool to reread these TVG's now.

The downside of the Fall TVG was that I knew my summer was winding down and that was always sad. When you reside in upstate NY and five or more months of winter, saying goodbye to summer weather is a big deal.

I love autumn. Gorgeous colors in the trees, cool nights, Halloween. All fantastic stuff. However, its such a darn short season that it goes by faster than our summers...if that's possible.
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tmlindsey
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2022 7:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
I love autumn. Gorgeous colors in the trees, cool nights, Halloween. All fantastic stuff. However, its such a darn short season that it goes by faster than our summers...if that's possible.

Fall was always my favorite time of year, but it took several years for the lack of changing seasons to start "getting to me". Missouri to NW Florida seemed like a good move at the time, but I hate it here now (it's either 110 heat index or raining all the time, and it's always humid now).

Halloween was always my favorite holiday, partly because of the glut of monster and SF movies you'd get on TV, and partly because I've always been weird Laughing

My family never bought TV Guides (not when there's a free one in the weekly paper!), but I know what you mean. My wife still has piles of them at her mom's house somewhere (if they haven't rotted away) and talked about how exciting it was to get that Fall Preview issue. Everything's hyped too far in advance today. Many times I'd thought a movie had come and gone and she'll say "No, it hasn't come out yet; they've just been hyping it for a year" Rolling Eyes

Also, stay off my lawn Laughing

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Last edited by tmlindsey on Mon Aug 22, 2022 4:12 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2022 3:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Well, by gum, in spite of the many things we've discover that we have in common, Tim, we differ on what season we prefer.

I love the green, lush look of summer. So, I'm not that fond of the signs of winter coming on. The leaves die and fall off the trees, the grass turns brown, and each day you have wear more clothes to keep warm. Sad

Ah, but spring time — my favorite season — is the rebirth of nature! The trees get a sizable delivery on all those back-ordered leaves, the grass runs a race against the lawn mowers to see how high it can get, and the weather gets so warm you could take off all your clothes and run around in the front yard, butt naked!

. . . as long as you do it at 3:00 AM and the street light isn't right out in front of the house. Wink

Yes, sir — spring time is okay in my book. Except tor the . . . ah . . . ah . . . ah-Choo! Hay fever.
Rolling Eyes
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Morbius
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 23, 2022 4:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well yes, but but now we have Sharknado!!!
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tmlindsey
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 23, 2022 11:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
I love the green, lush look of summer.

Fall is cool, but not cold (depending on location) and it's easy to dress in layers so you can add or subtract as needed.

Summer is hot, and when you're hot, it is miserable. No layers to take off (legally in public, anyway) you just stay hot until you melt or feel the sweet release that only death or A/C can bring.

Not many ways to stay cool in summer, plenty of ways to keep warm in the fall Wink

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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 24, 2022 1:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ahh...There have been many hot summer evenings that I have slipt out of my briefs in my secluded, visualy blocked hot tub and enjoyed a tall scotch on the rocks and just enjoyed the "green leaves of summer" in silence and serenity! (My neighbors are thankful for my tall fence!)

There are benefits of the summer solstce!



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tmlindsey
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2023 8:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This kind of illustrates what I was talking about in my original post, if anyone is interested in checking it out:

_________ Saturday Morning Cartoons
__________


The History Guy has many fascinating short 'forgotten history' videos, but this one highlights the loss of fun and innocence I was talking about.
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scotpens
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2023 12:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

tmlindsey wrote:
. . . Summer is hot, and when you're hot, it is miserable. No layers to take off (legally in public, anyway) you just stay hot until you melt or feel the sweet release that only death or A/C can bring.

I'm not much of a summer person either. The only upside to hot weather is that women are going around half-dressed.

And contrary to popular belief, we actually do have seasons in Southern California. It's just that sometimes we get them all in the same week.
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