After having a recent conversation with some friends about experiences growing up (which may have been a result of the nostalgic trend throughout the latest forum topics), we got onto talking about things we had missed during our childhood and early teenage years that most of our friends or classmates had been a part of. Being the first-born in my family, I didn't have older brothers to listen to music or watch movies with. Instead, it was my parents who had the biggest influence regarding these activities. The first music I remember listening to was classic rock from the 60s, 70s and 80s. The first concert I went to was unfortunately Savage Garden. No Offspring and no Greenday. My parents weren't too sporty (and I was pretty sick as a child), so I didn't start playing sport until I was 10-11 years old. I still haven't even watched Wayne's World or the Karate Kid. My friend hasn't seen Free Willy, which I found outrageous. FOCUS: What typical childhood encounters, particularly relating to Pop Culture, did you miss out on growing up? Are there still some examples, that even now, you're still yet to experience?
I knew someone who didn't understand a peanuts reference. Who doesn't understand peanuts references? Lucy pulls the ball away from Charlie Brown. God. How large a rock are you living under to not know this?
At work a cute girl overheard me calling the cafeteria cook a "Soup Nazi." She thought it was hilarious and astoundingly thought I made it up. I didn't have the heart to correct her.
Alt. Focus A guy I work with who is NOT in any way an Aussie has heard of their popular comic strip Footrot Flats (which I also know) but HAS NOT HEARD OF CALVIN AND HOBBES. Jigga Whut?
I still haven't seen The Goonies. I've also never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I'm also about to wikipedia Wayne Campbell. edit: Never seen Wayne's World.
This whole comment was about to produce outrage and then I remembered the Wayne's World skit that I did in 8th grade was 20 years ago. Now I just think I need a walker . . . or maybe a rascal.
I didn't have basic cable growing up, so I never got any of the classic Nickelodeon/Cartoon Network shows that the other kids saw. I just played outside and watched sports on TV. I missed shows like Kenan and Kel, Are you Afraid of the Dark?, Dragon Ball Z, the green slime game, that mountain climbing game show, and many others. I did love Rocket Power when I went over to my friends.
Congratulations, your childhood was incomplete. The mountain climbing show???? Surely you don't mean G.U.T.S., where the winner gets to take home a glowing piece of the radical rock known as the Agrocrag...
I never ate meatloaf until I lived with my wife. Every single person I have ever met pretty much had this alien-to-me meal at least once a week. When I told her this, she lost her onions. She couldn't BELIEVE someone would go through life without having meatloaf. So, she made some. I will admit it's not bad, but not something I would eat if my stomach is churning at all. Still, I like it.
I never had a Transformer and can't, for the life of me, figure out why Hollywood wanted to spend $300 million making movies about them.
This is me. The only time I got the pleasure of watching cable TV was when I visited my aunt. She was a nun and had freaking cable. Why couldn't we? I'm pretty sure I just watched Scooby Doo marathons when I visited aunty.
I grew up in a Jehovah's Witness household where Prince records (he's demonized and over-sexed), Smurfs (long story also relating to urban myth/demonization), peace symbols (its an upside down cross) and anything remotely secular was thrown out. So a lot of pop culture references got picked up by stealing the neighbor's cable when I was a kid. There are a ton of movies I'm catching up on to this day. I still haven't seen The Wizard of Oz. My mother equated, in her sheltered mind, video games to gambling which was forbidden. So only this year have I gotten into XBox and that is because my SO is a video game freak.
I grew up out in the woods, so cable wasn't even an option - it was satelliete or a big-ass aerial antenna on the roof if we even wanted to watch PBS. Because of that, I'm pretty sure I frustrated my parents to no end when all I wanted to do on vacation is stay back in the hotel room and watch cable TV. Focus I'm sure everyone has their own opinion on what is "classic" SNL, but I hate it when my jokes about Mr. Peepers or Mango and Garth Brooks fall flat. Also, Seinfeld was forbidden underneath any roof that my mother had control of.
You are forgetting the best part of G.U.T.S. MO! Too bad you never saw her from the waist down so you never knew if she was all fat n' nasty.
Communist. Focus: I've been going back to school lately. I am in my second semester. I am also, at 33 the "old guy" in 2 of my 3 classes. I am not old by any means, but to the 18-19 year old, I am. I the prof's often make pop cultural references, and you can always tell who the "old" people are by who laughs.
Focus: Sports. I've said it before. But my family just was not a sports family. I didn't get into following sports until I was in college. Even then I have not had decades of guidance from a sports family or participate in sport to know really how to keep up with it like most sports nuts (read: the average guy) do. I usually keep my mouth shut when my friends start debating stats or 5-4 defenses or something overly technical. On a similar note, we were not a religious family either. The only time I've been in churches were for weddings, funerals, or on guided tours. So every time there is a reference in pop culture to a story that was in the bible, 9 times out of 10 I won't know dick about it. I didn't know the term "good Samaritan" was a reference to a biblical story. I didn't know until after seeing that South Park, and only then after reading wikipedia's article on the episode, that Christianity, Judaism, AND Islam are all derived from the same set of stories and general beliefs. I had known about Jews not believing in Jesus as the savior, but that's about it. The shit is so pervasive in our lexicon and culture that sometimes I do feel kind of left out of the loop. Still glad we didn't waste a perfectly good weekend day on it though.
I have never seen Disney's Dumbo or Bambi. Mom didn't think it was right than an elephant was kidnapped from it's family or that a Bambi's mom got shot & killed, so we weren't allowed to watch it. I don't think I'm missing much with those 2 anyway.
Same boat here. We lived way out in BFE, so there was no cable service out here, and my parents were way too poor to even think about getting a satellite dish. Therefore, I missed out on most of the "classic" teen shows of the '90's. I really wanted cable for ESPN and MTV, so I could watch SportsCenter and Beavis and Butthead. Now that Beavis and Butthead are coming back, I can have my teenage wishes. Too bad I feel like I'm getting herpes just watching MTV commercials now.
I have never watched any Star Wars Movies, movies were the devils handiwork as was television which we did not have growing up, and my parents still don't have one and constantly brag about. All music was forbidden unless it was religious music without heavy rock beats and guitars, as rock beats were the work of satan. The first record I ever heard that I liked and had was WAR by U2 as a teenager and my dad broke it in half as he did not like it heavy rock overtones and secular message.
Focus: Mom was a very conservative christian, so I never saw any of the classic horror flicks/franchises. Nightmare on Elm Street, Jason, Halloween, none of that stuff. Also, for some reason Football was the only sport I never played as a kid. I think my Mom was afraid of how violent it was. Of course, I got into my first fist fight at 7 on the Hockey rink, so... Alt-Focus: It's almost always movies. When someone says, "Star Wars? Never seen it." or anything along those liness, I generally look at them in shock. A bit hypocritical, I know, what with my answer to the focus.