Snark Sharks

Damn You Rubik, and your cursed cube!

Well my little Snarker’s and Snarkette’s I know you haven’t heard from your pal Great White in a little while, but I figured it was time to get back in the saddle.  Like most of the Snarks out there in their 30’s, a lot of my friends are spawning the next generation of ankle biters and it’s made me a bit introspective.  So I compiled a list of 85 things that the next generation just won’t get.  Ok the list was going to be 101 things, but I got bored so you’ll get 85 and you’ll like it.

1.    That Bo knew
2.    Saturday morning cartoons were the highlight of your week, not just another day with crappy CGI cartoons
3.    That the first reality show (Real World New York), was actually real
4.    If you wanted a popular new song, you had to sit around for hours waiting for it to come on the radio so you could record it to your tape deck.  And if your didn’t have the station tuned in perfectly you had to deal with a static filled remix
5.    The joy of being so bored that you played stupid games like flashlight tag, TV tag, curb ball, and smear the queer.
6.    That Encyclopedia Britannica was Google.
7.    That an effeminate weirdo with a sweater fetish was not stranger danger
8.    That sports players were not free agents, and were rarely traded.  So when a player was drafted the norm was to play his entire career in one city, with one fan base that grew to worship them.
9.    That school desks were impervious to bombs.  (Remember bomb drills?)
10.    If you missed a TV show, that was it.  You’d just have to hear about it from your friends.
11.    That at the time V was the coolest thing ever.  Not the hot cheesy mess it looks like all these years later.
12.    That aliens came from Melmac and ate cats.
13.    That somehow there seemed to be more on TV when you could only get 4 channels in on your TV and another 3 that barely came in, and one that you could hear but the picture was all static than your 600 channel cable or satellite package.
14.    That Eddie Murphy and Bill Cosby were funny.
15.    If you fell down somewhere it was your fault.  No lawyers were ever involved.
16.    MTV, MTV2 and VH1 were actually created to show music video’s all day, and helped people find music that just wasn’t getting radio play.  They weren’t 24/7 reality show channels.
17.    What the hell a 2 for Tuesday was
18.    That to see porn meant rifling through your dad’s drawers to find a Playboy.
19.    That you can trace the popularity of extreme sports back to a movie about time travel, involving Alex P. Keaton, Doc Brown and a flux capacitor
20.    That being able to get food in 2 minutes from a microwave was actually awe inspiring, not just the norm.
21.    That to play a video game, you had to pester your parents to take you to an arcade.  Where with good skill and a handful of quarters you could kill a whole day.
22.    That PacMan fever really did drive you crazy.
23.    Giddy up, oom poppa-omm poppa, mow-mow
24.    That a 30 something guy living above the garage of the Cunningham’s was the height of cool, not a sad sorry loser.  Aaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy.
25.    That some guy in a white jumpsuit stunt jumping a Harley over stuff was a national craze, and even had toys that every boy wanted to have.
26.    That Star Wars changed your life.
27.    That you left out trails of Reese’s pieces because you wanted an E.T. of your very own.
28.    That “Ho” was something that Thunder Cats said not a woman of ill repute.
29.    Pixie Sticks, and Dip Sticks (AKA Fun Dip).  Seriously flavored and colored pure sugar for kids to eat?
30.    Being kind meant rewinding
31.    That babies got trapped in wells
32.    That you always made sure there was at least one person further out in the ocean than you, after you saw Jaws…. and that you still do
33.    That you flipped and flopped around in the back seat unteathered.
34.    That seeing a boob in a movie was a big deal.
35.    That the best case for photographs was you got them a week later from the Pharmacy.  Worst case is they ended up in a box, in a drawer with a bunch of other undeveloped rolls.
36.    That Underoo’s were underwear that really were fun to wear
37.    That you would get in your pajamas, pile in the car, and go to the drive in movies… then go play on the playground all night.
38.    That every summer your whole family would pack up the car full of crap, and drive somewhere for your summer vacation.
39.    That if you were the youngest, you were the remote control.
40.    That you had to have a skill or talent to be famous.
41.    That no one had a clue what being politically correct was.
42.    That you were scared of the TV for a couple weeks after Poltergeist, and you asked someone to watch with you to be safe.
43.    Mmm bow – bow, chick-chick, chick-a-chicka-ka.
44.    That Flintstones Vitamins gave you super powers.  10 million strong and growing.
45.    That nobody bothers me.  Nobody bothers me either!
46.    They’ll never know how traumatic it was for thousands of kids to watch the Challenger explode live right before your eyes, in your classroom.
47.    They will never know the indignity of being forced to wear plaid polyester pants and a sweater vest on picture day.
48.    That the phrase Oh Yeah, goes hand in hand with large pitchers of Kool-Aide busting through the wall.
49.    That every 4 years you HAD to watch the Olympics, and if USSR won an event you took it personally.
50.    That Al Capone’s vault was the biggest TV cock tease of all time
51.    That stopping at a gas station to ask for directions was your GPS.
52.    Every time a Panda got knocked up it was national news that we were riveted to for months.
53.    That everyone watched Luke and Laura get married.
54.    That everyone knew who shot JR.
55.    That there was only one phone company.  Either you had service with them, or you didn’t have service.
56.    Hard copy style TV news didn’t exist.
57.    Some Hungarian named Rubik, created a cube that drove million’s crazy.
58.    People thought that Night of the Comet could be a work of non-fiction.  It was the Y2K of our time.
59.    That Euro Disney was destined to be the next big thing
60.    That when your NES would freeze, you take out the cartridge blow on it, put it in, jiggle it back and forth… and hit power.  AND as a last resort you jam another cartridge in there to hold that one down.  Could you imagine if tech support told you that for your Xbox or PS3?
61.    That when you started going to McDonalds the McNugget wasn’t even an option yet.  Not to mention the McRib, McGriddle, or the McCoronary.
62.    That Mikey liked it.
63.    That there was a great deal of concern as to the location of the beef
64.    You seriously considered dropping a friend because they were on the opposing side of the Coke / Pepsi debate.
65.    Why on earth everyone was supposed stand outside and hold hands at the same time.
66.    That we are the world.  We are the children.
67.    That Mike Tyson WAS the baddest man alive.
68.    That there was a time that the Sunday Comics were actually funny.
69.    That you had to eat vegetables that you didn’t want or it was an affront to malnourished kids in foreign countries
70.    Why Yaakov Smirnoff was funny
71.    That Tom Hanks cross dressed for a good apartment.
72.    That cousin Larry was Re-dic-u-lous
73.    Tammy Faye Bakker’s makeup
74.    Ollie North and his shredder
75.    That Max Headroom made stuttering c-c-c-c-ool.
76.    That there was a time when you could ask someone to touch your monkey and you wouldn’t get sued for sexual harassment.
77.    New York area beaches were a great place to find used medical waste.
78.    Farfegnugen
79.    Potatoe
80.    Fried eggs = my brain
81.    I got OJ in the car!  This is A.C.!  You know who this is damn it!
82.    Gamma Rays turn skinny weaklings into deaf, green bodybuilders
83.    Why Kevin Costner is a movie star.
84.    Who ya gonna call?
85.    How intense the promotion for Howard the Duck was, and how that has created a harder the PR push, the worse the movie corollary