It was a Wednesday, like so many others have been and will yet be. Nothing stood out terribly about this Wednesday. It was a little blustery, quite cold, and I was studying for my upcoming exams. I also worked at the offsale, as I am wont to do from time to time.
note: Offsale is a Saskatchewan term, for a very Saskatchewan thing - a store that is allowed to sell liquor long after the government-run liquor stores have closed down, and usually attached to a bar. The prices are inflated, but the beer is refrigerated and whereas Liquor Board stores, or LBs, are few and far between, offsales abound.
As I said, nothing in particular stood out about this Wednesday, other than that I had acquired, that very day, the complete Steven Spielberg Presents Pinky and The Brain. Now, this in and of itself isn't terribly out of the ordinary, I have been on an inexplicable nostalgic kick for the last few weeks, this is merely an extension of that. However, Pinky and The Brain stand out for being not only as good as I remembered it being, but better. Yes, Pinky and The Brain is far, far better than I had recalled. Granted, it's been a over a decade since I last sat down and watched an episode, but the show is loaded with gloriously sophisticated humour concealed beneath the expected slapstick veneer that in my youth, I failed to properly appreciate. Historical references, accurate scientific jargon, movie spoofs and, last but certainly not least, "I think so Brain, but what if the chicken doesn't want to wear the pantyhose?"
High. Quality. Absolutely brilliant writing.
That, friends, stands out in my quest to fulfill this yearning, this yen, this desire to revisit the media of my youth. For I have tracked down many programs that I cherished, once upon a time: Dexter's Lab; Darkwing Duck; Earthworm Jim; Silverhawks; Bucky O'Hare; and more. Also, this is certainly not the first trip down memory lane I've taken, but it has been one of the most fruitful, and I have this to say: Very little is just as incredibly as you remember it being. Time, distance, age, experience - all of these fog our perceptions of the passions and joys of our childhoods, so when you come across something that truly is every bit as wonderful as you recall, it is to be savoured and shared with others who remember it fondly. Every so often, you are rewarded in your efforts with a nugget of nostalgia that is, as I've said, not only as good, but better than your rose-coloured glasses vision from the past and it justifies the revisit entirely.
I was going to include a list of cartoons and movies that you should and should not track down, but midway through it, I realized that I was going about it all wrong, because even the ones that were truly terrible were still fun to see again, even for a short time. And even those brought my friends and I some solid entertainment, even if it was laughing at, not with, three or four episodes, some hungover saturday morning (we like saturday morning cartoons after parties and so should you). Take some good humour and low expectations with you, like you would on a blind date, and you'll persevere.
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