Memory Lane
Written May 19, 2003

As I was flipping through TV channels the other day with the overwhelming disinterest vested in me by a society that emphasizes passivity in its entertainment, my catatonic gaze fell across something that sparked my brain to life for the first time in years. “G.I. Joe!” I suddenly yelled, grabbing my stunned roommate and accidentally suplexing him out the window in my uncontrollable state of enthusiasm. I was alone in the room, breathless, excitedly staring at a late night commercial for the old-school G.I. Joe action figures that I had known and loved during my childhood.

Slowly my joy diminished. The figures didn’t seem nearly as cool as I remembered, little men of valour equipped with a variety of saucily customizable weapons and helmets who could be unceremoniously jammed into garishly coloured vehicles for battle. No, they looked like dumbass figurines with awkwardly bending limbs and ridiculously unproportionate accessories posed against various cheaply rendered backdrops.

There was no epic battle between the forces of good and evil, just a bunch of wobbly guys aiming their guns in the vague direction of their enemies and crappy “POW POW SCHLOOOORK” sound effects. Disappointed in the destruction of one of my fondest childhood memories, I turned off the TV and dived out the window to deliver a punishing elbow drop to my slowly recovering roommate.

Why is it that nostalgia can so effectively cloud our memories of the things we loved when we were younger? I can’t stand seeing or watching anything that I liked back in the day because my brain ruthlessly erases the fond memories of a formerly quality product with an updated opinion that always reads the same way: “This is a piece of shit and you were stupid for liking it. Get me some Cheetos!”

You can still try to convince yourself that standards have changed and that you’ve grown to like different types of things as you got older, but there’s one barrier to that argument: Pokemon. Yes, little kids today love Pokemon, the cartoon/video game/collectors cards that depict various cartoony animals fighting each other in a strictly G-rated environment and spawning some of the most retarded species names of all time.

Now I certainly don’t like Pokemon. I think it is a big stinking heap of garbage. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that if I were currently eight years old I might think it was kind of cool, if only to fulfill the overwhelming desire to fit in and conform to peer pressure.

This is a frightening revelation. Maybe I only thought things were great when I was young was because everyone else told me so, and my weak-willed, fragile mind eventually began to embrace the enforced views of others as its own. After all, the only thing genuinely separating G.I. Joe from today’s line of hit Power Rangers Ex Duo Amazing Saga Mutant toys is my memory of how sweet the Joe was back in the day as compared to my current opinion of the Power Rangers as painfully rendered acid trips with a fruity undertone.

Attempting to re-examine nostalgic elements of your childhood is bad news. It starts as a lovely prancing trip down memory lane and ends in the brutal mental execution of the things you remember the most fondly, except for Super Mario Brothers 3 for Nintendo. That game stands the test of time any day. Remember the Big World? And the suit that let you turn into a statue? Classic!

Mario Brothers 3 is still one of the top five video games of all time. That's all I will say.