This was so apart of my early childhood!

WOW is what comes to mind. I'm 26 and today while surfing the tv for something to watch, I said "there's nothing good to watch on tv, I had the best shows when I grew up." I started thinking back to when I was a child and all the shows I watched came to mind. I thought to search the Internet for these shows and was so surprised to see others from my generation who remember and want to see these shows again, I thought I was the only one.

I went on YouTube and found most of the shows I watched as a child and I almost cried. My jaw just dropped. I couldn't believe I remember the theme songs, characters, and stories. I couldn't believe I remembered what days and times some of these shows came on. It's surprising how much the mind remembers. I can't even remember what I watched last week but I can remember 15-20 years ago. I grew up watching Pinwheel. I can't believe I remembered Pinwhell after 20 years. All these years I've been calling it Pennywhistle, I don't know why, but I see now it was called Pinwheel. I don't remember anything really from the show, maybe I would if I saw some episodes, but I remember the show being my favorite as a young 5 year old, I can't remember before then. I can remember being 5 years old coming home from kindergarten and watching Pinwheel while having lunch. I watched You Can't Do That On Television (I remember the slime mostly and the girl with the brown, big hair), The Adventures of Pete and Pete, Alex Mack, Ren and Stimpy, Doug, Clarissa, Double Dare, Wild and Crazy Kids, Guts, Eureka's Castle, Gullah, Gullah Island, Salute Your Shorts, Are You Afraid of The Dark on Nick. I think I watched Nick more then PBS and Sesame Street. I don't remember digging Sesame Street but I loved Barney, especially when Baby Bop was big, not small like she is now.

Other kid shows I watched was Romper's Room, Pee Wee's Playhouse, Kids Inc., Wonder Years, Sharon, Lois, and Bram (I can still remember singing Skinamarinkedinkedoo, with my hands flapping). I been watching The Simpsons for 20 years now, started watching when I was a child, so that's one show my generation and today's kids watched. I still watch it.

I have to say we definitely had the best kid shows. The shows promoted sharing, togetherness, being yourself, not trying to fit in with a clique or be popular. The kids on the shows weren't perfect looking. They looked like regular kids and were better actors and actresses then today's kids that are just over the top. The kid shows today promote materialism, vanity, and fitting in, and pretty much being fake. The kid shows of our day had a little rebellion in it, but always knew right from wrong. Shows like Pete and Pete were about kids trying to find the answers to questions that adults didn't even know but pretended to know. They proved adults could learn something from kids and that we weren't entirely dumb. They were trying to find their place in the world, rather then just being what society wanted them to be. That's what I got from the show when I think back now. Of course then I wasn't thinking that seriously. I was just enjoying the show but I realize now what the show meant. All the kid shows promoted individuality and being creative. I guess that's why I still use my imagination, still creative, and believe in being myself.

I can't believe there's shows like "Teen Mom" and "Sweet Sixteen" that airs on TV. If I was a teen today I guess I would be materialistic and vain too. Young preteen girls are made up to look like women, instead of looking like a little girl. These girls are wearing makeup, high heels, trying to be sexy to boys. I feel like I'm watching a show with mini adults on Nick, not preteens. No wonder so many young girls are sexually active and pregnant. These young girls are too sexy. All this just entices the child molestors even more. Can you believe their making heels for girls under 10? That's just added ammo for children to be sexually exploited, but that's another story.

I was thinking when we were kids, we didn't have all this technology. I wasn't introduced to the Internet until the age of 16. All we really had growing up were walkmans and cd players. We didn't have ipods and iphones but we still had a great childhood. We actually would go outside and ride bikes, jump rope, hop scotch, etc. I hardly see kids out playing anymore or riding bikes, their in the house, sitting down playing X-Box, text-messaging, on the computer, and eating, becoming obese. Our generation didn't have as many obese children. We ate junk food too but we went outside and played, so we didn't get fat, but that's another story. Kids today want $200 iphones, ipods, and X-Box, all we wanted was a bike or a walkman, which wasn't much and would last a long time. Kids today want the newest thing every six months.

Kids today ask me how did I grow up or do without internet, ipods, and cellphones, I got along well, can't miss what you never had, but we had a childhood, we interacted with other kids, and had physical activity, unlike kids today. The technology is definitely isolating them and making them lazy. Our shows also made up get up and dance and move.

As a teen I watched Degrassi Junior High, Blossom, Boy Meets World, Family Matters, Hanging With Mr. Cooper, On Our Own, I remember TGIF that would come on ABC, this brings back great memories. I don't remember watching very much when I was a teen, only as a child.

A classic Nickoloden channel or even a 80's/90's sitcom channel would be so nice. I would keep it on that station all day because everything else on tv is mostly junk. Reality tv is getting bad, real people acting stupid to get attention, it's not real.

I think the best sitcoms came out of the 80's and 90's, Webster, Different Strokes, Ten of Us, Cheers, Silver Spoons, Facts of Life, Family Ties, Growing Pains, Alf, Mr. Belvedere, Punky Brewster, were the best shows in my opinion and I would love to see them again too. The channel could run the kid stuff in the morning and afternoon and show the adult tv shows in the evening and night.
I hope we don't have to wait 30 or 40 years, like our parents, before we can see our childhood shows on tv again.

Something else popped in my head while watching a few of these shows on YouTube. Most of the kids on the show were white, you would see maybe one or two black kids, but as a child I didn't care. It just goes to show kids aren't as race conscious as adults, and if they are, they learned it from adults. As a kid, they were kids like me so I didn't see a difference. I didn't realize most of the shows I watched were dominantly white, but I didn't care as a kid, these shows were good, I loved them, and could relate to them, and I still love them, but I definitely notice more things now compared to how many kids of color are on tv. I'm glad tv evolved in the sense that there are more kids of color, but it would had been nice to see more black kids on tv in my day.

I just found out there is such a term as Classic Nickoloden or The Golden Age of Nickoloden. I'm proud to be apart of that generation. I'm definitely a 90's child. I almost made myself believe I wasn't apart of anything or had no good childhood memories, but I see I do now. I didn't receive the best attention as a child and that was bad but my positive childhood memories were watching these shows, maybe that's why I never forgot them. I can remember re-enacting certain shows as a child or pretending to be like a character. I was beginning to think I wasn't apart of a special time in entertainment or tv, but you all helped me to realize by your comments that I was apart a special time in tv, I was apart of "The Golden Age of Nickoloden." Don't you wish you could go back and experience those shows as a child again? Kids take things for granted and think things last forever, we don't realize how much certain things mean to us until we get older and look back. I didn't know these Nick shows had such an influence on me. I would like to go back being a child to experience what it felt like watching these shows again.

I'm talking like my parents now, like I'm so old, but I guess every generation is going to feel like their era was the best, and why shouldn't we?

Thanks for letting me vent and rave. Would love to know everyone's thoughts.