Most of us collectors are getting a little older and will likely appreciate this email I received:

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were.

When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning....Uphill...Barefoot...BOTH ways. yadda, yadda, yadda

And...I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to laya bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You've got it so easy!  I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!

And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet.  If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!
  
There was no email!!  We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen!  
Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there!  Stamps were 10
cents!

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us.  As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our a**! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes!  If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!  

There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car...We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby!  Dig?

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting!  If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOODNESS !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!!  And then there's TEXTING.  Yeah, right. Please!  You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was!  It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!!  You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600!  With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'.  Your screen guy was a little square!  

You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever!  

And you could never win.  The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died!
Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing!  You had to get off your a** and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!!  Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rats!

And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove!  Imagine that!  
And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long.  
Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

And car seats - oh, please!  Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were luckily, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!
  
See!
That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten!  
You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 40 Crowd

Quoted from necro_nemesis

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet.  If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

Yup, and TV.

Quoted from necro_nemesis

There was no email!!  We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen!  
Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there!  Stamps were 10
cents!

Pen pals... a thing of the past.

Quoted from necro_nemesis

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us.  As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our a**! Nowhere was safe!

Yeah... I love it when a parent reprimands me for spanking my child. Then I turn around and watch THEIR kid thell them to f**k off right in their face. Love it...

Quoted from necro_nemesis

There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes!  If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!  

There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car...We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby!  Dig?

I miss my old twin-tape-deck radio!! Good times making mix tapes!!!

Quoted from necro_nemesis

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting!  If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

I freak out when I hear the busy tone today!!!

Quoted from necro_nemesis

There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOODNESS !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!!  And then there's TEXTING.  Yeah, right. Please!  You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

This makes me laugh. Parents FREAK OUT today if they don't know where their kids are 24 hours a day. They HAVE to give them cellphones. In fact, you are almost considered a bad parent if you don't!  ... smells like 1984... big brother...

Quoted from necro_nemesis

We didn't have any fancy PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600!  With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'.  Your screen guy was a little square!  

You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever!  

And you could never win.  The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died!
Just like LIFE!

God bless MAACA.

Quoted from necro_nemesis

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing!  You had to get off your a** and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!!  Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rats!

That old Springsteen song comes to mind... 57 channels and nothin' on... well, I have 400 goddamn channels and I STILL don't find anything on, while as a kid I had 3, maybe 4 channels if the weather was nice and I always found something.


... ah enough. Yes... kids have it easy. I see it when they reach 18-20 today. They expect a  high-paying job, a company car and a platinum credit card coming out of high school now... lazy bastards!

Don't get me started..kids today are so spoiled it is not funny.

Everything true except the cartoon part. I used to get up at around 6 AM and watch Aquaman and/or Spiderman before school while everyone else in the house slept. Then go home for lunch for Flinstones while I had Kraft Dinner or a sandwich.

Our lives were probably a lot less hectic and we were most likely a lot less overloaded with information than the kids of today. I am sure there will be reprocussions of that health wise for our kids, though I hope not.

And looking at national geographic to get you thrills.  Today, teenagers get their thrills from the internet with out even looking for it. Oh BTW this is what a 40+ friend told me , Since I NEVER did this when I was younger

Quoted from wbradley

Everything true except the cartoon part. I used to get up at around 6 AM and watch Aquaman and/or Spiderman before school while everyone else in the house slept. Then go home for lunch for Flinstones while I had Kraft Dinner or a sandwich.

Our lives were probably a lot less hectic and we were most likely a lot less overloaded with information than the kids of today. I am sure there will be reprocussions of that health wise for our kids, though I hope not.

After school was GI Joe and Transformers. Astro boy in the morning with Hercules(remember newton? That little bastard was almost annoying as much as Jar Jar)  

I feel really old, I remember seeing this email 10 years ago!

If it wasn't for the internet, I wouldn't be trying to fix these old pins and vids. Pinrepair.com, RGP, CGCC and MAACA (of course) are probably the best things that have ever happened to this nutty hobby.  

Quoted from wbradley

Everything true except the cartoon part. I used to get up at around 6 AM and watch Aquaman and/or Spiderman before school while everyone else in the house slept. Then go home for lunch for Flinstones while I had Kraft Dinner or a sandwich.

Yep, that was pretty much the routine. Flintstones on a black and white "portable" TV sitting on the kitchen fridge. WTF was portable about something with a tube?

Quoted from Cobra99

the morning with Hercules(remember newton?

That's me, That's me!!!

We can't forget Hammy Hamster, or Hatty Town Tales!

God I miss that time...

Remember in the mid 80's rushing home from  school to watch "Video Hts"

Good times

Quoted from wbradley

Everything true except the cartoon part. I used to get up at around 6 AM and watch Aquaman and/or Spiderman before school while everyone else in the house slept. Then go home for lunch for Flinstones while I had Kraft Dinner or a sandwich.

Our lives were probably a lot less hectic and we were most likely a lot less overloaded with information than the kids of today. I am sure there will be reprocussions of that health wise for our kids, though I hope not.

Wow.I used to ride my bike home from school every day to watch the Flintstones.I guess I'm not the only one!

Quoted from Cobra99

Astro boy in the morning with Hercules(remember newton?

Yeah, even as a kid I found him annoying as hell saying everything twice.

Most cheap production award has to go to Rocket Robin Hood. Every 5 minutes they would re-run that tune sequence to fill time. They animated about 1 frame per second of just the guys mouth moving and reused stock footage constantly. Although I was just a kid I knew it was a POS.

Quoted from necro_nemesis

Yeah, even as a kid I found him annoying as hell saying everything twice.

Most cheap production award has to go to Rocket Robin Hood. Every 5 minutes they would re-run that tune sequence to fill time. They animated about 1 frame per second of just the guys mouth moving and reused stock footage constantly. Although I was just a kid I knew it was a POS.

2nd Rocket Robin Hood, however, I still have the theme song in my head.


Remember Voltron?  A decade later it came back as Power Rangers....way to ruin Voltron

Robotech, Minmay singing her "star light" song for the entire Macross saga.....ugh

Torture.

That was a wonderful blast from the past !

Ya, Rocket Robin Hood was pure crap with the constant intro. Hercules wasn't too much better but at least it a Daedalus, monsters that all made the same screeching roar ... and Notwen!

Leave it to Beaver was my lunchtime entertainment. Eddie Haskell was the best.

Afternoons were pretty awesome with Force Five and, eventually, Go-Bots and Transformers.

This is the one that I can't get out of my head. When people come to me with unrealistic expectations on occaision I have sung them this little tune prior to showing them the door. It can be rather therapeutic.

hey! you want a blast from the past........I remember as a toddler "the banana splits" show. For those of you too young just google it.  At the time, in my home town we had three channels, two french and one english.  Although I did not really understood because it was in english it was fun to watch.

Yup! I watched it in real life not as re-run, I really feel old right now must be why all my pins are on 5 balls. I must be compensating for something.

Have fun it is Friday after all

Was always a fight between my brothers over whether we'd watch the Flintstones or Leave it to Beaver at lunch.  Pretty much the first guy home got to choose.

Oh yeah the Banana Splits.



If you were from southern Ontario you probably watched Rocketship 7 and Commander Tom Show.

http://www.rocketship7.com/

Biff Beeper, the Sweetly's and Promo the Robot. Got your daily dose of some Christian religion with Davey and Goliath and then there was always Gumby to round out the programming. I remember one episode where there was a machine that kept pumping out blockheads which I distinctly remember finding rather disturbing.

Glenn, I watched all those shows regularly.

But my favourite was Spiderman. The go-go music and the repeating abstract watercolour background as Spidey swung from building to building. And then of course there was J. Jonah Jameson, the crew -cut, Hitler mustached newspaperman chief. I can do a great imitation of his voice.

Spiderman...haha, ever try to swim like him?  Overhead crawl underwater, it don't work.

The best part, regardless of what cartoon you were watching, was sitting there at 6am (or whatever the time was) and watching the test pattern waiting for O'Canada.

Quoted from QN

The best part, regardless of what cartoon you were watching, was sitting there at 6am (or whatever the time was) and watching the test pattern waiting for O'Canada.

Ask a kid today what this is, and they will have no clue:

The US stations used to do the Civil Defense test every day. It was so disappointing there was never any emergency announcment, just static.


Then there was, "It's 11 o'clock, do you know where your children are"?

Sparky, didn't even have to Google that one....Indian Head....but I'm not a kid.  Sorta.  

I think there is one thing missing from this post.

You Parents make these kids so it's all your fault at the end of the day   

Quoted from QN

The best part, regardless of what cartoon you were watching, was sitting there at 6am (or whatever the time was) and watching the test pattern waiting for O'Canada.

So true, I used to watch the seconds go by eagerly waiting for the cartoons to start.........long wait when you wake up at 05:30!!!

Quoted from Sparky

Ask a kid today what this is, and they will have no clue:

That sir was from when we were civilized and it spared us from having to watch Tony Robbins, Tom Vu and Suzanne Somers.

Ha ha civil defence in the event of a nuclear attack. I swear it was on there just to calm the masses since it would have been about as effective as duck and cover under your desk should the big one come your way.

They used to have those big sirens mounted on poles around Toronto. Ah the good old cold war days.....

Quoted Text

since it would have been about as effective as duck and cover under your desk should the big one come your way.

Or bend over backward and kiss your a** goodbye  

What about the The Hilarious House of Frightenstein  Billy Van was the MAN!

http://www.frightenstein.com/

Quoted from necro_nemesis

That sir was from when we were civilized and it spared us from having to watch Tony Robbins, Tom Vu and Suzanne Somers.

Ha ha civil defence in the event of a nuclear attack. I swear it was on there just to calm the masses since it would have been about as effective as duck and cover under your desk should the big one come your way.

They used to have those big sirens mounted on poles around Toronto. Ah the good old cold war days.....

Man, I must be getting old, I remember one of the schools my brother went to in Gatineau had those huge green sirens on the roof.