40s and 20s Podcast

Mike’s Boner Talk: a place where Mike can talk about things that he loves in the safety of his room, while no one is looking.

Taco Bell is almost always a terrible choice to make, or a choice you make after you’ve already made terrible choices. It’s Mexican food shaped food. Delicious food that resembles Mexican food. And yet, there’s something about their bland shells and quasi-meat product that is sometimes better than the fabled Ambrosia.

And now, it’s just gotten better. Doritos Locos Tacos. This is undoubtedly Taco Bell’s final form. Some young upstart got it into his head to replace the hard taco shells with Doritos. DORITOS. Not fake, Doritos-like substance, but actual, honest-to-God, get cheese dust on your fingers Doritos. And it’s amazing.

Read More

Mike’s Boner Talk: a place where Mike can talk about things that he loves in the safety of his room, while no one is looking.

If you were an 80’s/90’s kid like me, you remember the excitement of waking up at 6am on Saturday morning to start the morning cartoon block, or racing home from school to watch Disney Afternoon and Fox Kids. There were so many good cartoons on TV when I was a kid including, but not limited to: Muppet Babies, Bobby’s World, Ninja Turtles, Pirates of Darkwater, X-Men, Ghostbusters, Eek! The Cat… the list goes on. It could go on and on.

Now that I think about it, I probably watched too much TV as a kid. I look back at those shows, after years of thoughtful neglect, and reminisce with my friends about how awesome cartoons were when we were kids, and how shitty kids’ shows are now. But is that really true?

With the advent of DVD and digital streaming content like Netflix, there has been a resurgence of old TV shows being released from the 80s and 90s. Shows that haven’t see the light of day in over a decade are now able to be enjoyed again by all. Sounds amazing, right? That’s what I thought.

On a recent Costco excursion, I noticed that they had several seasons of Disney shows from my childhood like Darkwing Duck, DuckTales, Talespin, and Rescue Rangers all for $9.99 a piece. Picking just one show was tough (I was on a budget!), but I ultimately decided on Darkwing Duck. DuckTales was a close second, but I remember Darkwing Duck having such interesting villains, and great stories.

So how was Darkwing Duck? Meh. I got a little bored watching it. Was it bad? No. Was it great? Absolutely not. It was sort of like when I saw a picture of myself as a kid, and I was wearing a light-ish red shirt with graphics of splashed bright neon paint on it that says “Mondo Cool”. I looked at that and thought to myself “Why did I think that was so awesome?” The world may never know.

I honestly don’t know what I was expecting… the story involves an anthropomorphic duck wearing all purple who has a mild-mannered alter ego (Drake Mallard), and yet his sidekick (Launchpad McQuack) remains un-costumed and un-aliased the entire time. Launchpad is Launchpad, no matter who he hangs out with. He fights crime with Darkwing Duck, then is also roommates with Drake Mallard. But that’s sort of a Clark Kent’s glasses issue, I suppose. Suspension of disbelief and all that shit.

I’m going to interrupt my recanting of this tale by pointing out that, as an whole, I believe the entertainment industry has greatly evolved story telling on TV. In the 80s and 90s, it was the norm to tell episodic, self-contained stories featuring monsters of the week with no continuity to speak of. It was so rampant that networks would often air shows out of production order because it made little difference story-wise which episodes aired at any given time. A bad habit they got into that would eventually affect other shows to the point of cancellation (RIP, Firefly… but that’s for another boner talk).

This was actually one of the biggest issues I had with Darkwing Duck. The reason I liked it as a kid was because it actually had something resembling a storyline. Most of Darkwing Duck’s recurring characters had origin episodes at the very least, but apparently the network aired them all out of order. So there are episodes where the viewer is left wondering where these villains or other allies came from. There is little to no explanation, because the episodes were aired out of production order, and that’s how they were put on the DVD. Honestly, that’s more of a critique on the DVD than the show, but the point still stands.

A few nights ago, Ryan came over to my house and we were looking through the Netflix list of new releases. After looking for a while, an old familiar image shows up: Sonic the Hedgehog. Now mind you, back then, there were two Sonic cartoons. One was a goofy kids show about Sonic and Tails eating chili dogs and running around, but I remember the other one being epic!

Starring Jaleel White of Urkel fame, I remember the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog being incredible. The princess was always one step away from finding her father, and Sonic was always trying to free his friends from being controlled by Dr Robotnik. It had story! It had depth! Or at least, I thought it did. I had to convince Ryan to watch the first episode. I was stoked! It had been years! This cartoon was great! Trust me! He did trust me. And I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry.

There I was, twice within the span of a week my childhood had let me down. I’m honestly scared to go back and watch some of my other beloved childhood shows. What if Ninja Turtles isn’t cool anymore? What if Transformers is boring? What if GI Joe is terrible? I have a feeling that’s all true. But unless I watch them and experience it, they never will be. I’ll always have my nostalgia, and the only one who can take that away from me is… me.

Boner Rating: Sad. And flaccid. And sad.