When Good Nostalgia Goes Bad: 80's Edition

          Damn whoever discovered that nostalgia sells. It has been going on for some time now, possibly without your knowing, but the masses are trying to sell back to you the time in which you grew up in multiple forms. It takes the shape of everything from collect call commercials to shoot-'em-up video games. My generation is just starting to be encompassed by the remanufacturing of the most god-awful time in the 20th century. That's right, Big Brother is attempting to sell us back the 80's.
          First let's discuss why this is such an irritating endeavor. A lot of things back in the eighties just plain sucked. I could go on forever, but there is nothing, and I mean nothing, appealing about oh say Rambo, The A Team, Knight Rider, hair bands (too many to name), and Miami Vice. The look and feeling of this age was a sad time when America was leaving all the retarded aspects of the seventies and emerging into the pseudo sensibility of the nineties. It was the later half of last century's awkward middle child and should not be glorified by any of its lame ass components.
          Now I know most of you are thinking, "Man, when I was a kid I loved that shit, and if I loved it back then it can't be so bad now." Well sir, if you ever dare to go back and relive something that you enjoyed during your youth, you'll start to realize that the only reason that you liked it back-in-the-day was because you were too young to see how horrible a state everything was in. Case-in-point I have on several occasions allowed myself to revisit my childhood and partake in a reviewing of such trash as Adventures in Babysitting, Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation, or Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Let me tell you... the dirt doesn't wash off. Now, I can't really remember WHY I watched these movies so freaking much when I was young. I'd like to blame it on H.B.O. repeating the same films in excess and me being too young to care or possibly revolt.
          So now certain things are starting to appear for relatively short shelf life but appearing nonetheless in the main stream. The pitiful attempt at "That 80's Show" or throwing A.L.F. and Mr. T. in a friggin' 1-800-COLLECT commercial is just disgusting. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not some prude who can't enjoy nostalgia at any level; there are instances when it greatly enhances a product e.g. Vice City. This game would be fun regardless with the decapitation, whoring, and drug dealing alone; however if you set it in the eighties, of all places, then it just becomes absolute pure gold. The Wedding Singer was also a proper use of this device as a backdrop and did nothing but to highlight or add comedy to an already comedic film. The whole problem is, not every aspect f the eighties is so highlighted with reminiscence. Sometimes recollection is used as a shoddy vehicle for something that should not exist in the first place.
          Again I demand clarification that I do see the other side of the coin. I am aware that the 80's gave birth to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, and for the most part the Star Wars Trilogy. Rather then us thinking that the terrible crap was an exception to the rule however I believe we should realize that this small group of greatness was. Then in the end that is what eventually highlighted the good stuff was the unending sea of shit. It's the same logic of a girl/guy having an array of ugly friends in an attempt to make themselves more appealing to that special member of the opposite sex when on the prowl. Am I suggesting that the greater part of the eighties was some mass conspiracy by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to make the population think they are geniuses? Maybe... actually that's a great idea and worth exploring... however highly implausible.
          So what am I asking you the reader to do upon this epiphany of nostalgia based products? Simple, my inherent call to action is nothing more then do not accept the shoddy substitutes, ridiculous revivals, or poorly written comedies. Even though you might have loved the Wonder Years don't be so dim to think that Oliver Beene contains anything but the trite shite it's written with. Don't decide to use a national calling service because an irritating Muppet and a mohawked man that went toe-to-toe with Rocky tell you to. Yet when something is truly great that just so happened to occur during some of the worst times of books, cinema, comics, music, and television know that it was the quality of it in itself and not the decade it which it just so happened to have inhabited. If we do give in don't ever expect it to stop and do not come crawling to me when Johnny Five of Short Circuit fame starts trying to sell you Sprite.