The Playground Gets Ponderous: Why Remember Anything? Part 2

(Editor’s note: Yes, there is a minor Super 8 review in here somewhere.  Happy hunting.)

Wrestling With That Technicolor Monster Known as Nostalgia

Would you like to know where this story starts?  

Okay, I had the TV on not so long ago.  Robert Osbourne was introducing that heralded family classic The Swiss Family Robinson (1960).  There was a palatable “zing” inside of me.  I was about to relive a precious childhood memory.    

Now believe it or not, there was a much more innocent time in my life.  A time when I had a ratted out VHS copy of the aforementioned film memorized.  I absolutely adored it.  

Osbourne finished his rap and the movie flickered on.  

I watched a few minutes of it.  Allow me to share a few observations:   

1. These people clearly were not Swiss.  They have no accents, and use common American phrases like: “Gee whiz.”  Was there some kind of logic behind this?  Did the higher ups at Disney just assume that there was no audience outside the good old US of A?   Did they have doubts about people reading sub titles? 
2. The mother is a hapless, incompetent lame ass.  She can’t do anything.  If you ask me, there’s a little bit of era specific sexism involved in this.  Those silly girls, really, what are they good for?  
3. I started thinking about where I knew the movie was going to go, and that’s where it all unraveled.  

Why the sudden combustion?  What caused me to turn off the TV?  

I started skipping ahead mentally: Remember that elaborate tree house they eventually build?  How the hell does that happen?  We are just supposed to accept that they found “natural resources” on the island?  Did the resources include a crane, a helicopter, and a shit ton of power tools? 

What about the final, climatic battle with the pirates?  Yes, as a child that’s called “beating the bad guys.”  Yet, as an adult, I more inclined to call it out for what it really is.  

Mass homicide.  

Now if memory serves, the direct death of several pirates is glossed over.  There isn’t any gore, or anguished moans of the tortured.  Still...think about what goes into a pre calculated killing.  How is it any different from plunging innocent bystanders into the tiger pit?  How about log rolling them to their doom?  What kind of values are these to instill in an innocent mind?

The more I thought about it, the more progressively depressed I became.  That, combined with the fact that I now find Swiss Family Robinson almost unwatchable, caused me to shut it off.  

You know the “zing” I spoke of earlier?  I can only do my best to label that nostalgia.  

That brief, melancholy feeling that life just isn’t what it used to be.  That you somehow enjoyed things more...and by the way the side effects may include ejaculating pure blood and loss of appetite.  

There is even this bizarre, anti-climatic logic that comes with nostalgia.  Repossessing all of these cherished movies, toys, and other inanimate objects will somehow make you feel younger.  You can go out and buy a model of R2D2 and have fifteen years shaved off your life.  You can pop in a “Best of the ‘80s” anthology into the stereo, and you’ll be magically transported back to high school.   

Does this approach work?  Only momentarily.  Sometimes it doesn’t take at all.   

Sure, I could watch The Swiss Family Robinson again.  Here’s the brutal truth: I’m never to going to love The Swiss Family Robinson again.  It doesn’t live up to the shrine I’ve built in my memory.  

Why?  Because what saw dust has settled on my character can’t be blown off.  I am what I am...as a cartoon sailor might have said. 

So what happened?   

I started riffing (after shutting off the TV) about other things I won’t enjoy nearly as much.  The stuff that the mere recollection of viewing is (most likely) greater than the actual product.  

Would you like a list?  

Okay...

Houseguest (1995)

Did you know the now obscure, used up stereotypically “funky” comedian Sinbad once had a star vehicle? 

Did you know he somehow ends up hiding out from the mob with an equally stereotypically “suburban” family?  The clan lead by none other than Phil Hartman. 

(Ebony and Ivory, baby...)  

My friend and I went to go see this in a crappy dollar theater.  We laughed our asses off, and I’m not even sure why.  

I know that at one point Sinbad gets an entire room full of country club members to jam out to the Commodores‘ classic “Brick House.”  Imagine our glee at old grannies with walkers screaming: “She’s mighty mighty/She’s letting it all hang out.”  

We just about died during this sequence.  

Was I that easily amused?  I was almost in high school for fuck’s sake.  I should have been ashamed of myself.    

Needless to say, I’m not exactly aroused by the prospect of watching a Sinbad star turn now.  The idea pains me even to consider.   

Here’s another one. 

Coneheads (1993)  

Now I’m not even going to lie to you, dear readers.  

I know that I saw Coneheads in the theater at least six times.  No, that is not an over estimation.  

Let me regale you with my undeveloped sense of comic gold.  Here is some of the stuff I remember laughing at.   

Beldar Conehead is, at one point, seen naked from the back.  But he doesn’t have an ass crack.  He has solid skin and two pig tail looking things.

Hysterical!   

Beldar chews a condom up like gum and then blows it out his mouth.  An inflated rubber!  Unbelievable!  I died every single time. 

I’m sure there were probably multiple uses of the one liner: “We are from France.”  Why not triple the pleasure?  

Is there really any excuse for loving this?  I was a fucking idiot, plain and simple. 

(On a side note, I just realized that Sinbad also had a juicy supporting role in this movie.  Take that as you will.)

Now let’s come full circle.  

Super 8

Yes, I went and saw Super 8.  You did too, and we were both disappointed.  Why?  

Simple: it’s a matter of iconography.  Do you really think this was a marketing campaign aimed at children?  No.  The execs behind Super 8 are aiming directly at people in their mid twenties to late thirties.  

Look!  It’s Spielberg.  Remember how you felt when you first saw E.T.?   

Look!  It’s just like The Goonies!  Kids against the elements!

In short: “Hey, it’s your childhood.  Now you can spend two hours in a darkened movie theater and get it back.”

That’s what caused some of the heartbreak surrounding Super 8.  People in my age group flocked to the theater looking for the fountain of youth.  You know what?  It wasn’t there.  

I don’t think it really has anything to do with the quality of Super 8.  I would even go on record as saying I thought it was “pretty good.”  The only problem was that I’m no longer in between the ages of 8 to 13.  I’m too old to really gel with it.  

Trust me, an entire generation will be bum rushing the latest blockbuster in thirty years.

I promise you they’ll find themselves uttering: “It was no Super 8.”  

Nostalgia, people.  Nostalgia. 

Now, how much is that R2D2 model?