Remember When You Liked This Guy? Keep It That Way.

Christmas Day of 1990, I got my first CD player and stereo. It was a top load Teac (does that even still exist?) and the stereo was a component Panasonic system (which was so terrible I blew out the speakers about three months after Santa brought it to me). I dutifully picked both of these out of the Service Merchandise catalog, showed them to my mother and father, and magically, they appeared under our Christmas Tree. It was supremely happy. And I bet my parents were supremely happy as they then had to listen to countless hours of my bad music (and let me tell you..... It was bad! This was before the time I was a music snob/conniseur/poseur so let's just say the first three CDs I "asked for" were Don Henley Building The Perfect Beast, Phil Collins Live, and The Pretty Woman Soundtrack...... I like The King of Wishful Thinking. What can I say?).

In between listenings of "All She Wants To Do Is Dance," I made a laundry list of CDs I wanted. Keep in mind that this was pre iTunes and pre Amazon, so all I had to go on was memeory. Further, I never had an older brother who introduced me to Led Zeppelin or Foreigner (I am now SOOOOOO thankful for that). I did have a sister who introduced me to The Police (they were one of the six CDs I got that Christmas of 1990) and that was good. But mostly, all I had was the back catalog of music in my mind and videos of U Can't Touch This and The Humpty Dance.

One of the songs I did remember loving was 99 Red (that's Luft to you Dirk Nowitzski) Balloons by Nena. I even memorized all the words (this is what we've waited for, this is it boys, this is war!). Memorizing these words helped me perfect my air guitar and even impressed a girl at a bar once.

So, one night, I got in the back of Mike Archer's 86 Datsun and headed over to Newbury Comics where I found the white placard that said Nena. After some three dollar Taco Bell, I headed home and listened to 99 Red, only to realize that it sucked.

Not only did 99 Red suck, it sucked badly. And the suckiness of said song eradicated all the positive memories I had of it. I erased those nights I would jump around on my bed playing that song on my Fisher Price record player.

What is my point? I was better off NOT buying the song in my later years as the suckiness of it ruined what were once great childhood memories. I wish I never heard the song again (of course, I would later have heard it at bars, but that would have been fine because I was drunk and wouldn't have known the difference). But I did.

And so this brings me to a new phenomenon. Lately, production companies have decided to release classic television shows and classic cartoons on DVD. I was originally excited about this idea. So excited that I bought Transformers The Movie (not the new one mind you, but the '86 animated version where Optimus Prime dies). I sat down to watch it, excited to see a movie that I remember being so great. I was happy to hear "You've Got The Touch" (Which Dirk Diggler and Reed Rothchild unsuccessfully tried to cover) and I was happy to see Optimus. But then.....

I shut the movie off. Why? Because it's suckiness rivaled that of 99 Luft.

And now? Well, I don't look back as fondly as I once did on the day we piled into Mrs Roos' new Volvo and went to see Orsen Welles in his final performance.

So here's what I'm telling you people: You know all those old TV shows and cartoons that you used to love as kids that you can now get on DVD? DON'T GET THEM!!!!!

TV shows like The A-Team, MacGyver, The Greatest American Hero, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and Happy Days were cancelled for a variety of reasons. But I'm thinking that the central reason they were cancelled is because they sucked.

But now, with the internet and DVD technology, we can get ANY of these shows. And in ways, this is a terrible thing. Because we remember the shows because of who we were and where we were at the time. Shows like Alf and Star Blazers (I'm probably the only one who remembers that sci fi geek show- the original Japanimation program) are likely not good, but we can at least REMEMBER that they were good. And you know what? I don't want those memories tainted.

The same can be said for music. With iTunes and the internet, you can get virtually any song you want and this stinks. Remember back in the day when you had to sit around and wait for a song to come on the radio and tape it? And you'd get some corny DJ introducing the song and ruining the first few chords for you? There was something to be said for that. Now, you can get any song you want and that's not good because a lot of songs that remind us of our youth really aren't that good. This shouldn't come as a surprise to me, but it makes me melancholy nonetheless.

I understand that I sound like Bob Ryan discussing the 1986 Celtics right now, but it's not really about the lack of good programming or the "Things were better in my day!" argument. It's more this: Don't go checking out stuff from your youth because it will only crushingly disappoint.

So the next time you are surfing youtube, try not to download clips of old TV shows or classic MTV videos, because you will not be happy. I one time (okay, fine, three weeks ago) downloaded Warrant's "Cherry Pie" so I could see Bobbi Brown in all of her apple pie eating/Daisy Duke wearing glory. Needless to say, the 1990 Bobbi Brown wasn't nearly as attractive as I remembered her to be (this is probably a good thing). And that was sad, for it tainted a once great memory I had

I will say this though. The video did help me somewhat. I made me realize that Jani Lane- who I think I thought was the man- was and likely still is a complete tool. So if anything, youtube is valuable in raising my self esteem. Not that it needs any raising.