1st Edition: Merchandising Memory Lane

            Hello, all. I am a creative introspective over-forty, who within the last few years quit a career in manufacturing to go back to school, earn an audio degree, and become a recording engineer, NPR producer, and podcaster. I now work out of a recording studio I built in my basement, and am attempting to build up a business as a professional freelance podcast producer. So, of course, I think I have enough time to start blogging again. Why not?

            In recent years, one aspect of modern living that has fascinated me is our newfound ability to recapture our past. The resurgence of defunct pop culture is something that completely took me off guard. Once, there would have been no use in trying to remember the plot of any episode of Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers or Darkwing Duck. That’s no longer a problem, thanks to Disney+. Do you recall any favorite forgotten franchises that never had a hope of an action figure? Hello, Funko. And don’t get me started on apparel. I have Star Wars shirts for every day of the week, and Harry Potter tees for a long weekend.

I am an ‘80’s child. My formative years were spent in the golden age of marketing. It was the decade that invented the blockbuster movie, the toy crazes, the must-haves, the mega-fads, and the superstars. Pop music was turned on its ear, and rock and roll was elevated to an art status. Star Wars, Ghostbusters, G.I. Joe, Transformers, Ninja Turtles, the Muppets, and Disney were the defining forces in my story. To this day, I tell people that my life’s ambition is to be a cartoon character, and aside from my lack of flexibility and a stubborn adherence to the laws of gravity, I feel like I could just about do it.

Most of my childhood revolved around five channels, after-school cartoons, and a few precious movies that only aired on TV annually. The current generation could have no cognition of what a non on-demand culture would consist of. The greatest thing about the holiday season was watching Empire Strikes Back on ABC, and it was always heavily edited to conform to a 2-hr time block, so there were scenes I didn’t even know about for years. Yes, believe it or not, there was a time you could be a Star Wars nerd and not know what a mynock was. 

VCRs were an insane game changer. I was able to finally achieve my life’s purpose, committing vast swaths of Hollywood’s output to memory, and essentially become a walking quote factory – generating, to any pour soul who would listen, entire chunks of Monty Python sketches, Princess Bride quips, and endless one-liners from the Muppets, Animaniacs, and only God remembers what else. I had friends, or at least one in particular, that were just as obnoxious about this as I was, so life was good in the land of geeks. I could usually get my parents to rent me some movies once a week, so I became an aficionado of the video store credo: Be kind, rewind.

I think my confusion of the modern world stems from a lingering false expectation of what it meant for my generation to grow up. Somehow, I spent a lot of time subconsciously assuming that those greasy kids listening to Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine would some day prefer classic rock like our parents, or that the obsessive He-Man collectors would forget all about their toys thirty years later. I didn’t take into account the fact that NIN is now classic rock, and that same kid is still headbanging in the car in his forties. Granted, he’s much better groomed and on his way to a budget meeting.

I definitely didn’t realize that the toy-obsessed ten-year-olds of the Reagan era would grow up to be collectible hounds, hell-bent on surrounding themselves with knickknacks depicting the glory days of blockbusters and animation icons. Weren’t we supposed to grow up? Didn’t we? The evidence is thin on the ground.

The phenomenon is spreading too. The word sequel used to be a punch line in the entertainment biz, and now the term ‘reboot’ is a marketing bonanza. There are so many reboots going on right now, it’s difficult to remember what an original idea was. In many cases, it’s just gone too far. I have twenty-something friends and colleagues who just don’t understand that Superman is Christopher Reeve. That’s it, end of story. 

So, here’s the deal. I love that I’m 41 and have a Pinky and the Brain statue on my desk. I love having a replica lightsaber on my studio wall. I love the new Dark Crystal series on Netflix. I’m completely perplexed by the concept behind why I have them – that Gen-Xers were so jealous of the overwhelming level of media consumerism that today’s kids get to experience, that they started merchandising their own memories.  It is a concept that fascinates, delights, and horrifies me all at the same time. So, I’m writing a blog about it. 

I hope I can hold your interest. I hope you won’t yell at me for not doing research that I really don’t have time for. I’m just observing and trying to understand, and I won’t try to act like the expert I clearly am not. I hope everyone can forgive me for my own inability to grow up. Flipping back and forth from the past to the present and back again, I hope to capture the spirit of that polite request from long ago.

Be kind, rewind.

Let’s see where this takes us, shall we?