Sometimes, the 80's

I grew up in the 80's. Tragic, sad, but true.

When I was six, one of my older cousins sat me on a chair and nearly suffocated me with hairspray. If that wasn't enough, she put mousse to keep my bangs up on a two inch wave and wings to either side of my head. To make sure no one missed it, she put glitter gel on the wave and brush-on color on the wings. One side was electric blue and the other was this dark, hot pink. You wiped it on using a stick, and if I had the sense then I probably would have poked her in the eye with it.

But I didn't because I was six and I was wearing the mismatched Punky Brewster outfit with an acid wash denim skirt. I also had a mock red Micheal Jackson Thriller jacket...and I just keep mentioning that jacket, don't I? Probably because I really liked that jacket. Probably the only piece of clothing that I really liked from the 80's.

But enough about one of my favorite rants. I'm sure if we all relegated our 80's stuff to burn, we'd drill a hole through the ozone layer. Besides, not everything from the 80's should be committed to a bonfire (except the clothes. burn those.)

Maybe it's an age thing. With a birthday coming up (damn), I've found myself missing certain...things. Specifically, my 80's TV shows.

Yep, I was a boob tube baby. I knew the line-up on all the channels, from the big networks, to the channel 4 public access, and that channel we somehow got from the Clarke Airbase (Square One!)

Of course, with the advent of DVD's, you no longer have to pine for them. Unless you're poor. Like me. In which case, you have to get a torrent. Or leech them off Kazaa.

But sometimes you get to be unlucky. These shows aren't up for leeching and even if you were to cough up a few hundred bucks (thousands, in my case) they don't have it on DVD.

In that case, you're up to some fans mercy. Hopefully there will be another fanatic like you out there whose got a stash of VHS tapes, a DVD burner and the time and generosity to provide you with a copy.

...But i'm spoiled. Really I am. Damn the new millenium for raising me with such comforts. I can survive without a cellphone (for a few days at least) but I can't do without my damn DVD extras.

So, in honor of my current melancholy which can be attributed to my coming birthday and actually moving to another age set, here are:

Kriszia's List of TV Shows that she'd like to see on DVD:

1. Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future (1987) I really wanted to be Pilot and since then, i've always been a fan of Jessica Steen. The storyline was really cool, but being a girl, it was really the love story that drew me in. Sure, it was a tragic ending, but it set a precedent for what would become the girl-dies-guy-suffers kind of stories that I wrote when I was 12.

2. Bioman (1984) Ha! Take this, Power Rangers! Any kid who grew up on this show would see what the Mighty Morphin duds ripped-off. Granted, the storyline was a little weak but when you're five, who the hell cares? I remember going around the neighborhood with my friends, pretending to be the Bio Team. I was Yellow Four.

3. Shaider (1984) So sue me. I'm asian and Japan happens to be our neighbor. Besides the lulling chant (shigi-shigi maka nu shigi choo-wah!) that everyone just had to sing when Lay-Ar had to produce...an egg...I really, really, really want to find out if Shaider and Annie ever got it on.

4. Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories (1985) If you like unique shorts, you would love this show. Steven Spielberg said that this show was where his ideas that were too short to become a movie ended up. As a storyteller, this show is fucking it! There were rumors that this show was going to be released soon--but they've been saying that for two frigging years already. Hurry UP! Mr. Spielberg! War of The Worlds sucked, but this should redeem you!

5. Homefront (1991) Okay, so this was 90-ish, but I love it anyway. And since it's Post WWII, you don't see any of the trashy haircuts or clothes. I love shows set in the 40's and 50's, and the way how everyone deals with being home after the war is a very unique take on the whole subject. Also, Kyle Chandler was amazing. And just as a bonus, Jessica Steen was also there and was paired with--drumroll--Robbie McNeill.

6. The Young Riders (1989) Yet another period piece to avoid the clothes and haircut, this time a Western. I must confess, I never saw this show when it was originally aired, though I don't think it ever aired here. But it was shown on the Hallmark Channel about five or six years ago and I just fell in love with it. The writing was pretty good, and I thought the love story (I'm a girl, okay?) between Kid and Lou was charming. And besides Ty Miller, it's also got another thing that I adore: horses!!!

The rest of the shows that I watched were pretty popular and have already been released on DVD, like V and the Ray Bradbury Theater.

There are some shows that i'd love to see again, like Free Spirit, Out of this World, and The Equalizer, but I wouldn't go so far as to buy them...well, maybe i'd buy The Equalizer because Edward Woodward reminds me so much of my grandfather.

There is one show that I can't remember that I wouldn't watch but would love to know the title just because it had a plot that could only have been pitched during the 80's...

Does anyone know that TV show where Snow White and her Prince fall into a well or something, and she along with her extended family--Wicked Stepma and Dwarfs et. al.--wake up and it's the 80's and they have kids and are now living in suburbia?

I need to make sure this thing is real, because I refuse to admit that my childhood imagination could have conjured something that would suck this much.