Well this is the first if these, blogs, I am not sure how they came up with that one. I am sure someone will let me know. I've had a couple of friends suggest that I do this. They both said that I was funny and they would read my blog if I started one, so my readership has increased by a factor of two! I am not sure how funny this will be, I will try to throw some funny anecdotes in here but my humor is more reactionary. I hope some of this stuff will make you think, there does not seem to be a whole lot of that going around these days, which, hey, leads nicely into the title of this .....post. (I hate the word blog.)
I first noticed this a while back in the presence of my, then, four year old nephew. He would often go into my old room at my parents house and play with a few of my old toys. I say a few because one day he picked up an old die cast tractor, about the size of a Tonka toy, that my grandparents had given me a long time ago, it was one of my favorites. It reminded me of my grandfather's 1950's model Ford tractor that still runs today. Anyway, he picked it up and flipped it over, looking for the on/off switch or the place to put the batteries. Once he realized that it would not move or make sounds on its own he set it down and walked away. All I could think of was how much fun I had with that tractor, moving it and making all the noises myself. Like most people my age, most of our toys did not talk or move on their own, you needed some imagination.
I have no children but most of my friends do and it does not seem to get any better, DVD players in cars?? I remember having to play I spy or punch bug. And when you were told, usually by my father, to be quiet, and you did, not because Sponge Bob was on the screen but because that is what you were told to do. Don't get me wrong, I had an Atari 2600, it was either that or a Coleco. But on a nice day you were outside playing, riding bikes, football, baseball, basketball, war. (that's right, we played war.) I know times have changed, and I will be the first to write that I would be hesitant about letting my children play unsupervised outside. But anything would be better than letting them sit in front of a TV playing video games and eating fruit roll ups. Do they still make those? But the most disturbing thing in that scenario is not the fact that they are sedentary and eating junk food, but they are sitting there letting a machine do the thinking for them, which goes back to imagination.
Now this isn't all bad, the popularity of comic book movies that have come out in the past ten years are a direct result of this. Back when I was a kid all we had was the comic book, we had to use our imagination between each panel, there were a few attempts at live action comics. You could see Spider Man on the Electric Company, he also had a prime time TV show. But it was always a let down when he would capture the bad guys and they looked like Spidey threw a hammock on top of them. Now that CGI is so good, people my age can see what we were imagining so long ago. I would like to see a break down of the demographics of the people buying tickets to these movies.
That leads to another point, have you noticed all the remakes and the endless sequels that have been released or are on the way. Look at this summer; Wolverine, Star Trek, Terminator, Transformers 2. Now these movies will probably do very well, I'm guessing Star Trek will be the sleeper of that bunch but Damnit Jim, a Star Trek with no Shatner??
Some I just have to scratch my head, Land of the Lost(can anyone under 35 tell me what a Sleestak is?)
Halloween 2, okay a sequel to a remake of a remake, I'm confused. I hope Donald Pleasance is rolling over in his grave if he's dead.
Okay, I'm guessing that this is way too long and most have stopped reading, the point is that I hope that the young peoples' imaginations are challenged from time to time, especially when there is so much around them discouraging this. These are our future leaders. And as most of us already know, when it comes to growing up and thinking for yourself: Batteries not Included.
And there is not a reset button.
