Books I Grew Up On: Disney Adventures

I guess every kid has at least one magazine they grow up with.  Or at least they used to, not sure what the equivalent for kids nowadays would be...anyway, the magazine that I subscribed to was Disney Adventures.  The magazine was filled with tidbits about the current movies, music, and television that was popular (obviously heavily focused on ABC, Disney, Touchstone Videos, etc.), random educational tidbits about whatever the current issue's theme was, and it had a bunch of comics from all sorts of Disney cartoon worlds.

One random thing I remember from my issues: the magician themed issue taught me that statistically, it takes 7 perfect shuffles to completely shuffle a deck of 52 cards.  I think this magazine also cultivated my love for everything Disney and helped solidify Walt Disney as one of my top role models.  I don't know about the later issues, but when I got it, it never felt like it was just a big advertisement for anything, but actually seemed like useful and worthwhile information.  I'm not sure how exactly to explain what I mean.  It felt Disney focused, but not blatantly biased "Disney is good, all else is bad".  I have the same feeling towards Nintendo Power and the opposite feel to Gamestop's magazine, Game Informer.  Of course, I'm probably the one that's super biased since I grew up with Nintendo systems and watching Disney movies...

Cartoons I Grew Up On: Darkwing Duck

I was blessed to grow up during the years of The Disney Afternoon, a 2 hour block of cartoons that ran immediately after school.  Every once a year or so, the four cartoons shown during this time would shift, so overall The Disney Afternoon was home to 13 or so different shows.  One of my all time favorites of those was the show, Darkwing Duck.

Darkwing Duck was a Disnified parody of superheros a la The Shadow.  By night, the titular character tries to stop crime by using a gas gun, scaring criminals with flashy appearances, and slapstick-fu.  The show is filled with parody, slapstick, puns, and goofy comedy.  It also crosses over with the Ducktales universe multiple times - DW's sidekick is Launchpad McQuack, his rival superhero is Gizmoduck, and cameo appearances by the Beagle Boys, Flintheart Glomgold, and Magicka De Spell.

I think what makes me love Darkwing Duck so much is the lineup of villains, just like Batman.  They are all varied with their own shtick, origin stories, and motives, but every once in awhile they all team up to take down DW.  And just like Batman with the Justice League, Darkwing has the Justice Ducks, only they are much more inept than their DC counterparts.  This show is definitely filled with the kind of goody, wacky, and stupid humor that I love.  Probably because I grew up with shows like this...

Games I Grew Up On: Outnumbered!

A follow-up to Midnight Rescue!, Outnumbered! was the next game in the Super Solver series that helped further my education.  This time, the Master of Mischief is trying to take over a radio and television station and it's up to you to stop him before midnight.  You don't know which room he is hiding in and the only way to know for certain is to obtain information about the rooms by solving math puzzles in each room of the station.  But watch out for his evil robot, Telly, who will try to knock you out with discs, sound waves, lightning bolts, energy stars, or just running into you!  If you can zap him before he zaps you, you'll get another chance to earn clues as to which room the Master of Mischief is hiding in. There are also live power cables (literally!) that you'll need to zap or jump over.

Just like with Midnight Rescue!, Outnumbered! will give you a point total at the end of each game that will add to a lifetime score.  This score has ranks associated with it at certain levels, which not only increase how awesome you are at life, but it also increases the difficulty of the game on further plays.  Not only is this game quite enjoyable (at least it was when I was a kid), but it's also good about how it integrates learning.  The math puzzles aren't just simple "What's A + B?" puzzles, but large word problems that require a little more critical thinking to understand (although the end results of deciphering the word puzzle could be that you're just adding the values of A and B...).  On the other hand, Telly will just show you quick math problems like 5-2 = ? and 1+3=?, which just requires basic math skills.  The background songs are 8-bit versions of some very good classical songs (or maybe I just think they're very good since I heard them so many times while playing this game?), which I always find to be a nice touch.

Games I Grew Up On: Mille Bornes

My dad didn't give up playing games with us kids like my mom did, but there weren't that many games he would play with us (especially once Top Gun for the NES made him give up video games).  One of the games we could consistently get him to play with us was the game of Mille Bornes.  In this classic French card game, players are racing to be the first to reach 1000 miles (or 700 with the option for an extension).  Players must start by playing a green light card, they may play hazards (like flat tires) on other players, remedies (like spare tires) to fix hazards on themselves, safeties to completely prevent hazards (like puncture proof tires), and miles to get to the end of the race.

It's not a complicated game, but there are a lot of strategic options depending on how vicious you want to be to the other racers.  It also (at least in the version we had growing up) comes with both English and French words on the cards, so just like Bang, players can learn a completely different language - although if you're like my dad and me, you will learn the correct word, but pronounce it as ridiculously as possible (e.g. Roue de Secours becomes Rudy Sookers!).  I think using games to teach players is under utilized.  This is a prime example, if you made a game out of vocabulary flash cards (with phonetic spelling on the card), the act of repeatedly playing the game and needing to know the words to win the game will teach the players in a fun way.  Likewise, math flash cards in a game could easily teach a player basic math skills if done well.  The simplest game I can think of off the top of my head would be a game like Taboo or Catch Phrase where you try to solve as many math problems as you can before a timer buzzes and someone watches you with that terrifying buzzer for wrong answers.  But given some time I'm sure I can come up something more entertaining.

TV Shows I Grew Up On: The Cosby Show

One of the absolute best television shows I grew up on was The Cosby Show.  For those who haven't ever seen the show, it revolves around the Huxtable family dealing with the situations common to family sitcoms.  What makes the show so awesome is how creative the parents, Heathcliff and Clair, are when dealing with the situations.  For example, when Theo as a teenager says he's going to move out because it'll be easier to live on his own than with his parents, Heathcliff and Clair setup the entire house to simulate the real world - they take out all his stuff from his room and make him pay rent to stay in it and buy back his own furniture and go through a job interview to earn that money in the first place.  There is also one episode where Heathcliff eats right before going to bed and the entire episode is Heathcliff's dream that involved Muppets and a lot of nonsense.  Another dream episode (caused by the same thing), puts Heathcliff in a world where men start becoming pregnant including all the men of the Heathcliff family.  Unfortunately, I can't explain the best part without spoiling the ending, but suffice it to say it is utterly ridiculous.

Other awesome things in this show involve Heathcliff's grandfather, played by the actor who voices Panthro in the Thundercats, an episode where all the set pieces look like real life versions of a five year old's drawings, Heathcliff loves jazz and plays the trombone, and the fact that Heathcliff always reminded me of my dad.  I'm pretty sure my dad knew that all us kids thought he was like Heathcliff and so I'm convinced that part of the reason my dad hates The Simpsons is because it came on at the same time as The Cosby Show and we started watching The Simpsons instead of The Cosby Show.  Looking back at this show and the first few seasons of The Simpsons, though, I don't really blame him.  This was a far superior show (at least until a couple seasons in to The Simpsons when the writing got a lot better).

Games I Grew Up On: Careers

One of the earlier board games with both choice and hidden goals that I played was a game called Careers.  The goal of the game is to get the right amount of Fame, Money, and Happiness that you wrote on your "Secret Formula" at the beginning of the game by going around the board traveling down various career paths such as Farming, Sea, Hollywood, etc.  Certain careers' squares were more geared towards one stat (Hollywood got you a lot of fame), so choosing the right career was an interesting and important choice in the game.  Most of these career paths have minimum requirements to enter (e.g. you need to have a certain degree by going through the College career path) and reward you for going through them multiple times.  Sometimes you would get Opportunity or Experience cards - akin to Monopoly's Chance and Community Chest cards - that let you either move a specific amount, bypass career requirements, or immediately go to a certain career.

As with most older board games, a lot of the game is determined by luck (if you don't land exactly at the start of a career path you want, you can't start going down that path), so I think it would be an interesting idea to revamp this game with a little less die rolling and a little more decision making.  The simplest way is my favorite method of replacing a die roll: a deck of cards numbered 1-6, every player has a hand of 3 cards or so and gets to decide which card to use to move forward, and then draws a new card.  It still has some elements of randomness that dice have, but it lets the player strategize a little more.  It would also be interesting to have some way to affect the other players.  I don't really remember there being any Opportunity or Experience cards that you could use on other players for example, but that might be interesting.

This definitely was an interesting game to play growing up that was one step more advanced than The Game of Life.  They are essentially the same game, but this has more interesting choices (if the die lets you have your way).  It was also an interesting way to teach young minds about potential career paths, the importance of going to college, and how it's okay to want no fame or money, but lots of happiness.

Cartoons I Grew Up On: Thundercats

With the planet of Thundera about to die, some of the nobility, the Thundercats, escape to safety in a space ship.  They enter sleeping pods on the ship in order to go into suspended animation until a suitable new home is found.  Unfortunately for the young Lord of the Thundercats, Lion-O, his pod malfunctions and he ages during his sleep.  When they awake, they find themselves on a planet called Third Earth, where they try to get along with and aid the friendly inhabitants of the planet, while at the same time constantly defending attacks from the evil ones, such as Mumm-Ra the Ever Living.

I once tried to introduce a friend to this series, making the mistake of having not watched it myself since I was a kid.  I had forgotten just how cheesy this show was and even though my nostalgia (and my love of cheesy cartoons) was able to help me ignore the cheesiness, my friend was not so lucky.  Just like many shows of the 80's, this series is fairly predictable as a whole.  The good guys will always win by the end of the show (unless it's a two-parter) and their method of success is almost always the same.  Just when things look their worst, Lion-O will use the power of the Eye of Thundera in the hilt of his Sword of Omens to break whatever enchantment is on the ThunderCats, give them strength to overcome their enemies, or overwhelm their enemies with fear.

Part of the cheese factor was that every episode would end with a life lesson teaching good morals and values.  This is precisely why I think showing this show to your kids is a great idea.  And as I am overly excited to tell everyone I can, Panthro is voiced by the grandfather from the Cosby Show, which is also very awesome.

Games I Grew Up On: Midnight Rescue!

Another game I would play in the computer lab after school in elementary school was the first of the Super Solver series of games, Midnight Rescue!  Morty Maxwell has threatened to make a school disappear at midnight and he is hiding in one of the robots patrolling the campus.  It is your job to figure out through deduction and clues you find which robot he's hiding in.

You can get these clues by answering questions (generally reading comprehension questions) found around the school.  The patrolling robots occasionally pop up and you must take pictures of them to get details about them to use with the clues to figure out which robot Morty is hiding in.  If the robots touch the player or their projectiles (some throw pies) hit the player, you will lose some time.  If it reaches midnight without Morty being found, the player will be painted invisible along with the school and lose the game.

If you successfully figure out which robot Morty is hiding in, your lifetime score will increase based on how quickly you solve this, how much film you have left, and how many reading comprehension questions were answered.  The higher your lifetime score, the harder the game will get.  I think this is a wonderful way to increase difficulty dynamically and based on player skill.  It does require playing the game over and over again, but that is kind of the purpose of educational games and the game itself was fun enough as a kid that that was not a problem.  I believe you can find this game as abandonware and can still play it using DOSBox and if you've got little munchkins in 3rd to 5th grade, I would highly recommend you get this for them.  It's useful for training critical thinking and reading comprehension in a fun and enjoyable way.

TGIF

This past week, my Bible Study group had a potluck in lieu of our regular meeting.  While chatting, we had Big Bang Theory playing on the TV and at some point the topic of sitcom variety was brought up and we started reminiscing about ABC's old Friday night line up called TGIF.  Throughout the years, the 4 shows shown during TGIF changed, but they all had a common theme: they were all very family friendly.  The better shows had some humor for adults, occasionally they'd broach a harsh subject, but for the most part, they were just feel good shows trying to teach good lessons.

Looking at sitcoms today, I can't think of a single show that fits that same category.  Every single sitcom I can think of has at least one character whose sole focus is to have as much sex as possible.  (By no means are those examples a definitive list, but it's pretty clear there's an easy trope to use in a sitcom.)  Most of these shows are also about adults in their 20's or 30's dealing with life rather than about a family dealing with life together (or just dealing with each other).  I understand that kids who grew up on those shows (like myself) are now adults and are looking for something more grown up.  At the same time, there are plenty of parents that (I'm sure) would love to have a show they could watch with their kids that is good and wholesome and teaches good values.  I find it strange that there is such a gap in our programming.  Does the modern day TGIF group of shows exist and I just am unaware of it?  Where is our Cosby Show (not part of TGIF, but it totally could have been), Family Matters, Perfect Strangers, Boy Meets World (oh wait), and Step by Step?

I'm not saying every show should be family friendly because that would be ridiculous in the opposite direction.  I'm saying that just like how not all superhero shows need to be dark and gritty, not all sitcoms need to be about bar/coffee shop/comic book shop dwelling 20-30 year old singles.  Of course, my friend Jason is probably going to tell me the same thing that the market doesn't want this type of show, but personally, I think there's more than enough room for both and if we're going to let the TV babysit our kids (as seems to happen frequently in the US), then why not give them a babysitter with good morals and values?