Nineties Kid Interrupted

History took place this past Saturday morning.  According to multiple news sources, no Saturday morning cartoons were aired by the major basic cable networks for the first time in fifty years.  This isn't a very big deal, especially if, like me, you haven't sat in front of the TV on a Saturday at 9 a.m. to watch a thirty minute toy commercial since your elementary years.  It did get me thinking though.  Not just about how awesome Beast Wars and Batman Beyond were, but also about the worth of nostalgia.  I fully expect a flood of people around my age boasting about how much better it was to be a Nineties did because we still had our Saturday morning cartoons and Furbies and N64, etc. but let's be honest, the past can be a little overrated.

You want to know why there are no cartoons on basic cable anymore? Probably because there are entire channels devoted to that kind of programming.  Hell, we even have channels intended to keep your dog company when you’re gone.  Even more impressive, streaming services like Netflix are already making appointment based TV look fossilized.

I digress.  The point is, regardless of what the Buzzfeed hive mind thinks, sometimes the past stays where it is for a reason, and the future can be pretty cool.  Yes The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is still a solid show and Jurassic Park will always be untouchably beautiful, but does anyone really want to go back to the decade before smart phones or Marvel Studios movies? Didn't think so, and I don't either.  I get the irony of spending this week’s editorial complaining about nostalgia when last issue I wanted Third Eye Blind to play Spring Fling, but I guess that helps prove my point.  Nostalgia isn't bad, per se, but we tend to be blinded by it.  Things like the aforementioned death of Saturday cartoons are just a sign of the old way of media consumption fading so that superior technology can take its place.  It's no different than the film serials of the Thirties and Forties dying out at the advent of television.  Just because something happened during the Clinton administration or before doesn't give it a free pass over scrutiny.