I’ve written a little about the practicality and usefulness of Christmas lists in the past – https://chroniclesofdad.wordpress.com/2015/12/22/christmas-lists-2/
I’ll never understand why some of you deliberately avoid using a list whilst purchasing gifts and/or are offended when someone provides you with a list. The list maker obviously put thought and effort into the construction of the list because not everything makes it onto the list. That means it was done in a thoughtful manner. By shunning the list, the message you are sending is that you are trying to one-up the list maker because you not only know what they’d like but what they need.
Anyway, I think as we get older our Christmas lists get shorter but more expensive. For example, I’d like a new mower. Preferably one with a much more reliable self propelled drive mechanism. But nobody is getting me a new mower. Mostly because it’s way too expensive and I really want full control over all aspects of the decision making process when it comes my mower. So it is not on my list.
The other thing about lists is that as we get older I think, if we’re being honest, they become a bit impractical. Which, as we know, is the opposite of what the Christmas list is supposed to be. The list is there for the ease of the user. It should make the gift purchasing process easier to understand. Like the rules on what a legal catch in the NFL should be. I mean if it’s a catch in flag-football, high school football and college football, it’s probably reasonably a catch in the NFL…unless you’re wearing #81 for the Steelers and playing for the Patriots. Anyway…
Here’s what I mean by our lists getting impractical. I’d like a million dollars cash, tax free. Right now. But I doubt that’s going to happen because I don’t really know Santa’s relationship with the IRS. While it undoubtedly is better now than it was under Lois Lerner, I’m guessing that big bags of cash are out as a potential gift under the tree.
But here’s what I’d really like this Christmas:
1-A channel on Direct TV where I could watch Scooby Doo, Thundarr the Barbarian, Johnny Quest and Schoolhouse Rock. And the Superfriends. Yes, I realize there are variations of what I’m describing here on Hulu, Amazon Prime and Netflix. But none exactly as I’ve described. And it’s my damn list. So instead of dismissively shaking your head at me, think about the awesomeness of what I’m describing.
Scooby, whether you’ll admit it or not, is definitive cartoon of Generation X. It was on Saturday morning. It was on after school. It taught us problem solving skills, perseverance, and teamwork. And there are so many versions of it. There’s the original series Scooby-Doo Where Are You? Favorite episode? Close race between Go Away Ghost Ship with Redbeard the Pirate and Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf? Then there was The New Scooby-Doo Movies. Kinda hard to pick a favorite here. But Jerry Reed played Snowman and had a dog named flash in Smokey and the Bandit so that kinda gives him a leg up. Then we had The New Scooby Doo Show and the High Rise Hair Raiser and the Headless Horseman of Halloween. Both of which were legit scary-ass creepy episodes for a third grader. Of course it wasn’t too much longer until the eventual, although regrettable, introduction of Scrappy Doo. Next to the implementation of the federal income tax, the casting of Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker and the decision by the Steelers to take Gabe Rivera instead of Dan Marino #1 in 1983 this is likely worst decision in American history. Realistically you probably have to count those Scrappy Doo shows as actual Scooby episodes. But I refuse to count the Laff-a-Lympics.
Also, it’s not really Saturday morning in the late 70’s without the Challenge of the Superfriends. Loved the battles with the Legion of Doom. Didn’t love the Wondertwins. And everybody loved the narrator…”Meanwhile at the Hall of Justice…”
Then there’s Johnny Quest. I have this memory of waking up early on Saturday morning back in the fall of ’78, hopping on the couch under a blanket and watching Johnny Quest as I got ready to watch whatever college football game ABC decided to force feed us because there was literally no other choices. Besides being the lead in to college football, Johnny Quest had two other things going for it; 1) Race Freaking Bannon. Everybody who watched Johnny Quest learned how to be cool by watch Race Bannon, 2) They used guns. In a cartoon. While they helped America fight criminal warlords, terrorists and other agents of evil during the Cold War. Really – along with Star Wars – it was everything a Gen X kid could ask while forming his idea of values, morals and ethics…although I pretty sure catholic school had a lot to do with this too.
No cartoon channel worth a crap could ignore the coolest Saturday morning cartoon of the 80’s. “In the year, 1994. From out of space, comes a runaway planet, hurtling between the Earth and the moon, unleashing cosmic destruction. Man’s civilization is cast in ruin. Two thousand years later, Earth is reborn. A strange new world rises from the old. A world of savagery, super-science, and sorcery. But one man bursts his bonds to fight for justice. With his companions, Ookla the Mok and Princess Ariel, he pits his strength, his courage, and his fabulous Sunsword, against the forces of evil. He is Thundarr, the Barbarian!” Seriously, I’m getting all geeked up just thinking about it.
Finally there is Schoolhouse Rock. Without which I would not have learned the preamble to the Constitution, the correct use and identification of adverbs, interjections and pronouns along with tricks to master the multiplication tables. I think the lack of exposure to Schoolhouse Rock is among the key reasons as to why millennials suck so much.
But that’s just me. And that’s what is on my Christmas list. Right now.