This is a companion thread to the things you still like, but now it’s things that are objectively awful and you struggle to understand what you liked about them originally.
This is NOT the thread for things you’ve naturally outgrown, like I no longer play videogame football for hours at a time with my friends, but it was a fine activity for a young man, and I’m not embarrassed for having done it, I just don’t do it anymore.
OTOH… watching Justice League, the cartoon series, that show is hot garbage, was always garbage, and I feel shame for encouraging the network to continue airing it.
I also read, re-read and enjoyed some lousy books, like Battlefield Earth and the Xanth series. I suppose Xanth was OK for a few books, but I read a couple dozen of the things… bleh. In fact, I read a LOT of Piers Anthony books and feel creepy about pretty much all of them these days.
Wonder bread and margarine. My mom was a hippy so we got whole wheat. I thought squishy, sweet commercial white bread was the bomb. I wouldn’t refuse it now if I was on a river trip or something, but it’s barely a food…
Back in 1999 or 2000, Cartoon Network started showing episodes of the original Thundercats form the 1980s. I had to run home from school in 4th grade in order to catch an episode and I absolutely loved the hell out of it. As an adult, I couldn’t make it through a single episode. My mother was right, that show was insanely stupid.
Cap’n Crunch. Food of the gods at age 8 or 10. Tried it again at age ~35. Could not finish a bowl, much less a box. Now 30ish years further along not even gonna try.
Not “terrible,” but just the other day I had my 12-year-old read a Mad Magazine (compilation of pieces from the 1990s), and he made an astute comment: “Dad, these were written by a bunch of men, right? I can tell.”
Watching Laugh-in is kinda painful now. 50-55 years ago when I was a tween-teen it was great.
It was aimed at adults & my parents loved it. They’re dead now, but I bet they’d find it pretty tiresome / insipid today. And would have even a couple years before their deaths 15-20 years ago now.
Lost in Space was the best show ever when I watched it at the age of eleven. I remember being upset the night of June 8,1966, when the local TV station kept breaking in with weather updates. And then the tornado came and tore up the town.
I’ve tried watching it as an adult and I can’t. I prefer the memories from when I was young. Although Bill Mumy did a good job of acting in Babylon 5.
Bologna. When I was a kid my favorite sandwich was bologna and mustard on wheat bread. Then, one day - I still vividly remember this in crystal clarity - I was sitting in front of the TV watching Dexter’s Laboratory and eating my sandwich when I was abruptly overcome with nausea. I threw up all over the floor in front of me and saw several perfect chunks of bologna in there, with the perfect cartoon-style cutout of my teeth marks in them.
I literally have not touched bologna since, probably around 25 years now.
Family Matters, you know, the show with the Steve Urkel character. When I was a young tween I thought Urkel was absolutely hilarious. Total comedy gold. If I try watching it today I just find him incredibly annoying.
The same goes for all of Jim Varney’s “Earnest” movies. I loved the character when I was like 12. I couldn’t stand to watch any of those movies today.
This one is going to sound weird, but… Grape Nuts. I guess I was a weird kid when it came to cereal. I never liked the sugary kids cereals, but I liked Grape Nuts for some reason. Then I bought a box when I was in my 20s, and I hated them.
On that note, I loved Inspector Gadget as a kid. Now I realize that cartoon was so formulaic every episode was pretty much the same plot, with just the setting and a few details changed.
I’m sorry, but I can’t stop laughing with your post NinthAcolyte.
This one is going to sound weird, but… Grape Nuts. I guess I was a weird kid when it came to cereal. I never liked the sugary kids cereals, but I liked Grape Nuts for some reason. Then I bought a box when I was in my 20s, and I hated them.Wildabeast, I like them myself, still do, and like then I eat them without milk.
My parents bought that stuff once in a while. I thought maybe we kids were being punished for something. Supplied in curiously small, yet hefty boxes, this should have been a tipoff. Upon pouring milk, it consolidated into a dense mass in the bowl, sort of like beach sand, and our jaws quickly reached muscle failure trying to chew it.
Used to love going to Hershey, PA: you could visit the actual factory, the whole town smelled like chocolate and the Hersheypark rides were still old timey-ish.
No more factory tours, I don’t like modern rides (read: roller coasters) and the last time I was there, there was no ubiquitous choco aroma. Tempus keeps right on fugiting along.
