Disney Afternoon – Trip Down Nostalgia Lane
This last year, I stumbled across something at my local Target that immediately caught my attention. I’d never even thought that it could exist, and yet there it was right before me, illuminating all the facets of my childlike curiosity. It was the release of the Disney Afternoon classics Duck Tales and Chip n Dale’s Rescue Rangers. It’d been more than a decade since the last time I saw any of those shows and I was mildly excited by the prospect of reliving parts of my childhood. A few months later, I saw in the same Target (a store I avoid like the plague, so this was fate) Darkwing Duck and Tailspin, two shows that I somehow enjoyed more than the first two. That first Disney Afternoon block, the one I saw when I came home from 3rd grade every day was there within my grasp.
Suffice it to say, I own all but Ducktales of those four and find myself popping them in at the most random of times, usually that one moment when it makes the most sense to zone out to meaningless television fluff – when the power’s out, when I’ve drank too much, when I haven’t slept in two days. These are the best times to enjoy that flashback to adolescent nostalgia because if I were to watch any of these shows when I’m completely awake, sober, and at full attention, I’d find that they’re nothing like I remember, shadows of the shows I fell in love with so many years ago. I am much older, so it makes sense, but those depressing moments of clarity and self-realization are best left for another time….any other time.
I’m overstepping the point though. The point is that these shows are awesome. Even if I were to watch them and find the purity of my nostalgia shattered, they’re damn good – a step and a half above any children’s shows on the air today. The quality was always top notch, coming out of Disney’s hand drawn studios (RIP) and the full orchestra backing up the pratfalls and kids’ jokes is always good for lightening my mood. There are a ton of not so subtle jokes that might be lost on a child, adultish humor that slides through in typical Disney fashion, but it’s all targeted towards the kids and that makes it just plain fun to watch.
That’s really all I wanted to say, I love those shows. I was sitting and staring off into space, flipping past Nickelodeon or some such crappy schlock they feed to the kids these days and then looked at my DVD rack and saw Darkwing Duck sitting there, reminding me of when those shows were the best reason to hurry home after school every day.
