Millennial Adulthood Was Hijacked So Screw It, Bring Back Our Childhood
In case you hadn't noticed, those of us who grew up in the '90s are living through an endless childhood in which almost every beloved Saturday morning TV character is being Frankenstein-ed back into existence, presumably pacifying all of our fears and existential anxieties. We just learned that a new Tiny Toons is headed to HBO Max, following on the heels of Hulu's Animaniacs reboot --
Not to mention Peacock's new Saved by the Bell in which Zack Morris is the Governor of California, and presumably, Screech was lost at sea and will never be referred to by name.
Of course, Disney fans have the surprisingly good new DuckTales, which also resurrected the character of Darkwing Duck. But we can't blame Millennials for refusing to let go of their youth when so many benchmarks of adulthood previous generations took for granted are on the decline; fewer Millennials are starting families because it's just too goddamn expensive. And forget about buying a house. Millennials have more debt but less income than previous generations, and even before the pandemic, many were forced to move back home. So yeah, maybe just let us have Tiny Toons, dammit.
The only concern we have is that younger generations still have the pop-cultural space for cultivating their own iconic faves. Mining nostalgia for so-called children's entertainment is nothing new -- Tiny Toons itself was obviously already a throwback to Looney Tunes. But at least it evolved a familiar brand to appeal to kids; it didn't just replicate the original property as a kind of wacky panacea for society's economic failings. Legitimately great examples of family entertainment like last year's The Kid Who Would Be King bombed at the box office -- but the much-hyped Space Jam 2 will undoubtedly be a hit, capitalizing on our fondness for a movie none of us who were kids at the time realized was just a bloated sneaker/sports drink/furry commercial.
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Top Image: Warner Bros., NBCUniversal
