If you follow me on Instagram then you know that I like to participate in #throwbackthursday or #tbt, which is when people post old pictures of themselves, or their kids from anytime in the past. It’s been a lot of fun digging through old photos of the kids when they were tiny and cuddly and wore ruffles on their bums. My favourite lately though has been looking at pictures from my childhood, with all the orange shag, plaid couches and giant televisions. I think it’s due to a combination of recently turning 40 – this has me launching the “in MY day” stories – and preparing for the NickMom Prom at the Blog University Conference next weekend. We’re going retro and combing the thrift shops for the poofiest, shiniest prom dresses we can get our hands on.
This week I shared my high school prom photo on Instagram:
The fake palm tree was not my date, however it paid more attention to me than my actual date.
So it is perfect timing that Netflix is feeling the retro spirit too, and feeding my “before I had wrinkles” nostalgia, by airing an awesome assortment of my favourite TV shows and movies from the eighties. My mom and I used to watch a lot of TV together when I was done my homework (or most often when I crossed my fingers and declared that I didn’t have any).
Some of our favourites were:
- Different Strokes
- The Facts of Life
- Square Pegs (a short-lived but awesome series with Sarah Jessica Parker, Jami Gertz (the “I can’t spare a square,” character from Seinfeld), and Tracy Nelson)
- The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and
- Beverly Hills 90210
And they’re ALL on Netflix right now! It’s enough to make me throw my hair in a banana clip, slip into some harem pants – I can’t believe those are back in style – and spend all day in my TV glory.
Something that my family liked to do on the weekends was rent movies to watch on our fancy new VHS machine, and one of our favourites was Honey I Shrunk the Kids, starring the beloved Canadian icon Rick Moranis. Mr. Moranis plays a scientist, whose invention accidentally shrinks his kids down smaller than an ant.
We loved this movie because it reminded us so much of something that my dad would do, given enough free time. My dad can take apart and fix almost anything, created a small explosion in his parents’ garage with a chemistry set, and made his own alarm clock, because clearly one from the store was for people not trying hard enough.
Somehow I ended up with a husband exactly like that as well. I’ve told you have I can’t work the lights or watch TV without a full-day training course. Our phone and our doorbell require a dedicated server in the basement, and he built a DVR out of an Xbox. It was time to share the movie with our kids so they could see who I had been talking about all this time. Molly and Grace loved the movie, and were surprisingly not as scared as I thought they would be about the kids being lost. They said their favourite part was how the ant didn’t want to leave the kids. Molly wants to know more about how the movie was made.
Molly drew a picture of what it would be like to be shrunk as small as the kids in the movie were. I think she would love to be able to hang out with bugs and insects her size.
If you’re looking for an activity to keep the kids busy this weekend, give them the challenge of drawing different settings from an ant’s perspective. Although if you have as many ants as I do coming in the house, getting your children to identify with an ant right before you launch a RAID attack might just be cruel. In that case you may want to stick with Shrinky Dinks.
What’s your favourite old show or movie that you’re excited to see again?
Disclaimer: I am a part of the Netflix Canada #StreamTeam and I receive product and a subscription to Netflix in exchange for watching TV writing about the service. My opinions are always my own.
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