I wrote something the other day about how we’ve become a family of cord cutters. We don’t have cable or satellite. We have 19 local channels and Netflix and Hulu.
One of the neat things about this is that the kids don’t end up defaulting to the bratty-teens-talking-down-to-adult shows on Disney. (God, how I hated “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.”)
Instead, they’re finding some shows they probably would have missed, otherwise.
I introduced Thing 1 (the 11-year-old) to “Fat Albert,” and that led her to “The Cosby Show,” which she watched until Rudy grew up and they brought in Raven-Symone as the replacement cute kid, Olivia, which, I think, is when a lot of people started tuning out.
Over the holidays, Netflix had a special category of Christmas-themed episodes, which led Thing 1 to discover ”Malcolm in the Middle,” which is a lot more demented than I remember, but in a good way.
Sometimes, though, she finds shows on her own.
I was in the kitchen the other night when she yelled, “”Hey, you know, ‘The Twilight Zone’ is pretty good!”
Thing 2 (who just turned 6) tried watching it with her and gave up. He yelled, “This doesn’t make any sense!” Of course, they’re both right. “The Twilight Zone” is pretty good, and it doesn’t make any sense.
Thing 2 is more into old “Spider-Man” cartoons and “Speed Racer,” and he likes “Fudge,” which is a better-than-you’d-think kids sitcom from the early-90s based on the Judy Blume books about a tweenage boy and his 4-year-old brother, Fudge.
Eve Plumb plays the mom, and Florence Henderson is the grandmother, so, hopefully, that’ll be a gateway to “The Brady Bunch,” once it finally turns up online.
I like that the kids are finding these old TV shows. Some of them are pretty good — seriously, check out “Fudge” — and it’ll give ‘em a yardstick to measure new shows against.
Hopefully, when the time comes and they’re exposed to the next “Suite Life,” they’ll see it’s crap and turn it off.
My kids found The Twilight Zone, too. I keep having to explain the Cold War to them.
She watched one the other day where Earl Holloman wakes up on a small town (the same set as the town square from “Back to the Future”) and no one’s around, and it’s like, “Who is he, where is he and where is everyone else?” And then he comes to and he’s been in a mock space capsule for 2 weeks without human contact preparing for a trip to the moon.
It wasn’t as good as “To Serve Man,” but few things are.
Good for you for breaking away from cable. Unfortunately with all the sports fans at out house, we drank the Kool Aid long ago. Now we even have channels that I don’t know about.
I remember the Twilight Zone – I was probably 6 years old, always terrified, and often wondered why my parents let me watch it.
Someday, I predict, ESPN is going to offer an online-only package, and when it does, good-bye cable. I’d pay $10, $20 a month for ESPN. It would still be cheaper than cable.
I debated letting Thing 2 watch The Twilight Zone with his sister. Mostly, he was bored and confused.
Wait. You found Speed Racer? On Netflix? I’ve been telling my son for years about the episode where he races through the volcano in Kapetapec that only opens every fifty years but I haven’t found it to show him.
OK, I should have clarified. The original Speed Racer’s on Hulu, but Thing 2 preferred the “sequel” cartoon that came out around the same time as the movie. (In the sequel, Speed Sr. is missing, and his son, who’s also a racer and also named Speed, is trying to find him. It’s pretty bad, but, really, no worse than the original, which, you’ll have to admit, was no Clutch Cargo.
What a great idea Todd. I grew up with 4 channels and PBS and cartoons only on Saturday. My kids cannot believe it.
We lived in eastern Kentucky, and sometimes, we’d go to Cincinnati to see the Reds, and Cincinnati had an independent station, and I remember thinking it would be so cool to have a fifth channel.
I showed Kiefer your post about cutting out cable. He said he’s going to try out all the stuff that you are…after football season.
Hope it works out!