This past weekend I found myself home alone one evening, flipping through the channels, trying to find something interesting to watch. It was Friday night so there was nothing on but reruns and random films that are just recent enough to debut on cable but old enough that no one wants to watch them. So I did what any person in their twenties would do: find the kid's channels and see if there is anything on to be nostalgic about.
Children's programming from the 80s and 90s are a big part of our generation's history. We love this stuff not because it was particularly good, but because we grew up with it (don't laugh, Baby Boomers - you have an entire channel dedicated to I Love Lucy and the Andy Griffith show!). Something I loved growing up was Disney Channel's Original Movies - the ones before High School Musical - and still watch them if they're ever on. Here's hoping that someday they start a channel just for made-for-TV kid's movies!
5.
Halloweentown (1998)
I'm not usually a huge fan of Halloween, but this was a fun and bizarre movie a bit like Hocus Pocus. Basically it's about a girl who finds out at 13 that she's meant to be a witch, and is trained by her grandmother, played by Debbie Reynolds. Like most Disney movies the main character has to save her family, stand up for herself, and learn some valuable lesson. I was always a fan of the actress who played the lead, a girl named Kimberley J. Brown, because she was more normal-looking than most "gorgeous" Disney teen stars. She also starred in another Disney film,
Quints,
4.
Life-Size (2000)
This movie was originally aired on ABC but was made by Disney, so I'm going to count it. This is a ridiculous film starring still-innocent Lindsay Lohan back in her Parent Trap days as a football-playing tomboy who recently lost her mother and wants to bring her back to life. She finds a spellbook (where do all these kids find magical items? Are there a lot of irresponsible witches and wizards in the Disney universe?) and attempts to ressurrect her mom but inadvertently brings to life her Eve doll (read: Barbie) played by none other than supermodel Tyra Banks. Seeing Tyra play a life-size fashion doll is actually pretty entertaining - she actually thinks she can do all of the jobs her doll has had over the years and experiences eating for the first time. I really need to watch it again and see if it is as cheesy as I remember.
3.
Sky High (2005)
I babysat for a family with four kids when I was in high school, and they introduced me to this movie. It's about a kid who has super hero parents and has been sent to a high school for super heroes - but doesn't actually have any super powers himself, and gets put on the "sidekick" track. That is, until his powers kick in and change everything. It's your typical tween movie, with action and morality and a little romance, but I love it. It has great actors like Kurt Russell, Kelly Preston, Lynda Carter, and Cloris Leachmen; characters have awesome names like Warren Peace and Royal Pain; and the theme song is "Melt With You" covered by Bowling for Soup. If I'm home alone and it's on TV, you can bet I'll be watching it.
2.
Smart House (1999)
This was one of the coolest movies
ever back when I was thirteen. It's about a boy who wins a "smart house" in a contest - a house that knows what you're favorite foods are and keeps them in the fridge, turns the lights out for you, does everything buy itself. It's controlled by a computer named PAT, who portrays itself as a 50s housewife played by Katey Sagal. Over the course of the film PAT gets jealous of the woman the boy's dad is dating, and starts to over-protect the family, going so far as to seal the doors and keep all of them from going outside. What I didn't know about this film before I looked it up on Wikipedia is that it was based on a short story by Ray Bradbury and directed by LeVar Burton. No wonder it was so awesome!
1.
Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century (1999)
This is, hands-down, the most awesome movie ever to be made for the Disney channel. Forget
High School Musical, forget
Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire,
Zenon is the movie that defined my early teen years. It is set in 2049, which looks suspiciously like 1999 (complete with the new Volkswagon Beetles that were on every girls'
MASH list), but some of the population lives on a space station. No big deal. Zenon lives there with her parents, and gets sent to her Aunt's on Earth when she is (literally) grounded. The space station ends up in danger, and only Zenon can save it, and the plot is totally predictable, but that's not the part that mattered. It was the awesome 90s-inspired fashions of the future, the crazy futuristic catch phrases, and the weird music of the future which sounded a lot like 90s boy bands but played by a fictional musician named Protazoa. The shiny hot pink fabrics! The tiny microdisc earrings!
Zetus lupetus!
