Globalization and Your Childhood

[Debater Slayer]

With the increasing prevalence of globalization and the Internet over the years, I have gradually become interested in the ways in which globalization leads to sharing cultural elements between different societies. This thread is for members from everywhere to list various characters, movies, video games, etc., that they grew up with.

I'll start with some staples from my childhood (in no particular order):

Video game series:

- Crash Bandicoot ("Sony Computer Entertainment America presents..." )

- Mortal Kombat

- Doom and Doom II (made me scared to sleep alone for years)

- Commander Keen

- Grand Theft Auto

- Need for Speed

- Various WWE-based games

- Winning Eleven/Pro Evolution Soccer

- Bomberman

- Pac-Man

- Tetris

- Mario games (2D ones)

- Red Alert.

Movies and TV shows:

- WWE. The Undertaker in particular is the TV character that stuck with me the most in my childhood.

- Disney and Pixar movies. (Too many to list here. Toy Story stands out, though. I mean, it made me hide behind doors to try to catch my toys moving... )

- Pinky and the Brain

- Tom and Jerry

- Looney Tunes

- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

- Digimon

- Pokemon

- Detective Conan

- Spider-Man

- Batman (animated series)

- Superman (animated series)

- Shrek.

Okay, I'll stop here so that the list doesn't become too long (if it's not already ).

Your turn!

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I noticed most of the stuff on your list is stuff I can list, albiet a fewer things (like Shrek) being in my later childhood.
When you say Mario, Tetris, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Doom, Mortal Kombat, Undertaker/various wrestling games, these things started when I was a very young child (or abit before I was born), and there's roughly a decade difference between us.

 

[bobhikes]

Male 52, Pennsylvania and New Jersey for most of my youth - activities listed in order of influence

1)Outdoors - Roller skating, Biking, Basketball, Football, Baseball, hiking in the woods, fishing, kick ball
2)Regular games in my house - Pin Ball, Pool, Darts, All version of Card games
3)Movies and TV - Star wars, M.A.S.H, Soap, I love Lucy, Newhart, Afternoon Movies on channel 7(particularly Monster week and Kung foo week), Saturday morning cartoons, NFL
4)Video games - Pong, Space invaders, Asteroid, Star Wars(arcades only), Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt, Tetris,

 

[Kemosloby]

Earliest TV was Hee Haw and Bonanza, then a drastic shift to Death Race 2000 with the switch to HBO.

 

[Stevicus]

I'm 53, born in CA, lived most of my childhood in NY, moved to AZ when I was 15 and have been here ever since.

Early childhood - Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, Moon Landings, Star Trek, Superman (George Reeves), Batman (Adam West, the only Batman I consider legitimate), Disneyland, the Beatles, "Hair," "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," Godzilla, Speed Racer

Games - Monopoly, Life, Operation, Rockem Sockem Robots; as well as tag, hide-and-go-seek, and various outdoor games.

We didn't really have "video games," although there were arcades with pinball, pool, foosball, skee-ball, and various other games which might seem "primitive" by today's standards. I remember one game where two players would use squirt guns and try to shoot/spray a ping pong ball into the other player's goal; it was in a chamber with windows that had windshield wipers.

I was an early teen when video games started coming on the scene, first with "Pong."

Push-button phones were only starting to come into fashion. I remember my brother always saying "I wish we had a push-button phone" and when we finally got one, it was "WOW! We got a push-button phone!" Years earlier, I recall times whenever we'd call our grandparents in California, we couldn't dial direct. My father had to go through the operator, and it was treated like a big, important event to make a phone call across the country. Our relatives in farm country even had party lines.

Movies - Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, Planet of the Apes, To Hell and Back (which, for me, sparked an avid interest in the history of WW2)

TV Shows - All in the Family, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, Star Trek, Rockford Files

Cheech and Chong records; I think between my brother and I, we had all of them.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

One show I remember I was very fond of was Duck Tales. And Dark Wing Duck and Tail Spin. There were also the Crush Dummies toys. My Little Pony. There was also Creepy Crawlers and the Easy Bake Oven (or at least I think they came out around the same time and from my childhood era). And lots of music videos.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I noticed most of the stuff on your list is stuff I can list, albiet a fewer things (like Shrek) being in my later childhood.
When you say Mario, Tetris, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Doom, Mortal Kombat, Undertaker/various wrestling games, these things started when I was a very young child (or abit before I was born), and there's roughly a decade difference between us.

Yeah, I was late to the party on some of the things on my lists. I played Doom and Doom II in the early 2000s, for example.

Here's a related fact about my childhood: several years before my dad got married, he would purposely record cartoon episodes on Betamax so that his future children would watch them. By the time he got married and had children, he had amassed a collection of many Betamax tapes containing episodes from Tom and Jerry, Pink Panther, and other classic cartoons.

The video tapes I watched as a kid are much older than me.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Male 52, Pennsylvania and New Jersey for most of my youth - activities listed in order of influence

1)Outdoors - Roller skating, Biking, Basketball, Football, Baseball, hiking in the woods, fishing, kick ball
2)Regular games in my house - Pin Ball, Pool, Darts, All version of Card games
3)Movies and TV - Star wars, M.A.S.H, Soap, I love Lucy, Newhart, Afternoon Movies on channel 7(particularly Monster week and Kung foo week), Saturday morning cartoons, NFL
4)Video games - Pong, Space invaders, Asteroid, Star Wars(arcades only), Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt, Tetris,

I'm 53, born in CA, lived most of my childhood in NY, moved to AZ when I was 15 and have been here ever since.

Early childhood - Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, Moon Landings, Star Trek, Superman (George Reeves), Batman (Adam West, the only Batman I consider legitimate), Disneyland, the Beatles, "Hair," "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," Godzilla, Speed Racer

Games - Monopoly, Life, Operation, Rockem Sockem Robots; as well as tag, hide-and-go-seek, and various outdoor games.

We didn't really have "video games," although there were arcades with pinball, pool, foosball, skee-ball, and various other games which might seem "primitive" by today's standards. I remember one game where two players would use squirt guns and try to shoot/spray a ping pong ball into the other player's goal; it was in a chamber with windows that had windshield wipers.

I was an early teen when video games started coming on the scene, first with "Pong."

Push-button phones were only starting to come into fashion. I remember my brother always saying "I wish we had a push-button phone" and when we finally got one, it was "WOW! We got a push-button phone!" Years earlier, I recall times whenever we'd call our grandparents in California, we couldn't dial direct. My father had to go through the operator, and it was treated like a big, important event to make a phone call across the country. Our relatives in farm country even had party lines.

Movies - Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, Planet of the Apes, To Hell and Back (which, for me, sparked an avid interest in the history of WW2)

TV Shows - All in the Family, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, Star Trek, Rockford Files

Cheech and Chong records; I think between my brother and I, we had all of them.

Has either of you played any video games as an adult?

I find it fascinating to read about the differences between children's activities decades ago and nowadays. Thanks for sharing the above.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Here's a related fact about my childhood: several years before my dad got married, he would purposely record cartoon episodes on Betamax so that his future children would watch them. By the time he got married and had children, he had amassed a collection of many Betamax tapes containing episodes from Tom and Jerry, Pink Panther, and other classic cartoons.

Too bad I didn't do that with Gargoyles. It's impossible to legally obtain anything beyond the first season now.

 

[bobhikes]

Has either of you played any video games as an adult?

I find it fascinating to read about the differences between children's activities decades ago and nowadays. Thanks for sharing the above.

There a pinball museum within an hour of my house They have all the old pinball games and arcade games Donkey Kong, Centipede...etc. They charge by 30 minutes. I tend to play pinball but from time to time will play the old arcade games. My kids 16 and 12 play the old arcade games mostly Donkey Kong, Ms pacman and Pacman

 

[Stevicus]

Has either of you played any video games as an adult?

I find it fascinating to read about the differences between children's activities decades ago and nowadays. Thanks for sharing the above.

Video games started to take off when I was in my late teens/early adulthood, and yes, I played them. Perhaps more than I should have, spending too many quarters on what was, essentially, a waste of time. Pac-Man, Crazy Climber, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Joust, and many others. Then there was Mario Brothers, before Super Mario Brothers. Computer games were pretty rudimentary, although I did enjoy the text-based "Adventure" when we first got an IBM PC.

 

[Sakeenah]

With the increasing prevalence of globalization and the Internet over the years, I have gradually become interested in the ways in which globalization leads to sharing cultural elements between different societies. This thread is for members from everywhere to list various characters, movies, video games, etc., that they grew up with.

I'll start with some staples from my childhood (in no particular order):

Video game series:

- Crash Bandicoot ("Sony Computer Entertainment America presents..." )

- Mortal Kombat

- Doom and Doom II (made me scared to sleep alone for years)

- Commander Keen

- Grand Theft Auto

- Need for Speed

- Various WWE-based games

- Winning Eleven/Pro Evolution Soccer

- Bomberman

- Pac-Man

- Tetris

- Mario games (2D ones)

- Red Alert.

Movies and TV shows:

- WWE. The Undertaker in particular is the TV character that stuck with me the most in my childhood.

- Disney and Pixar movies. (Too many to list here. Toy Story stands out, though. I mean, it made me hide behind doors to try to catch my toys moving... )

- Pinky and the Brain

- Tom and Jerry

- Looney Tunes

- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

- Digimon

- Pokemon

- Detective Conan

- Spider-Man

- Batman (animated series)

- Superman (animated series)

- Shrek.

Okay, I'll stop here so that the list doesn't become too long (if it's not already ).

Your turn!

I can list a couple of things from your list . I'm trying to remember because my childhood was like a century ago


Video games:

Pac man
mario games
Tetris
nintendo 64 games, I think my favourite was mario 64 and wave race 64
Snake game on the nokia phone( who remembers that?)

Movies and TV shows
I was kind of obsessed with tv shows so I'll just mention some..
Disney, I loved the lion king
Family matters
Seinfeld
The fresh prince of Bel-air
X-files
Friends
Full House
Pinky and the Brain!
Tom and Jerry
The simpsons
ninja turtles
spider man
Batman
pokemon

Games/toys:

- Tamagotchi
- troll dolls ( little troll dolls with different colour hair)
- pogs ( a cardboard or plastic disc printed with a picture we used to collect them,swap them and play games)
- my little pony
- monopoly
- twister

 

[Jedster]

Reading through this thread makes me feel old..., even older than @Sakeenah .

Listen with mother ..1952, we just got a tv which took 10 minutes to warm up
Bill & Ben ...... about not discriminating against people who live in flower pots
Superman...... my first icon
Batman.....I now realise that the 60s version was blasphemy
Dr Who......with William Hartnel the one true Dr Who


lots more which I have forgotten

 

[Ralphg]

I'm dutch, born in 1974, I'll try to give you a summary for the Netherlands.
In the '70 and '80 TV took over the lead from radio as far as mass-communication goes. In those days almost everything seen on TV came from the US (I too remember TV-sets that had to warm-up ). In the '70's there was the 'News' (called Polygoon Journaal), that was ofcourse 'dutch-made' but there where no tv-series, cartoons or tv-shows made here. A dutch-presentated sports-show was the number 1 watched dutch-made tv-broadcasting for years. In the late '80 after the successes of some 'classic' tv-series like Dallas, Dynasty, Dukes of hazard and The A-team the first dutch-made series began. Those series where basically 'copies' of the american series in style and 'look-and-feel'. Technically those where years when the american culture reflected not only in society (US-made products had been around for much longer) but even - to some degree - in dutch cultural (one of my 'stepmothers' once invited 'The A-team' and Hulk Hogan for a meet-and-greet to 'celebrate' this )

My personal favorites;
In the '80 I remember playing lots of boardgames and I was an early 'skate-boarder'.
In the '90 I played PC-games like:
- Those small, portable 1-computergames with; Pacman, DonkeyKong, Tetris, etc..
- Doom
- Mortal Combat
- Age of Empires
And later:
- Need for speed
- GTA
- Railroad Tycoon (....I know...., but somehow I'm addicted to that one .. )