Things That Aren't As Good As They Used To Be

[Rom]

Nostalgia is all very well, but I'm interested in hearing people's views on things (apart from games, which surely we can all agree on ) they genuinely feel aren't as good as they used to be.

I'm going to start the bidding with:

Lego - which I think had its heyday in the late 80s and early 90s

and

Bodybuilding - which has just gone downhill since Arnold won his 6th Mr O in 1975.

[KevInCal]

Cartoons, movies, fast food, music, weather, people, video game magazines, tv shows & the economy were much better in general in the 80's and 90's. I really haven't enjoyed the 2000's much at all... :(

[E-Day]

Sitcoms definitely aren't as good. While there are some great ones like Corner Gas and Big Bang Theory, most of them try to be "edgey" with sex jokes. Sitcoms were much more robust in the 0s, where they took on real life controversial issues. All in the Family, Maude, Three's Company, The Jeffersons...you don't get those kinds of topics anymore in sitcoms. Which is odd, since all those old shows were created by liberals, with liberal views in the show (for the most part), dealing with topics liberal people felt should be discussed. But today, those same liberal people scream bloody murder if you would try to do a show like The Jeffersons, or god forbid, All in the Family. Seems like now that they got their topics and opinions out in the open and in the "mainstream", you can't tal about controversial things anymore.

Apart from that, McDonalds isn't as good as it used to be. Saturday morning cartoons are non-existant, professional wrestling, Lego, toys in general...the weather is the same (actually, it's starting to cool down a bit now). Don't forget, we are all older now, so even if things like Leg stayed the same, we probably wouldn't feel the same way about it as we used to. Your tastes and attitude changes as you get older, so all the things listed may actually still be as good; it is probably us who has changed more.

[KevInCal]

We didn't have chemtrails until the late 90's... :(

Chemtrails = government planes spraying nasty stuff on the unsuspecting public. Check it out on YouTube. Important stuff. That's why I said weather was better.

[E-Day]

Chemtrails? Honestly? I just lost some respect for you. You now command the same amount of respect from me as everyone else who believes in those kinds of consiracy theories. Because, you know, the atmosphere is so tiny that anything sprayed out of a plane at 30,000 feet won't get diluted by everything else in the atmosphere.

And what exactly are these "chemtrails" supposed to be doing? Making people keep a certain political party in power all the time? Hasn't happened. Having them go along with whatever they want? Hasn't worked either. Population control? Weather control? Yes, that's all working out quite well, isn't it?

-1 for you. No. Make that -20.

[Rom]

Wow, how could I have forgotten about wrestling! I still remember watching my best friend Rianon's Summer Slam 88 and 89 videos over and over again.

Re the weather - I'm in Australia, and it's getting HOTTER here. 40 really is the new 30 (ºC).

[triverse]

Wrestling was definitely changed and not for the better either.  Back in the day, you only ONLY got to see the stars of the battle get each other at the Pay Per View that at the time was either 2 or 3 months away (now they have them every month, sometimes WWE themselves have put on 2 or more in a month when they had the brand split be solid).  When it was really interesting to watch, you got to see the bad guy usually beat up the good guy in hit and run tactics of some sort, or just plain underhandedness (anyone remember the Undertaker locking Ultimate Warrior in the casket and UW having clawed the inside and such in desperation?) and then the match at the PPV was so cool it was almost magical (Wrestlemania III where Hogan bodyslammed Andre the Giant is something of legend).  Storylines were long too, you got stuff back and forth (teams like the Hart Foundation and The Nation of Domination and others taking on each other but the leaders only got at each other later and it went back and forth).

Now we get storylines like Orton taking on the McMahon family and kicking them all in the head and taking them out of wrestling (hmmm, the whole one man against the family idea worked with Austin because he had the charisma and abilities to get it over with the crowd-as he said in his autobiography, it was easy to make it look real because he really hated Vince McMahon).  This has been going on for well over 6 months (in that time, how many times has Orton faced HHH on cable, non-PPPV's?  About 1,000,000 times or so).  It is just like when HBK Shawn Michaels (who remembers watching him and Marty Janetty in AWA and thinking after seeing the botched moves and such that he won't last in wrestling?) vs John Bradshaw Layfield that went on for almost a year with constant fights back and forth or the 6 or 7 months prior to that when Chris Jericho was taking on HBK on a weekly basis and at the PPVs.

Back then, they understood storytelling and how to play to the crowd (when Bret Hart was doing his whole anti-America/Pro Canada routine it meant a lot more than when La Resistance did it for France-maybe it was just because Hart was a bigger star or something).

[E-Day]

But back then, wretling also sucked because the TV shows were almost always the same, at least if you watched WWF Superstars. A big name fighting a nobody. Always the same always boring. Yet people kept watching. Wrestling has changed, but so have people's attention spans.

[triverse]

But back then, wretling also sucked because the TV shows were almost always the same, at least if you watched WWF Superstars. A big name fighting a nobody. Always the same always boring. Yet people kept watching. Wrestling has changed, but so have people's attention spans.

I agree, that is part of why it was such a spectacle to see the big names wrestle at the PPV's, they hardly ever got at each other on the weekly programming.  I remember when WWE would end RAW right as the wrestlers went at each other, leaving you wondering for a week or so about what happened.  Now, RAW on Mondays, recently, will go as much as 20 minutes over their time to show you the whole beat down leaving nothing to entice you to watch the next week.

[KevInCal]

Chemtrails? Honestly? I just lost some respect for you. You now command the same amount of respect from me as everyone else who believes in those kinds of consiracy theories. Because, you know, the atmosphere is so tiny that anything sprayed out of a plane at 30,000 feet won't get diluted by everything else in the atmosphere.

And what exactly are these "chemtrails" supposed to be doing? Making people keep a certain political party in power all the time? Hasn't happened. Having them go along with whatever they want? Hasn't worked either. Population control? Weather control? Yes, that's all working out quite well, isn't it?

-1 for you. No. Make that -20.

Please don't make such snap judgements before you do extensive research on the matter. I have researched them for untold amounts of hours and they are real, not a conspiracy theory. Have a listen to this very intelligent man, born before World War II, talking about what he knows about chemtrails after actually being in on the project in the military... Of course, you probably won't even bother clicking the link since you already have your mind made up...

Check out these pictures my mom took on her recent vacation to Las Vegas. Funny she said the next day, the sky was perfectly clear, yet the weather was exactly the same as the day with all of the trails in the sky... How do you explain that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE4Quc1T-W4

[branochilly]

Music has changed a great deal, though it is subjective. Bands used to be led by amazing guitar work, with seems of little importance today. Also, can anyone tell the difference between Nickleback and Theory of a Dead Man?

As far as the chemtrail topic, I haven't scene anything to make me believe the theory has any validity. Large aircraft will dump their fuel for a variety of reasons, which I think may account for some images, while contrails can account for others. The idea that one day their were contrails and another there was not also is explainable by weather patterns, especially in the upper atmosphere. The wind, humidity, and temperature can change dramatically with no noticeable change down on the surface. I'm not opposed to all conspiracy theory, but I think there would need to be better evidence.

[Mister Zero]

AMERICAN GLADIATORS! The new show just doesn't live up to the classic! That stuff was pretty sweet!

Baseball, basketball. They were so major and hyped back then. Now they're just kinda so-so.

Heck yeah for McDonalds. I mean, just look at these toys: http://sydlexia.com/happymealprizes1.htm And where the hell did the Happy Meal cookies go? Where the hell did Ronald McDonald's friends go??

Lego was great back then.. Lite Brite too. Toys in general were a bit more fun than they are now, in my opinion. I was also a kid then, so maybe a bit biased.

Board games!!! The boards looked better with nicer, quality artwork, and they put more time and thought into them. These days they just sort of manufacture the same few with different special editions.

Computers and programming. Windows has made so many people unaware of what their computers are actually doing while they stare at the screen.