Nostalgia, man. It can be brought on by an errant lego or a beloved movie. A longing affection for days gone by can be nearly overwhelming, especially when we catch our own children staring, transfixed at a Matchbox car. For Adam and Marc, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a catalyst for a nostalgic trip. In this special, partly live episode, our hosts meet with Steve Lavigne, one of the original TMNT artists, to talk about his experiences and, of course, nostalgia.
Nostalgia, man. It can be brought on by an errant lego or a beloved movie. A longing affection for days gone by can be nearly overwhelming, especially when we catch our own children staring, transfixed at a Matchbox car. For Adam and Marc, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a catalyst for a nostalgic trip. In this special, partly live episode, our hosts meet with Steve Lavigne, one of the original TMNT artists, to talk about his experiences and, of course, nostalgia.
Episode 14 finds Adam and Marc on stage at 3S Artspace in Portsmouth, NH after a screening of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to moderate a Q&A with TMNT comic artist Steve Lavigne. Between the on-stage portion and a pre-event conversation in the green room, Steve shares stories about his long history with Turtles creators Eastman and Laird, and the many incredible opportunities that his involvement in the Ninja Turtles franchise has presented. Topics of conversation include:
• The birth and early days of the Turtles
• The people who inspired the characters
• Steve’s reaction to seeing his artwork translated to live action cinema
• Being on the set of the film
• Meeting Jim Henson
• Visiting Henson’s Creature Shop in London
• How Steve’s children felt about the Turtles growing up
• What inspired Steve to get into comic illustration
The guys continue to discuss the allure of revisiting things from our past, and share comments from their favorite “dad” group about nostalgic movies, items, and experiences other dads are excited to share with their kids.
DADS: We’re working on an episode on DAD JOKES. Leave us a voicemail featuring your favorite dad joke, and you could be featured in the episode AND win an awesome prize from BrüMate. Share your joke by leaving a message at 603-431-5465.
LINKS:
Shellback Artworks on Facebook
Shellback Artworks on Instagram
TMNT film (1990) Wikipedia
Mirage Studios Wikipedia
Jim Henson's Creature Shop
Caspar Babypants
Spencer Albee
Red Vault Audio
Marc:
Okay.
Adam:
Here we go.
Marc:
Okay.
Adam:
That feels natural now, good.
Marc:
Now you can clap. All right, don't-
Adam:
Hi, everybody.
Marc:
Please don't clap.
Adam:
My name's Adam Flaherty. I'm a father of two daughters, six years old and three years old.
Marc:
My name is Marc Checket. I'm a father of twin-boy toddlers. We're the co-hosts of a podcast called Modern Dadhood, which we like to say is an ongoing conversation about the joys, challenges and general insanity of being a parent in this moment.
Adam:
That's right. And we're actually recording the Q&A coming up, and we'll be using a portion of it in an upcoming episode of Modern Dadhood. So what do you think about doing a giant enormous round of applause, so everybody can hear themselves when the episode comes out?
Marc:
Okay. All right.
Adam:
Yeah, a packed house.
Marc:
That's amazing. A packed house. To the guy who wooed in the front, you'll see me later for your $5. Okay.
Adam:
We're thrilled to be here hosting a Question & Answer session with one of the original comic artists for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a man by the name of Steve Lavigne ...
Marc:
Steve Lavigne is here.
Adam:
... and would love to welcome him out right now.
Marc:
Please come out, Steve.
Male:
I'm going to put this down so we can set the stage. None of this has been awkward so far, so that's good.
Adam:
It's nice to have you here.
Steve:
Yeah, nice being here in this living room.
Adam:This is comfortable.
Marc:
Just going to put this down.
Steve:
Is it okay to put my feet on the table?
Adam:
It's not my table. So yeah, you may. Go for it.
Adam:
So nostalgia is a big part of our podcast, Modern Dadhood, both in that we talk a lot about the things that we enjoyed when we were kids, and the branding and the graphics that we use for the podcast. Marc and I, like we said, are both dads. In fact, my six-year-old daughter is here experiencing Ninja Turtles for the first time. We're both excited to be able to pass on the things that we loved growing up to our children. Are there are other folks in here who are turning their kids on to the Turtles for the first time today?
Marc:
Yeah, all right. Awesome. So, Steve ...
Steve:
Yes.
Marc:
Did I pronounce that right?
Steve:
It is. That's correct.
Marc:
Okay.
Steve:
It's the silent G at the beginning that throws people off.
Marc:
This is going so well.
Marc:
Steve, did you ever think that 30-something years ago when you first started sketching some turtles with your buds that you'd be in front of a literally packed room full of people still stoked about this and still fans of this and turning it onto their kids? Did you think this was going to be a thing?
Steve:
Oh, yeah. That was our game plan to ... I figure this exact date I'd be in Portsmouth watching a movie about the Turtles. So it worked out nicely. No, I mean, if we did, we were stupid to think that way. I mean, in the early days, the Ramen noodles, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese years you just don't think that way. It's just not in the wheelhouse.
Marc:
Yeah. By the way, there is another microphone. Is there another microphone going around?
Adam:
Knate's out there with another microphone. And we would love to encourage any of you to ask questions that you have for Steve over the next 15 or 20 minutes.
Steve:
There's hands going up. I can see them.
Audience Member:
Hello, this is awesome. I'm glad I could make it for it. I did read somewhere inspiration-wise when it came to characters, you are the inspiration for Michelangelo and probably one of the more popular characters, I would say, out of that whole bit… or mine at least.
Steve:
Everybody has their favorites.
Audience Member:
Right. Inspiration for the others, was that buddies and friends and things like that as well?
Steve:
It's so funny. I mean, the Michelangelo thing, I always joke is my hairline. But I don't know if that's the only reason. I mean, I think a lot of personalities got in, Kevin and Pete's, everybody's. Inevitably, all the stupid stuff that flies out to people's faces end up on the pages. And I think personality-wise, Pete's a little Donatello, Kevin's a little Raphael, and the two combined kind of make a nice Leo. And I ended up with Michelangelo, which I'm very happy with.
Adam:
We've actually brought some nunchucks and we're hoping that you’ll demonstrate for us.
Steve:
Definitely. And I'll skateboard while I do it.
Marc:
Amazing. That's amazing. Great question. That's a great question. Is anybody else queued up?
Audience Member:
I was wondering, especially with today's explosion of comics into the big screen and whatever, when you first saw this movie, what was your impression of it? Seeing the artwork on the big screen?
Steve:
We just assumed that it was going to win every Academy Award. No, it was mind blowing, I mean for us. I speak for Kevin and Pete because they're not here. But we've been working on the books and Steve Baron who directed the movie actually took all the early books and kind of tore pages out and put them up on a corkboard. And then him and Bobby Herbeck who co-wrote the movie kind of filled in. So they were taking scenes ... and there was a lot of scenes that were filmed for this movie that didn't make the cut that we saw later on and it was just like, "Oh, that was directly from ... " But it was very cool to kind of see the movie that way because there wasn't a ... like you said, there wasn't a lot of superhero stuff or even comic books stuff that was prominent. They were kind of the movies, you might see at the drive-in, let's say, at that time.
Knate Higgins:
I have a selfless question to ask. What was it ... I heard that you got to work with Jim Henson or meet him on set. Is that correct?
Steve:
We got to meet him on set. Actually, when the fight scene with Casey and Raphael, that was in the park. We were down in North Carolina and his son Brian was the second unit director. So he did a lot of the stuff with Muppets involved, with splinter and stuff, but also did a lot of the fight stuff. So we happened to ... we were down for about a week while they were shooting. So we saw a few things being filmed and that was one of them. And Jim Henson was coming down to see his son direct that night. So we were all kind of milling around and you hear a little rumbling behind us. And all of a sudden, literally coming up behind you is Jim Henson. And he says hello and all of us go, "Hello. Hello, sir. Hello." My voice doesn't… you know what I mean? It's Jim Henson. You couldn't help if you heard Kermit say hello to you, and then you can't get words out of your mouth because it's Jim Henson. And the cool thing, it was because it was Henson's Creature Shop. We were going to London for a Comic-Con a couple months later. And he had said, "If you're ever in London ... " And we were like, "We're going to London." So we got to actually go to see their creature shop. And at the time they were doing the show, Dinosaurs.
Knate:
Oh my God!
Steve:
And so they had the big Brontosaurus neck and the baby and, "Not the baby!” was being sculpted over here.
Knate:
We will not be screening that show here.
Adam:
Did you just show up at the door and say, "Jim sent me?"
Steve:
No. No, that was ... the other weird thing was that we actually met him at a coffee shop. And we're in London, we don't have any working knowledge of the city other than, "That's Big Ben." So they pick us up at this coffee shop, and we all pile into this multi-person van. And then he proceeded to put blindfolds on us. And then they drove us around. Well, and as it turns out, the Creature Shop, you wouldn't be able to find it. It's in the middle of a bunch of all these old brownstone buildings. And you go into the entryway and it looks like any other one. Once you opened up the door, they had gutted the entire building. And that's where the Creature Shop was. Downstairs was Muppet Town, every fur, every googly eye, everything you wanted was downstairs to make a Muppet. And then all the stuff being sculpted was upstairs. It was really cool.
Marc:
When you started drawing full-time as a profession, as a career, what did your family think about that? Especially given that you were drawing teenage turtles that were getting pizza and fighting people.
Steve:
Well, it's funny. When I first started, I had a good job. But I again mentioned that I went from kind of high school a couple of years of work. And then, Kevin and Pete starting the turtles and Kevin asking me to join on. So my parents hated me. They thought I was an idiot. And they knew Kevin. They knew Kevin because we went to high school together. And a lot of times I think all our friends thought the same thing. We'd come home to visit and they'd say, "Hey, what are you guys doing?" And we're like, "Hey, we're working on comics." And they'd be like, "Awesome. Batman and Spiderman?" And we go, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." And they'd kind of pat us on the back, "Oh, good for you."
Marc:
“Good luck.”
Steve:
"Good. Good. Oh, we're so happy for you." And now of course, now you just say, Turtles, and everybody knows what you're talking about when you refer to it. So yeah, my parents weren't happy, but pretty quickly that turned around. I mean, they were happy I was doing what I wanted to do. But like all good parents, they wanted me to make more money.
Marc:
Be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Lawyer instead?
Steve:
Yes. Or Teenage Mutant Doctor or whatever. Right.
Adam:
So I know that you have three children, is that right?
Steve:
I do.
Adam:
So what was life like for your kids when they were at prime Turtle-loving age?
Steve:
They hated the Turtles. They liked Batman and Spiderman and all the Disney stuff. Well, my daughter was, of course, Disney. She liked all that stuff. My two boys, one chose Batman-
Marc:
You think DC was paying him?
Steve:
Yeah, they were. I think Marvel and DC were trying to infiltrate us. But I used to give my boys a hard time. I was telling you guys earlier that, of course they had Turtle toys and when they do the... and our daughter too, would do their chores. They had a choice of some money for your piggy bank or turtle toy. Inevitably, 9 times out of 10 it'd be a toy. But the Turtle van ended up being Batman and Spiderman's vehicle. And I made a point that if there's a Turtle Van those two are in it, there has to be at least one Turtle in the van at all times. It was terrible.
Knate:
On that note, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much. We're going to move over to our practical portion.
Adam:
Dads, this episode was recorded just prior to social distancing and before events started being canceled and postponed. Marc and I were lucky to get a chance to catch up with Steve Lavigne in the green room at 3S Artspace for a short conversation about this wonderful feeling of nostalgia that we all seem to be chasing as dads.
Steve:
I love nostalgia. I mean, and now it's my career. I mean, it's kind of a Comic-Cons are ... they're half nostalgia, half Jason Momoas. So that's the funny thing is you'll see him walk by and yet, people are here for me. So it's a very weird world, but it's nice. And I really like it. And like I mentioned before, the Turtle fans are probably one of the most incredible fandoms. Truly. They really are. I mean, we've tens of thousands of people. And two fingers, I can tell you people that I never want to talk to again.
Marc:
As a child, what was your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
Steve:
Wow. I didn't really have one. I mean, I think it was a different time. There wasn't something on all week long. So we lived for Saturday morning what would come on. Boy, it's really hard to say. I mean, I liked Hanna-Barbera. I mean, if anything, that's where I probably would have wound up. If I didn't wind up doing what I'm doing, is animation.
Marc:
Is that where you think you got the spark?
Steve:
Oh, 100%. Yeah. I mean, I lived for Saturday mornings. Swore up and down when it was Sunday evening when Disney came on and it was an animal show for me.
Marc:
That's funny.
Steve:
That age, we didn't have it all the time like you guys grew up with. Cable wasn't around. We had three channels. We barely survived.
Marc:
I'm glad you made it.
Steve:
It was basically radio. Yeah.
Adam:
Steve, I read an interview with you where you said something to the effect of, "I see 28-year-old men revert back to childhood when they come into my space and see all of the memorabilia."
Steve:
Yeah. I mean I had a comic book shop in our town, Wells, for about four years. Maybe five, I think. So I would get the occasional first guy coming in the door like, "Oh wow. Wow. So cool." Next guy coming in a little louder. By the third guy, they're screaming like a little kid. And I used to joke, "I know what you were as an eight-year-old child because you're 28 and you're running around screaming like that." And they’re like “that’s exactly, exactly what it was.”
Adam:
Is that strange to you, considering the Turtles have been a constant in your life since the late '80s, early '90s?
Steve:
It was mid or early '80s. Yeah. I started in '85 on the Turtles. So yeah.
Adam:
So every day you are thinking about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and a lot of the people who are coming to events like the screenings, introducing their children to it for the first time, spent so much time with it when they were kids have had decades without it. And now we're feeling these nostalgic feelings as they're introducing…
Steve:
Everybody buys back their childhood. You know what I mean? As you hit about 30 you get a little extra expendable income. I did. We all did. Went and found those toys our parents wouldn't get us, and now they're in my studio.
Marc:
Take that mom.
Steve:
Yeah, exactly.
Steve:
But yeah. I know it's very bizarre. I mean for me, like you said, thinking about the shows, it doesn't even ... it's not even part of the process. I mean, it's weird. Weird to me still at times. I mean, I remember the first time the Turtles had come on, the cartoon was out. And all of a sudden, they were on Jeopardy as a question. Me and Kevin were living together. We were in an apartment before we had wives, and it just blew our mind. You would've thought that was the coolest thing in the world. We're like, "Oh my God, we were just a question on Jeopardy." That's when those things really hit us weird. And now it's just bizarre ... it just seems normal but also at times weird. There's a new version of the Turtles now. And I have to defend it to all the old Turtle fans and tell them, "It's not for you. It's for people this tall. You're not allowed on this ride type of a thing." But so it's ... and now that Viacom owns them, they're around forever.
Marc:
But things coming back like that it new forms, it really just gives you the opportunity as a ... well, say me, somebody who's 38 years old, the opportunity that's an in for us. Those of us who are now parents who have kids of our own, they're excited about something ... would our kids have been excited about something that we were excited about as kids if they didn't have their own version of that thing today? Do you know what I'm saying?
Steve:
Yeah. Yeah.
Marc:
So at least it gets that spark for them going that you can then-
Steve:
It's an entry point.
Marc:
It's an entry point. Well put.
Steve:
It's an entry point. And then you go, "But mine were cooler. Do you know mine… and they were way better than that new show you're watching."
Adam:
"Let me show you the original."
Steve:
Right. And again, that's just how everyone's brain works. I always go like, "Have you ever really watched the cartoon?" It's not that we... because we really didn't. I think we watched about the first week of the cartoon. The only time we actually paid attention to an episode is if we had a toy character that we created that was going to be an episode. Then we would get a little bit of script approval in the look of the character because they would have to change it to simplify it for animation.
Adam:
So a lot of nostalgia is really about tapping into the joy and the passion that you felt at a previous time in your life. I have these really fond memories of playing with my friend Ted when we were kids with the action figures. We would play with these things all day long. And somehow we ended up dismembering some of them and burying them in his yard. So somewhere in Falmouth, Maine, there was a yard that has arms and legs of Leonardo and Donatello buried in the ground.
Marc:
Ted, if you're listening, help us find the turtles.
Adam:
And we know ... Ted and I… I think he and I could put our brains together and give some pretty precise coordinates. We might go on a mission to dig these up.
Steve:
There you go.
Adam:
It must feel good to know that your creativity and your art accompanies or has promoted a lot of genuinely fun and imaginative times for young people.
Steve:
Yeah, that's the ... it's kind of the nice thing about the whole thing is there's a whole generation now, but almost two generations, it feels like of up and coming, young professional artists that are way better than ... at a skill level that we ever were or ever will be. It always blows my mind. And I have people come up and thank me. And I'm like, "For what?" And they're like, "You inspired me to become an artist. You inspired ... " And it's like, "I didn't. I was having a blast…”
Adam:
"I did what I loved. That's all I was doing."
Steve:
That's the ... that was the wonderful thing. And maybe it came through. I mean, we had a blast. It was a great work environment. Kevin and Pete are artists. So they gave us freedom, which is ... I always joke. They were very gracious. They let everybody play in the toy box. If you wanted to do a turtle story in your style, sure. You go ahead and have fun with them. They were always gracious that way. And that's not normal with a lot of properties or characters.
Adam:
Thank you so much, Steve Lavigne. We really appreciate having you.
Adam:
What a totally down to earth guy.
Marc:
He was. He was just a regular dude.
Adam:
Totally unsuspecting. You could walk by this guy on the street and would never think twice. Same with his wife who is so nice. You would walk by them and never in a million years think that he was so instrumental in the Ninja Turtles from a very early stage.
Marc:
I just like that he genuinely likes it still.
Adam:
He is all about it.
Marc:
Yeah, he doesn't come across as being like, "I still got to talk about this stuff." And I think that was the thing I loved the most about his wife, is that she's into it too. She was excited to tell us about how they carry the artwork in their portfolios when they travel on a plane.
Adam:
She also showed us a photo of her on set for the live action movie with some of the Foot Clan guys with their masks off on lunch break
Marc:
Yeah, she had a Foot Clan hood on.
Adam:
Yeah. They were super cool people. Great people. A really great event. I loved seeing the movie again. I loved having Sarah and our six-year-old daughter there to see it for the first time. And now she wants to know when she can watch it again. I did love seeing how many parents were in the audience with a kid. I think that really does speak to how we just became enamored with these characters as kids and truly are excited to relive that. And that really is, all joking aside, that's really what nostalgia is, right? It's the longing to revisit the feelings that you were having during whatever the nostalgic thing is.
Marc:
Yeah. It's funny. I was just ... something that's been making me feel just nostalgic as heck lately are Matchbox Cars because my kids now have ... we don't even know where they've gotten them from but they've got a bunch of little Matchbox Cars. And just this afternoon, I was laying on the couch, one of them was laying on top of me playing with sort of a newish Matchbox Car. And he was just pouring over thing. Turning it upside down and spinning each of the wheels and running his hand along the little grooves and stuff. But all the details that are on it and it's painted and it's got numbers and letters and stuff on it. And I was just staring at him do this. And I could have stared at him for hours if he wanted to sit there and do that, because I was just reveling in these thoughts of me at that... well, maybe not quite that young. But when I was a kid, same thing. I would spend hours just lining them up, looking at every little last detail of them. I mean, nothing else mattered in those moments at that age. I had my Matchbox Car, had my little fake garage that I made out of a shoe box and cut holes inside. And just nothing else mattered. Not a care in the world besides just those Matchbox Cars at that moment.
Adam:
Isn't it funny that as parents, I feel like I spend so much of my time just basically, more or less, following my girls around the house and just putting the things away that they just play with and then drop. We have this toy box that's full of dress up stuff. And every time one of the girls goes in, she's pulling everything out of it and it's all just on the floor. And it doesn't take me long to clean up. I throw it right back in there. But now we just so carelessly just throw a toy or possession back wherever to get out of the way. But when you're a kid, that thing has so much meaning and you just study it and invest so much of your time in just focusing on that thing.
Marc:
It's funny, I was looking at one of their toys earlier today because we were outside playing. And one of my sons just getting too big for this trike that we have. But I was looking at the trike and I was like, "Boy, I can't wait to throw that thing in the garbage." But now here I am thinking about it like, "What does it mean to him? Does it mean something more to him, and is that worth hanging onto it?"
Adam:
It certainly means something to him now. But two thoughts around that. One, you could keep it and show it to him in 15 years or 20 years and he might be like, "Oh, that is so nostalgic, and that didn't mean a lot to me." Or you could throw it away tomorrow. It disappears. You never think of it again. And he never thinks of it again, regardless of the meaning it had to him. If we have so many toys from the girls. And he'd just get more at every birthday and every holiday. And we try to recycle stuff, so where you take stuff out of rotation, put other stuff back in. But we never do it.
Adam:
And so now we just have several big bins that are tucked away in storage that are all the old toys. And there's some really good stuff in there that I know have so much meaning to my girls at the time. But they don't even notice them because they're gone. They don't even notice. So as long as I can get past my sentimentality for it, that's the hard part because most of the time they don't even ever think about it again. Nostalgia man.
Adam:
So I asked one of my favorite ... not one of my favorite. It's by far my favorite dad group. I'm in a few dad groups on Facebook. I threw this out to them and I said, "What's something that you're nostalgic about from your own childhood that you are excited to share with your kids?" And we got some pretty funny answers.
Marc:
You got so many comments on this. I'm in this group too. Thanks to you. Thanks for the invite.
Adam:
Welcome.
Marc:
And I feel like this one really got ... I mean, it got a lot of comments. I'm just scrolling through real fast to look at some of these. Should we read some of these off, man? Some of them are really good.
Adam:
Yeah, you want to go first?
Marc:
Let me read one here. Let me go right ... the first one that I'm going to go with here is from Adam Schrager. He said, "The original Transformers."
Adam:
I was never a Transformers guy. So you'll have to ...
Marc:
Dude, that ... if he means the cartoon, if he means the Saturday morning Transformers Cartoon, that was the thing that made me say, "One day, I hope they really ... that they make a real movie on this."
Adam:
A lot of people said, Ninja Turtles, on this list. Which is awesome because I didn't indicate in my post that it had anything to do with our Ninja Turtles event or anything like that. So that's funny to see. And it was definitely one for me as well that I'm very nostalgic for. Legos. Obviously.
Marc:
There's is a person named Mitch McConnell who wrote in all caps, LEGOS. This person has a fantastic name and some good answers.
Adam:
Let's have it.
Marc:
Mack Randy says, "Original Nintendo."
Adam:
Totino's Pizza Rolls. Absolutely.
Marc:
Fun Dip. Do you remember Fun Dip?
Adam:
Do I remember tearing off the top, eating all the sugar, and then sucking on the stick for about 40 minutes until it was gone? I think I do. Yeah. Yeah. Fun Dip is good stuff, man. Imagine that… a solid sugar stick that you used to dip into powdered sugar and feed it into your mouth.
Marc:
I'm surprised that the package itself wasn't also made of sugar that you were supposed to eat.
Adam:
You'd just put it on your tongue like acid and it just dissolves over time.
Marc:
It just slowly dissolves.
Adam:
I see a GIF of Peewee here.
Marc:
Man, Peewee. I loved that show. And I watched that first movie so many times. But that movie was kind of dark. You know what I see a lot of? Star Wars.
Adam:
There is a lot of Star Wars.
Marc:
When somebody just writes, star Wars, I know what they mean. They mean the 1970s, '80s original Star Wars.
Adam:
Yeah. Anakin Skywalker.
Marc:
Yes. Lucas Skullwalker. Oh, and I see that you reacted back to this one ...
Adam:
The middle finger emoji? What was my reaction?
Marc:
No, a person by the name of Ian Chapman said, among other things, Thundercats.
Adam:
Yeah. And I don't remember ... admittedly, I don't remember a ton about Thundercats except for that I watched Thundercats a lot. Was one of them called Liono?
Marc:
Yeah. They had really hokey names. I don't remember all the names. Some of these people's answers are nice. Not about necessarily a thing. For example, Dan Magnolia says, "Riding our bikes without supervision or helmets for miles in any direction until dark."
Adam:
Yes. Totally.
Marc:
I love that answer. Totally. I'm going to give that a like right now.
Adam:
We used to just cruise around the neighborhood. There was a Hill in my neighborhood when ... there was a house at the bottom. And we used to go stride our bikes down the Hill. You'd set it up at the top, in the center, and let it go and see how far before it either falls over or it goes off the driveway. The people who lived there didn't love that we were doing that towards their house and down their driveway, but ...
Marc:
What are you going to do? You just got that one life to live, man.
Adam:
Andrew Conklin, who is one of the moderators in this group... did I say too much?
Marc:
I don't know.
Adam:
He said in his response talking about ... he was talking about camping. I totally get that. I didn't do much camping growing up until high school maybe, with friends, but now we camp. We love camping. And it's something that I am excited to do with our girls.
Marc:
Yeah. I didn't do any camping either as a kid. But that is also something that I would really like to do with our kids. Because I guess I can see that value there too. I want to play cards by flashlight in a little tent even in the backyard. Do you know what I mean?
Adam:
Yeah.
Marc:
I want to sort of engineer that picturesque kind of back-to-basics I suppose kind of way of having fun with your family.
Adam:
It's interesting that you say that because you used the word manufacturing.
Marc:
I said, engineering, but yeah.
Adam:
Engineering this picturesque thing. Isn't that funny that we have to think about experiences that we had growing up. We want to recreate them from our kids, but we have to go out of our way to dial it in just right when your dad wouldn't have been thinking of it that way. That it just was what it was.
Marc:
True. Yeah. I mean, you can't repeat something and expect the same results either. What taught me that was Groundhog Day, when he tries to have the same snowball fight with the kids in the park when he's walking with the girl, but he has that really great walk and it's very genuine and they have a great time. And then of course, he wakes up the next morning. And then he tries to do the same thing in the exact same way. He ends up getting slapped.
Adam:
Peter Duke had one that was similar to what we were speaking about, "Playing outside without adults."
Marc:
Peter Duke also says, "The Goonies and Princess Bride."
Adam:
Both great films.
Marc:
I'll go on record as saying, Princess Bride. This is me that's going on officially on record. You have to keep this in the edit. "The Princess Bride is the best film ever made."
Adam:
Shut…………. up. Shut up.
Marc:
I don't even need to defend it because I know it's true.
Adam:
I don't know that it's even worth getting into.
Marc:
That's absurd.
Adam:
Let's just leave it. I enjoy Princess Bride a lot. It's great. I disagree though.
Marc:
Oh, it's actually the greatest film ever made. And if you agree with me, go ahead and write to hey@moderndadhood.com to just say, "Marc, I agree with you."
Adam:
And if you think that that is the most absurd claim you've ever heard, feel free to email us at, hey, H-E-Y, @moderndadhood.com and let us know that.
Marc:
But yeah, I really want to share movies like that with my kids, and I'm just so afraid that they're going to hate them.
Adam:
Yeah, I know what you're afraid of. That they get 10 minutes into it ... like my three-year-old with a Tiny Toon Adventures this morning on Disney+, she watched it a little bit then she said, "I don't want to watch this anymore."
Marc:
It's the pacing. Pacing was so different for "kids' things" when we were kids than it is now. I mean, the whole pace of the world is different, I suppose. Right? You just can get things whenever you want them. But I don't know. Storytelling was like a ... I don't know. The Goonies has ... remember how long the intro to Goonies was?
Adam:
It took a long time for them to tell any story in those movies.
Marc:
Yeah, they introduced each character one by one. You really get to learn the ins and outs of each one of those characters before you get to the main part of the story. I feel like there's so many movies I watch now where, just 10 minutes in, and I'm knee-deep in the story already. And I'm like, "I don't even give a shit about this character." I don't even know their name.
Adam:
Matthew and Ian both talking about Sesame Street. Absolutely. And yeah, it's changed a lot. The Sesame Street on HBO is a lot different than what I grew up on, but it has enough of that spirit that, yeah, absolutely. But I can always show my girls the old stuff too, and I do.
Adam:
Nostalgia. Dads who are nostalgic for things, you can find us at moderndadhood.com or wherever you like to listen to your podcasts.
Marc:
We'd love it if you head on over to Apple Podcasts, hit that subscribe button. Boy, we would love that. And if you're feeling up to it, leave us a review, maybe a rating. Those things go a long way for us and they really help us get on the old radar for everybody else. And what else we would love? Could you just tell your friends? Tell your friends about us. Tell your dad-friends, tell your mom-friends, tell your friends' Moms.
Adam:
We said it earlier, but you can email us anytime at, hey, H-E-Y, @moderndadhood.com. We'd love hearing from you. We do actually respond.
Marc:
Music done by Caspar Babypants, as well as Spencer Albee and Bubby Lewis.
Adam:
Thanks to Pete Morse at Red Vault Audio for making our sound awesome. And thanks to Nic Roes.
Marc:
Nic Roes, our intern, also an accomplished painter. Intern fact.
Adam:
And also, thank YOU so much.
Marc:
See you around the mulberry bush.