Pass the Mustard Seed...: VHS Nostalgia

Last night I spent some time with Lauren and Sarah. We decided that since a whole week had passed since getting home from our trip, it was about time for a What Now Wanderers reunion of sorts. While we were reuniting, Sarah taught Lauren to knit while I browsed Craig's List for jobs (the search is officially on). Lauren took a break from knitting to answer a phone call from her boyfriend Brent. He called to tell her that he saw an opossum (for those who have seen "Teen Girl Squad" on Homestar Runner, this is especially funny). When Lauren got off the phone she told us a great story about how growing up, she always related opossums to bayous and bayous to opossums. The relation is strange enough as is, but what made it even more bizarre was that the opossum Lauren related to bayous was adorned with a straw hat and played the banjo. She could never remember why she had this connection until she met Brent and asked him what he thought of when he pictured bayous (strange I know) so she could explain this odd relationship that she had lived with for so long without explanation. To Lauren and Brent's surprise, Brent said that he also pictured an opossum wearing a straw hat playing a banjo! They are definitely soul mates! It turned out that the opossum with the straw hat and banjo was Banjo the Wood Pile Opossum from Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Summer Vacation! Why am I so excited? Allow me to explain..

Everyone has their favorite childhood movie or movies. Many will reference Mary Poppins or Cinderella, but though these are movies that I cherish and grew up enjoying, they were not the films that I begged my parents to allow me to watch over and over again.

When I came to college, there were so many new people to meet and so many topics of conversation to cover that conversation rarely dwindled. Every new person that I met had so many interesting insights to share and stories to tell that I can't help but laugh when I recall the topic of conversation that always came up - ALWAYS. The topic? Childhood movies and television shows. The topic came up so often that I eventually had the answers to, "What was your favorite Nicktoon?" and, "What Disney villain scared you the most growing up?" ready to deliver in a heartbeat.

Maybe it was the return to napping or the cookie breaks in college that made the topic of childhood entertainment so intriguing. Maybe it was the realization that college marked the entry into adulthood and, consequently, the final days of childhood that made revisiting the past so common. Whatever the reason, conversations revolving around things that were popular in childhood were inevitable. Even more so, they were a common ground for any group of people to discuss and the foundation for (I have to admit) a handful of the friendships I made during my time at college.

So, what are the movies that landmark my childhood? The movies that I could watch over and over again and never tire of? The films that I own on VHS and still occasionally pop into the VCR to watch when I am feeling nostalgic or too grown up for my own good? Here's the list with clips from my favorite part of each film. I'm only going to give the animated ones for now because the list would be much too long for one blog post if I included live-action too!

1.) Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Summer Vacation