It has recently come to my attention that Fergie (from Black Eyed Peas) used to be on Kids Incorporated back in the mid-late 80’s. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, it ran on the Disney Channel from about 86 through 92, and consisted of a Menudo-esque group of kids who were in a “rock band” where they covered pop hits of the day and generally engaged in typical after-school special plotlines involving peer pressure, smoking, and bullies. I was a huge fan of the show at the time, partly because I was twelve, and partly because I figured if those kids could be in a band, then heck, I could start a band and become world famous! It also helped that the girls in the band were total hotties, naturally.
So Disney had totally sucked me in with their cleverly-designed blend of teen-bop music, vanilla-dull plots, and two-dimentional characters – sucking me into hours of Disney-channel watching every week between KI, Donald Duck Presents (re-airings of old Mickey, Goofy, and Donald cartoons from the 40’s and 50’s before they all started trying to break into hip-hop), and repeated showings of Dean Jones standards like Blackbeard’s Ghost and That Darn Cat!. In fact, I became such a huge fan of KI that they were the first show I ever wrote a fan letter to, where I confessed how much I loved the show and how I watched it every week. My dream was to get one of the auto-penned signed cast photographs that I had heard about.
But instead, I got nothing. Nada, Ziltch, Zero. No fan club package, no auto-penned cast picture, no t-shirt, no letter handwritten by Renee where she confessed her undying love for me and professed her desire to move to the Midwest and become my steady girl (Stacey would have been fine too). Needless to say, I was stunned that I had been so naïve. I had been suckered into an unhealthy obsession with Disney designed by the dark lord Eisner. I was filled with a righteous anger, and stopped watching the show immediately. At that point, Disney stopped airing all their old, awesome movies and started trying to be “cool” so I stopped watching the Disney Channel entirely a year or so later.
Anyway, returning to my original point, it is shocking that Stacey Ferguson is actually only slightly younger than I am, yet her fashion sense seems to be frozen in 1987:
"Old" Stacey
"New" Stacey
It is so weird to find out that the characters you most identified with in TV and movies of your youth are actually like 6 years older than you. And the characters you looked down upon as “little kids” are actually your age. It happened on KI with Renee being the one I was crushing on, and I thought Stacey was way younger than I was (like, probably 2 years). It also happened with Drew Barrymore in E.T. In both cases, these girls were totally my age at the time, but I was just in denial. Now that they are grownups, it seems like they are older than me (Stacey in particular looks OLD, must be all the drugs that the KI kids did backstage while partying with the Rolling Stones and Motley Crue).
I wonder if I look that old to them, and whether any of them actually ever read my letter to begin with.
So Disney had totally sucked me in with their cleverly-designed blend of teen-bop music, vanilla-dull plots, and two-dimentional characters – sucking me into hours of Disney-channel watching every week between KI, Donald Duck Presents (re-airings of old Mickey, Goofy, and Donald cartoons from the 40’s and 50’s before they all started trying to break into hip-hop), and repeated showings of Dean Jones standards like Blackbeard’s Ghost and That Darn Cat!. In fact, I became such a huge fan of KI that they were the first show I ever wrote a fan letter to, where I confessed how much I loved the show and how I watched it every week. My dream was to get one of the auto-penned signed cast photographs that I had heard about.
But instead, I got nothing. Nada, Ziltch, Zero. No fan club package, no auto-penned cast picture, no t-shirt, no letter handwritten by Renee where she confessed her undying love for me and professed her desire to move to the Midwest and become my steady girl (Stacey would have been fine too). Needless to say, I was stunned that I had been so naïve. I had been suckered into an unhealthy obsession with Disney designed by the dark lord Eisner. I was filled with a righteous anger, and stopped watching the show immediately. At that point, Disney stopped airing all their old, awesome movies and started trying to be “cool” so I stopped watching the Disney Channel entirely a year or so later.
Anyway, returning to my original point, it is shocking that Stacey Ferguson is actually only slightly younger than I am, yet her fashion sense seems to be frozen in 1987:
"Old" Stacey
"New" Stacey
It is so weird to find out that the characters you most identified with in TV and movies of your youth are actually like 6 years older than you. And the characters you looked down upon as “little kids” are actually your age. It happened on KI with Renee being the one I was crushing on, and I thought Stacey was way younger than I was (like, probably 2 years). It also happened with Drew Barrymore in E.T. In both cases, these girls were totally my age at the time, but I was just in denial. Now that they are grownups, it seems like they are older than me (Stacey in particular looks OLD, must be all the drugs that the KI kids did backstage while partying with the Rolling Stones and Motley Crue).
I wonder if I look that old to them, and whether any of them actually ever read my letter to begin with.
Comments
Definitely Canadian, but not much like Kids Inc...other than that kids were acting in it.
Still, Anoushka is a cool name, so she's probably right.
I loved how the name of the theater used to be The Palace, until the first neon "a" broke, so they all called it "The Place".