Which book/film/TV series from your childhood has stayed with you all your life?

Tallyfire

Tallyfire

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I wasn't sure how to phrase the title. It's like some things we consume in our childhood get ingrained on the psyche, and continue to live rent-free in our minds.

For me, it's Star Trek. It's not like I was ever even a Star Trek fan, but it was often playing in the background throughout my childhood. When I think about what kind of stories I want to write, I keep circling back to Star Trek. I really should go rewatch the old series.
 
I wasn't exactly a child, I was about 18 when I read Wuthering Heights, and the passions in the novel carried me away. I still have a clear memory of reading the last page and just sitting there gaping, in the throes of the powerful story I had read.
 
I'll see your timeless literary classics and raise you with the unbridled joy of Tom & Jerry. It didn't have a regular slot on TV, more filler for whenever there was a ten minute interval between scheduled shows. The call would go out and the bunch of us would cram in front of the TV, waiting for the credits to finish with fingers crossed that the final credit would read "Directed by Fred Quimby." I know nothing about him other than he was the mark of quality on Tom & Jerry. Half a century later I can still picture poor Jerry finally cornered with his little heart beating out of his chest.
 
Hmm, I've loved 1984 for almost twenty years, Pride and Prejudice for slightly less than. None could ever live up to Mr Darcy. Nor could any government control scare me as much as Big Brother

The only books from my childhood that stayed with me are, Where The Sidewalk Ends, such a delight to read. And my all time favorite, though it pains me, is The Giving Tree. I have always held an affinity for trees since then...as is evident in all my profile pics across writing forums.

Movies, pretty much any 80s film geared towards youth...but mostly I'm a Goonie, always craving adventures. I've long fancied the thought of piracy on the high seas, at least the kind of days long past.
 
Hard question! I grew up relying on TV, and moreso comic books. I recall watching Jurassic Park 1 and 2 more than is probably healthy for a growing lad.

Interestingly, the TV that would really stay with me didn't show up until I was in my late 20s. It was mostly those shows I shared with my now ex-girlfriend. Stuff like Community, Brooklyn Nine-Nine. In some ways I feel like my late 20s constitute part of my childhood, because I didn't have the chance to grow up properly before then.

If I do go all the way back, there isn't lots. Our house had one TV channel for the longest time, and it never sent anything good. I do remember stuff like Adventures of the Gummi Bears, but I remember watching it more than I do the content itself. Also Littlefoot, a Land Before Time. I loved that stuff so much.
 
Tallyfire said:
Wuthering Heights is so gripping! I regularly reread Jane Eyre, which I also only first picked up as a teenager. I often want to retreat into the Yorkshire moors and rediscover Thornfield Hall.
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I first "read" Jane Eyre in 3rd grade in the Classics Illustrated version. I read it again in an abridged version in junior high, I think, then the full version in high school, all off my own bat.

It's where I first encountered the idea of tropes. In this case, that of the young governess who is romanced/bethrothed by the owner of the spooky old house where she works, only to find he has a mad wife confined in the attic. The supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows and a novel called I, Keturah, riffed on the same theme. As a kid who thought a lot about plays and literature, I found it exciting as heck.

Besides that, I was deeply influenced by the whole Ingalls Wilder Little House series. I never had much use for the TV adaptation, but those books had me convinced I was ready to live on the frontier, should the need ever occur.

In 4th grade, Sara Crewe, Scholastic's abridgment of A Little Princess, got me through several bad months of social isolation in a new school. Later on, in high school and early college, I'd reread Hannah Greene's I Never Promised You a Rose Garden every time I was tempted to give up and let my depression get out of hand--- or worse. But the less said about that, the better.
 
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Practically everything from the seventies/eighties:.

Comedies: Steptoe and Son (I first saw it in the seventies) The Two Ronnies, Dave Allen, Porridge, MInd Your Language, Black Adder, The Prisoner (repeated in the eighties) Star Trek (the original one was repeated)

Shows/quizzes: Opportunity Knocks, The Generation Game, The Golden Shot and anything with Bob Monkhouse, Play Your Cards Right (anything with Bruce Forsyth) Z cars, Play For Today, Football Focus, Match of the Day (whe nit was about the football, not the politics)
Standups: Billy Connolly, Bernard Manning, Dave Allen, and many more considered too unPC these days. Eurovision Song Contest (when it was about the music, not the politics)

Music: BBC, Top of the Pops. Radio 1, Radio Clyde,

News: BBC 1 and ITV.

FIlms: Spaghetti westerns. (repeats) Anything with Clint Eastwood in it, Rocky 3, Rambo, Grease, Back to the Future, James Bond (Sean Connery)

Wow! I'm really reminiscing here.
 
Movies:
  • Prince of Egypt
  • Digimon (the first movie)
  • Tarzan
  • Shrek (i can quote the gingerbread interogation scene verbatim)
  • Fox and the Hound
  • Dumbo
(The last 2 because they made me really sad as a child and i wont wtch them again)

Books/written works:
  • The Prince of the Pond by Donna Jo Napoli (my first time reading a fairytale that didnt have a happy ending.... and the female frog has my name. We had to read it in class in 4th grade and you can imagine the other kids calling me "frog" because of that book)
  • There Will Come Soft Rain by Bradbury
  • The Gettysburg Address (we had to learn in it 6th grade, and then recite it on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as a class. i can stil to this day recite it by memory....)
 
TV series: Star Trek, CSI Las Vegas, Pokemon (the original stuff), Avatar: the Last Airbender, Lambchop, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (starring the babe himself, Jeremy Brett)

Books: Amelia's Notebooks, some Babysitter's Club, Nancy Drew (my third grade teacher let me borrow hers and I got through some of my parents' divorce reading about Nancy's adventures), and then in high school, it was the Abhorsen series by Garth Nix and the Green Rider series by Kristen Britain (the next book is coming out in September and I am positively stupid with excitement). I also read a lot of Piers Anthony in high school and I kind of think that's why I like a lot of weird shit, haha.

Video games: Halo

Movies: A Knight's Tale, most of the classically animated Disney, Fern Gully, We're Back, Scamper the Penguin, Willy the Sparrow, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Sixth Sense (saw it when I was twelve, have never seen it again because it scared me shitless)


There's probably more I'm forgetting, but this sums me up as a person pretty well, haha
 
wearywanderer64 said:
Match of the Day
Click to expand...
How many "d's" in Match of the Day?

In 1979 (or thereabouts), RTE 2 broadcast for the first time, becoming a second national TV channel, allowing the people of rural Ireland to become liberated and civilised. We could finally ask that question.
"What's on the other channel?"

On Saturday nights, RTE 1 showed Match of the Day, RTE 2 played a movie. We weren't a soccer house (yeah, we call it soccer too), so there'd usually be a few of us watching whatever thriller/murder mystery RTE 2 was showing until, about two thirds through the movie, that old familiar grunt at the front door announced our father's arrival home from pub. He'd come into the living room, arm extended in front with his index finger pointing generally towards the TV. "How many "d's" in Match of the Day?" Every Saturday night, every single one of them, for more years than I can recall. He'd stoop to the TV, press the channel button because we could never find the remote and that was mostly because they weren't invented at that point in history, change to Match of the Day regardless of the burgeoning tension in the movie we were watching. I grew up thinking every serial killer got away with it!

That explains a lot.

There's 156 "d's" in Match of the Day". 🎵 Dee dee dee deee de de de dee de🎶
 
Rigor Mortis said:
How many "d's" in Match of the Day?

In 1979 (or thereabouts), RTE 2 broadcast for the first time, becoming a second national TV channel, allowing the people of rural Ireland to become liberated and civilised. We could finally ask that question.
"What's on the other channel?"

On Saturday nights, RTE 1 showed Match of the Day, RTE 2 played a movie. We weren't a soccer house (yeah, we call it soccer too), so there'd usually be a few of us watching whatever thriller/murder mystery RTE 2 was showing until, about two thirds through the movie, that old familiar grunt at the front door announced our father's arrival home from pub. He'd come into the living room, arm extended in front with his index finger pointing generally towards the TV. "How many "d's" in Match of the Day?" Every Saturday night, every single one of them, for more years than I can recall. He'd stoop to the TV, press the channel button because we could never find the remote and that was mostly because they weren't invented at that point in history, change to Match of the Day regardless of the burgeoning tension in the movie we were watching. I grew up thinking every serial killer got away with it!

That explains a lot.

There's 156 "d's" in Match of the Day". 🎵 Dee dee dee deee de de de dee de🎶
Click to expand...
And it was way before Sky monopolised football. Back then we got the football for free, though we had to pay for the TV licence.
 
Kiraann said:
Books: Tarzan, John Carter, Robert Louis stevenson

Tv/music: Star Trek, Monkees (both of those original broadcasts), Ed Sullivan (beatles, stones, etc), project Mercury launches

Movie: too many to count. My parents would go square dancing and my siblings & I would go to movies. :p
Click to expand...
Tarzan films and the Monkees. Forgotten all about them.
 
Kid's programmes/quizzes/shows: Runaround, Newsround, Tiswas (there was something similar on BBC on Saturday mornings, I can't remember the name) Blue Peter, Bagpuss, The Clangers, Rainbow ( funny as hell) The Magic Roundabout. Dramarama, Grange Hill

Adverts for: Smash (mashed potatoes) Flake, Fudge, Curly Wurly Heinz Beans, Hovis bread. Hai Karate, Brut, (aftershave)

For some reason the adverts had great jingles in the seventies
 
I think it's Tokusatsu in general for me. I don't live in Japan, but there were a few shows that were dubbed and aired in my country. Stuff like Ultraman or Armored Heroes. I looked up the latter a lot on the internet and that led me to discovering Kamen Rider and Super Sentai. I'm saying this as I finished joining the forum after watching Kamen Rider Zeztz episode 1.
 
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