the Mildly Frumpy Protagonist

Great Scott! We're back! And we're discussing one of the most popular movie trilogies of all time. BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) was an enormous hit straight out of the gate, turning Robert Zemeckis into one of Hollywood's most sought-after directors and the Delorean into a car people actually wanted to own. The time travel action-adventure is still one of the most beloved films from the 1980s, but now that we're looking back at it from the future, does the trilogy's premier installment stand the test of time? Join our debate, and stay tuned for Part 2 later this week!

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email your episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on the iTunes and Google Play Stores so more folks check out the show!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

If you've been waiting for us to tackle ABC's family-friendly Friday night programming block known as TGIF - you got it, dude! TGIF premiered in 1989, and hosted, oh, about a hundred thousand sitcoms, maybe a dozen or so you may actually remember today. If you were a child of the 90s, there's no doubt you likely waited all week to tune in to "Full House," "Family Matters," "Step By Step" and "Boy Meets World" - and maybe even "Dinosaurs," too. This week we're taking a look back at these family shows to see if their laugh tracks and heartwarming moments still entertain us as adults.

Join us as we tackle the big questions: where did all the family members disappear to on "Step By Step?" How are three single men sharing a house in San Francisco NOT gay? Is Urkel just an incel in disguise as a geek? And, most importantly, will we go insane listening to catchphrase after catchphrase after catchphrase? Have mercy.

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email your episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on the iTunes and Google Play Stores so more folks check out the show!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Shirts and shoes are forbidden in the latest episode of the When We Were Young podcast — and the fight will go on as long as it has to.

It’s been 20 years since David Fincher’s savagely funny and brutally violent satire of Gen X male angst debuted in theaters, so we’re breaking Rule #1 and Rule #2 and talking all about FIGHT CLUB! (Something tells us Tyler Durden wouldn’t mind.) Though the film initially flopped in theaters, this trippy dark comedy found a cult following on home video and turned Tyler Durden into one of the most iconic film characters of all time thanks to Brad Pitt’s killer performance — and his equally killer physique.

Two decades later, is Fight Club still a beautiful and unique snowflake? Or does the film’s critique of consumer culture and fragile masculinity fail to land a punch? Tune in for all the soap-making, ear-hitting, Martha Stewart-bashing mayhem you can handle, because this is our podcast, and it’s ending one minute at a time.

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email your episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes so more folks check out the show!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

They eat your eyes, they eat your toes - but all we're asking for is your ears to listen to us revisit SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK, the book series featuring stories retold by Alvin Schwartz and nightmare-inducing illustrations by Stephen Gammell. There was nothing more exhilarating to an 80s and 90s tween than flipping through these books under the covers with a flashlight, both hoping for and dreading the scares you'll get before you go to sleep.

The "Scary Stories" series remains popular with kids, is not so popular with a certain sect of overprotective parents who still hope the books get banned from their children's libraries, and is finally getting a big-screen adaptation 38 years after the release of the first book. But now that we're adults, are the stories really all that scary? Are Gammell's watercolor drawings as creepy as we remember them? And can someone tell us why the car behind us is repeatedly flashing their high beams? Join us for our latest episode -- if you dare!

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email your episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes so more folks check out the show!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Look at these films, aren’t they neat? Any Disney fan’s movie collection’s complete if it includes THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989), BEAUTY & THE BEAST (1991), ALADDIN (1992) and THE LION KING (1994). These movies aren’t just the four most popular films from Disney’s Renaissance period (which lasted a full decade and includes 10 animated flicks); they’re also responsible for saving the animation department at the Mouse House and making an unprecedented mark on animation, Broadway and pop culture in general.

Instead of watching Disney’s “live action” remakes of these classics, we took a magic carpet ride back to the late 80s and early 90s to revisit the films themselves. Are Ariel, Belle and Jasmine modern feminist icons, or are they still stuck in traditional gender roles? Does The Lion King still rule our hearts? And who's the hottest prince of them all? Hurry and listen to our latest episode before the last rose petal falls and we all turn into furniture forever!

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email your episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes so more folks check out the show!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Feeling patriotic this July? Well, if there’s one thing more American than apple pie, it’s a questionable attitude toward sex — and that’s exactly what we’re serving up in our latest episode!

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of AMERICAN PIE, When We Were Young looks back at the wave of 80s teen sex comedies that inspired it, from the problematic peep-show that is Porky’s to lewd, lowbrow early roles from Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, and John Cusack. It’s no secret that these films peddled T&A to get butts in seats back then, but how titillating does all that groping, leering, and objectification of females look from a modern vantage point?

Then, it’s time to ogle American Pie all over again. The rude and raunchy sleeper hit comedy helped launch the careers of Jason Biggs, Tara Reid, Chris Klein, Mena Suvari, Seann William Scott, and Natasha Lyonne amongst others, with memorable turns from comedy legends Eugene Levy and Jennifer Coolidge, too. But how does a story about four horny teen boys making a pact to lose their virginity by prom night hold up in 2019? Is American Pie still a solid laugh-and-cringe fest, or have changing sexual mores over the last two decades made its comedic prowess go limp? No flute, baked good, or suspiciously murky beer escapes scrutiny in our latest episode!

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email your episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes so more folks check out the show!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Some movie characters become way bigger than the movies they're in, and that definitely holds true for Chucky. The redheaded murder-loving doll is no doubt one of horror's most recognizable villains, but how often do you hear people fondly talk about the films he stars in? (There are seven and counting!) Inspired by a fresh reboot releasing this month in theaters - the first Chucky film without creator Don Mancini - we take a look back at CHILD'S PLAY (1988) to see if Chucky's introduction to the world is deserving of any modern day recognition from horror fans.

We follow that with a viewing of CHILD'S PLAY 2 (1990) and BRIDE OF CHUCKY (1998), two sequels that could not be more different from one another despite being made by the same person. We also reveal our favorite childhood playthings, discuss Chucky's, um, problematic behavior towards women, and debate just how young is too young to enjoy schlock horror movies. Wanna play?

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email your episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes so more folks check out the show!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Every generation gets the BATMAN it deserves, and ours is hands-down the best to ever glower down at us from the big screen — Michael Keaton's scowling, brooding Caped Crusader, and his equally brooding (but also very neurotic) take on orphaned playboy Bruce Wayne.

Early in his career, Tim Burton controversially cast everyman Keaton as the superhero who redefined the modern blockbuster as more than just a movie — with a pop soundtrack by Prince, fast food tie-ins, and an iconic logo everyone was wearing back in 1989. (And ever since.) Jack Nicholson's unforgettably over-the-top Joker also raised the bar for movie villains (and movie star paydays) in one of the decade's very biggest films.

The mass-marketing returned in 1992's BATMAN RETURNS, which upped the ante with two larger-than-life adversaries — the oozy, outrageous Penguin, played with gruesome gusto by Danny DeVito, and Michelle Pfeiffer's seductive but deeply damaged Catwoman.

The podcast invites When We Were Young superfan Jan to reminisce on all the Batman merch, cosplay, and fan fiction of our youths, before revisiting Burton's Batman films with a critical eye. Does the macabre camp of 1989's Batman hold up against the more somber Batmen of recent years? Is its chilly, gleefully anarchic, and disturbingly erotic sequel decidedly not okay for kids? And, in a movie landscape that's now littered with superheroes, do these Batman films look quaint alongside Marvel's colossal conquest of the multiplex — or is Tim Burton's singular vision just so much yummier?

Strap on your utility belt, fire up the Bat-vehicle of your choice, and have your butler ready a dirty limerick to excuse your absence, because Gotham City's most wanted are wreaking havoc upon our podcast — and only your nostalgia can stop them!

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email your episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes so more folks check out the show!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Cinematographer-turned-director Jan De Bont never met a mode of transportation he didn't want to blow up, and it all started with SPEED (1994), the action-thriller that whittled Keanu Reeves into the wooden king of turn-your-brain-off blockbusters (see also: the Matrix and John Wick franchises). This high-concept hit has one of the most iconic movie plots of all time, with madman Dennis Hopper planting a bomb on a city bus that will go boom if the odometer falls under 50 MPH. Fortunately, a very plucky Sandra Bullock is on hand to help careen through Los Angeles' notorious rush hour traffic and quip some snappy one-liners in her star-making role.

And if all those elevators, buses, and subway cars make you claustrophobic, you're in luck! We've also booked a honeymoon suite aboard SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL (1997), De Bont's Caribbean-set sequel that finds Sandra Bullock and Almost Keanu taken hostage on a cruise ship by yet another disgruntled psycho. (After a half-dozen mai tais, you'll swear it's Titanic!)

So join us as your favorite hotshots take a pop quiz that asks just one question — is Speed still worth the ride, or should we hit the brakes?

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email your episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes so more folks check out the show!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

If you were older than a toddler and younger than a teenager in the 90s, chances are you were obsessed with Nickelodeon. The kids network churned out countless entertaining programs for younguns in the 1990s, particularly a slate of original animated shows they referred to as Nicktoons. DOUG, RUGRATS and REN & STIMPY premiered on the same day in August 1991 and had unprecedented levels of success for original cartoon series - and that's about all that they have in common.

So is Doug Funnie still funny? Can we relate to Tommy, Chuckie, Angelica and the rest of the babies as adults? And what the hell was going on with Ren and Stimpy anyway? Join us, you dumb babies, as we revisit the network's first three original cartoons and try and fail to get Nickelodeon's super catchy doo-wop bumpers out of our heads.

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email your episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes so more folks check out the show!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at http://patreon.com/whenwewereyoung