M: Top 3 TV shows/movies/books you know you're too old to enjoy but cannot help but LOVE anyway.
Jennifer:
1.
iCarly. I've
mentioned this before and yeah, I'm still a fan of this show. The characters are now in high school but it's still very much a tween show with really cheesy, dumb humor and physical comedy and increasingly ridiculous characters but I somehow find it all really really funny.
2.
The Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. I read plenty of young adult books (especially this year thanks to the fabulous blog
Forever Young Adult) and generally don't feel like I'm too old for them. But this series? I really should be over it. I actually started reading it when it was still age-appropriate but the main character, Alice, is aging so slowly (the books come out yearly but each only covers a few months of her life) that I'm now 10 years older than her. And the last couple of books have just not been very good...probably a result of the author trying to write contemporary teenagers when she's pushing 80. There are only two more planned books in the series though, so I want to know where these characters end up.
3.
Degrassi the Next Generation. Similar to the above, I watch plenty of teen shows, but this one makes me feel really really old because the actors are actually playing their ages and look
so young. I'm a season or two behind now (they started doing this thing where they air a new episode every frickin' weekday) and I'm unsure of whether I have the time or energy to catch up but every once in awhile I feel the urge to check wikipedia and see what's happening!
Mira:
1. ABC Family, The Disney Channel: I know this is not a specific book/movie/tv show, but my go to channel for TV are these two channels where I get to watch silly, but really entertaining TV such as
Witches of Waverly Place, original movies, and whatever else is on. Makes me wish I were a kid actor and could be having as much fun. If
Lizzie Maguire were still on, I'd be watching it.
2. Sarah Dessen's books. These books are like the current kid/tween/teen generation's Cynthia Voigt or something. Stories mostly, or perhaps only, about girls who are on the outskirts of mainstream who try to discover who they are through odd relationships with other people... Really there is very little value added to anyone who is way past that point in their lives and yet I can't help but go and reserve more books written by her at the library as soon as I finish reading one.
3. None of my answers are specific book/movies/tv shows, so why start now? But anyway, I find myself embarrassingly obsessed with celebrity gossip about the teen heartthrobs -- the Jonas brothers, Bieber and Selena Gomez, Demi Levato, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens... It's sad, I know. But it comes in very handy at trivia... Oh, along with this embarrassing obsession, I also find myself interested in any tv show/movie/song they're involved in.
iCarly: I'm pretty sure I'm completely out of the target audience for this show as a) I'm not a preteen, and b) I'm not the parent of a preteen. But for some reason I just find it really funny. It stars Miranda Cosgrove (who I remember as the little band manager girl from School of Rock, but who's apparently more famous in the Nickelodeon world from Drake and Josh, which I've never watched) as Carly, a middle-school aged girl who makes a web show called iCarly with two of her friends, Sam and Freddie. Carly's really nice and sweet and normal but somehow manages to not be boring, Sam's kind of obnoxious troublemaker but somehow manages to be kind of lovable, and Freddie's kind of neurotic geek who has a huge unrequited crush on Carly but somehow manages to be really funny. Oh and Carly lives with her wacky artist older brother Spencer because her dad is in the military or something. Um, yeah. I don't know, I think I like it because it's just upbeat and uncomplicated and predictable. Although I suppose my watching this show isn't that much of a surprise considering I watched things like Even Stevens and yes, Lizzie McGuire through college and did watch and enjoy the High School Musical movies as well...
Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Gauntlet III: So, moving on from happy, clean preteen fare to...PURE TRASH. I've never actually watched any of Road Rules and I stopped watching the Real World a couple of seasons ago but somehow I still manage to get sucked into these challenges. And I mean, it's just ridiculous. The number of times some of these people keep coming back is crazy...according to wikipedia, Beth's been on SEVEN of these challenges and Coral and Katie have been in six?? And the funny thing now is that most of the people on these challenges haven't even been on either RW or RR...they were originally from the Fresh Meat season. And they keep coming back. These people know the deal, and they're completely shameless. I mean, the number of hookups this season is totally unbelievable...from the very first episode! And of course, there are the fights...really stupid and intense fights. And yet I can't stop watching it all. I suppose what keeps me is the fact that while the Real World is now pretty much ONLY hookups and fights, at least this show has the challenges, and at least there's the possibility of getting rid of annoying people. Last week's episode had Coral and Beth facing each other in the Gauntlet, which I have to admit was kind of awesome...
