Movies You Grew Up With That You Assumed Were Classics

[Dr.Pepper]

This is something inspired by conversation that came up in a podcast I listened to. A listener wrote in and said that Dinosaur and The Black Cauldron were two of his most watched childhood movies, so he just assumed most people of his generation grew up watching those movies too.

Anyways for me, I had The Three Caballeros on VHS as a kid and I remember watching it a lot for some reason (I think my brother might have liked it). Also my family had a VHS that had pretty much every Christmas special ever recorded on it. This included Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (Rankin Bass), and Opus: A Wish for Wings that Work. So in my mind they were as timeless as Charlie Brown or Rudolph. Slightly off topic, but I think A Year Without A Santa was the only well known Christmas special that would have been around in the early 1990’s that wasn’t on that tape.

 

[Classic Speedy]

This might not be the same thing that you're asking about, but I grew up watching Robin Hood (1973) over and over. It wasn't until I got older and learned it was looked at as a "lesser" Disney movie for its reused animation and segmented nature. But 8-year old me didn't care about any of that; it entertained me and that was good enough.

 

[Pooky]

I don't know if I'd have called it a "classic" per say, but I was a big fan of the third Ninja Turtles film as a kid and didn't know it was considered to be such a big drop-off and/or out and out terrible until years later. I didn't see it as many times as the first two because I never taped it off... I mean, bought the VHS, officer, but it was the only one I saw theatrically as the first two had come out in my pre-school years before I became a fan or had even knowingly heard of the characters. It was the first film I ever got hyped for, and even at the age of 6 I remember thinking the final gag fell kind of flat, but the weaker animatronics work certainly wasn't noticeable to little ol' me, and on the whole I loved it. I remember my mum had to explain the allusion to the old Lifeline commercial, and why the audience was laughing at it. And actually I might still need an explanation, because why would a UK audience in 1993 know about those commercials? But I digress; it hit me at just the right time, and the time sceptre and the feudal Japan setting really captured my imagination, and I got quite a few of the tie-in toys. I know James Rolfe said it was bad so by holy internet law it's beyond defence, but for old time's sake, and for introducing me and my generation to the delights of Tarzan Boy, I can't hate it.

Oh I guess I thought the Hulk Hogan vehicles Suburban Commando and Mr Nanny (another big screen viewing) were a bigger deal than they were too. My family were also pretty big on Spaced Invaders, but I think I knew that was fairly niche.

 

[Classic Speedy]

Here's another one: Flight of the Navigator. I must've watched that movie at least a dozen times as a kid but I never really heard anyone bring it up anywhere else until The Nostalgia Critic picked it as one of his top 11 overlooked classics.

Funny thing: I re-watched this movie for the first time in probably thirty years recently and I barely remembered anything about it until the kid got into the spaceship. Which leads me to think I ONLY re-watched the spaceship scenes as a kid and found all the stuff leading up to it deadly dull so I fast forwarded past all of that back then. That's the only explanation I can think of, because when the ship computer started showing off all the alien creatures I was like "I REMEMBER THAT LITTLE GUY WHO EATS FINGERS!"

 

[Fone Bone]

I remember when I was a kid and saw it in a theater I thought it was weird a kid's favorite show could be Ozzie and Harriet. Seemed kinda square.

 

[Classic Speedy]

I remember when I was a kid and saw it in a theater I thought it was weird a kid's favorite show could be Ozzie and Harriet. Seemed kinda square.

I think you're thinking of Starsky and Hutch.

 

[Fone Bone]

I could have sworn he went away in the 1950's and he loved Ozzie and Harriet. Starsky and Hutch makes much more sense.

 

[Pooky]

See in my mind that is a kind of classic. Not in the sense of a film that has endured from generation to generation, or even as a film that is considered one of the standouts of its era, but to me it's one of those films that all 80s kids/90s kids who saw 80s films on TV know about, like The Goonies, The Lost Boys, Short Circuit, The Neverending Story, The Monster Squad etc. Maybe somewhere on the lower half on that scale, but it's well known enough that a documentary was made about it a couple of years ago (Life After The Navigator).

 

[Zorak Masaki]

I didnt know Superman 3 or 4 were disapointments as a kid, I thought they were just as popular as the first 2 films.

 

[Pooky]

When my family first got Satellite TV in 1992/93, Superman III was in pretty regular rotation on one of the 2 or 3 movie channels, and we caught bits of it often. We all loved the broad comedic set pieces, they played great when channel surfing.

Superman IV will always be legendary to me just for being filmed in Milton Keynes. If you're not from the UK, trust me, that's hilarious. And I'm saying that as someone who likes Milton Keynes.

 

[Dantheman]

Neat little trivia fact: The band that made this song and the video got the police car in it from the Superman IV production when it wrapped: