Why Optimus Prime is Greater than Bumblebee [and other answers to childhood inquiries]

As a brilliant product of the 90’s I must say that my childhood was one that was jam-packed with great things : amazing programming, perfect cartoons, innovative toys, banging channels, and the best hip hop music ever. It was just a Renaissance of goodness. I don’t care what you say, the 90’s were good for everyone involved…yep that’s what I tell myself. But still the 90’s was a good time. I mean it was my childhood and the first five years of the new millennium carried a little bit of that 90’s goodness. With such great choices, of course great questions arose like ‘What was better Tickle Me Elmo or Gymnast Jamie’? Now I’ve gotten up in age and I am a adult and standing at 21 years of living I can finally  make some final judgments on some of the cultural dilemmas of my childhood so here they are!!

Optimus Prime was/is greater than Bumblebee

I’m sure all you die hard Bumblebee lovers won’t want to accept this but it’s the truth. I know Bumblebee is super lovable and has the adorable and loyal qualities of a brand new puppy, but he can be a little emotional. Like in Transformers 2 when he threw all those hissy fits about Sam leaving for college. Optimus would never do such a thing. He was too busy off defending the entire universe and serving Megatron huge tail whoopings.

Tommy is the greatest of all Rugrats

I don’t care what you say, Tommy Pickles was the best and most awesome member of the Rugrats. He was fearless and he was pretty much invincible as long as he had his screwdriver. Phil and Lil were pretty okay, but they were always distracted by their fighting and bickering. Chuckie was just scary and useless for all intensive purposes. He was always whining about the danger of this or the impending threat of that whan whan whan and so on. Angelica was evil. Susie holds a close second to Tommy because she stood up for the babies.

Tickle Me Elmo was not fun

Remember back in like 97 or 98 when all those moms were going crazy and fighting and running around toy stores like madwomen just so they could get a Tickle Me Elmo for their kid. Yeah wanna guess whose mom wasn’t doing all that stuff? Mine. Why? Because: a) she refused to fight any one for a toy b) i didn’t want one and even if i did she would’ve told me to suck it up and get over it because of reason a. But back to reason b, I didn’t want a Tickle Me Elmo because it creeped me the hell out. Kinda the way those Cabbage Patch kids that you could feed did. My seven year old self just knew something was wrong with it. Like why was Elmo always wanting you to touch and tickle and feel all over him? And why was he so happy about it? And most of all, I was afraid that Elmo would go ape one day and turn on me and bite my hand off. Elmo was just a bit off and I wanted no part of him and his creepy ticklish ways.

ALSO, the Cabbage Patch Kids that you could feed totally got recalled because they were like eating children’s hair and whatnot. CUH-REEPY.

Roller Skating on the sidewalks of New Orleans is NOTHING like the roller blading that happened on Brink!

This is one of the many things growing up in the city of New Orleans taught me [along with how to properly view a fist fight from a safe distance and the most efficient and clean way to eat a roast beef po-boy]. I remember watching Brink! and thinking I could do that too. By golly, all I needed to do was grab my roller blades and get to skating….too bad the cracked and pothole-ridden sidewalks of New Orleans said otherwise. Trying to roller blade on the sidewalks of NOLA is like trying to challenge a NOPD officer on a horse during Mardi Gras, I mean you can do it but your just gonna end up bruised.

The first Zenon movie was the best

I feel this one speaks for itself. The other two movies just could not compete. Period.

N’Sync was a better boy band than Backstreet Boys, 98 Degress and LFO combined

Yeah, I said it. They were better. I mean they had Bye, Bye, Bye for goodness sakes. AND DIRTY POP. If you don’t remember how life-changing this video was, let me remind you.

Yeah, see just better. Plus they performed with Michael Jackson on the MTv awards that one time.

Survivor was Destiny’s Child’s best album

I mean this is the album that brought us ‘Bootyliscious’ . How can you beat that? At the time the song came out, I mean, I wasn’t particularly endowed in the booty area but I jammed out all the same.  Also, Destiny’s Child did get significantly better when they dropped the other two girls and added Michele. It just worked out better aesthetically since it was one person in the middle as opposed to two and it made it easier for Beyonce’ to get put up front without needing to find something to do with the awkward fourth member.

Cartoons are not humans dressed in animated costumes

When I was young I did not understand the mechanics of animation. I believed that cartoon characters were humans dressed up as animated animals. I seriously believed that all cartoons were just well-trained and well-skilled actors. When I watched Freakazoid I thought It was someone dressed up in a magical ‘cartoon’ suit that made you look like a cartoon.  Yeah, i know and i believed this until i saw a short on Cartoon Network on how a cartoon short was drawn. Then my childhood was enlightened and I was brought from my cloud of cartoon ignorance.

Since Nintendo is the Supreme Being of All Gaming Systems therefore Mario is the Mohammed of All Gaming Characters

I was a Nintendo kid. Had a Super Nintendo and every Mario game that went with it. Once I got older, got the Super Nintendo, and soon after I turned 17 Moms dropped a Nintendo Wii on me. So yeah I

believed wholeheartedly in Nintendo and all things related to it. I actually still believe these things because of Mario. That little Italian plumber is basically like the Buddha of the gaming world. He brightens our dark days with his jolly demeanor and red overalls. PLUS he has Yoshi. Yoshi is the greatest mode of  transportation in a video game ever. I mean he’s a dinosaur. You cannot beat a dinosaur who has a penchant for juicy apples and enjoys stomping on ne’erdoers such as goombas and flying evil turtles. Basically, Nintendo is the greatest of all gaming systems and Mario is the earthly embodiment of Nintendo’s greatness. Plus Mario does own on Super Smash Bros….even though I’m not quite sure why because clearly both Pikachu and Fox should be able to  whip Mario within seconds but for some reason when the CPU gets a hold of him, he becomes like indestructible.  Sorry…tangent. The point is Nintendo=the Greateast.

Alright people of the world, let me know some factoids about your childhood that you remember/still believe to be true.

-Ya girl Briizy

“I will make Your name to be remembered in all generations; Therefore the people shall praise You forever and ever”-Psalm 45:17