To be honest, I never thought about “How to start writing an article?”. It simply had to be:
10 PRINT “HELLO WORLD!”
This is the first thing that you learn in programming, and for most of us, children of the 20th century, this was our introduction to the world of computers. This line alone was one of the reasons why I chose to become a programmer. It was more than just printing a line on a TV (who had a monitor back then?), it was us communicating with a computer and telling it to do something.
For as long as I can remember, I was surrounded by some electrical devices. My first memories, which I still clearly remember, include watching some of the classical cartoons like: Touché Turtle, Triton of the Sea (海のトリトン, Umi no Toriton), Transformers, Popeye,Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and many others. Yes, one of my first memories was lying on the bed and watching an episode of the TMNT on our video recorder.
It’s hard to describe that period to the kids these days, but having a VCR at home felt almost like having a cheat device which enables you to watch cartoons on repeat as much as you want. But the sad truth is that our VCR almost never worked. If my memory serves me correctly it was a Sharp VC-M701U, which my parents bought somewhere around 1989, and having it in a functional state was a rarity. Of course, as every other kid who grew up in the 80's and 90’s I had a dad, who was not a very skillful repairman, and who made sure that, with every new iteration of disassembling the device, it worked even worse. This would almost become a tradition and would happen very often with the other devices like our C64 and a Famiclone, but I’ll leave those stories for some other time.
So watching any kind of cartoon during that period felt almost like a privilege that only a few could really afford. So, comparing those times with today’s “on-demand” and 24/7 services feels like an impossible task. I’ll be damned, but even I sometimes have a hard time trying to remember my life before the Internet and mobile phones, so I don’t blame them for not understanding us when we try to explain to them how simpler life was back then. I just feel sorry because they'll never get to experience how it feels listening to the radio and hoping that the song that you’re waiting for would actually be played.
With the arrival of the Internet, my sister and I started collecting all of those movies and cartoons that we always listened about, but never had a chance to watch. It almost felt like the whole world was in the palm of our hands. That was, probably, also time when I started watching a ton of different garbage, and figured out the ingeniousness of the Golden Age era of the Hollywood. I immediately fell in love with most of the classics from that period.
Growing up, I always heard stories about the glamour, allure, and magic of Hollywood’s Golden Age, but it wasn’t until the advent of the Internet that I truly fell in love with this era. The ability to stream and access films from any decade felt like opening a treasure chest of cinematic history. Suddenly, I could watch the timeless classics I had only read about—films starring icons like Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, and Cary Grant, and directed by masters such as Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder. Each movie transported me to a time when Hollywood defined elegance, romance, suspense, and adventure.
But my love affair didn’t stop at films. With the Internet, I also dove into the world of vintage cartoons and music videos from the era. I discovered the genius of early animation, from the whimsical charm of Looney Tunes and the slapstick antics of Tom and Jerry to the surreal world of Betty Boop. These cartoons were more than just entertainment; they were artistic creations that reflected the humor, fears, and dreams of their time. Each animated frame, bursting with creativity, offered a glimpse into the history of animation itself.
Then, there were the music videos—live performances, concert films, and musical numbers from Hollywood musicals. Watching Judy Garland sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" or Fred Astaire dance across a perfectly designed set was pure magic. These musical moments, preserved forever online, bridged the gap between the past and the present, showing me how influential the music of that era still is today.
The Internet became my personal time machine, letting me explore and appreciate a bygone world of cinema, animation, and music that shaped so much of what entertainment is today. It was through this virtual window that I found my passion for Hollywood’s Golden Age, and I’ve never looked back.
As you can tell by now, I was always interested in the history of modern art, especially music and movies of the 20th century, so when I first saw the book called “1001 movies you have to watch before you die” by Steven Jay Schneider, I almost fell in love with it even before opening and reading a word from it. “What a great idea, I wonder how many of those I already watched?”, was the first thought that I had at the time. I simply had to buy that book, and to this day I’m proud that I did it, because having the idea that I have the list of the most influential and most precious movies summed in one place feels like a treasure to me.
- Are all of these movies from the list good and had perfect reviews with the critics? No!
- Do they all stand the test of time and are the topics they cover still relevant today? No!
- Are they always fun to watch? Well, mostly…
- Should I watch them? Yes
… because watching them with some historical context is a whole new experience and gives you an important piece of the puzzle, especially if you’re able to recognize all of the references and influences they made. Remember, most of those movies were pioneers, and single-handedly shaped the World to be the place that we know (and love) today.
A few years ago, when I found out that I’m going to become a father, I took some time and thought about all of those beautiful things that I remember from my childhood. All of those hours of playing video games with my father, countless hours of watching cartoons on my grandfather’s black & white TV… I thought it would be really nice if I could create some sort of a collection of cartoons which I think someone should watch during some period of his life. I immediately jumped on it (as I do almost every time) and started drafting the list. I made a calculation, and figured out that creating such an enormous list would take ages, but I had enough willpower to do so. Unfortunately, there’s always something more important that needs our intention, so I had to put this idea to sleep. Then, at one point, I figured out: “Ok, creating the whole list at once is a big task, but actually creating a place where I could add a single cartoon every (other) day is also acceptable, and actually doable”. That thought alone gave me the second burst of energy, and now that I’m on the right track, I don’t plan to stop any more. This is something which I’ve been waiting for my whole life…
I dedicate all of these words not just to my generation, but to all those “kids” who were born and raised in the 20th century, to all of us who feel a bit nostalgic about these, almost forgotten, times. Those include my good friends and family, my parents… their parents… and you.