When I Was Your Age . . .

I listen to podcasts. I lurk on forums. And let me tell you-- I’m tired. I’m tired of the whining. I’m tired of all the moaning and complaining.

The Disney Channel stinks! We hate the “cheap-quels”! We want Vault Disney back! We’re sick of Stitch! There’s not enough E-ticket attractions! There’s too much Pooh stuff! Michael Eisner ruined the company! The parks are turning into Pixar-lands! John Lasseter is going to screw up everything!

You know, young Disney fans just don’t know how good they have it.

Let me tell you how it was when I was your age . . .

. . . we only had one theme park at Walt Disney World. One park, three resorts (if you count the golf one), a campground and a wildlife preserve you had to ride a boat to. That was it.

. . . we had tickets. Yes tickets. None of this unlimited access to all shows, rides and attractions. You rode Haunted Mansion once. That was it. Pirates of the Caribbean. Once. Jungle Cruise. Once. And your mother always made you waste one of those precious E Tickets on Small World.

. . . we had to typically wait three to four years for a new Disney animated feature film. And then what did we get? Robin Hood. The Rescuers. The Black Cauldron. The Fox and the Hound. Oh, they’re nice little movies, but not exactly up there with the likes of Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King, and Toy Story, all the ones you were all raised on.

. . . if you wanted to watch a Disney classic, guess what. You could see it once every seven years in a theater, if you were lucky. God, when Pinocchio was released on home video in the early 80s, we thought we had died and gone to heaven. Films like Melody Time, Make Mine Music, and Fun and Fancy Free? Get real. I didn’t even know they existed until Leonard Maltin told me about them when I was older.

. . . seeing an intact, unedited Mickey Mouse cartoon was next to impossible. You guys can pretty much pop Steamboat Willie into the DVD player any time you want. Let’s not even talk about how you can now watch some of them on your iPod.

. . . we had nothing even close to the Disney Afternoon, let alone the Disney Channel, Toon Disney and entire Walt Disney Home Video library. We had the Wonderful World of Disney for an hour every Sunday night. And most of the time we got stuck with stuff like Charlie the Lonesome Cougar and Sammy the Way Out Seal.

You youngsters are soft, spoiled. Don’t know what true Disney hardship is.