If Michael Bay wants to have the Transformers spittin' jive and humping people's legs - and, as it turns out, this is something he very much does want - then the only childhoods being ruined right now are the ones being lived through. By children. And they don't even realise that their childhoods are being ruined. Because they're children. They don't know what the hell is going on.
Look, there just ain't no use crying about the ruination of the past. Nope. You're much, much better off crying about the ruination of the future.
So in that spirit, let me say this: Netflix, you rotten bastards, you've just ruined my adulthood.
The online streaming giant did so earlier in the week by announcing it was going to exhume and reanimate the decaying corpse of the once inexplicably popular situation comedy Full House. Well, the show claimed to be a comedy but believe me there was nothing funny about it. It was one of the most despicably saccharin, unashamedly gawdawful pieces of television to ever screen. So obviously it's a natural choice for a remake.
From the get-go I hated Full House. I'm likely misremembering but the show seemed to be on constantly, putting paid to the theory that the brain actively forgets traumatic events. Because even as a kid I was aware of how astoundingly, almost determinedly unfunny it was. The laugh track was there not to emphasise the jokes but was instead used to trick you into believing there were actually jokes there in the first place.
There weren't. Unless you find Stephanie's constant hamming up of her big punchline "How rude" to be the height of humour. LOL indeed.
But what the show lacked in laughs it more than made up for with clunky moral lessons. Whole episodes dedicated to teaching you to do your homework, eat your greens, be nice to your siblings, stay off the pot, refrain from murdering anyone, blah blah blah.
And it's this spirit of preachy bland that the new series wants to revive. Producer John Stamos, aka Full House's Uncle Jesse, told talkshow host Jimmy Kimmel that after spending years attempting to get the project off the ground they'd finally "got it perfect". Call me cynical if you like but I think it was perfect as it was: dead, buried and forgotten.
But there's 13 new episodes on the way. Titled Fuller House, because that's the level of comedy we're talking about here, the show will pick up with the now adult DJ Tanner who, in a cruel twist of fate, has found herself in the exact same situation as that of her dear old dad; widowed with children.
Proving that history is doomed to repeat itself, or perhaps going with what she be knowing, DJ invites her lil' sis Stephanie and her BFF Kimmy Gibbler to move in with her and help her raise her two sprogs, "feisty" 12-year-old Ramona, and "neurotic" 7-year-old JD. Oh, you can almost taste the hilarity... Cameos are promised. Though not from the original series' breakout stars the Olsen twins, who both memorably and quite awfully played toddler Michelle. Stamos has confirmed both he and his quiff will motorcycle on in at some point, and surely the fellow who played Uncle Joey would have sent multitudes of pleading emails by now begging to get thrown some work.
Okay, I may have been a little unfair. The show did have one truly funny joke; the casting of the completely filthy "adult comedian" Bob Saget as Danny Tanner, father and ultimate square supremo.
His reappearance is also unconfirmed at this point, presumably because he's holding out for either more money, more lube or the opportunity to risque up his character by having the word "damn" added to his squeaky clean vocabulary.
I guess the one positive to take away from this whole deal is that there's no way the new series can ruin my childhood. The original already took care of that.
