Top Five . . . Favorite Shows From My Childhood

These were the shows I absolutely loved and had a part in defining my personality today.  Behold:

5.  ReBoot

One of the first completely CGI television series, "ReBoot" centered on the inner workings of the computer.  A city, known as Mainframe, was the home of the people, robots, and creatures that lived inside the computer.  The main story of each episode occurred when the "user" loaded a game and the people of Mainframe tried to prevent him or her from winning.  If the user won, the computer-generated participants were turned into "nulls".  The series' protagonist Bob and his friends, Dot and Enzo, also had to fight against the evil siblings Megabyte and Hexadecimal within the Mainframe universe. 

4.  Bill Nye: the Science Guy

Kids fascinated with science in the 90s were divided in two camps:  "Beakman's World" or "Bill Nye: the Science Guy".  I was a "Bill Nye" girl (sadly, Kris is a "Beakman" devotee), and I still think of the show whenever someone says, "Did you know that . . ."  ("Now you know!")

3.  Eeire, Indiana

This was a show ahead of its time.  "Eeire, Indiana" centered on a newly transplanted teen, Marshall Teller, and his quest to uncover and expose the weirdness in his seemingly normal town.  Created before "The X-Files", Marshall was the original truth-seeker.

2.  Are you Afraid of the Dark?

All the cool kids watched SNICK on Saturday nights in the '90s, and the best part of SNICK was "Are you Afraid of the Dark?".  It was the teenage version of "Tales From the Crypt" and some of the episodes were genuinely scary.  This show, combined with Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books, cemented my love of ghosts and the supernatural.

1.  Unsolved Mysteries

"Unsolved Mysteries" was my all-time favorite show when I was younger.  Back in the day, we didn't have "Forensic Files" or any other true crime shows.  It was "Unsolved Mysteries" and "America's Most Wanted" or nothing.  The great thing about "Unsolved Mysteries" (besides the awesome host, Robert Stack) was that it covered all sorts of stuff in addition to crime cases - aliens, ghosts, and Kris's favorite - spontaneous combustion.  Even though the theme song gave me nightmares, I never missed an episode.

What shows changed your life?