On childhood heroes and national tv

When you are an overthinking parent, which can be both a blessing and a curse, you tend to (over) analyze all the aspects of your own childhood. I am really not that old but oh my god how times have changed. Lots of stuff is different but I would like to get in depths about one specific topic: How tv shaped our minds. My kids have totally different watching habits. The first big difference is I didn't have a home computer, as most of my peers didn't, until high school, and my kids don't have a tv, we do all our watching on the computer. Secondly, I only had a few national television channels (plus Italians, Bosnians or Slovenians, depending on where in Croatia I was). When I was about ten or so, a privately funded tv station came to life on a national level but there was no reception in my village. That was very problematic because I went to school about 20km away from where I lived and being the only kid in class that hasn't watched Pokemon or Dragon Ball is a trauma I'll have to live with for the rest of my life. The other thing was that we were forced to watch certain things because our parents or grandparents watched them, like the central news at 19:30 PM or Spanish soap operas. We were exposed to a wide variety of stuff and that would shape you and open you up to different things whether you like it or not. One other thing that was special to my generation and I don't have the least nostalgia for is it was war with Serbia that was happening in our country so the first few years of my life were Smogovci and news about the war.

After the war, I and my family moved to another part of the county and then moved some more and some more, so I would find company and entertainment on the tv.
What inspired me to write this was Oleg's post on how he loves his job. I've mentioned it a few time before but I was really excited to see him on Steemit. It was kind of like some kid of today finding his favorite youtube vlogger somewhere. You may know Oleg Weisz primarily as a family member or friend (shoutout to all of the fabulous folks he inspired to join the platform) or as a great Steemer but I knew him as the host of Športerica for many years now. So this one goes to @Olegw and other of my childhood and teenhood heroes, I hope I'll manage to pass the things you all gave me to my kids. I apologize to my non-Croatian followers for many references they might not understand because of a very local context of the post.

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A clip from Šorterica about acrobatic Rock'n'Rool dancing

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ŠPORTERICA

Športerica was a great show about youth sport that eared on Croatian national television (HRT) as a part of the program for children and youth. It aired for ten years. It was based on reporting on kids and youth sport and, if I recall correctly, aimed to educate us on sport in general. All the sports were included, no matter how few kids were in it. Športerica did more than just represent sports, it pushed for change. In 2003., for example, they started an action '' ''Poznati sportaši za sportaše s invaliditetom that aimed to help Croatian athletes with some form of a handicap to get the money they needed for sports equipment and training and making it to the competitions, with the help of famous athletes. The action was, sadly, overwhelmingly ignored by big Croatian companies but that kind of lack of humanity in Croatian corporate world is a theme for another post.

KOKICE and MODUL 8

These are more of the great shows that are part of the same children and youth program as Športerica. Kokice or translated to English ''Popcorn'' was a show that was all about movie culture. They were so well rounded, they featured kids made the program, where the movies were written, shot, directed and played out by schoolchildren. They also featured trailers for new movies, which we as kids really had nowhere else to seem and educated kids about some classics.
Modu8 was a gaming show for kids at the time most of us could only dream of a PC or a gaming console. It would feature gaming competition and a preview of up and coming games for PCs or gaming console. Other memorable mentions would be Turbo Limač Show. Dizalica, both gaming shows for kids, or MaliVeliki svijet an educational show.

BRILJANTEEN and PARLAONICA

Shows I watched religiously that were aimed at tweens and teens.
Briljanteen offered all sorts of content like movie and book recommendations, interviews with both teens and teen idols. It would feature a video of a foreign artist and thanks to that I will always remember how they mentioned a new artist Britney Spears that is not from Britany and that's when I first heard ''Hit me, baby, one more time''. it had many great segments but I would especially mention one called Demo Top 5 which offered a platform for the young artist that wanted to get through to the mainstream. One of the most memorable was when Edo Maajka, today a well-known rapper in our region, came on with his demo record ''Minimalni rizik'' that stayed on as a top hit for weeks.
Briljanteen was great but Parlaonica was truly brilliant. It made us all have a goal of becoming TVs when we grow up. It was a debate show. Two groups of high schoolers would debate a theme given to them, affirmation and negation groups would debate with facts, and I lived for that. I love to debate, or as we popularly say it on the interwebs, fight even today. It's such a nice way to learn something trough engagement with other humans. Sometimes you are right, sometimes you are wrong, and you learn, and you grow.

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A clip about Briljanteens 18th airing anniversary

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PRAVO VRIJEME and HIT DEPO

These are music shows. Or, sadly were. Pravo Vrijeme had lots of music from Croatia and a warm feel to it. And Simpsons aired right before it, or after. And it was such a nice time in Croatian music. Hladno Pivo just started to go mainstream with their legendary song Politika, Darko Rundek was on a roll and Pips Chip and Video Clips had a great album. Kojoti, Jinx, the return of Davorin Bogović...the whole ''Čudna Šuma'' team of Croatian rockers were on tv. Nowadays HRT, the national television, is under scrutiny for catering to our conservative,church-loving politicians so I don't believe that kind of music would fly much on national television. It was a truly exciting, rebellious time in Croatian history. Too bad we failed to seize the moment and went back dark ages. You know, when they burned witches and stuff.
Hit Depo is truly a legendary show. It was a chart show about foreign music, hosted by two legends Danijela Trbović and Hamed Bangoura. It went on for 14 years before it got shut down in 2004. because of fall in ratings

HUGO

This was a kids game show. It was created in Denmark in 1990. and, besides Croatia, it aired in about 40 other countries. It was really engaging and I think my mother once gave her entire paycheck for the phone bill I made while trying to get myself into the show. My best friend did tho. She got a movie encyclopedia as a gift. I was so jealous. Hugo is a small troll that had a wife, Hugolina, and three kids and keeps being bullied by Mordana, an evil witch. The goal was that kids manage Hugo from home by phone buttons (and it was vital to switch from puls to digital, you know from tru tru tru tru to a short, clean beep). It started airing in Croatia in 1996. and I remember that day as clearly as anything. Hugo was hyped for weeks before it started. I still remember a lot of lines from the game and use them in day to day communication like when he falls of the cliff and the Chinees melody plays and he says ''Niže od ovog se ne možeš srozati.''(you can't go any lower than this) or when he picks up apples and says ''Jabuka ne pada daleko od stabla ako je stablo jabukovo'' (the apple doesn't fall far from the tree if the tree is an apple tree) or, my favorite, when the witch leaves a voice message ''Ovo je Mordanina strašisekretarica. Nisam doma al me se ipak čuuuuvaaaaj.'' (This is Mordana's scary secretary. I'm not home but nevertheless be aware). What I cherished most from it was the nonavailability. You had a specific time when it aired. If you really wanted to watch something you had to plan your day so you'd manage it. There were no reruns and I didn't have a VHS recorder. I would be really excited to watch it.

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Clips from the tv game show Hugo

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MORE and PLODOVI ZEMLJE

Now, these may seem like weird choices but these two shows I would be forced to watch alongside my grandparents and I'd learn new stuff. Plodovi zemlje was a show about agriculture and farming. It aired right after the noon news and More was about fishing and mariculture and what stuck with me most was that the journalist's name was Odri, I was such a fan of hers, which is the way Croatians pronounce Audrey. And I am a forever Audrey Hepburn fan.

KUĆNI LJUBIMCI and OPERA BOX

Kućni ljubimci, Opera Box and Oprah Winfrey Show in the end. That was a Sunday sequence for a few years (or maybe less). Kućni ljubimci is of one the national treasures that is still going strong with the same host, for 28 years. It's a show about pets, dogs, cats, snakes and everything in between. You can imagine why it would be exciting for a kid. It had Tina Turners ''Simply the Best'' as an intro song.
Opera Box is a show for all the opera lovers and ones who will become opera lovers (Za sve ljubitelje opere i one koji će to tek postati). It talked about and to operas, singers, composers both in Croatia and abroad. Its trademark is Dražen Siriščević, host and journalist that made opera so interesting and magical. He did tremendous things for the popularisation for the art of opera in the post-communist, post-war Croatia and worked together with a well known Croatian concert hall Lisinski to make opera closer to the average Joe, or should I say prosječni Ivo.

There are other shows like Pola ure kulture, a show about news in arts and culture, Jelovnici izgubljenog vremena, a cooking show by Veljko Barbieri, Dobro jutro Hrvatska, a morning show, Manjinski mozaik, a show about minorities in Croatia, Hrvatska uživo, a news show about regional stories, Upitnik, a quiz, Kolo Sreće, a game show, and others. The main thing I would take from my examination of my childhood tv habits is the benefit of waiting and excitement. I did this thing with my girls, I already wrote about it, a movie night. We wouldn't watch cartoons during the week but just one movie on Saturdays, we would make popcorn and enjoy the movie as a family and I really should revisit that practice. Their excitement for the Saturdays was so wonderful to watch. And it does something for building the sense of patience and if you really want something you should be able to wait. There is a devil in the instant gratification culture. The other thing is being exposed to all kinds of information. I hade little grown-up guidance in sorting out what I watched but, I don't know if it's the ''back in the day'' syndrome or it was really true, but I have this feeling program was much more intelligent and made with more integrity. The primary function of shows wasn't to sell a product or promote a political agenda. I think I should maybe set a goal in this year to offer a wider variety of shows to my kids, both movies and documentaries, both classics and the new one, and watch it with them to offer a critical eye and viewing guidance. I didn't make a new years resolution in a while. So I'll make it my #nyr number 11.

The last point I would like to take from this is the power of good role models on tv programs. Nowadays we tend to cling to reality tv shows and actors. The later is a constant throughout history. The former is just stupid. I give credit to the reality tv culture to being genius marketing wizards and getting the most out of social media money vise but to see kids take after them is just sad. I stand to be corrected and would love to hear if you feel differently. Oleg, Domagoj Novokomet, Ida Prester, Danijela Trbović, Dražen Sirišćević, Veljko Barbieri, Kristijan Ugrina, Duško Čurlić...those are just some of the army of fabulous journalists and hosts of the shows I've mentioned above. They were (and still are) well-spoken, intelligent, funny, inclusive, critical and creative. Proper and good role models I wish my kids had on a daily basis.

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A video made for promoting traffic safety of children. A campaign still going strong today ''Poštujte naše znakove'' (Respect our signs). Artists in this video are some of the legendary Croatian rockers.

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Generally, do you think there is a tangible difference in the way we consume visual entertainment and news now? What about the role models now and then?
For my dear Croatian friends, do you remember any of these shows? What are your favorites?