Beverly Hills 90210: Past and Present

Let's get this out of the way immediately. Now this. is what I. am talkin' 'bout:



This shit is for REAL. I ain't never turning down a little deck scratching but when the saxamaphone kicks in don't you just get little chills? (In actual fact I involuntarily clothes my eyes and make a little 'white man funk face' whilst swaying. Unironically. It just seems to be the most natural reaction to saxophone music, thus is my genetic destiny as a caucasian person) . My whole body seems to be screaming THIS IS A SHOW I MUST WATCH WITH MY EYES RIGHT NOW cos my ears are havin' a total eargasm over here. Eyegasms cannot be far away.

That they are not.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Goes the Mariopaint mushroom drums as we get shots of the outside storefronts of Cartier, Gucci, and um... Fred (anyone?). Very glamorous. You stood on a street corner and filmed that. I could do that shit outside Somerfield 'n all but never mind. We get it: glam is the name of the game. But what is this? A family does family things as a family and dressed in some of the ugliest clothes you or I have ever laid our eyes upon (*spoiler alert* this is not the end of the sartorial torture). They hug on sofas and poke fake flowers in little pots (anyone else assuming she's on her 4th Tom Collins of the day and trying to figure out if they're real or not? I do stuff like that when I've had a tipple or two all the freaking time), they barbecue with perturbed looks on their faces, they power walk in the shell suit me and Sophia from The Golden Girls both had in 1990 (8 year olds and 80 year olds in the 90's dressed alarmingly alike). (Or maybe that was just me).

It's not all family time though. Look as these teenagers get up to their wacky high-jinks; slowly turning in hallways (God. Remember the days when it was ALL about turning slowly in a hallway? That was the 1990 version of pokemon if I recall correctly. All the rage amongst the 'cool kids'. I could turn pretty slowly in a hallway but not slowly enough so I never really got the respect I felt I deserved from my peers. That still smarts a little), throwing oneself down on one's bed dressed like a boxer from the 1800's (for some reason) and catching basketballs and smiling. What I wouldn't do to catch a basketball and smile right now. It looks so freeing for a man in high school who looks old enough to have fathered most of the other kids that are students there.

That's what the boys did but what of the girls? Mostly they fluffed their bangs ('fringes' for those not americanised enough from years of watching shit like this), wore fucking ridiculous hats that look like they are attempting to swallow your head and roll around on beds whilst talking on the phone in their jimbly-jamblies. We've all done that though right girls? Sometimes I just hold a phone to my ear and do log rolls from one side of the bed to the other just to get enough oestrogen pumping in my system to stop my moustache from growing too unruly (that's a pretty standard beauty tip but for those ho didn't know I figured I'd enlighten you).

Blah blah blah jock, blah blah blah geek girl, but now get ready because GRAMPA HAS COME TO TOWN BABY. And he's been watching far too many Happy Days reruns. Just because one guy in his 40's slicks his hair back and gets a lot of pussy doesn't mean you gonna sunshine. What he is actually mouthing in this clip (I can lipread after all the CIA training I did... fuck. I wasn't sposed to mention that. I dropped out before they got to the 'discretion' seminar) is; "Sit on it. Ehhh. Exactamundo. Now come to my office which is actually just the bathroom at Al's. I MEAN THE PEACH PIT". Sci-en-tif-ic FACT.

Blah blah blah, more geeks. Brian Austin Green is pretty cute though. I'll give them that. I would also totally date a guy who ore a mustard shirt with jeans and a tweed jacket. That's a brave fashion statement for a brave kind of guy.

Here she is though, light of my life, stealer of my heart (and of Shannen's hat. She's wearing the same one Brenda had on earlier). I have nothing bad to say about Tori Spelling (nothing that hasn't already been said anyway). Did anyone see that sitcom where she played herself and Sylar was her GBF? Did I dream that? It seems like the kind of dream I would have but I'm sure it actually existed. Maybe not... if a sitcom exists and no-one sees it did it ever really exist at all? That's a mind-puzzle that's been confounding scientists for centuries now but I can say pretty definitively that yes. Of course it did. There's proof and everything.

Blah blah hugging, blah blah foreplay (is James Eckhart wearing a sweater under his shirt? Please tell me that's NOT his chest hair! Christ on a bike), Carol Potter nodding the exact number of syllables in her name as the aforementioned name appears on screen, then we see where Ross Gellar got the inspiration to begin his music career (has anyone ever looked cooler than that guy playing a keyboard?). Blah blah family, inappropriate sibling love and fade out...

Now compare it to the new titles.



My eyes and ears are throwing up up into their mouths. (THAT'S RIGHT, MY EYES AND EARS HAVE MOUTHS. DEAL WITH IT.) This is not a show I want to watch. It is a show I want to burn. And I have been glued to The Hills of late (I STILL DO NOT UNDERSTAND THAT PROGRAM - IS IT REAL OR NOT?! SOMEONE TELL ME PLEASE). This is the kind of shit that gives people ammunition to say that things were always better 'back in my day'. Things were not better 'back in your day', the future is always better.

Unless of course we're talking about gay rights in California or the Beverly Hills 90210 redux. It seems a little too cowinkydinkle that they're both from the same place.

Our mission then is clear: destroy California. The future depends upon it.

[P.S. I gots to thank my main man Paddington's Shadow for the inspiration on this]