Question for the Week of Feb 25-Mar 3: Childhood Not Noticing

What's the biggest shock you had from rewatching a childhood favorite as an adult? Did you notice something that didn't stand out to you before, and that shocked you when you did notice?

Oh, yes! This definitely happened to me on two occasions, and I remember both pretty clearly...

The first happened in my junior year of college. A friend and I decided to watch what is still one of Tim Burton's best, Pee-wee's Big Adventure. We were laughing hysterically - and no intoxicants were involved, it was purely due to the comedy that Pee-wee's so successfully employed... As hard as I laughed, I was also blown away by how demented that film is.

Its sensibilities aren't pornographic or inappropriate, but they are twisted and absurdist - two things that went right over my head when I saw PBA as a child. It was easy to see why I missed it: not only was I less intelligent and experienced, but the picture is so endlessly entertaining that it's no surprise that kids wouldn't perceive much else...

Of course, I am saving the best for last.

The biggie, then, came a year earlier when my 80's-loving roomie and I rewatched The Goonies. We were college sophomores, and I'm pretty sure we watched it during one of the many movie parties we held in our room. I was a little shocked by how tragi-comic everything with "Chunk" was, and that feeling was even stronger regarding the mutant/malformed "Sloth" - it's so creepy and sad...

The moment that made me spit out my drink: the number of times that these children(!) say that they're searching for "One Eyed Willie's Buried Treasure." Holy s--t: if you don't have an idea what might be wrong with that phrase, urban dictionary will spell it out for you. So wrong.