Gaming off the Beaten Path

 Now that I have kids, a lot of new media has entered my orbit. And frankly, a lot of old media has re-entered it too. It really is amazing how many kids shows are still on the air in some way, shape or form. For every new franchise my kids become obsessed with, it seems like they also become obsessed with one from my childhood. It actually leads to a surprising amount of parenting problems. My kids assume that because I know so much about Pokémon, I know equal amounts about Ninjago or Dog Man. Any other parents have kids in the Dog Man phase? I guess it beats the sheer terror and foul horror of Cocomelon. Anyway, one of the more recent obsessions in my house has been Power Rangers, a show I was absolutely shocked to find they are still making seasons of. Since 1993, Saban has been crossing footage from Japanese show Super Sentai (which has been on even longer, since 1975) with really poorly acted teenage drama to create a massive merchandising juggernaut. My kids are into all the ...

  Got a question for you. What do you get when you cross Mortal Kombat, WWE and Mr. Rodgers' Neighborhood? A local access TV show where The Rock and Sub-Zero teach kids about the joys of sharing? A crossover MK game where the WWE roster is playable, but the only finishing moves are friendships? What you get is WMAC Masters, a short lived, live action children's show that ran as part of various Saturday morning TV blocks from 1995-1997. Between the popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the emergence of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter and the smashing success of shows like Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, martial arts were all the rage for kids in the 90's. It seems like every single one of us begged and begged our parents to put us in Karate classes. It was all 'Karate' to us, none of us realized that the 'Karate' we were doing was (most likely) actually Tae Kwon Do, or that there was even a difference. The folks at 4Kids entertainment decided th...