To younger members of Gen X and older millennials, [Saved by the Bell] is part of the childhood canon. I think we all died a little inside yesterday in the Reason D.C. office when we realized that none of our interns and a few of our youngest staffers had no idea who Jessie Spano was. By a quick show of birth years, we pipointed 1990 as the crack in this generational divide. I shudder to ask them about the Soup Nazi—though I suppose Seinfeld is a show you're more prone to watch in reruns as an adult than Saved by the Bell. (Another show launched in 1989, The Simpsons, is still airing after all these years.)
I was watching some old episodes of The Simpsons with one of my kids the other night, and I don't think I've ever felt quite as decrepit as I did when I realized that "Marge vs. the Monorail" is 21 years old. Put another way: The gap between now and "Marge vs. the Monorail" is larger than the gap between "Marge vs. the Monorail" and the fall of Saigon. I would have told my daughter that, but then she would've asked "What's a Saigon?" and I would've felt even older. It was bad enough that I had to explain who Leonard Nimoy was. He isn't even dead yet.
