Because Kid's don't really ever need to sleep...

Hey guys, guess what?! The Doodlebops are coming to the Xcel Energy Center soon! Oh my gosh! The kids just love them...

Yeah. Kid's entertainment today has gone a bit on the weak side. Doodlebops? Wiggles? Dora? It's all for pansies compared to what we grew up with in the 80's. Now I realize that I sound like our grandparents, talking about how much tougher they had to be when they were kids, but darn it, "family entertainment" sure has wussed out in recent years. To prove my point, I present:

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THE TOP THREE SCARY KIDS' MOVIES OF THE 80'S!

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We'll start with #3: "Legend" staring the mini-skirted Tom Cruise (shudder in horror).

In this movie, Tom and his chick are in love and live in a magical land of unicorns. But, darn it all to heck, the devil shows up and kidnapps both the last unicorn and the chick. Tom teams up with a creepy cast of imps and goblins to save them, while the rest of the world freezes over and all other people turn into waxy statues. They have to break into the devil's layer, and at one point almost get baked into pies by demons with pig faces. There is much screaming, blood and evel creatures lurking around. Finally the day is saved when Tom chooses not to shoot his true love with an arrow. Huzzah.

#2 on the list of Scary Kids' movies is "The Never Ending Story".

Why this one even says it's "Family Entertainment" right there on the poster. Grand! Was I the only one who sat in horror during this family movie? It starts out with a kid getting locked in his school (a scary concept for kids to begin with). He finds an old book in an attic and decides to read it to pass the time. In it we find a magical world that's being taken over by "The Nothing". Basically, it's just slipping from existance bit by bit. The queen hires young Atreyu and his horse Artax to save the day. They ride off to a swamp of dispair, where they both get suicidally depressed. The horse gives in to the saddness and sinks into the swamp to his death (young Laura always sobbed at this point). Left on foot, and at this point now being hunted by a huge wolf, Atreyu makes friends only to have them get killed or give in to dispair and almost gets killed himslef by judgemental statues with breasts and laserbeam eyes.

Finally the entire world is blasted away by The Nothing except for him and the queen. Atreyu asks why all this bad stuff happened and why nothing he ever did mattered. Queenie says that the only one who could have stopped it was the kid reading the book. Then there's an earthquake and Atreyu dies. The Queen begs the kid to make it stop, and the kid goes to the window and yells out his dead mothers name, thus restoring eveyone and everything to it's former glory. Yup - this certainly was a feel-good movie for the whole family!

Without furthur ado, the #1 spot would have to go to one of the freakiest movies in the history of cinema: "Pee Wee's Big Adventure".

This movie had it all: loss and dispar, scary psychics, escape convicts, undead trucker ladies, raging pet store fires, surgeon clowns of death and even creepy lawn gnomes. Basically, Pee Wee has a bike that gets stolen and he trapses all over the country to get it back. Here's a clip - I think this one speaks for itself.

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Honerable mentions go out to "Labrinth" starring Jennifer Connely and David Bowie (whose wardrobe choices alone put this movie in contention), and "Return to Oz" featuring some delightful electro-shock treatment on a sweet little girl.

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But seriously, does anyone want to check out the Doodlebops with me...?