"iCarly" vs. "Family Ties"? No contest.

I've been watching these "tween" shows on the Disney channel - like iCarly, Suite Life, etc. - and I've come to the realization that teenagers are just not portrayed the same way on tv like they were when I was growing up.  The girls on these shows always have great hair, stylish outfits, and they are ALL extremely outgoing and self-confident.  I mean, look at the girl who plays iCarly over on the left - you expect me to believe this girl is a typical teenager?  When I was a teenager I had frizzy hair, big ugly glasses, a mouth full of braces, and I believed my mom when she told me that one-piece shorts outfits were "in style" (they weren't).  I was shy, self-conscious and deathly afraid of anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to anything I did.  In other words, the complete opposite of these so-called teenagers on these Disney shows. (See dorky photo of me at age 13 below).

Most of my friends were either big dorks like me or slightly cooler versions of me.  I did have one or two friends who slightly resembled the teenagers of today's shows - but still, I think most of us leaned more toward the awkward side, at least in the early teenage years.

I miss the shows from my youth, back in the days when you had to watch shows when they were on because there were no VCRs or DVRs or any way to watch things "on demand".  One of my all-time favorites was "Family Ties" - I loved that show!  Not just because I had a huge crush on Michael J. Fox (which I did), but these kids were so real to me.  They were like kids I knew in school. There was Mallory, the very stylish but ditzy older sister who was good at getting the guys but lacking in the smarts department.  (I actually couldn't relate very well to her since I was the complete opposite of that, but I knew plenty of girls like her.)  She was cute and dim but in a nice, unthreatening way.  Then there was Alex P. Keaton, the overachieving, know-it-all middle kid in the family, who behind his pompous exterior was a really good guy at heart who usually ended up doing the right thing.  Then there was the little sister Jennifer - who was slightly annoying as a kid, but when she entered her teenage years I totally started to get her.  She was self-conscious, unsure of herself and definitely not one of the popular girls.  She was always really good at standing up for herself though - which I admired, being somewhat of a wimp myself.

I think my favorite character on Family Ties was the dad.  Maybe he reminded me a little of my own dad - tall, thin, bearded - not to mention that he was a bit of a softy and had an interesting sense of humor.  He had some of the best dead-pan lines in that show.  I remember laughing so hard at the episode where the parents leave the kids home alone for a night and chaos ensues.  He's talking to Alex, trying so hard not to lose his cool.  "Alex, when parents leave their children home alone for the first time, they expect some things to go wrong:  a broken dish, spilt milk on the rug.  (long pause)  There was a kangaroo . . . in my living room."  I don't know if those were his exact words, but the look on his face when he said that last sentence was just priceless.

The funny thing is, I think the show was originally written with Meredith Baxter as the main character.  I'd say she was probably my least favorite character on the show.  Maybe because she didn't remind me of my mom at all - who knows?  But anyway, a great show.  Now I will probably be searching "on demand" to find old episodes to watch.

So come on, Disney people!  Put some real characters on these shows you make for our kids.  Stop stereotyping the geeks and the prom queens and just put some regular old teenagers on there with frizzy hair and zits and real problems.  It would be so much more interesting.