MTV's Downtown (1999) Full Series

 

A series far ahead of it's time. MTV's Downtown is obviously inspired by Ralph Bakshi's storytelling and grit of his 70's work. The lingo, the animation, the characters.. if you lived in a city in a decent sized downtown in the 90's or early 2000's, this series will very much resonate with you. 

Massive Attack scored the series, and because of licensing issues, the series was never released on DVD or VHS with the audio fully intact. Thankfully, it's been released on youtube. Already cancelled, the series was nominated for an Emmy, but no second season was commissioned by MTV. 

My take: I'm a nerd, had a decent job, and my own place before all my friends, and hung out in my downtown area at the time. This really hits home with me. It was tough but not impossible to manage multiple friends groups, pay bills, and attempting to have a life at the same time in the early 2000's. I moved out when I was 19 years old in 2000. If you graduated in the late 90's and lived in a big city, this is for you. Pre-cellphone era vibes, when it meant more to have personal relationships and have conversations. Episode 5: The Con really had me thinking of how we have a lot of same things just on a different scale today. Comic-Cons, Furries, D&D groups, niche fan groups.. it has it all. Nothing has changed; all these things existed in each decade from the 70's to today.

Watch here on youtube - Download the full series 

Top 10 Fictional Foods from 80's Science Fiction movies

 🥞 1. Dehydrated Pizza Hut Pizza

• Movie: Back to the Future Part II (1989)
• What it is: A tiny, three-inch disc that resembles a hard cookie. Most likely made of play-doh and movie magic.
• The Sci-Fi Twist: When placed inside a Black & Decker Hydrator for exactly 12 seconds, it instantly balloons into a full-sized, steaming-hot gourmet pizza. As a kid, who didnt want to have this in their house? Think of all the things you could re-hydrate. 10/10 Would eat. 

🍦 2. The Stuff

• Movie: The Stuff (1985)
• What it is: A sweet, creamy, marshmallow-like goo found bubbling up from the earth.
• The Sci-Fi Twist: It is marketed as a zero-calorie, highly addictive dessert. However, the treat is actually a sentient, parasitic organism that eats consumers from the inside out, turning them into mindless hollow zombies. This is one of things on this list that actually looks good, like marshmallow fluff. I'll risk it- bring on the Stuff. My brother Jared really liked this movie, and would pretend to eat "Stuff" at dinner.

🪱 3. Gagh

• Movie: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
• What it is: A traditional, snake-like Klingon delicacy.
• The Sci-Fi Twist: Gagh is famously made of serpent worms and is preferred to be eaten alive so the consumer can feel the worms squirming down their throat. Also on the list of top 3 strange things Klingons like to eat that are also sightly gay in nature. 

🧫 4. Synthetic Food Blocks (Noodles and Mush)

• Movie: Blade Runner (1982)
• What it is: The street food served at the neon-lit, rainy noodle bars of dystopian Los Angeles.
• The Sci-Fi Twist: In a dying world where real animals and plants are nearly extinct, citizens survive on highly processed, synthetic protein blocks shaped into fast-food noodles. I want to say this is related to Soylent Green in a way, or the next food item on the list. Again, I would 100% eat this.. in the rain. With Harrison Ford. Blade Runner gets a pass as it's one of my favorite movies of all time. 

🍲 5. Alien "Human" Fast Food

• Movie: Bad Taste (1987)
• What it is: Crumble-like meat pies and stews.
• The Sci-Fi Twist: In Peter Jackson's debut film, an intergalactic alien corporation invades a small New Zealand town to harvest the human population, intending to turn them into the primary ingredient for an alien fast-food franchise. When pieces of your late relatives liquify and drip into your food, or are your food, maybe avoid it. Ill pass on this one. 

🐛 6. Roasted Slime Worms

• Movie: Enemy Mine (1985)
• What it is: Long, grotesque, indigenous alien invertebrates.
• The Sci-Fi Twist: Stranded on a hostile planet, a human soldier and an alien enemy are forced to survive by pulling large, slimy, slug-like worms out of the ground and roasting them over an open fire. My buddy Gary really liked this movie, with its homosexual undertones. I'll pass on the slug-roasting though. 

🥤 7. Perri-Air

• Movie: Spaceballs (1987)
• What it is: Canned breathable air, packaged like sparkling water.
• The Sci-Fi Twist: After the bureaucratic leaders of Planet Spaceball foolishly deplete their own atmosphere, the elite resort to snorting and drinking "Perri-Air"—a parody of Perrier bottled water—shipped straight from pristine planets. I don't see a reason to hate this. It's possible Mel Brooks knew all along we would be buying cans of air and huffing them in the future. 

🦪 8. Crushed "Bug" Paste

• Movie: Dune (1984)
• What it is: A highly nutritious paste gathered by the Fremen.
• The Sci-Fi Twist: To survive the brutal, arid desert of Arrakis, the native Fremen rely on survival suits that recycle body moisture, supplemented by heavily processed, nutrient-dense pastes made from desert insects and fungi. Another hard pass for me, but if I was tripping full on balls on a desert death planet, maybe I would take a ride on some bug paste to stay alive. Shrug.

🧃 9. "New" Soylent Ration Bars

• Movie: Soylent Green (1973) / Continual 80s Pop Culture
• What it is: High-protein, mass-produced survival crackers.
• The Sci-Fi Twist: While the legendary movie Soylent Green technically hit theaters in 1973, its bleak vision of a world completely dependent on fake, processed ration blocks heavily dictated the aesthetic of 1980s dystopian cinema. "It's People!"  My mom would quote this movie growing up when she was baking in the kitchen, so I feel horribly nostalgic for wanting to try biscuits made of ground up human. 

🥚 10. Alien Pod Omelets

• Movie: Critters 2: The Main Course (1988)
• What it is: Bright, speckled eggs prepared at a local diner.
• The Sci-Fi Twist: An unsuspecting short-order cook finds a batch of large, exotic-looking eggs and cracks them onto a grill to serve to customers, completely unaware that they are actually the unhatched pods of flesh-eating alien monsters. I get grossed out by this. Do with that information what you will.