As a card-carrying member* of Generation X, I am sick of Gen-X pandering from the entertainment industry. I lived through the 1980s, and they licked the first time.They were a vapid time: full of neon, preppies, pastels, bad hair, callow materialism and Debbie Gibson. (Actually, I kind of liked Debbie Gibson. But don't tell anybody.)

Signs of the apocalypse include a He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe movie — why, Vishnu, why? — and a new 90210 sequel series, featuring some of the original actors. (Okay, so 90210 isn't science fiction, except that Shannon Doherty is some sort of mutant.) Not to mention a G.I. Joe movie, a Transformers sequel, a Knight Rider TV show, an Escape From New York remake, a Robotech movie, a Bill And Ted remake, another new Terminator movie and TV show, an A-Team movie, a Greatest American Hero movie, a War Games sequel and a Wolverine movie — even though Wolverine first hit in the 1970s, he didn't really hit until the 1980s. Plus, the Brits are bringing me a new Blake's 7 show!

Not to mention, the comics industry is obsessed with the comics that were coming out during the exact month I realized you're not supposed to act impressed by your first real kiss. Marvel is putting out a series that's actually called 1985, and the whole point is: it takes place in 1985. Plus the big money shot in Secret Invasion #1 is all the Marvel superheroes, looking like their 1980s counterparts, stepping off a spaceship as if they've been away for 20 years. And every DC comic for the past three years has been a rehash of Crisis On Infinite Earths. And did DC really publish a new Outsiders comic, or did I just hallucinate it?

Not to mention that they're using the magic of modern technology to put out a new Mega Man game that looks totally retro (i.e., crappy) and 8-bit. And you can actually buy an Atari 2600 controller with games that look just as crufty as they did when I drank 10 liters of coke and conquered Adventure.

As Doris Lessing says in her science fictional Canopus In Argos series, nostaglia means "longing for what has never been." Much of Lessing's work is about the use of nostalgia to poison people, drawing people into supporting bad wars and worse policies and regressing everyone into pliant babies. Speaking of which, they're totally redoing the Canopus series except this time there'll be a talking tea-kettle named Naughty.

The other morning when I woke up, Kevin Feige, Brad Grey and Jeff Zucker were gathered around my bed, holding little mugs of hot chocolate with marshmallows and replicas of the Wonder Woman pajamas I used to wear. "We're bringing it all back!" Kevin Feige said. "It's 1986 all over again!" Jeff Zucker said. "That day you ate ten boxes of nachos and swigged half a bottle of Malibu until you passed out marinating in your own stomach acid and pancreas squeezings? It'll be just like that!" I tried to explain that I didn't really want to relive those years, and the greatest antidote to lingering nostalgia is to see all of the plastic castles of youth rebuilt anew.

"But it'll all be a hundred times better this time, thanks to CG!" Paramount's Brad Grey jumped up and down. "Just look at this new Airwolf pilot, where the super-helicopter is also an ipod, and it's got the brain of a self-help guru inside it, and it'll travel back in time and make your junior prom not suck. And it's in love with Tina Majorino from Veronica Mars! Also, the CG can make it so the people who only pretended to like you in high school really did like you!" I had to dive out the window before they could show me the pilot for a new series that mashed up Manimal and Perfect Strangers, where a guy's cousin turns out to have a funny accent and animal powers.

I had to duck out the window, still wearing my non-footie pajamas, to escape from the bombardment with pop detritus my mom threw out when I was a teenager. They chased me down Haight St., waving posters for their new reality TV series that blends The Big Chill with Cherry 2000: The Big Cherry Chill, where old friends gather, with their malfunctioning sexbots in tow, and listen to the music of their youth: Depeche Mode. I dove into a bong store to seek refuge (Haight St. is pretty much all bong stores — I blame nostalgia) but the guy in the store was one of those new cyber-preppies, obsessively checking his friends network on the new Preppie Handbook-themed version of Facebook. It was actually worse than being pandered to by Jeff Zucker.

In the end, I had to surrender. They tucked me in, fluffed my pillows, put me in the Wonder Woman PJs, and snuck me some weed. It was just like when I faked sick at age 15. Then they put the portable TV at the foot of my bed and showed me the director's cut of Speed Racer, which is ten hours long and turns pornographic right before Christina Ricci's skin falls off and the Mach-6 starts only going backwards. And hey. As I drifted into a warm place, feeling as though I could just wet myself right here in the bed and Brad Grey would clean it up for me, I had a stab of memory: being annoyed, in the late 80s, whenever the fuck the 20th anniversary of the Summer Of Love was (1986? 1989? No clue) and being annoyed by all the crappy 1960s nostalgia, Star Trek was back and everything 1960s was back... and thinking: One day it'll be our turn. So hey, now it is. I might as well enjoy it. Right?

* Actually I lost my card. I'm a slacker, what do you want? If you actually still have your Gen-X card, you're not really Gen-X. If you've got your Gen-X card and you laminated it or covered it with mylar of some sort, you're probably actually part of the Net or Millennial generations. (Actually, according to this incredibly confusing and enlightening chart by Josh Glenn, I'm really part of the Generation That Ate Its Own Entrails, or GAIE for short.)

• David Hasselhoff: While the Hoff hasn't been attached to this planned revamp, his name is associated with it as much as William Shatner's is with Star Trek. He's enjoyed his run of popularity from soap star, to Michael Knight, to his role as Mitch Buchannon on Baywatch. He even managed to turn the lifeguard pseudo-drama into a cash cow for himself by getting it into first-run syndication, but you'd have to hit turbo boost many times to jump over his ego and the potential camp factor.
• Knight Rider 2000: This 1991 TV movie had high hopes to revitalize the series and bring Michael Knight and K.I.T.T. back onto American televisions. Here's a reader's digest version of the movie: A new Knight Industries has been working on a new supercar, this time a fire engine red sporty number. However, the new artificial intelligence is bitchy, and doesn't work well with Michael Knight, who has been brought in as a test driver. Michael finds out that the original K.I.T.T. has been sold for scrap, and they set to work finding the lost pieces of his cybernetic soul. They get everything back together except for one chip, and install the spit and baling wire gizmo into Michael's 1957 Chevy. On their first crime-busting trial run, K.I.T.T. accidentally shoots a tranq dart into James Doohan's neck as he withdraws money from an ATM. Yes, James Doohan plays James Doohan in the movie, and when he gets shot, he hallucinates and thinks he's actually Scotty from Star Trek. No, we aren't making this up. They track down the final chip, which happens to have been implanted in policewoman Shawn McCormick's head after a near-fatal shooting. K.I.T.T. is able to link with the chip wirelessly, and the three of them form a team. Ugh.
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• Knight Rider 2010: Yes, they went back to the well again in 1994 in yet another TV movie, this time without David Hasselhoff or William Daniels as the erudite voice of the car. It's set in a sort of Mad Max dystopian future, and the car is now a heavily modified armored 1969 Ford Mustang. Driver Jake McQueen finds out that the evil corporation trying to hire him to work on video games has evil ambitions, and partners with employee Hannah Tyree to take them down. She accidentally downloads her personality into a computer device called PRISM, dies, yet lives on as the voice and spirit of Jake's new car. Double ugh.
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• Team Knight Rider: Just when you thought it was safe, yet another Knight Rider appeared on TV. This 1997 series featured not one, but five talking vehicles with five new leads. Two motorcycles, a truck, an SUV, and a sportscar made up this new cadre of crimefighters. The show actually made it to series, and ran for 22 episodes before getting canceled due to low ratings. It was also a weekly advertisement for Ford, as all of the vehicles (except the motorbikes) were built Ford tough.
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• This Ain't Transformers: NBC is fast-tracking this project because of the huge numbers that Transformers pulled in over the summer, and the current script has K.I.T.T. able to morph into different types of cars, including an even sportier looking model, and a pink Barbie-mobile. A car that turns into another car? How exciting. Plus NBC has already been down the morphing-car road in 1994 with Viper.
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• The Stalled Movie Version: Hollywood has been trying since 2002 to get a film version of Knight Rider rolling, and attempts were made to cast both Ben Affleck and Orlando Bloom as the new Michael Knight. Currently the film rights are sitting at Miramax, with David Hasselhoff attached to at least have a cameo appearance in the film. There's a reason people keep turning this role down: to paraphrase Tina Turner, "We Don't Need Another Knight Rider."
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