RIP cable channels that used to be awesome

[black_biff_stadler]

Haven't all of the food channels turned into straight-on reality TV now? Seems like all they offer are a variety of pseudo-competitions and "restaurant makeover" type stuff that's all manufactured drama rather than actual food.

I actually wind up using Youtube for the cooking channels now. Easy enough to find 10 different people of varying capabilities making whatever it is you're looking to learn about. Rather than watching to see what Julia Childs and Jacques Pepin are making on any given day, it's now a matter of finding the episode where they make whatever it is that you're interested in. It also offers the added benefit of authenticity. I like ogling Rachael Ray as much as everybody else, but if I'm interested in cooking collard greens I'm finding some great-grandmother from Tuscaloosa shaking off her 4th heart attack. Youtube is full of 60 year old Mexican, Indian and creole women handing out ancient family recipes.

^Yeah. All of that. Food Network should be charged with felonies for masquerading under that name. I think the ever-increasing presence of the internet will make those with culinary aspirations into better cooks than what exists today in general but I think many casual TV viewers will never pursue cooking as a serious interest now that "food programming" barely educates.

[Grizz]

Having been born in 1998, I got the last of the good corporate cartoons. I grew up watching the shark-jumpings of the last classic Nicktoons (Spongebob, Fairly OddParents, Jimmy Neutron). Nowadays there's Phineas and Ferb, which gets stale easily, and Gravity Falls. The rest is trash.
My little sister is into modern Disney channel. *Cries*