This is part of our 100 Things in 2014 challenge. Here’s the full list.

Warning: You will judge us for our choice of movies. We fully expect this, and have no defense prepared.

We decided that we should subject the kids to stuff from our childhood while they’re young, and not yet embarrassed of us. We started with these two movies.

The first was Ernest Goes to Camp (1987). Becky was paralyzed with laughter about 60 seconds after the opening credits – her mom used to pull out the “eeeEEEEEeeewwww” at just the right moment, and send her and her brothers into hysterics. I don’t have a specific story about Mr. Worrell, but this kind of humor is deeply embedded in my childhood; our family watched everything Ernest and Vern that we could find. Our kids were literally ROTFLOLing.

Our second selection was Honey I Shrunk the Kids (1989). Becky had to stop herself from reciting all the lines while we watched, but this was more of a risk – there’s quite a bit of peril in this movie, and Lucy’s pretty sensitive to that kind of thing By the end she said she loved it, though, and we were never in doubt about Will, so I guess we did okay.

Our conclusion: watch these movies with your kids before they’re old enough to see the difference that 30 years of filmmaking has made.