21 Jump Street

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The tv show, not the movie.

Have you ever watched the original 21 Jump Street tv show? I never watched when I was a kid, though possibly my parents did- I don't remember.

I recently found it on Amazon streaming, and it's a great show!

Slightly preachy in that 80's way, no bad language (even the bad guys don't say anything worse than heck, gosh, and dang). The topics are a bit mature for our 6 year old (drugs, gangs, etc), but the fights aren't too graphic- no blood, and you can tell they're not actually hitting each other.

But wow, the clothes! the hair! Makes me glad I was a little too young to be too concerned about clothes for most of the 80's and glad my parents didn't follow fads either.

The high schools portrayed are so far removed from my high school. Even accounting for the naive little bubble I lived in, I'm pretty sure things weren't nearly as bad as a lot of the situations shown in the show. There's definitely a difference between inner city high schools and midwestern small town high schools.

The eye candy is nice, too- Johnny Depp was quite a cute kid before he got all weird :)

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I actually wrote this post a few weeks ago, but never finished it off and posted it, so I thought I'd add a bit more. I'm now into the third season, and it's not nearly as good. Halfway through the second season, I noticed real bad words being used (no more censoring or editing or whatever happened before that) and the themes and topics have gotten grittier.

Have you watched 21 Jump Street? What did you think? Is it worth watching to the end of the 5th season? (I'm losing interest...)