Childhood Memory Demolition Team: Difference between revisions

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[[File:onion news465.jpg|frame|You'll never see that tree again. Muhahahahaha.]]

{{quote|''The day they knocked down the palais''

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''Part of my childhood died, just died.''|[[The Kinks]], "Come Dancing"}}

You know that big tree you used to play in as a kid? Well, [[Growing Up Sucks|you're twelve now]], so you're old enough for the '''Childhood Memory Demolition Team''' to arrive and tear it down to build a new suburb/highway/bypass/parking lot/skyscraper.

This Demolition is often planned when a character is about to leave their childhood. The Memory is usually a house, [[Orphanage of Love|an orphanage]], sometimes even a small apartment building. If it's a big tree, expect a bonus [[Green Aesop]]. Whatever it is, it has great emotional value to the protagonist and friends.

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See also [[You Can't Go Home Again]], [[It's All Junk]], [[Death by Newbery Medal]] and [[End of an Age]].

Not to be confused with the apostles of [[Rule 34]].

Compare [[Saving the Orphanage]] where it's more than someone's childhood memories being destroyed.

Compare with [[Crushed Childhood Memories]] when something you remember as childish innocent fun turns out to have a dark side.

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== Anime ==

* ''[[Candy Candy]]''. Subverted as the tree gets relocated to a rich guy whose hobby is tree climbing (no, not [[Michael Jackson|that one]]...)

* In the ''[[Magical Play]]'' episode "How Distant the Showa Era Has Grown," a group of kids, including the son of [[Magical Girl|Nononon's]] host family, Kazuhiko, go to play in a vacant lot, only to find it being bulldozed. The kids reveal to Nononon that this was the last vacant lot around, and now they have no place to play baseball. After they leave, Nononon uses her powers to create some ghosts that chase off the construction crew. The next morning, she excitedly brings Kazuhiko to the lot to show him what she's done, but the construction crew had come back by then.

* In ''[[Clannad]]'', there are Tomoyo's sakura trees, later also Akio's field, and Tomoya's school building. Change, memories, and loss are a recurring themes in the story.

* In ''[[Clannad (visual novel)|Clannad]]'', there are Tomoyo's sakura trees, later also Akio's field, and Tomoya's school building. Change, memories, and loss are a recurring themes in the story.

* In ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' there was a garden and park that the girls loved that were about to get bulldozed for office space, and the caretaker who is trying to convince the big bad bulldozers to stop becomes the [[Victim of the Week]].

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== Film ==

* ''[[Batteries Not Included (film)|Batteries Not Included]]''

* ''[[Forrest Gump]]''.

** Although somewhat subverted when the house of Jenny's abusive father is demolished.

* In [[The Goonies]], [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|Astoria's evil realtors]] want to turn the main characters' house and possibly the entire town into a country club.

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== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* Harper's Woods in ''[[The Wonder Years]]''

* ''[[Night Gallery]]'', "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar".

* ''[[That's So Raven]]'', "On Top Of Old Oaky"

* ''[[Wishbone]]''

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the cops hated us hanging out

they say somebody went and burned it down }}

* ''Big Yellow Taxi''. They "paved paradise and put up a parking lot," although the song doesn't really specify what place the narrator was referring to as paradise.

* "Come Dancing" is about the singer remembering the old dance hall and how his sister spent her adolesence going to it. A variant, as it's someone ''else's'' childhood memories lost.

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* ''[[Hey Arnold!]]''. The tree is saved.

** Also an old theater. Which is saved.

* Subverted in an episode of ''[[The Fairly ~~Odd Parents~~]]'', when Timmy [[Time Travel|goes back in time]] to acquire the deed to Dimmsdale Flats, a place his father loved as a child. When he gets back to the present, his father promptly sells it to the developers, because he realized that his childhood [[Nostalgia Filter|wasn't as great as he thought it was]] (in fact, his exact words were "My childhood stank!").

* Subverted in an episode of ''[[The Fairly OddParents]]'', when Timmy [[Time Travel|goes back in time]] to acquire the deed to Dimmsdale Flats, a place his father loved as a child. When he gets back to the present, his father promptly sells it to the developers, because he realized that his childhood [[Nostalgia Filter|wasn't as great as he thought it was]] (in fact, his exact words were "My childhood stank!").

** The name of the company was in fact the Tearing Down Your Most Cherished Childhood Memories Construction Company.

** Played straight in [[A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner!|the live-action movie]]. Hugh J. Magnate Jr. orders his men to tear down Dimmsdale Park so he can build an oil well, in spite of Tootie chaining herself to the dogwood tree in the middle of the park. Timmy wishes for Magnate's bulldozers and chainsaws to break down, and later wishes for the park to be restored to the beautiful playground it once was.

* In an episode of ''[[Recess]],'' the kids tried to protect their ages old jungle gym from being demolished and replaced because it was old and rusty (thus, it was named "Old Rusty"). When the demolishers try to appeal to the parents to allow them to do so, the parents have their own memories of having played on it. They all climb up on the jungle gym in a show of solidarity. The combined weight of all the people on the jungle gym ends up destroying it, but the construction crew ends up replacing it with a model that is in every way the same, except less dangerous (and so, it was renamed "New Rusty"). So, both aspects of this trope are subverted.

* One episode of the ''[[Beetlejuice (animation)|Beetlejuice]]'' cartoon centered around Lydia trying to save a tree she loved from being cut down to make room for a highway. When chaining herself to the tree doesn't work, she gets Beetlejuice to scare away the construction workers. When ''that'' doesn't work, Beetlejuice gets a magic rope from the Neitherworld to bring the tree to life. The tree then it quite literally gets up and walks to the playground, where it replants itself and becomes very happy when all the children start playing on and around it.

* In the [[Christmas Special]] ''The Christmas Tree'', Mrs. Mavilda, the owner of an orphanage, plans to cut down a huge evergreen tree on the grounds, mostly because the orphans like to play around it and she wants to keep them from going outside (she gambled away the money the town donated to buy them new clothes). What she doesn't know is that the orphans believe the tree is magical and even named it Mrs. Hopewell. When the guy Mrs. Mavilda hired to do the deed shows up, her assistant, Mrs. Kindle, and the orphans stand in front of the tree, refusing to let it be cut down. Fortunately, the mayor happens to show up and puts a stop to the tree-cutting. He even makes the tree a piece of town property so that it can never be cut down, and makes it the official town Christmas Tree.

* There was an episode of [[Doug]] where Doug and some other boys were throwing rocks at some old houses that were about to be demolished. Doug got a lucky shot in and not just broke a window, but flattened a whole house. The guys were impressed, but his crush, Patty told him he was "terrible". It's revealed her family used to live in that house when she was little and her mom was still alive.

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[[Category:~~Childhood Memory Demolition Team~~]]

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