Last week a new restaurant called Cereality opened in Chicago. But it's not just a run-of-the-mill type restaurant. Cereality is an all-day cereal bar. Yep, from 5am until 7pm you can grab a seat and chow down on dozens of different breakfast cereals from Honey Smacks, Rice Bubbles and Frosties to every other sugary, bad for you, I-can-feel-my-teeth-rotting-with-every-mouthful-of-this-stuff cereal on offer.

The staff, who call themselves "cereologists", wear pyjama tops, the cereal is served in milk-tight, white, Chinese takeaway-style boxes and two flatscreen televisions show retro cartoons every Saturday morning. A bowl of Coco Pops and Top Cat! It has my name (and probably Monica Trapaga's) written all over it.

I'm sure it will come as no surprise that uni students and 30-year-old suits are elbowing small children out of the way to get into this place. Why? Because it's relatively easy to elbow a little kiddie in the head, and it would appear that Generation Xers are currently on one long, self-indulgent, nostalgia trip. I mean, who else keeps requesting Break My Stride on all those radio stations? Certainly not my mother or the 15-year-old next door who's too busy listening to Gwen Stefani on her iPod while simultaneously downloading that irritating Frog mobile ringtone.

From Footloose The Musical and Gilligan's Island: The Reality TV Show to movie remakes and/or adaptations of Bewitched, Charlie's Angels and The Jetsons, we may as well just wind the clocks back, whack in a pair of shoulder pads and call it 1983.

Things haven't looked this bad since The Brady Brides aired in February 1981 - an event that for a long time I thought was one of the seven signs of the apocalypse.

Any moment now I'm expecting La Boite to cash in by announcing Webster: A Play In One Act as part of their 2006 season. What's worse is that I'd probably go to see it. Twice.

But I'm being a little unfair to my fellow Gen Xers. While we may be fuelling part of this "remake" phenomenon (after all, we can finally afford all that merchandise that goes with the new Jetsons movie), we're not solely to blame.

The current "Play it again, Sam" attitude to movies and television programs is not limiting itself to any one generation. The past few years have seen remakes, revamps or big-screen adaptations of The Stepford Wives, Ocean's Eleven, The In-Laws, Starsky and Hutch, War of the Worlds, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, The Manchurian Candidate, Alfie, The Italian Job, Dawn of the Dead, The Ladykillers, House of Wax, Herbie, Amityville Horror, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Fantastic Four. Still to come are The Dukes of Hazzard, The Bad News Bears, The Jetsons, Yours, Mine and Ours, When a Stranger Calls, Pet Sematary, Adventures in Babysitting, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, To Catch a Thief, The Shaggy Dog and The Poseidon Adventure. I won't go on - although, sadly, I could. There are dozens more.

Which begs the question: why? Has Hollywood simply run out of fresh stories or is it merely cheaper to rehash an old favourite and hope nostalgia will encourage bums on seats?

In a recent interview with CNN/Money, New Line Cinema production chief Toby Emmerich admitted part of the motivation did indeed come from hoping to profit by playing on an audience's fondness for the original film. "It's such a crowded marketplace," Emmerich said. "Any kind of recognition or built-in affinity or interest you can have can be a leg-up. It's always the thinking, 'If it worked once, it can work again'."

Which may explain why Miami Vice: The Movie is due to hit the big screen next year. This itself is proof that sometimes what's being rehashed was hash to begin with. It's like expecting to make a gourmet meal from last night's leftover Macca's.

Emmerich said while fans of the original might be wary of going to see a remake, the key was in the marketing. "The trailer and commercials must convince fans of the original that the new film is both faithful to the original and also a fresh and updated version."