The Totally Sweet ’90s: From Clear Cola to Furby, and Grunge to “Whatever,” the Toys, Tastes, and Trends That Defined a Decade Read online

  Pretty soon, everybody with a camcorder—at that time, the giant kind you had to balance on your shoulder—was aiming it at any remotely dangerous or adorable situation, hoping to capture a pyramid of people collapsing into an alligator pit or a baby juggling Tasers.

  Host Bob Saget and, later, folks like Daisy Fuentes and Tom Bergeron, delivered terrible patter in between clips, all set to an uncontrollable laugh track. Why? To make the often lame, overlit, grainy, and blurry videos more appealing? Good Lord, get to the deck collapse already.

  Much has been made of the show’s penchant for featuring people getting smacked in the groin. So much, in fact, that we won’t belabor the conversation other to say the reputation was absolutely, rightfully, and painfully deserved. If the nutcup fits…

  STATUS: Still going strong.

  FUN FACT: In one audience-participation segment, “Head, Gut, or Groin,” host Bergeron had members of the studio audience guess where the person in the next video would get whacked.

  American Gladiators

  If aliens on their way to invade Earth had caught a few minutes of American Gladiators, they would have turned their ships around and headed right back to their home planet. Because who wanted to mess with an army of muscle-bound mutants, especially if they were armed with giant Q-tips? That was apparently the reason we all tuned in to the syndicated 1989–1997 hit: to watch regular Joes get their spandex-covered butts handed to them by freaks of nature with names like Nitro, Laser, Turbo, and Zap.

  Contestants bobbed and weaved while Gladiators shot at them with one-hundred-mile-per-hour tennis-ball cannons. Why, it was just like the Olympics! Only not at all. But the commentators (including, in the first season, Joe Theismann) took this goofy game just as seriously, trying to keep a straight face while they interviewed a contestant who just got pulled off a rock wall by a shaved and oiled bodybuilder. With the breathless commentary, squeaky-clean heroes, and mwah-ha-ha villains, Gladiators pulled out all the stops to artificially amp up the drama wherever it could. But we all really knew it wasn’t much more than a cut-rate pro-wrestling match mixed with a cheesy obstacle course. And that’s exactly why we never missed an episode.

  STATUS: The show came back in 2008, this time hosted by Hulk Hogan.

  FUN FACT: Many of the audience members “watching” the Gladiators were actually just faces painted onto the set’s walls.

  Andrew “Dice” Clay

  Hickory dickory dock…” Trust us, you don’t want to hear the rest. With jet-black sideburns slashed across his cheeks and a cigarette permanently dangling from his lips, shock comic Andrew “Dice” Clay shot to national attention in 1988 with his stand-up comedy versions of nursery rhymes so obscene, they’d make Mother Goose lose her tail feathers.

  He’d punctuate every punch line with a delighted “Oh!” like even he couldn’t believe he’d said it. The Brooklyn-born comedian quickly gained a rep as a rude, crude misogynist, sparking protests from every possible angle. MTV banned him and his leather jacket for life in 1989, when he let loose a few of his expletive-packed poems on the MTV Video Music Awards. And when he was scheduled to host Saturday Night Live the next year, cast member Nora Dunn and musical guest Sinead O’Connor sat out the show in protest. Note to Dice: When someone who rips up a picture of the pope on national TV calls you out for being too controversial, you might want to dial it back a tad.

  STATUS: In 2011, “Dice” played a fictionalized version of himself on HBO’s Entourage, which jump-started his career yet again. MTV officially unbanned him the same year. Oh!

  FUN FACT: Clay played the bouncer at Molly Ringwald’s nighttime hangout in the 1986 movie Pretty in Pink.

  Arch Deluxe

  Fast-fooderies, know your place! McDonald’s really shouldn’t think of itself as an adult eatery. After all, hoity-toity steakhouses don’t try to build locations in food courts or give away toy Smurfs.

  In 1996, McDonald’s decided to market certain food items strictly to grown-ups. Headlining the new sandwich line was the Arch Deluxe—kind of like a quarter pounder, but featuring lettuce, tomato, a mustard-mayo sauce, round bacon, and a really bready potato-flour bun.

  The chain reportedly spent $100 million on a campaign straight out of your mom’s reverse-psychology book. Kids hate these burgers, grown-ups! Doesn’t that make you want to order a couple dozen? When those ads didn’t bring customers flocking in, the company switched to commercials showing Ronald McDonald engaging in adult activities. Get your mind out of the gutter—he was golfing and nightclubbing. The less said about the carrot-topped clown boogeying down at a nightspot, the better.

  The Deluxe line was reportedly one of the biggest corporate flops of all time. Wash one down with a New Coke while surfing your WebTV and you may have the perfect trifecta of capitalistic failure.

  STATUS: The Arch Deluxe is gone, but McDonald’s didn’t give up on premium sandwiches, eventually adding Angus third-pound burgers to the menu.

  FUN FACT: You can spot a young Jessica Biel in an Arch Deluxe ad.

  Austin Stories

  Only twelve episodes of Austin Stories were ever shown, but viewers too lazy to turn off MTV after The Real World ended discovered the 1997–1998 show and made it a cult classic.

  Texas comics Brad “Chip” Pope, Howard Kremer, and Laura House played three friends of various degrees of Slackertude. Nerdy Chip couldn’t hold down a job and mooned over the girlfriend who dumped him. (“Shhh, Angie’s sleeping!” he scolded pals. “With that guy!”) Lanky Howard was always working a scam, from hawking candy he found in the trash to selling his girlfriend’s blood to get his impounded car back. Alt-weekly journalist Laura was the most responsible of the three, but even she wasn’t above calling the Czech Republic on the newspaper’s dime.

  The charm of the cast and the non-Hollywood style of the setting earned raves, but MTV made Austin pretty much impossible to find, throwing other shows in its time slot with no warning. Then they canceled it for good, leaving the talented leads to move on to Hollywood, and fans to forever wonder if snagging a theater-employee vest from the thrift store would really earn you free movies for life.

  STATUS: Austin told its last story in 1998. It’s not the same, but IFC’s Portlandia has a similarly quirky cast and regional setting.

  FUN FACT: While MTV foolishly never released the show itself, Kremer sells autographed DVDs of the entire series on eBay.

  “Baby Got Back”

  In case you haven’t heard, Sir Mix-A-Lot likes big butts, and he cannot lie. That’s what he claimed in his 1992 smash Grammy-winning (!) single “Baby Got Back,” anyway. And we believe him. He was pretty clear.

  We’re not exactly sure where Mix got the title “Sir,” but we’re guessing he didn’t get knighted by the queen for the classy line “My anaconda don’t want none unless you’ve got buns, hon.” Still, while Her Royal Highness probably wasn’t a fan, plenty of people were. The song sold more than two million copies, many of them to suburban kids named Ashley or Trevor who somehow felt the lyrics spoke to their white-bread, Nickelodeon lives: “Tell ’em to shake it! Shake it! Shake that healthy butt!”

  The tune sparked a butt-load of controversy. Some people took it to be a straight-up tribute to women with large backsides, others called it antifeminist and protested Mix-A-Lot’s concerts. Whatever the rationale, the tune sparked a whole new generation of musicians to sing songs about derrieres. You other brothers can’t deny: The folks behind “Thong Song,” “Rump Shaker,” “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” and “Da Butt” should give Sir Mix-A-Lot a giant, butt-shaped medal.

  STATUS: The tune simply won’t go away. In 2012, a YouTube video of a Sir Ian McKellen impersonator reading the lyrics as if they were Shakespearean sonnets made the Internet rounds.

  FUN FACT: In 2009, Burger King took flak for a commercial for a SpongeBob SquarePants kids’ meal that changed the lyrics to “I like square butts.”

  Baby-Sitters Club Books

  Did every girl who read the Bab
y-Sitters Club books try to organize her own version of the group? Did anyone succeed? Sadly, our friends were neither as industrious nor as kid-competent as Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, Stacey, and the rest of Ann M. Martin’s characters. And what kind of neighborhood did they live in where parents burned up the phone lines during one half-hour period trying to book preteens to babysit? When we kids tried the same thing, the only time the phone rang was with a wrong number.

  Moms preferred Baby-Sitters Club books to Sweet Valley High novels because the Baby-Sitters weren’t boy-crazy. But that doesn’t mean the books didn’t tackle issues. From diabetes to divorce to detesting gym, the sitters grappled with all kinds of kid angst. Yet at the core of the group was a deep love and loyalty that rang true. Middle school can be agony, and if you couldn’t find a solid pack of pals in your school lunchroom, you could at least read about one.

  And oh, the fashions. Quirky Claudia led the way, but all of the girls had wardrobes that seemed alternately drool-worthy and disastrous. Red sneakers covered with beads and glitter? Denim jumpsuits? Purple harem pants paired with a green leotard and red belt? Good thing it wasn’t the Fashion Designers Club.

  STATUS: A prequel and updated versions of some of the books were published in 2010.

  FUN FACT: In the updated books, mention of a cassette player was changed to “headphones” and a perm became “an expensive hairstyle.”

  Barney & Friends

  With his dopey voice and incessant “I Love You” song, Barney the declawed dinosaur appealed to toddlers and college-age potheads alike when he lumbered onto PBS in 1992. Because why wouldn’t you tune into a show about a vicious killing machine running a day care?

  The purple T. rex would have had his felt-covered behind handed to him by a real prehistoric predator (or a small mouse), but you’ve got to wonder what kind of parent would drop their kids off at a clubhouse to spend the day with a dinosaur—even one that looked like a minor-league baseball team mascot. The “Friends” of the title, green Triceratops Baby Bop, yellow Protoceratops B.J., and orange Hadrosaur Riff, were no Monica and Chandler either.

  But 1990s kids loved Barney with the same passion they reserve for other things adults abhor, like SpaghettiO’s with those weird little hot dogs or that “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” song. Speaking of songs, let us speak of the song. Even those blessed humans who’d never seen a single episode of Barney knew the song. I love you, you love me, this tune will make you go out of your tree.

  STATUS: Reruns are still going strong, on PBS and DVD, though new episodes aren’t being made.

  FUN FACT: In 2009, TV Guide named Barney & Friends one of the worst shows ever.

  Baywatch

  If you’re going to go swimming in Los Angeles, find somewhere to take a dip other than the strip of beach patrolled by the beautiful lifeguards of Baywatch. Unless you enjoy your suntan lotion mixed with murder, diamond smuggling, tropical storms, illegal offshore casinos, and giant octopuses, that is. It’s a wonder the lifeguards had any time at all to rescue drowning swimmers, since they seemed to spend most of their days (and nights) fighting crime and natural disasters—and dealing with more pedestrian issues like dog-sitting, custody battles, and root canals. Also, oiling up their pecs.

  The over-the-top plots were beside the point. Most of the show was an excuse to linger on jiggly, slow-motion shots of red-swimsuited lifeguard babes running in the sand. And David Hasselhoff and his hairy, bare chest (he’s big in Germany, you know). The show made gigantic stars of its cast, especially Pamela Anderson and her cleavage. And it made Hasselhoff a very rich man. When Baywatch was initially canceled after just one season on NBC, the star put up his own money to launch it in syndication. Smart move: At its peak, more than a billion people a week all over the world tuned in. Slow-motion boobies apparently translate in any language.

  STATUS: Baywatch stayed afloat for nine seasons, then morphed into Baywatch Hawaii for two more. From 2000 to 2002, a Baywatch spoof sitcom called Son of the Beach—produced by Howard Stern—aired on FX.

  FUN FACT: In the much, much worse spinoff Baywatch Nights, The Hoff dealt with paranormal phenomena like time travel, vampires, and fish-women.

  Beanie Babies

  Let’s hope your parents invested in Apple or Microsoft in the 1990s instead of putting your whole college fund in Beanie Babies. Everyone knew one aunt or cousin with an extra bedroom stuffed with the soft little beanbag animals, convinced that one of them was rare enough to be her magical lottery ticket to Mansionville. But since thousands of people thought the same thing, there were innumerable clones of Cheezer the Mouse or Dinky the Dodo out there, and nobody got rich.

  Most of us didn’t collect with dollar signs in our eyes, though—we just bought the ones we liked best. Who didn’t swoop up the calico cat because it looked just like your own Jessica Patterpaws, or take home Princess, the Princess Diana bear, because you were still mad about Prince Charles cheating on Di with Camilla?

  The Ty toy company was brilliant when it came to reeling us in. Each animal not only had a name, but a birthday and, oddly enough, a poem. A poorly written poem, with uneven meter, that might rhyme “swim” with “fins,” but a poem nonetheless.

  If you were a collector, your fun was pretty much limited to dusting the things now and then and screeching at anyone who tried to remove the all-important hang tag. If you were just a kid, Beanies provided you with a fun, animal-centric world, where manatees hung out with huskies and unicorns shared room space with tyrannosaurs, like a weird and wonderful zoo with no bars. Or logic.

  STATUS: The original Beanie Babies line was “retired” in 2008 but brought back a year later.

  FUN FACT: In 2009, a Bo the Portuguese Water Dog Beanie Baby was issued to honor President Barack Obama’s pet.

  Beavis and Butt-Head

  It’s every bad American teen stereotype put into an amplifier and cranked up to eleven. In the spaces where Beavis and Butt-Head’s brains should be, you’ll find convenience-store burritos, a love of fire and bad heavy metal, and a million variations on the word “buttmunch.”

  But for being such dumb kids, B&B smartly channeled their inner Mystery Science Theater 3000 when it came to dissing music videos. Watching Kiss, Butt-Head declares: “These guys are pretty cool for a bunch of mimes.” Perplexed during Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” he asks Beavis: “Is this, like, grudge music?” And say what you will about their opinions, their music criticism was often spot-on. In one segment, they watch Milli Vanilli for several seconds in complete horror, before changing the channel to Journey without saying a word.

  STATUS: The show originally ran from 1993–1997, then was revived in 2011. In addition to videos, they now mock episodes of Jersey Shore and even UFC fights.

  FUN FACT: On the show, Beavis’s shirt says “Metallica” and Butt-Head’s says “AC/DC,” but in other merchandise, for trademark reasons, the shirts read, respectively, “Death Rock” and “Skull.”

  Bee Girl

  Maybe the Bee Girl of Blind Melon’s 1991 “No Rain” video was an early metaphor for how the decade would progress. You remember: Gawky ten-year-old Heather DeLoach is laughed at for her dowdy appearance and clunky tap dance. Bravely, she keeps on trying, and eventually joyously stumbles upon a sunny green field full of outsider bees just like her.

  So too the 1980s, full of slick Madonna and Duran Duran videos, poofy shoulder pads and elaborate hair, were giving way to the sloppier, more laid-back flannels and garage-band aesthetic of grunge and riot grrrls. Suddenly the cheerleaders and jocks no longer ruled, the burnouts and nerds were ascendant. For a while at least, it seemed as if the entertainment world was realizing that there were more imperfect originals than cookie-cutter pop princesses.

  Things didn’t end happily for Blind Melon lead singer Shannon Hoon, though, who according to VH1’s Behind the Music was high on acid during the “No Rain” video. He died of a cocaine overdose in 1995, leaving a baby daughter who’d never know him and
a band that would only have that one big hit. The ’90s might indeed have been a more accepting decade for misfits, but that doesn’t mean they lacked for casualties.

  STATUS: As MTV transformed from a music station to a reality TV network, catchy music videos were all but replaced by catchy Internet viral videos. Cute cats and kids who’ve just been to the dentist, anyone? As of 2012, DeLoach had opened her own event planning business, dubbed Sweet Bee.

  FUN FACT: Pearl Jam later wrote a song, “Bee Girl,” in tribute to the young dancer.

  Behind the Music

  VH1’s Behind the Music is the juiciest of TV guilty pleasures. Watching an episode is like flipping through Mom’s yearbook and having her explain that the star quarterback got the prom queen pregnant and later both ended up on crack. It zeroes in like Laser Floyd on those once-famous bands who soared close to the sun, then tumbled headfirst into vats of drugs and booze. In other words, all of them.

  There’s always a bad guy, whether it’s the pig farmer turned band manager, the megalomaniacal second wife, or the drummer who can’t lift his nose out of the coke mountain. The hits come, and just as quickly stop, while the tragedies pile up like 45s on a turntable.