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

by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper

  Crystal Pepsi, a caffeine-free beverage introduced with a Super Bowl ad featuring Van Halen’s hit song “Right Now,” led the see-through cola pack in late 1992 and early 1993. But gone along with the color? The flavor. Once the big publicity push died down, consumers couldn’t see their way clear to keep buying the nasty stuff, and a reformulated citrus version went sour almost instantly.

  STATUS: Gone for good, but a drink called Pepsi Clear was briefly sold in Mexico in 2005.

  FUN FACT: The best surviving artifact of the clear cola craze? Saturday Night Live’s hilarious Crystal Gravy commercial parody, which featured Kevin Nealon splashing the clear goo on his face in the shower and Julia Sweeney dipping a chicken leg into a jar of the stuff.

  Clerks

  Kevin Smith’s success was the American dream. Scrounging up money through credit cards, a parental loan, and the sale of his comic-book collection, this regular Joe from New Jersey made Clerks for $27,000 in 1994 and raked in millions—and began an enviable directorial career.

  Things weren’t quite so rosy for his characters. Dante fended off shoplifters, egg examiners, and an antismoking gum rep, and also discovered that his girlfriend was a total nympho. Pal Randal in the neighboring video store actively tried to chase away customers, reading a list of porn titles in front of a mom and daughter and recommending the worst movies he can think of. (Smokey and the Bandit 3, anyone?)

  Clerks earned acclaim for its witty script, which was so layered with profanities that it almost received an NC-17 status. The movie raters at the MPAA may not have understood, but a generation of minimum-wage workers found kindred spirits in the clock-punching slackers they saw onscreen. As he said over and over again in the film, Dante wasn’t even supposed to be there that day, but thank Hollywood and a chubby comic-book geek from Jersey that he was.

  STATUS: Clerks II came out in 2006. Lord, it was terrible.

  FUN FACT: Smith’s original script ended with Dante being shot to death by a robber.

  “Closing Time”

  Closing time—one last call for alcohol, so finish your whiskey or beer.” When the lights came up in any late-’90s bar at the end of the night, it was a near certainty you’d hear this ubiquitous Semisonic song. Millions of drunks gathered up their jackets and moved it to the exits to the bouncy strains of the familiar tune. Even today, whenever some people hear it on the radio, they swear they smell stale Schlitz.

  Unlike most ’90s tunes, “Closing Time” persisted, wrapping its catchy tendrils around pop culture. It’s a recurring joke in the Justin Timberlake–Mila Kunis flick Friends with Benefits (Timberlake thinks it’s by Third Eye Blind). Danny McBride beats up Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakas to it in Due Date. And Jennifer Egan referenced it in her 2011 Pulitzer Prize–winning book A Visit from the Goon Squad.

  But few realized it wasn’t just a literal ode to the end of the night. According to Semisonic’s Dan Wilson, who wrote the song, it was also a metaphor for being born. (“Time for you to go back to the places you will be from.”) Whoa—deep. And lost on most of the people stumbling out of a bar to barf into a snowbank.

  STATUS: “Closing Time” continues to trump other popular end-of-night tunes, including “Happy Trails” by Gene Autry and 50 Cent’s “Get Out Da Club.”

  FUN FACT: The final episode of Melrose Place featured “Closing Time” just before the credits rolled.

  Coke MagiCan Promotion

  America near the end of the twentieth century had the best contests. Publisher’s Clearing House, where people win a fake check the size of a pool table. McDonald’s Monopoly, which was just as drawn-out and unwinnable as the real thing. And for a brief shining moment in 1990, the Coke MagiCan contest.

  MagiCan was that rare game where companies actually messed with their own product. You may have thought you were getting a can of Coke, but if you were a winner, your Coke can was filled not with soda, but weird-tasting and specially stinkified chlorinated water. The can also featured a spring-loaded device that popped up your prize—maybe a five-dollar bill, maybe a coupon for cash or prizes that you had to take to a nearby Coke bottler to redeem.

  Of course, we kids tried to game the system, shaking each can on the store shelf and listening to see if it offered any clues about what was sloshing around inside. And then leaving them on the shelf and going on our merry way, a happy little splashy surprise for the next unsuspecting consumer.

  STATUS: The contest didn’t make it past 1990.

  FUN FACT: Some MagiCans jammed, some leaked, and one eleven-year-old kid got sick from drinking the yucky water in a malfunctioning can.

  COPS

  COPS hit the ground running after its first suspect in 1989 and hasn’t pulled over since. The Fox reality show taught us that police officers aren’t always knee-deep in a Hollywood-style murder investigation—most of the time they’re out pounding the beat, breathalyzing drunks, separating angry neighbors, and filling out thrilling paperwork.

  Best of all are the chases, of course, whether seen from a squad car-mounted camera or from the jostling view of a COPS cameraman, who earns his pay and then some just for keeping up with the fleeing suspects. And of course, it’s sweet schadenfreude to see just how dim criminals can be. Highlights include the guy who tried to flee a fast-food robbery in light-up tennis shoes, the Einstein who tried to eat a bag of pot, and the multitude of citizens who choose to drive completely naked.

  Deserving of special mention is COPS’ uber-catchy theme song. Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? When the Shub Jub Shun come foh you! Wait, it’s actually “When Sheriff John Brown come for you?” Okay. If you say so, officer.

  STATUS: Still on the air.

  FUN FACT: The line “I’ve got him at gunpoint, Thirty-two and Bush,” heard over the show’s closing credits, refers to a Portland, Oregon, address on Bush Street.

  Cuba Gooding Jr.

  Sure, winners of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar don’t always exactly become household names. Isn’t that right, Dean Jagger, Melvyn Douglas, and Joseph Schildkraut? But we were expecting big things from Cuba Gooding Jr. after he took home the little gold statue for his energetic, likable performance as football star Rod Tidwell in 1996’s Jerry Maguire. Heck, the actor even outshined Tom Cruise and his megawatt smile and adorable moppet Jonathan Lipnicki (“A human head weighs eight pounds”), who was apparently created by mad scientists in a cuteness lab.

  And then Boat Trip happened. Okay, in all fairness, Gooding made a string of dubious career decisions before he starred with Horatio Sanz in that 2002 stinkfest of a movie, which made everyone who saw it seasick. How bad was it? Gooding dresses in a metallic peacock outfit and later throws up on Vivica A. Fox. And those were the two best scenes in the movie.

  STATUS: Cuba has bounced back with roles in less embarrassing fare like American Gangster, Radio, and Red Tails. But come on, Cuba. You’re better than Land Before Time XIII. Show me the money, indeed.

  FUN FACT: Gooding’s father (and namesake) was the lead singer of the R & B group the Main Ingredient, which had a hit in 1972 with the song “Everybody Plays the Fool.”

  Dawson’s Creek

  You know the Paula Cole–sung theme song: “I don’t wanna wait…for Buffy the Vampire Slayer to be oh-ver, so I can watch Dawson’s Creek on the WB…” Well, we think it went something like that. We do know that in the late 1990s, TV-watching teens were transported weekly to the fictional seaside town of Capeside, Massachusetts, home of Dawson, Joey, Pacey, and Jen, and their Falcon Crest–meets–Saved by the Bell lives.

  The show made teen idols out of its stars, and helped kick off the WB as a network, plus created a new national craze for angst-filled teen shows. You’d be angsty too if, like Dawson, you had a forehead so large fans dubbed it a “fivehead,” or if, like Joey and Pacey, you had names that might have sounded better on kangaroos or racehorses. But Dawson’s devotees didn’t care. They were sucked in by the undeniable charm of the lead actors, the ever-changing romances, and
the engaging and witty dialogue. Sure, no one we knew talked as wordily as these kids, but then no one we knew had an affair with their English teacher or platonically slept in the same bed with the beautiful girl next door either.

  For kids who grew up right along with the Dawson’s four, the 2003 finale was a monumental event. A little sorrow (Jen dies!), a little romance (Joey chooses Pacey!), and a little wish fulfillment (Dawson meets Steven Spielberg!). The show’s themes were hard to resist. Everyone can relate to the irresistible pull of home and the comfort and the confidence of childhood friends turned adults—even those of us who didn’t have our own creeks.

  STATUS: Gone for good, except for DVDs and reruns. It’s been replaced by scores of angsty-teen shows, from The O.C. to One Tree Hill.

  FUN FACT: Katie Holmes’s Joey, not James Van Der Beek’s Dawson, was the only character to appear in every episode.

  Department 56

  Think you’re too old for a dollhouse once you actually have a mortgage on a real house? Think again. Thanks to Department 56 and its dozens of little ceramic houses, millions of collectors never had to outgrow their hobby.

  Department 56 cranked out its first six buildings in 1976 and never looked back. Crafty moms (this was rarely a hobby for dads) chose one or more of the company’s many series and started collecting the little light-up churches, homes, and businesses the way their kids collected baseball cards. The villages were almost all Christmas–themed, but once you had them installed on your bookshelves or end tables, they pretty much stayed out all year.

  The buildings themselves might have sprung straight from a Thomas Kinkade painting. Quaintness and charm ruled, with the modern world only a distant memory (although there is a McDonald’s, it’s an old-fashioned one).

  The ultimate frustration for kids? The delicate accessories would shatter like frozen taffy if you were at all clumsy. So while it might look irresistible to race those little ice skaters, put the dog in the mailbox, or see if the caroling nuns could balance on the church roof, your messing around was bound to end in tears and a dustpan full of razor-sharp shards.

  STATUS: New houses come out each year.

  FUN FACT: Department 56 began as a part of Bachman’s, a Minneapolis florist, and took its name from the fact that the store’s wholesale gift-import division was its fifty-sixth department.

  Dippin’ Dots

  Just when ice cream seemed like it was a pretty mature technology, along came the sci-fi snackable known as Dippin’ Dots, ice cream frozen in liquid nitrogen and served up in little dishes of colorful, edible beads. Found at state fair booths and in some malls, it was a science experiment from the gods.

  Who the heck invented this stuff, George Jetson? (Actually, it was microbiologist Curt Jones.) It looked like something that would pop out of the Star Trek food replicator. We didn’t actually realize you could freeze ice cream any more than it was already frozen, but there was always something loopy and fun about savoring a dish of Dots. You shoveled in a spoonful and your mouth took it from there, melting and squashing the dots together and carpeting your tongue with cold. You could pretend you were eating food pills from the future, or that you were an astronaut sampling interplanetary cuisine.

  Their slogan, the “Ice Cream of the Future,” always seemed a little odd to us, though. As futuristic as the treat seemed, how could we be eating the ice cream of the future here in the present? And if we had Dippin’ Dots yesterday, didn’t that make them the ice cream of our fairly recent past? Our advice: Try not to think about it, and just get us a spoon.

  STATUS: New owners took over in 2012, and the tasty treats are still fixtures at fairs and malls.

  FUN FACT: A Dippin’ Dots Frozen Dot Maker lets you cook up a version of the treat at home, but actual liquid nitrogen does not seem to be involved.

  Discovery Zone

  Forget the mind-numbing bleep-bloop of arcades. At indoor play-center chain Discovery Zone, kids got to run, slide, and jump like the little wild animals they were, burning calories and blasting boredom along the way. Who can forget that first-ever jump into a ball pit, swimming through the brightly colored circles like a happy gumball? Or crawling across the marshmallowy mats that were nothing like the rock-hard versions we knew from gym class? You could swing on trapezes, leap in bounce houses, or chase your little sister through different maze levels like mutant hamsters in a Habitrail.

  Discovery Zone let imaginative kids write their own mental screenplays that they’d then enlist friends to help carry out. Okay, we’re moon explorers, and now we’re diving into a crater! Or: There’s a pirate treasure chest buried in this ball pit, and the first person to dive to the bottom gets it! DZ was a crazily creative, gigantic jungle gym, and for a certain segment of 1990s kids, it seems as if every friend you had hosted their birthday party there.

  Of course, it was too good to last. Founded in 1990, the chain filed for bankruptcy mid-decade, and many locations were bought by Chuck E. Cheese, the pizza parlor arcade chain. Is it any wonder that America has a child obesity epidemic? RIP, DZ.

  STATUS: It’s gone, but elements of Discovery Zone live on in places like McDonald’s PlayPlace, Gymboree, certain pizza parlors, and various arcades.

  FUN FACT: An early slogan promised “Funbelievable fitness for kids!”

  “Don’t Copy That Floppy!”

  The two kid stars of this classic anti-piracy video appear to have never seen a computer before in their lives, simply mashing their hands randomly down on its keyboard. When they attempt to copy a game, MC Double Def DP, the whitest black rapper ever, delivers a cringeworthy rap about the evils of piracy, name-checking classic games such as The Oregon Trail and Tetris, all apparently while suffering a shoulder seizure.

  To send the video over the top, the rap pauses to let nerdy programmers drone on about their jobs, then finishes up with the kind of special effects that used to exist only on AOL home pages with dancing hamsters. We’re pretty sure that for a background, the cameraman just propped up a Lisa Frank folder.

  In the end, the kids decide to pay for the game, since then it will come with a manual. Because that’s what kids of the ’90s really wanted, an unreadable, jargon-filled, phone-book-sized computer game manual. Wrote a commenter on YouTube: “Well, I guess it worked. No one is copying floppies anymore.”

  STATUS: In 2009, “Don’t Copy That 2” was released, in which teens laugh at the original video and learn about how software pirates can go to jail. Also, there are Klingons.

  FUN FACT: M. E. Hart, the actor who plays MC Double Def DP in the video, has a degree in Russian language and a law degree. Nyet!

  Doritos 3D

  Imagine how excited the food scientists at Frito-Lay must have been when they invented Doritos 3D in 1997, giving each other orange-fingered high-fives and relieved that they finally had a three-dimensional snack to rub in the faces of their Planters Cheez Ball-hawking competitors.

  The snacks were a little Bugle-y, but instead of being horn-shaped, these were puffy pillows of corn that resembled rounded triangles with a bad case of gas. You’d crunch into them, hit the hollow center, and then chomp through the other side. It was like biting into a Christmas ornament, only with shards of zesty ranch-flavored glass. Some of us gobbled them plain. Some of us dipped. Some of us cracked the little guys open and filled them with squirt cheese. And all of us, whether we’ll admit it or not, tossed, flicked, or chucked the fat little footballs across the room.

  They were so fragile, if you tried to keep a few in your backpack or pocket, all you were left with was a pile of Dorito dust. So when they broke open, where did all that Dorito-scented air go? Our guess is it escaped into the atmosphere and now surrounds the Earth, protecting us like a jalapeno-cheddar-scented ozone layer.

  STATUS: They disappeared in the 2000s, but serious snackers aren’t letting them go without a fight. A “Bring Back Doritos 3D!” Facebook page has thousands of fans.

  FUN FACT: In 2001, to coincide with the release of Disne
y/Pixar’s Monsters, Inc., Frito-Lay launched “Monster Colorz” Doritos 3Ds, which turned your mouth blue.

  Dream Phone Game

  What the Mystery Date board game was to an earlier generation, Dream Phone was to 1990s girls. Mystery Date featured a dorky plastic door that opened to reveal your date for the evening, but Dream Phone added technology, centering around a battery-powered hot pink cordless phone. Players found a photo card with the boy of their choice and punched in his phone number, and a geeky voice delivered a private clue as to which boy had a crush on you. Players recorded clues on a scorecard and when ready to make a guess, called the boy they suspected to learn if they were right.

  All the little Dream Phone details added up to a major gigglefest. Some of the guys on the cards were cute (Dave! Call me!) but others looked like psycho killers (Steve!), nerdy little brothers (Phil!), or your ’roid-raging neighbor who wore nothing but Zubaz (Carlos!). What was up with Tony’s earring, Mark’s rainbow shirt, John’s dorky suspenders, and just how many layers of sweatshirts was Dan wearing? (We count four.) The clues were equally hilarious. “He’ll eat anything, except hot dogs.” Well, then he really won’t eat anything, now, will he?

  At an age when calling a real boy was as unimaginable as going to the moon, Dream Phone let us practice for that far-off day by boldly punching up a number while our pals cheered us on. We would hold one-sided conversations Milton Bradley never dreamed of, suggesting Bob pluck his eyebrows or dissolving in hysterics at George’s uneven dye job. And when you finally heard those magic words: “You’re right! I really like you!” it was impossible not to shout out with glee and diss your undateable friends. Wrong number for you, suckahs!