FUN FACT: There’s even a brand of candy rings that light up.
Riot Grrrl
The ’90s are famous for their boy bands, cute and nonthreatening as litters of puppies. But it was a musical movement run by the girls of the decade that smashed down gender barriers, capturing a young feminist sensibility and Do-It-Yourself mantra that still reverberates today.
On its surface, riot grrrl describes the group of mostly female ’90s punk bands coming out of Washington, DC, and the Pacific Northwest with a musical mission. The songs of Bratmobile, Bikini Kill, and others were impassioned and angry, and they sang about real issues that affected the lives of young women without pulling punches or softening edges. More than that, they proved to a world used to seeing male lead singers and hearing the lyrics of male songwriters that the perspective of half the population deserved to take center stage too.
But the bands were only the most visible part of the scene. Girls inspired by the empowerment of the movement started zines, spoke out for political causes, gathered other girls and encouraged and taught them to do the same. Even a mainstream magazine, Jane Pratt’s Sassy, spread the riot grrrl word. This generation of girls didn’t believe for a minute that they couldn’t do everything their brothers could, and then some. It was time for a revolution—grrrl style.
STATUS: Though many of the bands that sparked the riot grrrl movement are no more, the women who ran them hold diverse and often prominent roles in today’s culture. Carrie Brownstein of pioneering riot grrrl band Sleater-Kinney cocreated and stars in the TV series Portlandia.
FUN FACT: In 2011, NYU opened its Riot Grrrl Collection to scholars and researchers, featuring zines, artwork, journals, photographs, and more.
Rise of the Disney Princess
Like the British royal family, Disney’s line of princesses had started to get a little musty and boring. Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty—they were as familiar and yawn-inducing as Prince Charles’s comb-over. But then, in the late 1980s and 1990s, a princess renaissance!
Ariel of The Little Mermaid swam into our hearts in 1989, and was quickly followed by Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Jasmine from Aladdin, Pocahontas, and Mulan. These were new-generation princesses. They loved their men, but they weren’t passive slipper-losing, poisoned-apple-chomping, someday-my-prince-will-comers—Mulan, for one, pretty much singlehandedly saved China.
Not that the new-look princesses weren’t a little loopy—Ariel hoarded trash, after all. But if you were a girl of trick-or-treating age in the 1990s, we’ll bet you a pumpkin full of fun-size Snickers that you dressed as one of them for Halloween.
STATUS: Princesses of the 2000s include Tiana of The Princess and the Frog, Rapunzel of Tangled, and Merida of Brave.
FUN FACT: Belle and the Beast’s final dance was done with reused animation from Sleeping Beauty.
Riverdance
Faith and begorra: If your parents forced you into taking Irish dance lessons—even though your last name is Martinez—you’ve likely got Riverdance to blame. The Irish stage show reeled and tapped its way to America in 1994, and taught us that Celtic culture had a lot more to offer than just Guinness and pots o’ gold.
With arms at their sides and legs kicking and flicking like epileptic leprechauns, the dancers in Riverdance—including lead hoofer and choreographer Michael Flatley—sparked a resurgence of interest in all things Irish, even by people who assumed everybody on the Emerald Isle only ate yellow moons, pink hearts, and green clovers. Twenty-two million people in forty countries saw Riverdance live, and most left the theater doing a little jig.
STATUS: Riverdance mounted a farewell tour in 2012, and Flatley went on to lead other Irish dance shows like Lord of the Dance and Feet of Flames.
FUN FACT: In a 1998 episode of Friends, Chandler admits that Michael Flatley “scares the bejesus” out of him. (“His legs flail about as if independent from his body!”)
Roller Shoes
While kids in the ’80s vainly wished for a jet pack they could use to rocket around the playground, ’90s kids actually got something almost as cool: roller shoes. Part Nike, part inline skate, roller shoes let kids wheel it up just by shifting their weight to their heels. Off they’d shoot, like prepubescent pool balls. Boys and girls who successfully begged their parents for a pair felt far superior to their classmates with more pedestrian footwear, and for good reason: Their feet were Transformers.
While most kids used them to roll from English class to Math, or from Cinnabon to Benetton, others took unexpected side trips into traffic or, we’re assuming, down the occasional escalator. Some shoe-skaters took to the wheels like mini Wayne Gretzkys; others constantly careened out of control, banking into lockers and rolling into lakes. A growing pile of injuries prompted schools, malls, and even some towns—especially hilly ones—to ban the flying footwear. And God help the kid whose shoelaces came untied midroll and got tangled around the spinning wheel like spaghetti around a fork. Chin and teeth, meet sidewalk. Still, his likely last words before the doctors wired shut his jaw? “At least I didn’t have to walk to the bus stop like the rest of you schmucks.”
STATUS: Still zipping along. There’s also a brand of footwear dubbed “spin shoes” that allow wearers to pirouette like a prima ballerina.
FUN FACT: On Grey’s Anatomy, Dr. Arizona Robbins rolled around the hospital in a pair of roller shoes. Yep, they make adult-sized versions too.
Roseanne
They weren’t the Huxtables, that’s for sure. Unlike The Cosby Show’s lawyer and doctor couple, Roseanne and Dan Conner struggled to get by with menial jobs that rarely lasted. No New York nightlife or Malibu beach parties here—instead they bowled, wore sweatshirts, and lived in a small Illinois town. But the Conners’ love for each other and their children wrapped the show like the grandma-style afghan that permanently draped their plaid couch.
Weight problems, elaborate Halloweens, and all, Dan and Roseanne were about the most relatable couple on TV in the ’90s, and it was hard not to envy the smart, hilarious way they faced life head-on. “What did I tell you about killing your brother in the living room?” Roseanne chides Darlene in one scene. Dan and Roseanne weren’t bitter about their working-class lives, but they wanted better for their kids. They taught them to bloom where they were planted, but also to dream big.
After eight rollicking seasons, the show pulled a fast one on viewers. The family supposedly won $108 million in the lottery—except in the final episode, Roseanne revealed the riches were just a dream brought on by her sorrow at Dan’s early death from a heart attack. Even M*A*S*H didn’t take its humor from such soaring heights to such utter sorrow this quickly. As in real life, the tears and the laughs were inseparable.
STATUS: Roseanne ended in 1997. In 2012, John Goodman signed on to costar with his former TV wife in a new NBC sitcom, Downwardly Mobile, but sadly for fans longing for a Conner couple reunion, the pilot was shelved.
FUN FACT: John Goodman’s favorite vegetable, corn, is reportedly mentioned in every episode of the first season.
Salute Your Shorts
There are mullets, and then there’s the coonskin-cap-meets-Garfield-pelt that sat on top of Danny Cooksey’s head on Salute Your Shorts, which ran on Nickelodeon from 1991 to 1992. Before Shorts, Cooksey was best known for playing Sam, the little bowl-haircutted add-on in the final seasons of Diff’rent Strokes. But as troublemaker Bobby Budnick on Salute Your Shorts, Cooksey took his hair to a whole other place: Camp Anawanna. The catchy theme song said it all: “Camp Anawanna, we hold you in our hearts. And when we think about you, it makes me wanna fart!” Yep—for real. Stay classy, Nickelodeon.
Thanks to Budnick and fellow campers Sponge, Z.Z., Donkeylips, Dina, Telly, and the rest, every viewer wanted to pack up and head off to sleepaway camp. Even though camp life on the show was mostly shenanigans like putting somebody’s boxer shorts up a flagpole, subjecting a kid to the dreaded Awful Waffle (pouring syrup on their stomach—don’t ask), or having to
look at Cooksey’s hair. Good times, good times.
Those of us who later went on to real camps were upset to learn that they were heavy on macaroni crafts and canoeing and light on the syrup pranks and food fights that Shorts conditioned us to expect. Thankfully, though, Budnick was nowhere to be found.
STATUS: Nickelodeon aired reruns of the show as part of its The ’90s Are All That late-night block in 2012.
FUN FACT: Cooksey went on to voice characters in animated shows like G.I. Joe: Renegades, Pound Puppies, and Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness.
Saved by the Bell
Like a terribly written car accident, we just couldn’t look away from Saved by the Bell, the best worst show of the 1990s. Every Saturday morning, we tuned in to watch preppy schemer Zack, nerd Screech, fashion-plate Lisa, cheerleader Kelly, preening jock Slater, and smart girl Jessie wrestle with issues like bullying, environmentalism, and addiction. The episode where Jessie lost it after getting hopped up on goofballs set a new standard for overacting—there are no words to describe the way she thrashed around, tearfully singing “I’m So Excited”—until Elizabeth Berkley beat her own record in Showgirls.
The show was as formulaic as it gets: Lisa would always rebuff Screech’s sexually harassing advances, Zack would figure out some way to skate through class, and Slater would show up in a sleeveless T-shirt and mullet. What did we learn? Not much, other than Screech probably should have been in special ed, and Mr. Belding should have won the award for the most ineffectual principal in history, getting outfoxed almost every week by a group of fourteen-year-olds. (How many times can a guy fall for Zack pretending to be someone else on the phone? Answer: All of the times.)
It was cringe-inducing, but kids tuned in by the millions to watch the familiar group. Bell was a TV version of a bowl of Cap’n Crunch: sugary, comforting, and too much of it made your stomach hurt.
STATUS: In 1993, the show graduated into two spin-offs: Saved by the Bell: The College Years lasted for a season in primetime and wrapped up in a TV movie where Zack and Kelly got married in Las Vegas. Saved by the Bell: The New Class ran for seven seasons on Saturday mornings, and starred Mr. Belding—and nobody else you’ve ever heard of.
FUN FACT: Saved by the Bell started life as a different Saturday-morning show called Good Morning, Miss Bliss, and starred The Parent Trap’s Haley Mills. Zack, Lisa, Screech, and Mr. Belding were the only characters to make it to SBTB.
Scream
Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and Freddy Krueger ruled the ’80s, but who would have guessed that ladies from Party of Five and Friends would be the ones to revitalize the horror genre in the ’90s? Created by thrill-meister Wes Craven and Dawson’s Creek auteur Kevin Williamson, Scream caught on with ’90s audiences with its winky take on horror-movie clichés of decades past. The joke was that the kids in the movie knew everything there was to know about how to survive a horror movie (Never investigate scary noises or say, “I’ll be right back.”), but they were murdered anyway.
The twisty plot, dude-that’s-so-meta approach, and legitimately freaky scares were what propelled Scream to become the highest-grossing slasher flick ever. And the cast didn’t hurt either: It starred mega-wattage stars Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox, and dimmer bulbs like David Arquette and Jamie Kennedy.
Scream sliced into horror flicks with a self-referential knife—and gave new life to a genre that was very nearly six feet under. “Do you like scary movies?” serial killer Ghostface would ask his victim before he drew blood. We sure did now.
STATUS: The original spawned—so far—three sequels. They’ve collectively earned more than $600 million at the box office. And in 2012, MTV announced plans to turn the movies into a TV show.
FUN FACT: At the last minute, a certain California school refused to allow the filmmakers to shoot there, and thus the closing credits offer “No thanks whatsoever to the Santa Rosa City School District Governing Board.”
Scrunchies and Little Kid Barrettes
What Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson did for hair bows in the 1980s, Kelly Kapowski did for scrunchies in the ’90s. And once the Saved by the Bell hottie wore them, ’90s girls fell in love, and in line. Bye-bye, boring rubber bands that yanked on your hair like a crabby little sister. Hello, soft, fuzzy, fabric-covered piece of hairdo heaven. Crocheted scrunchies, denim scrunchies, scrunchies to match your cheerleading colors, satin scrunchies—there was one for every mood and outfit. Those whose hair wasn’t long enough to scrunch got in on the trend by wearing them as bracelets.
At about the same time, Kelly Kapowski’s fashion opposite, Courtney Love of Hole, popularized her own hair accessory. When Courtney started wearing little-kid barrettes snapped randomly through her hair, girls who longed to show that they were marching to their own drummer snapped back. The barrettes were cheap and easy to find, and it really didn’t matter that they couldn’t hold more than two or three hairs. Having a pastel pink airplane flying through your bangs or a light blue butterfly fluttering through your curls was more about the presentation, not the practicality.
If there was a message in 1990s hair accessories, it was simple: Do your own thing. Whether you wanted a subtle scrunchie to sweep your tresses off your neck or a plastic plaything to make a statement, there was no need to look like everyone else. Until 1994, when the Rachel came out.
STATUS: Still popular. If you’re an Olympic gymnast (scrunchies) or a preschooler (barrettes).
FUN FACT: According to the New York Observer, former singer Rommy Revson patented the scrunchie concept as the Scünci in 1986, naming it for her poodle.
Seinfeld
In the 1970s, Mary Tyler Moore made a family out of her coworkers, and in the 1980s, Sam Malone created one out of a bunch of barflies. In the 1990s, the most-loved family on TV consisted of Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer, four friends who would sell each other out in a New York minute for a prime parking spot and a marble rye.
Viewers may long to be as suave as cereal-eating, Superman-loving Jerry, but secretly we all kinda resembled George Costanza, wannabe marine biologist, near-professional parallel parker, and celebrator of Festivus. Crazy Kramer’s schemes included trading Cuban cigars for golf, making salad in his shower, and letting Japanese businessmen sleep in his bureau. Elaine was the only woman to infiltrate the friend group, and she did it with style, except for when she was performing her weird little thumbs-up kicky dance.
But whereas Mary Tyler Moore ended with the entire cast in a group hug, Seinfeld would never go out on such a sentimental note. In the controversial last episode, the group ends up in jail for not stopping a carjacking, and more than a dozen minor characters return to testify against them. The show about nothing ended with its stars in jail—for doing nothing.
STATUS: It’s only around in reruns and on DVDs. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Seinfeld cocreator Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm has similar sensibilities.
FUN FACT: The restaurant whose exterior was shown as Monk’s Café, really Tom’s Restaurant, was also the setting for Suzanne Vega’s 1987 song, “Tom’s Diner.”
Skip-It
What’s more fun than attaching a ball-and-chain to your ankle and swinging it around? Well, lots of things. But for some reason, Skip-It, the plastic version of the restraining device used on prisoners, had ’90s girls thinking about committing grand larceny just so they could get sentenced to this brightly colored chain gang.
Once you’d mastered earlier jumping games such as hopscotch, this was apparently the next logical step. Skip-It looked like the float ball that sits in a toilet tank, only covered in charms and stickers and attached to a plastic leash. Kids would stick their ankle through the leash’s hoop and start to skip, swinging the heavy plastic ball around like a multi-colored mace from Roman warrior days. Sure, sometimes it would connect with your ankle or another girl’s knee. But whoever said life on the playground was all ponies and glitter?
Seventies girls had a simpler version of the toy,
called Lemon Twist. Skip-It was a giant, uh, leap forward from its fruit-shaped forebear: Though it was introduced in the ’80s, in the early ’90s manufacturer Tiger Electronics added an ingenious element that only upped its addictive properties: an odometer. Yes, the new and improved toy now had a counter to track the number of successful swings you completed. It wasn’t just play anymore; now Skip-It was a challenge. Girls would skip until after the sun went down, working their exhausted ankles to the bone to spin the thing around 999 times. And then they’d wake up the next morning and do it all over again.
A toy based on a staple of the penal system has never been so much fun.
STATUS: The original Skip-It died out in the late 2000s, but you can find knockoffs at toy stores and online.
FUN FACT: In 2011, Time magazine named Skip-It to its list of the one hundred greatest toys of all time.
Slap Bracelets
Kids always gravitate toward toys that possess that extra edge of danger. Cracking your head open on a Slip ’n Slide, impaling your friend with a lawn dart—that’s as much a part of growing up as PB and Js. Slap bracelets translated that perilous play into jewelry form.
Less bracelets than toys, they were thin, fabric-covered ribbons of steel that would curl around one’s wrist when cracked across your arm. Some schools actually banned them, reportedly because the knockoff versions could wear down and cut a kid’s arm, but we always suspected that the distraction factor was really what brought down the ban. At their peak, every kid in school was slapping them on and off during especially dull lectures or study hall.
The Totally Sweet ’90s: From Clear Cola to Furby, and Grunge to “Whatever,” the Toys, Tastes, and Trends That Defined a Decade Page 13