On This MLK Day, We Revisit Some 90s Songs that Speak to Issues of Racial Inequality...

I deliberated for a sizable chunk of time about what constituted an appropriate topic for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Sure, these heart-palpitating deliberations were conducted while watching the Golden Globes, but it was a grueling process nonetheless. Thanks to plenty of breaks for rest, Powerade, and protein bars, I was able to make it through. I appreciate your concern, though.

As you know, we love to have a good time here at Children of the 90s, but there are certain topics that probably transcend sarcasm in good taste. That brings us back to the original question: what's the proper etiquette here? As a pop culture blog that covers such groundbreaking issues as Mall Madness and Where's Waldo? books, it can be tough to make that leap to any sort of politically-minded commentary. The Children of the 90s sense of satire tends to lean more toward retired snack food than underlying divisive societal issues. Then again, based on some of the debates we've had going here in the comment section about the merits or shortcomings of Ring Pops, some topics may be more divisive than I'd initially imagined.

So while I could have pulled a moderately-proportioned cop-out move on you and just posted Michael Jackson's "Black or White" video (which I like, for the record), I decided to pull an even bigger one and post a whole bunch of 90s popular songs that reside in a similar genre. Like I said, we've had a lot of laughs here, but that doesn't mean we can't try our hand at tackling some of the big issues occasionally. Some might argue that listening to a couple of popular songs about racial inequality may not add up to "tackling" but to those critics I say, hey. Cut me a little slack here. We're still allowed to have a little fun. There's no rule that dabbling in the issues has to come at the expense of lighthearted fun. Well, actually, there might be, but we're just going to disregard that for the time being.

Black or White (Michael Jackson)

Watch Michael Jackson - Black Or White in Music | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Let me say right off the bat that I'm a huge Michael Jackson fan. Say what you will about the late performer's personal life, but he made more than his share of contributions to the world of pop music. Before its release, "Black or White" was described by Jackson's label as a "rock n' roll song about racial harmony," and the song delivered on that promise. Admittedly, this video isn't for everyone; it's undeniably a bit hokey, but it's over-the-top in a way consistent with Michael Jackson's style. Macaulay Culkin plays a kid who wants to blast his music, much to the chagrin of his grumpy dad played by George Wendt. George is transported to Africa, where we witness a cross-cultural celebration of dance.

The video is best known for the morphing sequence that takes place toward the end of the video, with faces gradually transitioning from one person to another. As a kid, I was pretty sure this was the coolest thing I'd ever seen, though I did have a brief fear that one day I'd look in the mirror to see my face transition through a rainbow of races.

The song isn't revolutionary in its lyrics; it's pretty general and straightforward, but it certainly makes its point. The rap part in the middle is the meatiest, lamenting "turf war on a global scale" and proclaiming "I'm not going to spend my life being a color." "Black or White" must have spoken to the general public, as the song quickly shot to number 1 on the Billboard charts.


Changes (2Pac)


Released posthumously, "Changes" was a compilation of a number of Tupac's raps. "Changes" samples Bruce Hornsby and the Range's 1986 song "The Way It Is" and expounds on many of its themes, albeit with more profanity. The song is starkly honest about many of the issues facing blacks in America, touching on many of the inherent racial inequalities in American society. The lyrics sugarcoat nothing, and give a pretty bleak outlook on the prospects of racial equality. There are some upbeat elements, though, namely the eponymous "changes" Tupac suggests we make to our lives.

On a more upbeat note of progress, it seems time has defied some of the charges in the song. "Changes" declares "We're not ready to see a black president," which suggests that maybe we've made some headway since "Changes" hit the airwaves in 1998. In late 2009, the song was in the spotlight again for its curious placement on the Vatican's official MySpace playlist. Apparently they deem "Changes" to be on par with Mozart, which is a promising sign for acceptance.


F tha Police (NWA)


Don't be fooled by the tongue-in-cheekiness of the song's title; this one really gets to the heart of the issue. The song had its share of big names in the rising rap scene, produced by Dr. Dre and featuring Ice Cube. "F*** tha Police" sets the scene in a courtroom with rappers offering inflammatory testimonials to the unequal and sometimes brutal treatment of blacks by police officers. It's incredibly volatile, even suggesting violent retaliation against the police, but it also brings to light some issues of racial profiling in law enforcement. While the song predates the Rodney King beating and subsequent LA race riots by a few years, it certainly exemplifies the high levels of tension between police and minorities.


Free Your Mind (En Vogue)


"Free Your Mind" debuted amid the race riots stemming from the Rodney King brutality incident. As the issue of racial inequities in America were coming to a head, the female R&B group released this song to highlight some of the prejudice and systemic issues. The song's lyrics aren't quite as gritty of some of the other songs on this list, but they still touched on


While this post might be a bit too flimsy to pay deserved tribute to Dr. King and the civil rights movement, the songs all highlight issues that continue to plague us. While we've arguably made some progress, there is--as the cliche so aptly tells--a lot of work to be done, not only regarding racial inequality but also all of the other inequities in our society. Until we can reach that point, though, we might just have to settle for uniting in our common love of nostalgia. If we can all enjoy reminiscing about the 90s, can't we all just get along? It seems like a logical leap.

Speaking of socially relevant issues, now seems as good a time as ever to mention the recent Haitian earthquake. Like Cher says in Clueless:

"So like, right now for example. The Haitians need to come to America. But some people are all, "What about the strain on our resources?" Well it's like when I had this garden party for my father's birthday, right? I put R.S.V.P. 'cause it was a sit-down dinner. But some people came that like did not R.S.V.P. I was like totally buggin'. I had to haul ass to the kitchen, redistribute the food, and squish in extra place settings. But by the end of the day it was, like, the more the merrier. And so if the government could just get to the kitchen, rearrange some things, we could certainly party with the Haitians. And in conclusion may I please remind you it does not say R.S.V.P. on the Statue of Liberty."

We can't always just leave it to the government, so if we could all take a little time to get to our figurative financial kitchens and rearrange some things we could certainly help out the Haitians. I know I possibly just stretched that connection a bit too far, but please consider donating to any legitimate charitable organization. If you need it, this site offers a lot in the way of helpful advice on where to direct your monetary donations.

As long as we're going to take some time to examine some problems here at home, we can definitely spare some to address those facing the international community. If you don't believe me that there's an international community, just watch that above Michael Jackson video one more time. If we can't collaborate on some sort of full-scale international dance number, the least we can do is try our best to reach out to others.

Children of the 90s One-Hit Wonder Mash-Up: 1997 Edition

1997 seems to have been an especially ripe year for love-'em-and-leave-'em treatment of popular music. A new singer or group would burst onto the scene and we'd all be captivated by their debut single, only to be let down in the coming months by a decided lack of chart-toppers from our new favorites. Don't get me wrong--some of these bands went on to make (and in some cases, even sell) more records, but for the most part, their love affair with the general public turned out to be nothing but a tawdry fling.

Whatever the reason, these songs all shot to astronomical heights before relegating their sources to obscurity. For a brief moment in time each of these groups seemed poised to be The Next Big Thing, though somehow they never ascended to that next level. While this group of one-hit wonder makers may not have grown into legendary artists, they at least have a consolatory space reserved in our respective memories. For those of you who have been reading along for awhile, you can safely anticipate that at the very least, some of these are bound to turn up on one of my humiliating suggested playlists. These artists may not have had industry staying power, but their songs will likely forever live on muzakified in grocery store aisles everywhere.

Lovefool (The Cardigans)


This song had the luck of being featured in Baz Luhrmann's updated film version of Romeo and Juliet, thus guaranteeing the song some love from teenagers everywhere. You'd be hard-pressed to find a teenage girl from the 90s who doesn't hear this song and automatically summon an image of Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio locking eyes across a fish tank. It's more romantic than it sounds, take my word for it. On its own merits, "Lovefool" is almost painfully catchy in a bubblegum-pop sort of way. I suppose that could qualify as merit or demerit, depending on your take on 90s Europop.

Ooh Aah Just a Little Bit (Gina G)


Speaking of Europop, Gina G's "Ooh Aah Just a Little Bit" definitely fit the bill. It also deserves some sort of award for the longest nonsensical song title. It has a beat and you can dance to it, though, so I'm willing to overlook it.


How Bizarre (OMC)



New Zealand band OMC's "How Bizarre" quickly became a hit worldwide, though I still don't get it. If anyone understands the meaning behind this song, please feel free to drop some wisdom in the comment box. I get that the gist of it is the guys cruising in their Chevy '69, but this part kind of throws me:

Elephants and acrobats,
Lions snakes monkey
Pele speaks righteous
Sister Zina says funky

Anyone?


This is Your Night (Amber)


"This is Your Night" is not a great song, but it is a great dance song. It's hard to listen to it without at least tapping your foot a bit. And I dare you to restrain yourself from singing along with those "Da ba ba da ba da dip doppin days". It's impossible.


All for You (Sister Hazel)


I spent about 10 years of my life thinking this song was recorded by Hootie and the Blowfish, so imagine my surprise to find that it was recorded by...these other guys. Sister Hazel. It's not a bad song, though I probably wouldn't call it a good song. It capitalizes on the mind-entrapping powers of repetition and pounds that chorus into your head. I miraculously still know all the lyrics, and I never even liked the song that much in the first place. Now that's staying power.

Da' Dip (Freak Nasty)


The lyrics on this one are a bit fuzzy at best. I always heard something along the lines of, "I put my hand upon your hip and I dip, you dip, we dip........yours......mine..............." I know a quick internet search could easily fill in those ellipses with lyrics, but I'm a bit afraid to find out just what we were dancing to at Bar Mitzvah parties and middle school dances. The fact that the singer goes by "Freak Nasty" doesn't bode especially well.


Let Me Clear My Throat (DJ Kool)


That intro just gets you. It's hard not to like this song, it has an upbeat feel to it and the lyrics seem pretty innocent; it's mainly just a rap about rapping. It also taught me the expression "stop on a dime", which was pretty helpful. Plus, they cheered to it in Bring It On. How can you not like a song with those credentials?

Sunny Came Home (Shawn Colvin)


"Sunny Came Home" definitely takes our list to the melancholy and depressing. The song details the life of a repressed housewife who ends up burning down her house. Sounds fun, right? As a kid, I loved to sing along, though it did make me question whether I believed in transcendence. At the time (middle school) I was torn on the issue.


Return of the Mack (Mark Morrison)


Mark Morrison deserves some props for recording a song with almost no content whatsoever. Most of the lyrics are just filler, like "here it is" or "come on". It is catchy, though, and appropriately found its way onto my college drinking playlists. What I can I say? We're suckers for nostalgia. Jury's still out on what a "Mack" is, though.


Butterfly Kisses (Bob Carlisle)


A country music song about the love between fathers and daughters. Don't worry, it's not that country, it's all innocent. It's also incredibly, intensely cheesy.


The Freshman (Verve Pipe)


Even as a kid, you just knew this was a sad song regardless of whether you really understood the lyrics. Like Ben Folds Five's "Brick", the song was about abortion, though I certainly didn't know it at the time. I also frequently got most of the lyrics wrong. The lead singer is kind of a mumbler.

Bitch (Meredith Brooks)


It's definitely a gamble to make the title of your song mild profanity. But, like she says in the song, she's a bitch. What does she care? Screw the censoring public. Swear words for everyone!


Tubthumping (Chumbawumba)


Thought we'd end on a high note here. Tempo speaking, of course. In the history of music, words like "Chumbawumba" and "Tubthumping" generally denote a dark time.


That's all I've got for you this week, Children of the 90s. Join us next week when we discuss...some as of yet undetermined subjects. But really, they'll be good. Have a good weekend, 90s children, and feel free to throw some of these songs on your iPod playlist--they're the hearty dose of music nostalgia your ears so desperately crave.

No Fear

Have you ever been sitting in your doctor's waiting room admiring his framed inspirational posters and thought to yourself, "Hey, I could really go for this as a T-shirt, only with an angry spin"? Well, have I got a brand for you. For those among us who felt the need not to impose our trite tidbits of sports-minded wisdom onto the general public, No Fear clothing was nothing short of a godsend. Finally, here was our chance to make our voices heard and let our peers know that they need not fear hockey or snowboarding.

The 90s marked the beginning of the fascination with so-called Extreme Sports, which were classified as "extreme" largely on the basis of their high risk of fatal injury. Sounds fun, right? We all seemed to think so as we sat glued to our televisions fascinated at the death-defying antics of professional skateboarders and their ilk. The No Fear brand capitalized on the rising interest in Extreme Sports, channeling its invincible and ambivalent spirit with its existential slogans.

Of course, most of us were too young to see it that way. We weren't out to debate Camus' influence on our sportswear choices, we just wanted to be cool. According to the rising No Fear brand, what was cool was an aggressive, nihilistic outlook on life. While the brand produced both adult and youth apparel, it was always more unsettling to see a kid sporting a shirt with the phrase "He who dies with the most toys, still dies." For one, the punctuation is pretty questionable. Is this the level of comma misuse we want to bestow unto our children?



Created by race car driver Brian Simo and friends in 1989, the No Fear brand quickly ascended to popularity in the early-to-mid 1990s. Most of the shirts offered up semi-inspirational sports quotes with a sole focus on winning, defeating others, never losing, and...well, you get the idea. According to No Fear, even coming in second was a sure sign of longstanding failure. These sentiments were a far cry from the touchy-feely "At least you tried!" attitudes of today. According to No Fear, there was no trying, only winning. That sounds like a pretty healthy attitude, right?

No Fear presented a very machismo-esque black-and-white view of the world, mainly that our self worth hinged on our ability to shoot baskets or make game-winning goals. Self-proclaimed macho sportsmen took to the streets in No Fear-adorned pickup trucks and SUVs, proudly displaying bumper stickers or over-sized decals. This practice declared your extreme, anti-establishment, tough-guy attitude. Everyone knows that an obstructed view through your rear window is for pansies.
The problem with the No Fear message was that it wasn't really a message at all. People quickly bought into the notion as some sort of ideology to live by, but it was really just a gimmick to sell some crappy athletic t-shirts. "No Fear" wasn't a way of life or a religion. Truthfully, "No Fear" wearers were probably most afraid of outing themselves as fear-mongering frauds. The false bravado of the t-shirt just hid the ultimate fear of failure. Plus, it made them look like a total tool. I mean, really. Just awful.

No Fear shirts quickly became the daily uniform of many boys and young men, or at least when their Stussy and Mossimo shirts were in the wash. These shirts were arguably a step above the "Coed Naked" and "Big Johnson" t-shirts, but not by much. For bonus points and to achieve the 90s athletic apparel trifecta, a guy could even pair their No Fear shirt with Umbros and a Starter Jacket. It may not have been pretty, but dammit it was stylish.



It wasn't long before the moral-minded knockoffs started rolling off the copyright-infringing assembly lines. Just like the innumerable "Got Milk?" parodies, many religious organizations began parodying No Fear's signature t-shirts and replacing the win-at-all-costs aggressiveness with faith-friendly slogans. Seemingly overnight we were seeing these well-intentioned knockoffs everywhere; phrases like "Fear God" and "No Fear, Got Faith" were popular variations. The producers of these shirts meant well, I'm sure, but the overall effect was less than desirable. After all, the only thing worse than wearing a No Fear shirt was wearing a parody No Fear shirt.

The brand's popularity peaked in the mid-90s and the craze quietly petered out. People soon found new, similarly tool-ish decals to pollute their rear window views, and No Fear seemed to fade into relative obscurity. While once you couldn't turn a corner without being bombarded with No Fear's single-minded message of winning and defying society, it seemed everyone's shirts had quieted down considerably. Clothing no longer spoke to me about my growing sense of failure and inadequacy; it was all drowned out by the far more upbeat ads for Gap khakis and Old Navy fleece vests.

It appears No Fear is still churning out t-shirts, but their current style offerings look like a poor man's Ed Hardy. That is, a watered-down version of the Jon Gosselin-patented douchebag-at-a-distance identification system. To put it another way, our over-tanned pals on Jersey Shore would look right at home fist-pumping at the club in any item from the present-day No Fear line.* So, like the shirts say, have no fear: these babies are here to stay.


*Depending on your penchance for trashy reality TV, the above comparisons could yield disgust or could go over your head entirely.

Titanic

There can be a some major issues in creating a fictionalized movie based on a historical event, but none more, well, titanic, than that facing James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster Titanic. No matter what sort of curve-balls and snaking twists he threw into the plot, you knew there was no chance this boat wasn't going under. There's zero likelihood of a surprise ending with this one, particularly if you saw the movie after you listened to the spoken verse in Britney Spears' "Oops I Did It Again."All the character development in the world couldn't quell that sinking (pun intended) sense of dread that our heroes were just hours from facing imminent catastrophe. Considering hordes of young girls a la Twilight saw the movie three or four times in theaters, it clearly had an X factor that transcended predictability.

In the wake of endless Avatar buzz, some of us forget that this isn't Jame's Cameron's first go at billions-earning film endeavors. Incredibly, Avatar and Titanic are currently ranked as the top two highest-grossing films, suggesting that Cameron's Titanic-inspired "I'm the king of the world!" chalks up to far more than presumptuous chutzpah*. This guy has obviously earned his cinematic clout, particularly in piquing the interest of not just critics but the general public. It's one thing to wow critics, but another realm altogether to convince the millions of the huddled masses to drop ten bucks for a screening.


While Titanic garnered innumerable accolades for its visual splendor, it's possibly more impressive that such a major contingency of people were willing to sit through the full 192 minutes. We're talking three point two hours here, especially long for those of us who hate to leave a movie even for a much-needed bathroom break. Consider the following equation: a large movie theater soda plus 192 minutes plus continuous rushing water onscreen. This did not bode well for the weak-bladdered among us.

Titanic even performed best on Valentine's Day of 1998, taking in over $13 million. Kudos to Cameron for convincing us not only to sign on for three plus hours of screen time but that this disastrous tale of a doomed trans-Atlantic voyage was the most romantic date movie choice. Well played, James Cameron. Well played indeed.

To the movie's romantic credit, it has a certain Romeo and Juliet-type appeal. Our romantic leads are not just star-crossed but downright predestined for separation. The subject matter was also arguably compelling enough to warrant such popularity; shipwrecks also have an elusive allure, captivating us with their unforeseen tragedy and trauma. Let me tell you, though, that it lacks that charm when your cruise line chooses to play it on continuous loop on the in-ship movie channel. Your fears of seasickness will pale in comparison.




The movie opens on then-present day excursions of undersea treasure hunters. Bill Paxton and friends set out to find the famed "Heart of Ocean" blue diamond, rumored to have been on board at the time of the ship's sinking. The underwater excavation doesn't yield any jewels, but it does unearth a drawing of a nude woman wearing the much sought-after necklace. Rose Dawson Calvert, a 100-year old survivor of the wreck, comes forward as the subject of the drawing in question and travels to meet with the excavation team. In typical old person fashion, she gets way off track, launching into a 3-hour detailed chronicle of her experiences onboard. They're just after the diamond, lady, really.

Rose reflects on the outset of her voyage, recalling her 17-year old self boarding the ship for its maiden voyage in 1912. Her family brokered her engagement to the son of a wealthy steel capitalist as a last-ditch hope to save their dwindling hold on the upper class. Rose sees no way out of her impending nuptials and heads to the ship's stern, from where she plans on jumping into the ocean. A scraggy but undeniably handsome steerage passenger, Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), spots Rose just as she is about to jump to her death and interferes. Her fiancee hears Rose's screams and suspects Jack tried to take advantage of her, but Rose stands up for Jack and the two forge a friendship.

Jack takes Rose to the third-class quarters where she partakes in some raucous partying featuring folksy instruments, fur hats, and a fair amount of do-si-do-ing. You can't deny this looks far more enjoyable than the stuffy upper decks' humorless dinners.



Rose's fiancee finds out about her minor act of rebellion and forbids her to see Jack. Rose defies his wishes and continues to spend time with Jack, culminating in his suave artistic maneuvering that results in some good old fashioned nude sketching. Things get completely R-rated here, from Kate Winslet's bare breasts to their steamy tryst in a Renault, but somehow Titanic wrangled a PG-13 rating.

Long, long, long story short(ened), Rose's betrothed Cal is pissed, he frames Jack and has him arrested, rendering Jack handcuffed to some pipes. The ship makes troublesome contact with an iceberg, Rose manages to free Jack, and we begin our long drawn-out saga of limited lifeboats and probable hypothermia. The ship splits in two, our heroes end up chattering away in the chilly ocean, there are some heartfelt teary-eyed promises to "never let go", and Jack freezes to death. Rose is saved, and the movie brings us back to the present day for the close of Rose's story. Rose secretly tosses the Heart of the Ocean into the water and the whole thing ends rather ambiguously but sweetly with our witnessing the reunion of teenaged Jack and Rose.

Oh, and how could I forget that this onscreen saga featured a bestselling soundtrack chock full of instrumental James Horner and this epic ballad by the ever-overblown Celine Dion?You just couldn't escape this song in the late 90s; it was everywhere.



If after all that you still need a Titanic refresher course, the internet is teeming with conveniently condensed versions of our favorite movies. Observe, exhibit A:



Titanic went on to sweep the awards shows. I have a distinct memory of keeping a steadfast tally of its wins on Oscar night (for the record, an impressive 11 wins for 14 nominations). My friends and I rushed out to purchase the two-VHS edition of the film for our own viewing enjoyment, though few of us kept up with our initial mania to the point of sitting through the full thing at home. To be fair, though, many of us had seen it multiple times in theaters and had earned our titles as tween fanatics.

The movie may have been fictionalized, but it did have an uncanny manner of drawing us into an interest in historical events. Any film that has the power to interest angst-ridden teenagers in nautical history is right up there with winning 11 Academy Awards: a feat achievable by few. Whether or not you liked the movie, you've got to admit it takes a special type of movie to impel young people to take an interest in any event featured in their history textbooks. I'll concede that the salacious love story and some light nudity may have helped, though. I doubt a documentary would have piqued our interests so readily.

*There's not really any other kind of chutzpah, but for those of you without a strong background in Yiddish, I thought I'd throw you a bone on that one.

The Babysitters' Club

In light of the late-breaking 90s news that the Babysitters Club* is being revamped for a new generation of kids, it seems only appropriate to give the BSC some well-deserved Children of the 90s fanfare. I occasionally pick up some flack for my coverage of girly topics, but this time around you're just going to have to deal with it. Things are going to get downright feminine here, so don't say I didn't warn you. We're going to talk about slumber parties and crushes on boys and young female entrepreneurship and you're going to like it, dammit.

The Babysitters Club was a formidable 90s franchise, spawning a series of books, a TV show, a feature film, and countless items of allowance-worthy tie-in merchandise. The series focuses on a group of business-minded middle-school aged girls who form a well-organized club to process and dispatch sitters for local childcare requests. As a child, I revered their detail-orientation and maturity, but as an adult, I find it harder to believe that people would trust these 12- and 13-year olds with their easily breakable infants. Youth notwithstanding, it's probably more impressive that the girls managed to get the whole neighborhood to cave to their demands for hourly rates. These girls were good.

Author Ann M. Martin pumped these books out at regular intervals from 1986 to 2000, producing 213 books selling over 176 million copies. This woman is a veritable BSC-producing machine. She had a unique sense of appeal to tweenage girls, piquing their interest with wholesome stories of everyday obstacles.

That front cover offer to join the Fan Club? Totally did that

Martin gave us all of our favorite stock characters, forever categorizing each of us as "a Mary Anne" or "a Kristy". I always wanted to be a Claudia or a Stacey because of their keen fashion sense and model beauty, but I had a nagging suspicion growing up that I was more of a Mallory. If you've ever read the series, you know this to be a huge bummer. You'll be glad to know I managed to escape the Mallory route by never growing curly red hair, getting glasses, or being born into a family of 10, but it was a close one there for awhile.

It's possible I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, as I have yet to properly introduce you to our cast of characters:

Kristy Thomas: Our fearless leader and self-proclaimed tomboy. In 90s young adult books you could always tell if a girl wasn't particularly into her looks if she wore her hair in a ponytail, and Kristy was no exception. I call it the curse of the Elizabeth Wakefield; God forbid a girl has a bad hair day, these YA authors will forever relegate her to being the serious one. Everyone knows all the real fun-loving girls of YA lit wear their hair flowing and loose. It's pretty much the only symbol we have for the personality of a middle-school aged girl.

But enough of Kristy's lamentable ponytail. Kristy is bossy, outspoken, and sporty. She's generally a fair and benevolent ruler, though occasionally she lets the glamor of her presidency of a suburban middle-school babysitting club cloud her better judgment.


Mary Anne Spier: The requisite quiet and shy girl, Mary Anne is Kristy's best friend. The two are initially neighbors until Mary Anne's dad marries Dawn's mom. At the beginning of the series, her single father is very protective and strict, but all that fizzles out once they integrate with the hippie Schafers. Mary Anne is the first of the girls to have a boyfriend, and let me just say that based on the actor in my Scholastic Book Order's VHS copy of Mary Anne and the Brunettes, Logan Bruno is definitely a catch.


Stacey McGill: Our fun, stylish, blonde model friend. I dotted my i's with hearts for probably six months after I read that was Stacey's signature style. I was hoping I would morph into a Stacey on the merit of my bubbly handwriting alone, but the undertaking was generally fruitless. I guess I just wasn't permed enough.

Stacey is a the club's resident exotic sophisticate, with her New York City nativity, modeling career, and diabetes. I was actually jealous of Stacey's diabetes as a kid. She's special in every way, plus she gets a lot of bonus outpourings of attentions due to her periodic hospitalizations. That's the way my 7-year old mind interpreted it, at least. Some people have all the luck.


Claudia Kishi: The artist of the group. Claudia is funky, candy-addicted, and terrible at all things academic. She's also Asian, giving the group a much-needed breath of diversity, at least until Jessi comes along. If you've ever seen the movie, you know that her poor grades warrant summer school and a hearty performance of the chant, "The brain, the brain, the center of the chain!" Her family is pretty by-the-books, so they're naturally bothered by her outlandish appearance. Treble clef earrings and fringed vests? For shame.


Dawn Schafer: The hippie do-gooder of the group. Dawn is a blonde vegetarian Californian, descriptors that the books treat as generally interchangeable. She and Mary Anne are step-sisters, which causes some rifts from time to time but is generally pretty cool. She eventually moves to California and gets her own spin-off book series, but not before the TV show's Dawn got to hang out with Zack Braff. No, really. He was there when Dawn saved the trees. I've even got the video evidence to prove it:





Mallory Pike and Jessi Ramsey: Our junior members, meaning they are a grade younger than the other girls and thus vastly inferior according to the club's rigid membership standards. Mallory comes from a huge family of freakish gingers and Jessi is black and a ballerina. I'm sure they have other traits, but these are the main ones the books tend to dwell on.


When the TV show premiered, I was decidedly heartbroken that my house's sub par cable didn't include HBO or the Disney Channel. Luckily, through the aforementioned magic of Scholastic Book Orders, I got the full set on VHS. I'm still bitter at whoever taped Oprah over the second half of Stacey's Big Break. You know who you are. Anyway, whether or not you were a fan of the show, hopefully you knew the incredibly catchy theme song:



I'm not embarrassed to admit this song graced a few of our pre-gaming playlists in college. Okay, it's totally embarrassing, but I sacrifice myself at the altar of your collective bemusement at my expense. You're welcome.

There was also an eponymous full-length film starring Rachael Leigh Cook, Larissa Oleynik, and some less famous people. The movie wasn't exactly a box-office blockbuster, but was generally pretty satisfying to fans. I know I'm still heartbroken that I no longer have any technological apparatus on which to play my VHS copy. I did, however, recover this song from the soundtrack for your listening enjoyment. Again, I take full responsibility for my terrible, terrible taste in music as a child.



These girls may not have been extraordinary in any way, but children in the 90s took to them for that reason: they were decidedly ordinary. I imagine if the revamped books catch on, an entirely new generation of girls will fall in love with them all over again. Only this time around, they'll all have iPods and cell phones instead of Walkmans and their own phone lines. A small price to pay for some good old-fashioned wholesome fun, don't you think?


*And yes, I heard about Diablo Cody's Sweet Valley High movie project, but that will just have to wait its turn. Honest to blog. See, I can say that here, cause it makes sense.

Barney the Dinosaur

When you look back wistfully on beloved characters from your childhood, you may notice that some of their back stories were a bit questionable. As a child, I would never dare have questioned the existence of a towering overly jolly purple dinosaur who resided in the abstract realm of our collective imaginations. He could only spring to life from his miniature plush toy existence if we just believed. Too bad when our parents bought us an official licensed Barney stuff toy and we tried to imagine him to life, nothing happened. The power of our actual imaginations had been dulled by the glittering allure of television entertainment. It was a lot easier to watch kids imagine something than to go through the whole ordeal ourselves. So thanks a lot, Barney and Friends. Our parents spent $24.95 on this stuffed Barney and it won't even come alive and interact with us. Sheesh.

Truth be told, Barney's habitation of our imagination was nothing new. Kid's shows have been featured imaginary characters for generations. It's pretty much par for the course for adults trying to make a buck off of children's natural sense of wonderment and naivete. Usually, though, it didn't come out quite as sugar drippingly sweet as Barney and friends. The fact that our friends at Guantanamo use Barney's signature "I Love You" played on loop as a form of auditory torture to detainees probably says it all; I can imagine our parents felt the same way after hearing it blaring from our television sets for the 12th time that day.



That song has a way of lodging itself in your brain to a place where you can't seem to wrangle it free. So, sorry, readers. If you've even begun to inwardly play the song, you're pretty much stuck with it for the day. I guess that's just the power of imagination coming back to bite you in the butt. Tough break.

The Barney the dinosaur character premiered in 1987 in a series of videos called Barney and the Backyard Gang. My family owned these videos, and I played them into the VHS reel was sputtering to cough out its last whirring rotation. I yearned for an imaginary dinosaur friend and accompanying backyard gang with whom I could put on talent shows and have campfire sing-alongs. In my reenactments, though, I pathetically had to imagine not only my dino pal but also summon a nonexistent gang of backyard pals. While now the suggestion of a backyard gang sounds pretty threatening, dangerously proximal, and somehow involving meaningfully-colored bandannas, at the time it seemed like a warm and inviting proposition of friendship.



Barney and the Backyard Gang was adapted for television as Barney and Friends in 1992 as part of the PBS kids' programming block. The show quickly caught on and became a phenomenon for small children. Like many things that appeal to small children, the show was chalkboard-scratchingly irritating to the rest of the world. To justify its presence in our home despite being generally repugnant to anyone over the age of eight, the show's theme song lauded some hefty promises set to the toon of Yankee Doodle:

Barney is a dinosaur from our imagination
When he's tall, he's what we call a dinosaur sensation
Barney teaches lots of things, like how to play pretend
A-B-Cs and 1-2-3s and how to be a friend!
Barney comes to play with us, whenever we may need him
Barney can be your friend, too, if you just make believe him!



Once your adult self has quelled the inevitable gagging from reading these sickly sweet sentiments, consider the educational value of Barney. Yes, the theme song extols Barney as a sort of teaching jack-of-all-trades, bestowing timeless wisdom onto eager young devotees worldwide. Kids may have fallen for his insidious purple charm, but a fair proportion of parents weren't buying it. While they may have sung Barney's praises for his ability to keep their children glued to the TV while they conducted some household chores, they weren't wholly impressed with his purported dissemination of important life lessons.

As a character, Barney isn't a bad guy. He's generally a pretty positive role model for children, save for the fact that he's imaginary and a dinosaur. He's upbeat, optimistic, and an all around decent dinosaur. Barney's relentless cheerfulness, however, has been the subject of critical scrutiny. Some critics claim Barney's overly positive spin on life and lack of attention paid to any negative life experiences could numb children to real emotion. This claim is pretty ridiculous, assuming that the children in question are exposed to any other life experiences than their Barney videotapes. Sorry, researchers. You can try to take down Barney, but he'll just continue his reign of jolly terror. You can't win that easily.

The television version of the show features a different group of kids, continually cycling out once they reach a point of maturity that renders questionable their consorting with imaginary dinosaurs. PBS also threw in some younger dinosaur characters like Baby Bop and BJ to broaden the show's appeal. All secondary characters are typically just as nerve-grinding and irritating as the originals, performing equally irritating signature songs and dances. It's no wonder our parents left the room when this came on. As a child, it's all sort of cute and enticing, but as an adult it's just grating.

In case you were worried that kids today might go hungry for the Barney they so desperately crave, you needn't worry. Barney's still churning out the episodes, meaning you may soon be getting a taste of your own karmic medicine when you have your own preschool-age children. Purple, imaginary dinosaur-flavored medicine with bits of cloying song stuck in it. I'm sure all of our parents will gleefully delight in our slow progression to craziness after hearing that damn "I love you" song for the umpteenth time. We put them through it, though, so it's probably only fair we have to have a go at it from the other side.

Children of the 90s' Favorite Card Games

In an age before high stakes online Texas Hold 'Em and the Wii World Series of Poker, it didn't take such a steady stream of ceaseless technology to hold our attention. As kids, we didn't even need to have any cash at stake to enjoy some good old fashioned gaming. A deck of cards from the dollar store was usually more than enough to keep us going for hours at a time. Depending on how traumatizingly competitive your friends were, you could get locked in playing card rematches for days. After all, they called it War for a reason.

By no means did children in the 90s invent any of these card games--far from it. We were a generation still easily engaged and entertained by the same games that had kids for decades before us. Sure, we loved our Gameboys and Sega Geneses*with as much devotion as kids today value their Nintendo DSes or Wii consoles, but we were also pretty satisfied playing a simple card game. As long as it had all of the necessary prerequisite components--rapid hand movements, quick thinking, overarching competition, the potent power to shame one of our unsuspecting and easily agitated friends--we were captivated.

Our favorite games went by many names, but the rules were usually the same. I always marveled at the manner in which these rules were transmitted from generation to generation, kid to kid. Most of us couldn't remember ever learning the rules, but we usually excelled in the arts of slapping jacks and dumping our Speed stockpiles all the same.


Spit/Speed


If you've got exemplary fine motor skills, this is the game for you. Those kids that couldn't hold their scissors right (er, me) always lagged behind in this race against your card-letting opponent. In Spit, both players have five mini stockpiles of card with the top one face up and a hand of Spit cards. In preparation for many office-drone days spent mastering computer solitaire, each player would try to use their available cards to put down the next card in ascending or descending sequence to the card face-up in the middle pile. Sound complicated? It is. I'm still not sure I understand it after that mediocre description.

Once neither of you could play any cards, you could yell "Spit!" and turn over some new cards. It was usually a battle of who was quickest, which is why the other version is more aptly named Speed. What kind of a name is Spit, anyway? In Speed I actually had a prayer of winning because my far-faster opponent couldn't see my cards, but I usually still lost every round regardless.


War


Whoever dreamed this one up no doubt aimed to give it the most bad-ass name to belie its incredible simplicity. Two players have a pile, you each flip up your top card, the one with the higher card takes both, first with all the cards wins. Sounds simple, until you get into a war. That's right, a war. Sounds scary, right? Some hand-to-hand combat, perhaps, or maybe some friendly fire?

You think those things sound warlike, wait till you hear this: you put three cards facedown and one up. The one with the best top card wins it all. I know, I know. Heavy stuff. If you get lucky, you can keep warring until someone wins a massive pile of cards and their opponent pouts in shame. It's all pretty intense, so I'll give you some time to let it all sink in.


Slapjack
I once played this game with a kid who called it "Heart Attack", which I thought was kind of cute but mostly tragic. I prefer Slapjack, which is kind of violent but mostly tasty. Everyone goes around and puts a card on the pile and nothing happens. For many, many rotations. Fun, right? Then, a jack is played, and the fun begins! By fun I mean attempting to slap the deck while more likely inadvertently taking out one of your fellow players. The likelihood of this game to end in injury is extremely high, and chances are even higher that this injury will lead to both tears and tattling.


Go Fish
This one is an old standard, so I felt compelled to leave it in despite the fact that it's not the most exciting of cardgames. I used to like it because we had a special deck of cards with different kinds of fish on it, so instead of asking if you had any threes I could instead inquire as to your possessing any Terry Tunas. It was a fleeting thrill, though, because the game is pretty much only exciting if you're 8 years old or younger. It goes a little something like this: whoever ends up with the most pairs wins. Try to contain your excitement.


Egyptian Ratscrew

This image is from the iPhone version. I want this so badly, and I don't even have an iPhone

The name of the game never phased me as a kid, but really, what? I don't get it. After conducting some diligent research (read: Wikipedia. I do.) the origins of the name remain a mystery. No matter where it picked up the quirky moniker, this game defies categorization.

ERS is, in technical terms, an infinitely more awesome version of the game Slapjack. Don't believe me? Take a break from delighting in your daily dose of nostalgia and go play Slapjack. Now go play Egyptian Ratscrew. Consensus? The level of awesomeness doesn't even compare. It's like comparing Jacks to Aces, which if you play Egyptian Ratscrew you know to be impossible. Jacks are far superior. And so is Egyptian Ratscrew.

It's an indubitably complex games, but here's a subpar summary: everyone gets an equal portion of the fairly distributed deck. You go around in a circle putting a card each face-up on the center pile. Any face card or ace is something of a trump card, bringing you one step closer to ownership of that hefty middle pile. You've got an opportunity to present a trump card of your own, too: for an ace four chances, a king three, a queen two, and a jack one.

There's also many variations of pile-slapping involved, most commonly in the arena of double cards in the middle pile. Slapping can be assigned to other rarer and more delicious anomalies, like sandwiches. This tends to get pretty competitive, resulting in worst-case scenarios like broken fingers, ring-related maimings, and severed friendships. Don't worry, though. It's still awesome.


BS/Doubt

This is a game that teaches children two valuable skills for their future casino gambling experiences: bluffing and swearing. In brief, you go around in the circle and have to put down cards in sequence. You get to put them facedown, though, which means you can lie your head off. One time I got busted trying to put down five queens. Five queens. True story.

If you think someone is lying, you can typically yell "Bullshit!" or in more PG cases something like "Doubt!" or "Bluff!" Those don't really pack the same punch. You're trying to get rid of all of your cards, so you'd want to dump as many as possible on each turn. If you get caught BSing, you have to take the pile. If you wrongfully accuse someone of BSing, you take the pile. It generally leads to a lot of heated arguments, and, appropriately, swearing.



Asshole

Above is the drinking version? Doesn't it look fun?

Speaking of swearing. This is apparently the Americanized version of the Japanese game Dai Hin Min. Really? Dai Hin Min** to Asshole? No wonder people scorn the Americanization of things. It's pretty brutal.

The game involves different rankings, usually called something like president, vice president, treasurer, and asshole. You might not know it, but that's the actual line of succession we use in this country for ascendance to leadership. You better hope nothing happens to that treasurer.

It's kind of complicated, but the gist of it is that you try to get rid of all your cards and, like in real life, holding a higher office affords you certain privileges. I recently discovered that this game is also commonly played as a drinking game, so I'm gonna get on that and let you know how it goes. It sounds pretty promising.


Spoons/Pig

My boyfriend and I had a disagreement about whether or not this game existed, as he was about 87% positive I had just made it up. Luckily in this age of information technology, the internet confirmed what I often suspect to be the case: that I am right. He graciously conceded and I tried to explain the game to him but he still found it to be completely ridiculous, which is probably true. If any of you out there have played it, though, back me up on this one.

You start with four cards apiece and start passing cards around the circle with the goal of getting four of a kind. It sounds simple enough, but it gets incredibly frustrating, particularly after you let that queen go and then three more went by and you're collecting twos and you're almost positive that girl across the circle is too. Really, tempers are flaring here. Once one person has achieved four of a kind, they grab a spoon from the pile in the middle, or touch their nose, or stick out their tongue, or perform whatever pre-agreed upon notion signifies their achievement.

There's always one person who's too caught up making their four-set that they miss out on it entirely and are thus publicly shamed as the loser. I'm not sure if the bitterness translates that well over the internet, but suffice it to say I've been in that situation many, many times, and it's pretty embarrassing. It's like your ultimate fear: everyone is looking at you and mocking you and you have no idea. Scarring.


Enjoy your weekend, children of the 90s! I give you full license to practice any of these as weekend drinking games, feel free to report back on Monday on how that went. I think there's some serious potential here.



*I'm sorry, is that the plural of Genesis? Geneses? Genisises? Someone help me out here.

**Translation: Poor Man. I told you the Americanized version was worse, but I just thought I'd add a supplemental footnote in case any of you innocently pondered if Dai Hin Min translated literally to "asshole"

The Sandlot

No matter how tough we claim to be, most of us are suckers for a heartwarming sports movie. It's just embedded somewhere deep within our sentimental DNA. We want to resist the urge to tear up involuntarily at hackneyed plot twists and deliberately corny character triumphs, but resistance is generally in vain. It's best to just give in and enjoy the tearful ride.

In The Sandlot, it doesn't matter that the story meanders all over the place and that major chunks plot hinge on rescuing a valuable autographed baseball from the drooly jaws of a giant anonymously evil dog. Wether or not you as an individual enjoy the sport of baseball, you can't deny the charm of a warmhearted baseball movie. There's something sort of old-fashioned and timeless about a ragtag group of perpetual losers who grow together as a team and eventually excel against all odds at their chosen sport. Yes, it's just like Bad News Bears, or The Mighty Ducks (If The Mighty Ducks was about baseball, I mean), or any other number of coming-of-age sports movies, but the underdog story seems to get us every time.



The movie opens on our less-than-heroic child protagonist Scotty Smalls moving to his new home in Los Angeles in the early 60s. Smalls is a hopeless ball player and a self-described egghead, which doesn't seem to bode to well for him socially as the new kid. Though his stepfather Bill is a big enough fan to own a baseball signed by Babe Ruth, he seems generally uninterested in helping Scotty improve his game.

Smalls stumbles upon a junkyard sandlot and meets up with a motley crew of neighborhood boys playing baseball. Smalls joins in and is, of course, terrible, and faces mocking from his fellow players until star player admirable Benny comes to his defense. Under Benny's tutelage, he quickly becomes one of the gang in a way that's only possible in movies. Five minutes later, it seems that the sandlot crew couldn't function without Scotty's significant contributions to the team. Your heart feels warmer already, doesn't it?


In typical coming-of-age movie fashion, we get to see all sorts of humorous anecdotal firsts for our sandlot boys. The Sandlot shows us the world through the eyes of childish wonder and mischief in a time when summer was a time of freedom and playfulness. Our gang engages in first crushes, lusting after the red-suited teenage lifeguard at their municipal pool. In typical movie magic more, Michael "Squints" Palledorous fakes drowning to receive mouth to mouth from the object of the affection, Wendy Peffercorn. As the adult Scotty's voice-over describes it, Squints' action was simultaneously sneaky, rotten, and low...and cool:



Our heroes also manage to scare an entire generation of 90s kids out of using chewing tobacco in what is possibly one of the grossest and most memorable puking scenes of our collective childhoods. If you, like our sandlot friends, ever entertained the idea of chewing tobacco to be like your baseball heroes, simply subject yourself to the sordid scene in which the boys celebrate by hopping on some fast-moving carnival rides. The image of this incessant vomiting all over the ride, the passerby, and the boys themselves was enough to ensure I'd never touch the stuff. Lucky for all of you innocent bystanders, I couldn't actually find a clip online of the kids throwing up all over everything. Perhaps people found it to be in bad taste, though I can't imagine why. Regardless, here's the precursor to their stomach-turning shenanigans:




The boys' lighthearted antics are offset by a darker force lurking behind the boys' beloved baseball diamond. As the new friends bond, the regulars clue Smalls into the legends of the sandlot. They explain that he should never hit a home run past the fence for fear of encountering The Beast, a vicious mastiff who purportedly eats both baseballs and people on a recreational basis:



After Benny maims the group's last baseball with a strong hit, Scotty saves the day by replacing the ball with one from his own house. He fails to realize that the ball is a prized collectors' item, his stepfather's ball signed by Babe Ruth. Scotty hits the ball into Beast territory and is stricken to learn that he jeopardized the fate of such a valuable item. It's pretty priceless when his teammates berate him for losing a ball signed by Babe Ruth, and Scotty muses, "Who's she?"



After a number of elaborate schemes to retrieve the valuable keepsake, the Great Bambino comes to Smalls in a dream, the kids regroup and manage to snatch the ball of The Beast. But, as this is a coming-of-age movie, they can't do it without learning a bunch of lessons, making a new wise friend, and getting a new, better signed ball to replace the mangled one. As we see what becomes of our pals as they grow into adulthood, we just can't help but be moved by the naked sentimentality of it all.

The Sandlot draws us in because it truly gets what it means to be a 12-year old kid in the middle of the summer where all that matters is making friends, getting girls, and playing sports. It's completely devoid of any adult-driven moralizing and worrying. Instead, it gives us the kid-centric world in which imagination runs wild and all that matters is the here and now. The movie doesn't present kids as superheroes or extraordinary individuals; it just allows them to be kids. Oh, and it also gives us a great opening to quote "You're killing me, Smalls!" if any of our friends appear clueless in the art of chocolate/graham cracker/marshmallow artistry. Seriously, you should use it sometime:



Or, better yet, you could just get this t-shirt:

Poorly Reviewed 90s Movies

As children, we don't always possess the discerning and refined taste of adults. We may grow up believing a film we saw as a child to be a cinematic masterpiece, only to find as a grown up that it's a truly dark chapter in moviemaking history. In other cases, though, even kids know it's utter crap. That's when you know we're in trouble.

Considering how many laborious, time-consuming steps it takes to write, cast, produce, release, and promote a movie, it's impressive that some of these films even made it to theaters. You'd think at some point in the production process the hundreds of people employed by the movie studio would look at each other and ask, "What are we doing here? This is terrible." Yet somehow, these movies persevered. Poor judgment prevailed, and these movies made their ways to our local cinematic facilities and, more recently, to our dollar stores 5-for-a-buck bins.

While there were many truly awful widely released movies in the 90s, these are among most painfully unwatchable:


Kazaam



If you excel in one area, your skills must automatically extend to all other arenas, right? So goes the reasoning in crossover features like 1996's Kazaam, starring basketball star and all-around sellout Shaquille O'Neal. In the film, Shaquille plays a genie that fell out of his enlampment into a nearby boombox and chose to establish it his new wish-granting headquarters. A young boy stumbles upon the boombox, unleashes the genie, and is granted three wishes.

It's not a terrible premise, but the screenwriters manage to turn it into both something totally unappealing to children and a shameless unsuccessful vehicle to launch O'Neal's doomed rap career. The movie's villains are music piraters, which is sure to confuse any child remotely interested in following the film's plot. Oh, and did I mention that the story is almost exactly like Aladdin, the Disney version of which was released just a month following Kazaam? Tough break.



Baby Geniuses



It's almost difficult to make a movie this bad. You'd think the inherent cuteness of babies could let this project coast for a little on its charm, but it's so awful that it damns any of its potentially redeeming qualities. The movie stars Kathleen Turner and Christopher Lloyd as evil scientist types who set out to unlock the code to babies' speech. It hinges on the ancient notion that babies possess innate knowledge and wisdom until they learn to talk, which could be sort of interesting if they hadn't made the movie so terribly creepy with bad computer animation. Babies perform complex martial arts moves on adults, engage in disco dancing, and have oddly miscued lips timed to the dubbed adult voice-overs. A gimmick done right can help set up a movie, but it can't uphold the entire thing when it's entirely devoid of plot, common sense, and humor.



Bio-Dome



Casting Pauly Shore as one of your male leads doesn't generally bode well for your film's eventual earning potential. Aside from the ever-nauseating Pauly Shore performance, Bio Dome is also prime evidence that Stephen Baldwin is the far inferior of the Baldwin clan. The two play a pair of dimwits who stumbled upon an ecological enclosure after mistaking it for a mall. The rest of the plot is so inane and nonsensical it's probably not even worth using valuable cyberspace real estate describing our stars' antics, but suffice it to say this movie would make an efficient torture tool. After a few repeat viewings, I'd talk.



Mr. Nanny



Speaking of terrible sports crossovers. I get that the joke is suppose to be the discrepancy between being a badass wrestler and holding a stereotypically female child-tending job, but it's really not working for me. If you've seen the more recent Vin Diesel vehicle The Pacifier, it's pretty much exactly the same thing. Save yourself the pain and just watch neither.



Super Mario Bros



It was a pretty novel concept at the time: a movie based on a popular video game franchise. Kids everywhere loved the game and its quirky characters, so it seemed a logical leap to further capitalize on its earning power by releasing a live action film version. Unfortunately, moviemakers managed to create a film that lacked appeal to any of the target demographics. While the game itself was light and fun, the movie version was far darker, failing to capture the attention of children while being too cheesy to appeal to teenagers. The movie also failed to adhere to the major tenets of the video game's plot and characters, infuriating loyal fans everywhere. You just don't mess with video game enthusiasts. They know their stuff.



It's Pat



Not every comedy sketch has the qualities to stretch itself into a full length film. It may be funny for a few minutes at a time, but at 80+ minutes it may fail to elicit more than a couple of chuckles. Such was the case with It's Pat, a Saturday Night Live sketch turned feature film about a mysteriously androgynous person. After an hour or so, I don't care whether Pat is a man or a woman--I just want out.



Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot



I love the late Estelle Getty, but I still can't excuse her from appearing in this Sylvester Stallone action/comedy that fails to deliver both action and comedy. The entire plot of the movie is encapsulated in its title, but they could have done without the "Stop!" caveat; most of us would rather be shot by Sly's movie mom than have to sit through this movie.



Striptease



Talk about a shameless premise for a movie: Demi Moore gets naked. It may be exploitative, only in the sense that Demi and Co. were exploiting us; Moore received a record $12.5 million for her performance in the film. Moore stars as Erin, a former FBI employee engaged in a custody battle with her ex-husband. Tapped out financially from legal costs, Erin turns to stripping to cover the costs of an appeal to win back her daughter. A congressman gets involved, there's some sort of drama/mystery element, but it's all just pretty bad and never establishes itself in any watchable genre of film.

Leonard Maltin actually gave the film no stars. I just watched an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 featuring the film Laserblast, which was possibly the most terrible movie I've ever seen but to which Maltin had awarded two and a half stars. By deductive reasoning, Striptease must be the worst movie ever made.



Showgirls



See above. Replace "Demi Moore" with "Elizabeth Berkeley". Disregard plot. It's not really important, anyway.


So 'fess up, children of the 90s, if any of these movies appeal to you for any other reason than the main characters appearing naked in them. Own the shame. It's okay. Let it out. We can accept if you have a soft spot for talking babies or Pauly Shore. We all have our differences. Your difference may just be poor taste in movies.

90s Internet Phenomenons

Here's a helpful hint in garnering attention for your silly, senseless ideas: simply jump on the bandwagon as early as possible in the technological timeline. If you can somehow finagle yourself a little corner of that virtual marketplace when the competition is light, people will probably find their way to your inane website. Nowadays the internet is over-saturated with all kinds of drivel but in the web's earlier days, these useless pages made up a far more significant proportions of websites. When you only have so many websites to visit, you're far more likely to check out a singing hamster or a dancing baby. That's just simple statistical analysis. So, sorry self, you've entered the world of novelty websites a decade too late. I'll give me some time to grieve.

We've all grown increasingly more difficult to entertain over the years. We have constant access to multiple forms of entertainment, many of which we choose to employ simultaneously. Have you ever noticed that you get bored just putzing around on the computer if there's no TV on in the background? This constant buzz of entertainment has dulled our reactions to internet stimuli. In the 90s, though, if a site offered us some sort of animation with accompanying irritating soundtrack, we were enthralled and immediately forwarded the link to all of our friends. While today when I get a forwarded email my major reaction is disdain to the sender for clogging my inbox, in the early internet days I would cross my fingers that my inbox contained a chain letter or a link to one of the following early meme gems:


Hampster Dance


In 1996, all it took was a couple of GIFs and some captivatingly irritating music playing on loop to lure us to a pointless website. The site featured four different types of hamsters arranged in rows, with each type feverishly perpetuating its signature dance move as a sped-up version of a song from Disney's Robin Hood played in the background. Hampsterdance exploded onto the meme scene overnight, jumping from just a couple of pageviews to a shocking 15,000 visits daily. It was sort of cute, yes, but not exactly the stuff groundbreaking internet phenomenons are made of.



Dancing Baby


This animated three dimensional rendering of a dancing babies made its rounds on the internet before ascending to television fame on Fox's Ally McBeal. It was, as the straightforwardness of the name suggests, a dancing baby. Really, that was it. A baby. Who danced. Like I said, it didn't take all that much to impress us in these early days of the internet; most of us were generally enthralled by the ever-growing capabilities of the internet. Sure, the dancing baby site probably froze every couple of minutes on your dial-up internet or shut down when someone picked up the modem's phone extension, but it amused us all the same.




Bill Gates Chain Letter and others


Over the years, we've become more and more accustomed to monitoring our emails for spam. I no longer jump for joy every time a Nigerian banker tries to share his lucrative fortune with me or when I'm notified of my winning $14 million in a foreign lottery I never entered. I used to experience a brief, gullible thrill at these messages, but they've since lost their luster.

In the 90s, however, we weren't quite so disillusioned with the notion of our inboxes bringing us great luck and free cash. Many chain letters were of the old-fashioned variety, warning that failure to forward it to 12 friends will leave you unlucky in love and life. Some, though, were a bit more enticing, notably the notification that an imminent merger of AOL and Microsoft meant Bill Gates wanted to send you a big fat check. Most of these fraudulent emails claimed the now-merged companies wanted so badly for Internet Explorer to remain the most popular browser that they were putting forth a little cash to cement its status. Who wouldn't press "forward" in hopes of receiving a check for somewhere between $200-$1000? As in most cases, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Bill Gates is a generous guy, but I think his money's a bit more useful in funding clean water supplies for impoverished African villages than ensuring I don't switch to Firefox.



Ate my Balls

Just as the name implies, the site depicted popular characters with thought-bubble overlays detailing their desire to eat balls. Sound stupid? It is.



Mahir Cagri: I Kiss You!!!


Who can deny the charm of a Turkish accordion aficionado with a standing offer for a kiss? Apparently none of us can, or so reveals the incredible amount of traffic to Mahir Cagri's personal web site in the late 90s. His site was full of little tidbits of broken-English self-proclamations, such as "I like music , I have many many music enstrumans my home I can play" and of course, "I Kiss You!!!" Cagri alleged that Sacha Baron Cohen's based the Borat character on his website. There are definitely an assortment of similarities, but Cagri's post-Borat movie lawsuit against Baron Cohen seemed more like a cry for lost attention than a legitimate legal claim.



Bert is Evil


Much to the chagrin of Susame Street producers, this website showed the puppet Bert consorting with all manners of unsavory characters such as Osama bin Laden. The idea was that Bert was actually some form of conniving evil genius and not just the disgruntled foil to the cheerier Ernie. The site's proprietor eventually took down the site, but not before Bert's image began cropping up on the posters of actual bin Laden supporters. Scary stuff. I thought it was bad when he was getting mad about cookies in the bed, but this is taking it to an entirely new level.



Bonsai Kitten


What does a group of rogue MIT students do when they get together to kick back and have some fun? Why, start an elaborate internet hoax, of course. The Bonsai Kitten website claimed that you could raise a Bonsai kitten in the same manner as you would grow a Bonsai tree, complete with photographs and descriptions of the process. Gullible animal lovers worldwide cried out in outrage, forwarding the site to all of their friends in hope of putting an end to this cruel, inhumane kitten-pruning practice. The joke may have been in poor taste, but it was just a joke nonetheless.




Rating Sites (Rate my Face, Hot or Not)

Have you ever wondered whether you were attractive? Do you have a camera and an elevated sense of physical self-esteem? Then we've got a whole slew of websites made just for your own mirror basking self-admiration. You simply uploaded a photo of yourself to the website and people would give you a numeric rating based on your looks. I'm not totally sure why we needed this type of validation from the general internet-roaming public, but the site was admittedly fun to browse. Now many of these sites have added a dating element, which I suppose hinges on the notion of matching individuals of equal attractiveness.



Peanut Butter Jelly Time



The meme featured just a dancing banana emoticon and the song "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" by the Buckwheat Boyz. The frantic banana has had many imitators including Family Guy's Brian, but none can compare to the simplicity of the original.


There's no means of predicting just which of these crazy little corners of the internet will skyrocket to disproportionate fame, but they do seem to have a common thread throughout: complete and total ridiculousness. The internet's bursting at the seams with heaps of viral memes and trends, but in the 90s the novelty was enough to draw us in to watch a dancing banana instruct us in the art of sandwich making.