Tiny Toon Adventures

With the classics, there's a general sense of "if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it"-ness. While Warner Brothers animation studios had spent many years continually rehashing and re-spinning the adventures of their classic characters, by the 90s the ol' Looney Tunes gang was getting a bit tired. Under the guidance of Steven Spielberg, the studio was at last poised to create some younger, hipper characters.

Not everyone was particularly keen on disrupting the holy gospel of animated TV. Many adult who had grown up with the original characters were less than thrilled by their 90s incarnations. Regardless, Warner Brothers was finally ready to provide 90s children with some well-deserved original animation in the form of Tiny Toon Adventures, a new show that maintained a similar format to the original Looney Tunes program.

In the spirit of the day, classic cartoons (or near-miss versions of them) were getting a bit of an age downgrade with their 90s makeovers. While many of the shows that entertained our parents featured adult-age characters, animators saw fit to bring their 90s counterparts a bit further down to our level. Chronologically speaking, that is. Newer animated exploits like Flintstone Kids and Muppet Babies explored familiar territory and characters but featured younger versions of the characters we knew and loved.



Tiny Toons was somewhat exceptional in that it introduced (gasp!) new characters. I know, I know. I'll give you a minute to digest it. While most of us out here probably aren't real animation fiends, this was pretty big news from our friends at Warner Brothers. Though their original cartoons continued to air in rerun, they sought fit to shift to a new generation of Looney Tunes christened as Tiny Toons.

With some classic cartoon writers on board, Warner Brothers set out to create a junior class of Looney Tunes. Though not necessarily genetically tied to their predecessors, Tiny Toons were a sort of adolescent version of the originals. They were still pulling the same slapstick humor gags as their forebunnies and foreducks, but this time around they were kids. Students, to be precise. At the esteemed Acme Looniversity. Get it? Looniversity? You're laughing already.

They wrapped it all up in a well-animated colorful package and even threw in a catchy theme song to boot. You know, memory is a funny thing. I don't think I could tell you what a periodic table looks like or how to reduce fractions, but I can can flawlessly recall these lyrics without skipping a beat. Then again, I suppose an anvil never fell from the sky during any of my chemistry classes. It would certainly make it more memorable.



The new show didn't fully abandon our original Looney Tunes heroes. Indeed, they had a relatively respected cameo-level role as our young toons' trusty instructors.I suppose that's as literal a metaphor set-up as ever for passing the torch, but it worked. The show paid homage to the original greats without trying to hard to reinstate the Golden Years.

The characters were sort of junior spin-offs of the Looney Tunes, with similar species. Here were some of our new major animated players:


Buster Bunny

A clear take-off of Bugs, Buster is his forebearer's prized pupil at Acme Looniversity. Buster was the everyman (everybunny?) character and usually the leader of the group. Though Buster and Babs both share the last name "Bunny", they constantly remind the audience that there is indeed no relation between the two. Buster was initially voiced by Charlier Adler, who also gave us delightful characters such as Aaah! Real Monsters' Ickis and Ed and Bev Bighead from Rocko's Modern Life. In the words of the rival animation company that shall remain unnamed, it's a small (animated) world after all.

Though a tad more vulnerable than the infallibly cool Bugs, Buster was certainly in the realm of cool cartoon characters. Observe, his guide to goofing off:





Babs Bunny

Babs was always my favorite, not just because she was female but mainly because she was willing to sacrifice herself for a laugh. She was completely over-the-top. Babs also was queen of spot-on impressions, though it's not especially surprising when you find she was voiced by the talented Tress MacNeille. MacNeille voiced Chip of Chip n' Dale, Dot of Animaniacs, Lindsay Nagle of The Simpsons, and tyrannical Mom on Futurama, among countless others.





Hamton J. Pig

A Porky knockoff, Hamton J. was both studious and compulsively neat. Though you'd think him the straight man, the truth was Tiny Toons rarely played it straight. My favorite part was that there was a cute little menorah in the Pigs' house. For non-MOTs* out there, we're talking Jewish bacon. Hilarious. I promise. It is. Just go with it.

Hamton was voiced by Don Messick, and if you think for a second I'm going to get remotely tired of marveling over all these vocal talents then you've got another thing coming. Probably an anvil. Messick was a cartoon voice all-star, boasting credits as Scooby Doo, Papa Smurf, Bamm Bamm, and Boo Boo Bear.




Plucky Duck

Our Daffy lite, Plucky was a scheming little bill-face. He was Hamton's best friend, though he often took advantage of his kinder nature. I was always a big fan of Plucky's tank top. As far as animated clothing choices go, I always found it somewhat humorous. Plucky was voiced by Joe Alaskey, a guy who made a living impersonating the original Looney Tunes in more recent ventures. He did a mean Bugs, Tweety, Yosemite Sam, and most notable, Daffy.





Montana Max

Montana was our classic bully, and among the few humans to popular Acme Acres. A protege of Yosemite Sam, Montana was equally temperamental. His character is incredibly wealthy, making him the big bad rich villain. Montana Max's vocal talent is probably my favorite 90s connection. Montana was voiced by Danny Cooksey, none other than (wait for it) Bobby Budnick on Nickelodeon's Salute Your Shorts.





Elmyra Duff

Elmyra was presumably the female young version of Elmer Fudd, although her intent with animals is slightly off the Fudd path. Elmyra was completely and utterly obsessed with all things fluffy and cute, getting overexcited and unintentionally abusive with each outpouring of unquenchable love. She was famous for saying such frightening things as, "I'm gonna hug you and kiss you and love you forever" right before she nearly hugs the life out of something.

She was generally pretty dim-witted and spoke in baby talk, though she proved to be one of the most enduring Tiny Toons characters with follow-up roles in both Animaniacs and a Pinky and the Brain spin-off. Elmyra was voiced by Cree Summer, who's done a bunch of stuff but who I like to think of mainly as the voice of Suzie on Rugrats. I just love Suzie.




Certainly this doesn't even begin to cover the vast cast of characters that populated Acme Forest, but it's a start. Tiny Toon Adventures ran three full seasons, with a handful of specials thrown in for good measure. The show did however have a long foray into syndication, exposing a range of children throughout the 90s to their animated antics. That's about all, folks. Or in the ever-wise words of Gogo Dodo, it's been surreal! See you next time.



*Members of the tribe

Warheads

The 90s were the age of extreme. Extreme sports, extreme caffeinated beverages, and even extreme candy. That's right, extreme candy. Though it may seem counter-intuitive to assume a candy can possess daring, risk-takable qualities, the 90s made it happen. Sure, you had to endure a great deal of pain and discomfort, tooth enamel loss, and burned off taste buds...wait a minute. Where was I going with this?

Ah, yes. Extreme. The simple qualifier that made children and teenagers delight in torturing their taste buds, no questions asked. Children are a wonderfully flexible market demographic. If through marketing you can somehow manage to convince children that intentionally putting themselves in a great deal of tear-inducing pain is a means of proving themselves on the playground, then by all means do so. After all, convincing children that something is cool is a hell of a lot easier than adults, and takes far less logical explanations.

Hence was the case with Warheads. If measured on a quality scale devoid of context, these hard candies would have relatively little value. They were eye-poppingly sour, made possible by all sorts of unnatural acidic ingredients created in labs. Warheads contained very little in the way of anything found in nature. The experience of eating a Warhead in itself was not innately pleasurable. Rather, advertisers had managed to convince us that our endurance of their sour taste was in some way to scale with our general coolness reputation.


In retrospect the notion is completely ridiculous, but as children we swore by it. Playground peer pressure quickly swept the nation as kids inexplicably agreed that the ability to consume an unbearably sour candy was the hallmark of coolness. Never mind that these babies were named for a form of nuclear weaponry. Never mind that the packaging pictured a mushroom cloud erupting behind a struggling, miserable looking mascot with bulgy eyes and puckered lips. We wanted our sour candies and that was that.

Indeed, these suckers required a warning label. Though not found on original packaging, current Warhead wrappers sport the following caveat:

"Eating multiple pieces within a short time period may cause a temporary irritation to sensitive tongues and mouths."

Right. So what you're telling me is right there on the package, it indicates that this will be a horrifying unpleasurable experience certain to disrupt the normal balance of my natural mouth environment. Sounds like something I'd like to eat!

Warheads came in numerous varieties such as Mega and Atomic. In early days, the company even had the bright idea to manufacture a "hot" version of the candy. This experiment proved intensely disgusting, but remarkably did nothing to detract from the strength of the Warhead brand. You're telling me you're willing to continually put your trust in the people who arbitrarily believed that you as a child consumer would delight over "Hot Grape?" Give me a break. I've got a bottle of Dimetapp and a microwave at home, buddy. Nice try.

In the spirit of cough syrup, Warheads are now available in liquid form. There's nothing quite like eye-dropping some painfully sour substance onto your tongue, droplet by droplet. Yum!

The underlying principle behind the explosive popularity of Warheads lay largely in children's inherently competitive nature. A bitter and sour candy alone is not particularly desirable, but a bitter and sour candy that allows you to go head-to-head (well, Warhead to Warhead) with cocky classmates? Sign me up. It was peer pressure at its very finest. Warhead-eating contests became a common phenomenon, even boasting a widely-accepted list of universal rules for sour endurance.

The candies were also prime targets for absurd urban legends based on the questionably chemical candy components and tongue-burning taste. We heard rumors that children had burned off all of their taste buds or lost all sense of taste from overexposure to Warheads. You have to admit if you've ever managed to get through the sour coating of a Warhead that that seems vaguely plausible. These legends fell somewhere on the believability spectrum between pop-rocks-and-coke and sitting-too-close-to-the-tv-will-make-you-blind. It seemed possible. The idea that the mere passive act of eating a candy could be daring and dangerous and could cement your reputation was too good to pass up. Hey, I'd be willing to sacrifice a few taste buds if I could be Four Square King every day at recess. Just sayin'.



In reality, the only thing you were proving was that you were gullible enough to believe that enduring a disgusting sour coating for 30 seconds was in some way correlated to your social standing. Sure, it came with the added bonus of your overenthusiastic classmates cheering you on and the almighty title of Warhead conqueror, but it wasn't exactly a marketable skill. I have yet to go on a job interview where the boss has said, "Your resume looks great, everything seems to be in order. Oh, just one more thing--how are you with mega atomic Warheads?"

Regardless of its lack of application, this level of pain threshold was bound to make you at the very least a minor classroom celebrity. So embrace the lip-puckering sourness. It may not be particularly palatable, but it's still better than the alternative.

90s Catch Phrase Mash-Up Part Deux: TV Edition

90s TV was nothing if not quotable. In some cases, overly so, as the decade unleashed a maelstrom of oft-repeated phrases that surreptitiously wound their way into our vernacular. One night you heard it on TV, the next you found yourself saying it at dinner. We just couldn't help ourselves from inserting these television phrases into our conversations. Though over time they may have lost their original humorous luster, you've got to give these shows credit for these enduring and timeless little contributions to society.


Seinfeld

Seinfeld was a whole world unto itself, so it was no surprise that it spawned innumerable quotable lines. Famous for its self-proclaimed status as a show about nothing, the series frequently took the most minuscule and mundane of daily experiences and turned it into a half-hour of quirky entertainment. Though Seinfeld's memorable lines are numerous, there were two in particular that wormed their way onto everyone's lips.
No Soup for You!



The tyrannical Soup Nazi, based on an actual immigrant soup chef in New York City, was famous for arbitrarily admonishing customers and denying them the coveted opportunity to purchase his delicious soups. One minor misstep in soup-line courtesy could lead the dreaded excommunication, demarcated by the chef bellowing, "No soup for you!" and subsequent refusal to sell to the patron. Both his trademark phrase and his alleged title of Soup Nazi crept into our vocabularies, though you can bet the 251st time you heard some shmoe exclaim, "No soup for you!" it had long since lost its humor.

Yada, Yada, Yada



In the eponymous episode ("The Yada Yada"), George is a smidgen concerned over his current girlfriend's overuse of the filler phrase, "yada, yada, yada." While admittedly brief and concise, he's forced to wonder what heinousness she may be glossing over. In an instant, this phrase skyrocketed in popularity, both for its Seinfeld fame and its forgiving nature to unscrupulous details.



Friends

Friends was a veritable 90s empire, both in its longevity and sustained popularity. While all of the characters had their quirks and habits, perhaps none was more memorable than lovable simpleton Joey's trademark pick-up line:

How YOU doin'?



You have to admit, the phrase did prove pretty successful on the shoe, as Joey was typically quite the ladies' man. "How YOU doin'?" quickly spread to pick-up scenes everywhere, with a notably lower success rate for real life use. We can't all be Tribbianis.


Full House

Full House was fun for the whole family, with clean humor and an unblemished record of "cue-sappy-music-and-dad's-words-of-wisdom-speech" at each show's 25-minute mark. The show's characters were incredibly one-dimensional, allowing both awesome stereotyping and extreme repetition in behavior. In no time at all, many characters latched onto a trademark phrase that highlighted their unwaveringly constant personalities.

Have Mercy!



Though the above clip highlights a rare Danny Tanner version, the line was usually uttered by my longtime childhood crush, a one Uncle Jesse Kastopolis. The phrase generally expressed Jesse's inevitable good luck, in the first few seasons generally pertaining to his luck with the ladies. For the record, if given the opportunity I would agree in an instant to becoming a Jesse and the Rippers groupie. Have mercy.

How Rude! You got it, dude!



See how irritating that gets after just a few minutes of repetition? Now multiply that times every child tuned in to Full House every week. It's a frightening volume of catch-phrases. Yes, Stephanie and Michelle were adorable children, but good God did they they say those phrases a lot. I'll concede that it was pretty cute the first few times, though. That's just common sense.


Family Matters

Steve Urkel of Family Matters was the quintessential nerd, from his high water pants to his over-sized glasses. His distinctive nasal tone of voice was unmistakable. As he was famous for his klutziness and general zaniness, it's no doubt the show's writer branded him with a trademark catch phrase to absolve him of blame.

Did I Do That?



Find the audio here. ...I warned you.



Blossom

Joey Lawrence played Joey Russo, Blossom's slow-witted jock brother. While Joey may not have been particularly adept at schoolwork, he was skilled in extreme repetition of the word, "Whoa!" It really worked for him, considering he was relatively shocked and surprised at everything. Before you knew it, we were all whoa-ing right along with him. By the way, have you seen a recent photo of Joey? I'm pretty sure you have, considering he danced with the stars, but really, it's enough to make you say, well, whoa.


Woah!





Southpark

Southpark was not particularly revered for its subtlety. It's humor was more along the lines of crass and juvenile than nuanced and sophisticated. Co-creators Matt Parker and Trey Stone's juvenile humor is well-suited to their third grade subjects, though the level of appropriateness is probably a bit beyond elementary. In each episode of the first five or so seasons, major character Kenny McCormick was brutally killed in some unspeakable way. With each coming death, one of his friends would inevitably exclaim, "Oh my God! They killed Kenny! You bastards!" While the gag has since been largely abandoned, it was a predominant theme in early seasons. In typical cartoon fashion, by the time the next episode aired there was Kenny, alive and well without explanation.

Oh my God! They killed Kenny! You bastards!





The Simpsons

The Simpsons' cultural impact is so immense that they actually managed to impact the gold standard of language: the dictionary. That's right, the Oxford English Dictionary actually began including the phrase is its 2001 edition. Though originally billed simply as "annoyed grunt" in production scripts, voice actor Dan Castallanetta did his magic and left and lasting impact on our language.

D'Oh!



Homer isn't the only Simpson to infiltrate our language: son Bart has left quite the indentation himself. Bart's recognizable phrases are vast, though they were far more prevalent in early seasons. Here's a light smattering of these once-delightful but now decidedly overused Bart-isms:

Don't Have a Cow, Man!




¡Ay, caramba!




Cowabunga




Eat my Shorts





Dinosaurs:

Baby Dinosaur was right, you know. Who doesn't love babies? Especially baby dinosaur puppets? You'd have to have a heart of steel to not aww just ever so slightly at his misshapen-headed appearance. Baby was rather lovable, and sought to remind us of it at every turn. My all time favorite incarnation of Baby's catch phrase is in his inexplicably entertaining music video:


I'm the baby, gotta love me!






Who Wants to Be a Millionaire:

Who doesn't love a good dose of suspense? I certainly imagine Regis Philbin and the producers of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? were pretty partial to it. Hence all of the hemming and hawing and dun-dun-dun music. It's all enough stress to give you a heart attack, even if you're just playing along at home. Perhaps the most suspenseful moment was in Regis's poker-faced delivery of, "Is that your final answer?" The question was enough to make even the most confident of contestants hesitant to commit. The show's immense popularity meant this phrase was everywhere, from coffee mugs to t-shirts, leaving most of us wishing that he'd just let the contestant decide for himself already.

Is that your final answer?




Naturally this list is far from complete, but it does represent some of the most overused and over-repeated television catch phrases of the 1990s. While now it is safe to reminsce on them from a safe chronological distance, at the time the casual insertion of these phrases into everyday conversation led to inevitable moans and groans. Remember folks, don't try this at home. Just because it's funny when someone making a million dollars per episode says it does not guarantee it will have a similar effect coming out of your mouth. Don't say I didn't warn you.