Rugrats

As we all know, talking babies are unwaveringly adorable. No matter what they're saying or doing, it's pretty much inevitable that it's going to be heart-string tuggingly cute . If you can throw in some subtle humor for the parents then all the better, but we're pretty much good to go on talking babies alone.

Nickelodeon's Rugrats took the simple question "What do babies do and think when parents aren't around?" and turned it into a cleverly crafted series of humorous episodes. It was heavy on imagination and light on realism, opening for kids a world of make-believe fun. With talking babies. Did I mention the talking babies?

The show premiered in 1991 as part of the Nicktoons cartoon programming block. The premise hinged on the notion that the babies could understand one another whereas the adults could not, which in itself is a pretty attractive notion to child viewers. It was essentially the underpinning of 80s and 90s Nickelodeon programming: kids have their own world that adults can't even begin to understand.This theme gave us both an inflated sense of importance and a satisying denigration of adults, making us feel for once as if we were the ones running the show and the adults were simply there to drive us around.

Rugrats from Matt on Vimeo.

Adults were fans of the show, as well, as it featured a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor that undoubtedly went over the heads of juvenile viewers. While the later reworked version of the show relied more on toilet humor and other similarly juvenile gags, the original used cultural references and irony to poke fun at phenomena in the adult world. We laughed at the adults, adults laughed at themselves, and everyone was happy.

As in many children's shows the young characters were largely two dimensional, owing to the fact that children's black and white view of the world left little room for subtelty and character development. While the stereotypes may have gotten a little out of control in later seasons, they were believable enough during the show's golden years. Sure, all of the characters had a "type", but they were good foils for
one another and gave us a spectrum of infant temperaments at which to laugh:



Tommy Pickles, our fearless leader. Tommy was the unofficial chief of the tribe of playpen-dwelling infants, leading his baby pals on all sorts of Muppet Baby-style imaginary adventures. Resplendent in a blue t shirt and diaper ensemble, Tommy looked the picture of baby naivete.




Chuckie Finster, our resident coward. Chuckie has it rough enough with the red hair and square glasses, you'd think they could have gone easy on him personality wise but apparently his loserishness is a package deal. For God's sake, his dad dresses him in a shirt picturing the planet Saturn. You don't get less hip than that. Chuckie's afraid of everything from the potty to The Guy on the Oatmeal Box. To his credit, though, that Quaker guy is a little off.




Phil and Lil Deville, our cutesily rhyming named set of boy/girl twins. Their parents dress them in matching clothes and their personalities verge on deja vu. Lil's got a bow for differentiation purposes, but other than that, they're pretty much the same person.




Angelica Pickles, Tommy's spoiled brat of a first cousin. It's probably wrong to admit that Angelica was my favorite as a child, as she was completely insufferable with a personality akin to nails on a chalkboard. I'm not going to put all of the blame on her, though. Her wealthy parents were less than attentive and even lighter on the discipline front. I'm not going to say I didn't learn a thing or two the remarkably consistent results she got from putting on the waterworks, though.




Susie Carmichael, adorable neighbor. She mainly served to show how awful Angelica was by contrast. She made me want to have a cat named Chowder, too. I mean, seriously. Chowder! How cute is that?


The parents, on the other hand, were a bit better developed as characters. Looking back, they were far more neglectful than I'd initially perceived them to be. Back then it was like, sure, they abandon their children unsupervised for hours at a time, whatever. Now that I'm older and actually know people who have children, it's a tad less believable that any right-minded parent would accidentally leave their children in a cavernous toy store overnight or not notice their 1-year old toting a screwdriver in his diaper. Well, I guess that's why it's just a cartoon.




Stu and Didi Pickles, Tommy's parents, were a well-meaning pair of absentminded grownups. Stu was an idealistic toy inventor, Didi a teacher. Let me just say that Didi should win some sort of best cartoon hair award for that trisected red nest erupting from all sides of her head. That thing is truly awesome.





Betty and Howie Deville, Phil and Lil's parents. Betty was a strong feminist and Howie was well, nothing.




Chas Finster, Chuckie's dad, equally nebbishy to Chuckie. Let's move on.





Drew and Charlotte Pickles, Angelica's yuppie parents. Charlotte had a cell phone permanently glued to her ear before it was the norm, and Drew was basically the anti-Stu. Charlotte is just like Lindsey Nagle from The Simpsons which is convenient because they're both voiced by Tress MacNeille.




Randy and Lucy Carmichael, Susie's parents. She makes jello molds of the Eiffel Tower, he writes for the Dummi Bears. Not too shabby.




Grandpa Lou, Stu and Dru's dad and resident of Didi and Stu's house for the first few seasons. See how all the Pickles' men have rhyming names, too? Is there no end to their cleverness?




And of course, my favorites, Boris and Minka, Didi's parents. For those of us members of the tribe, we didn't find ourselves especially well represented on TV. Okay, behind the scenes, sure, but I'm talking kid's holiday specials. That's what mattered to me as a kid; I didn't care who produced it.

My love affair with these Old Country standbys began when Boris and Minka came to tell the story of Passover and ran well through their Chanukah special. Let's just say it blew Lambchop's Chanukah out of the water.


Like most long-running shows, Rugrats ran out of steam after awhile, running on empty as it shamelessly introduced new characters, released feature films, and then essentially abandoned the premise altogether by aging the kids ten years. As we all know the main draw of Rugrats was that we were dealing with naive babies, so turning them into surly teenagers was probably not a wise move.

We wanted to see these kids eating dog food, participating in beauty contests, staging mini-Westerns at the teeter-totter, or fearing the bathtub drain. We didn't care if they failed algebra or thought that guy from the malt shop was cute. Thus, we can remember them as they were, before the cheap ratings ploys and desperate last-ditch salvage attempts. Back when Reptar reigned the land and Angelica belted out "My Country Tis of Thee" and babies could freely roam about the dangerous adult-free terrain as they pleased.

TLC

The 90s gave us a lot of music genre crossover, one of the more major being the infusion of R&B music into the pop scene. TLC was amongst these groups to recognize the endless opportunity in the teenybopper-filled pop music world and catered their music and public personas accordingly. They suffered no shortage of media attention with their pop- friendly gimmicks. The trio wore ridiculously over-the-top ensembles and sported condoms as fashion accessories. You have to admit, they were effective in their quest to get noticed. A condom eye patch will do that for you.

TLC became wildly popular throughout the 90s, as much for their music as the ever-mounting public peeks into their personal lives. The headlines on these girls became increasingly dramatic, but they seemed to have a type of public resilience that allowed them to maintain their popularity through adversity. Anyone who can burn down her boyfriend's house and keep her pop icon image intact is probably deserving of some kind of best bounce-backability award.

The group was made up of Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, and Rozanda "Chili" Thomas, proving that people are willing to overlook stupid stage names if your music is catchy enough. They found some modest success with their first CD, but by the time of their sophomore release CrazySexyCool in 1994, they were on their way to legitimate musical stardom. The album performed extremely well, skyrocketing the girls from CD bargain bin dwellers to proud new owners of a slew of screaming manic TRL fans.

CrazySexyCool sold over 11 million copies, cementing the girls' status as pop stars giving us hits like:


Creep



As a kid, I had no idea that "Creep" had anything to do with a woman's cheating on her her unfaithful boyfriend to garner the attention she so sorely needed. In all truth, I just loved the silky pajamas they wore in the video. I didn't quite understand the lyrics, but I knew one thing for sure: I would sit pretty in silk pajamas on a color-coordinated backdrop if it was the last thing I did.


Waterfalls



"Waterfalls" was TLC's biggest hit, quickly ascending to iconic 90s song status. Again, as children it's more than likely we misunderstood the references to drug dealing and HIV, but boy did we love that video where they stood on the water.

The CD spurned two other singles, "Diggin' On You" and "Red Light Special" that enjoyed a fair amount of success. I'm the first to admit I didn't understand one word of "Red Light Special" till I heard it playing in the background in The 40 Year Old Virgin. You would think the brothel-based music video would have given me some clues, but I just thought they had a really dirty house.


Right around the time of CrazySexyCool's impending release, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes's personal life essentially imploded. Though she'd been forthcoming with details about her rough childhood and struggle with alcohol, I doubt anyone saw coming what happened next. Lopes had a turbulent relationship with Atlanta Falcon's player Andre Rison, so she set his house on fire. You know, like the rest of us do when we have squabbles with our loved ones.

Lopes claimed she had been trying to burn his shoes in the bathtub as retribution for his poor treatment of her and his alleged infidelity. Clearly not armed with an astute understanding of flammability, Lopes contended she had not intended to set the entire mansion aflame. A pioneer in the young celebrity circuit, Lopes opted to enter rehab, which at that point was still considered a legitimate celebrity action rather than the cheap cop-out we know it to be today.

Despite the drama, TLC had a hit record on their hands. They took home two shiny Grammys in 1996, looking to all the world like an incredibly successful enterprise. Soon thereafter, however, the girls filed for bankruptcy, adding more fuel to the fire (no Left Eye reference intended) of their very public personal problems. They'd gotten suckered into an unfair contract that left them with a take-home pay on par with my own. In case you were unaware, that means they were living in near-poverty, or at least an incredibly skewed financial reality to their lifestyles of fame and fortune.



T-Boz had been battling Sickle Cell Anemia for several years, and the weight of her medical bills compounded with Left Eye's insurance and legal fees were effectively a monetary death sentence. They eventually managed to renogotiate their contracts and settle their legal issues, but not before seriously tarnishing their pop star images.

The girls moved on to pursue various respective solo projects, none of which were on par with TLC level fame. In 1999, the girls broke their career hiatus and released FanMail. The album was again impressively successful, especially considering all the negative media buzz they'd been brewing over the past few years. The album produced two number one hits:


No Scrubs



"No Scrubs" described deadbeat guys, emphasizing their unemployment, lack of interest in upward mobility, and most importantly, lack of car. As I was in middle school at the time, this meant very little to me as I had little concern of an ambitionless seventh grader sponging off me for milk money. Instead, I just really liked that part when they went, "Noooooooooo. Scruuuuuuuuubs (no no)".


Unpretty



"Unpretty" was far more of a message song, giving us the equivalent of modern-day Dove Soap commercials. The song emphasized our need to love ourselves. Unfortunately, I was way more interested in their suggestion of buying all the makeup that MAC could make, thus saving up my allowance for an extended period of time.

Around this point, the tension between Watkins/Thomas and Lopes came to a head, stirring a feud amongst the band members. All sorts of threats were made, with few carried out. Tragically, amidst the dispute Lopes was killed in a car crash prior ot the release of their album 3D. Though the band had been on the brink of demise, her death shook the group adn the pop scene dramatically.

This wasn't the end of TLC per se, but it did mark the end of an era. The surviving members released a greatest hits album and starred in a reality show cut from American Idol cloth entitled R U the Girl, selecting a girl to record a song with them for their upcoming album. The effort was pretty underwhelming, though. With Lopes gone, the group was incomplete.

Though they've announced plans for a new album, I prefer to remember TLC for what they were: a pioneering R&B pop act that gave us catchy hit after catchy hit. It didn't matter that as children much of the lyrical content went over our heads. We loved it all the same.

80s and 90s Children's Magazines

Toward the end of the 20th century, business proprietors were looking at children through an entirely new perspective. Children in the 80s and 90s had far more pocket money than their predecessors and were thus capable of constituting their own demographic, meaning greedy adults could now push their wares on an entirely new consumer group. Direct marketing at children was a wise move, of course. It's way easier to convince a 7-year old that they want something than it is to do the same to an adult. They served it up and we consumed it, no questions asked. If their advertising claimed I would love it, I was wholly certain this was the case. Why would my TV lie to me? It's a respected member of my family.

Back in a time when print journalism was more than just a vintage throwback, children's magazines were all the rage. Our parents liked them because they taught us the valuable life skill of sitting still in one place for more than five minutes at a time. We liked them because they spoke to us personally, whether through adorable animal pictures or video game tips. Whatever your fancy, there was a magazine producer out there trying to capitalize on it.



Nickelodeon Magazine



The creation of Nickelodeon Magazine was by no means a big leap. Kids loved Nickelodeon on TV, so the logical next step would be to deliver it directly to their doorsteps and further mesmerize them with Nickelodeon characters, shows, and merchandise. The original concept had been a cross-promotion with Pizza Hut restaurants, offering a free Nickelodeon Magazine with purchase. Kids like pizza, kids like Nickelodeon, everyone wins. The mag soon expanded to a regular circulation, offering kids a Nickelodeon-tinted view of the world all while selling us Gak and giving us interviews with our favorite fictional Nicktoon characters. As someone who was very curious about Oblina from Aaah! Real Monsters' life outside the set, I'd like to say thank you.



Sports Illustrated Kids




Adults are always thinking up sneaky ways to infuse educational practices into our everyday pastimes. Sports Illustrated Kids was no exception, giving us the sports we love at the price of reading for enjoyment. It was a trade-off many kids were willing to make and parents were more than pleased to shell out for monthly. The magazine actually won the Distinguished Achievement for Excellence in Educational Publishing Award* eleven times, proving that sports and education can go hand-in-hand. All the while, we were thinking we were just reading an exciting interview with Magic Johnson and they secretly had us learning. Go figure.



American Girl Magazine



I don't know how your childhoods shaped up, but mine was largely driven by the force of my desire to immerse myself in all things American Girl. I never received my oft-coveted overpriced doll (another handily educational tie-in to the American Girl book series) but I did lust monthly after the human-sized clothing options the American Girl catalog modeled after Kirsten the pioneering Swede. Imagine my delight to find the franchise created a magazine, further extending the reach of American Girl's extensive empire. The magazine featured craft ideas, advice columns, contests, and all sorts of other material certain to ignite a desire to own all the American Girl merchandise ever manufactured. Now if only they'd had the in-store with-doll tea parties in my day.



Zoobooks



It's a scientifically proven fact that children love cute animals. It's also a fact that parents are seeking educational opportunities at every unsuspecting turn. Hence we got tricked into learning zoologically significant information all the while we thought we were just flipping through a photo series on otters and puffins. The commercials for these babies were so exciting and convincing, it was enough to make us overlook the fact that we were essentially doing voluntary extracurricular science homework.




Nintendo Power



Can it be true? A publication that offers us tricks, tips, and hints on our favorite Nintendo games? Nintendo Power was a legitimate revelation to many joystick-gripping youths, giving them the inside information they so desperately craved. The marketing strategy was genius: the over 3 million members of the Nintendo Fun Club received the first issue free, after which a million or so took the plunge to subscribe. The magazine knew its audience well and delivered pages of Nintendo-themed guides, some of which featured the oft-coveted cheats. Any magazine that can teach me to cheat at a video game is okay in my book. That's enjoying reading at its finest.




Fox Kids Club "Totally Kids"




Yes, a few hours of children's programming on Saturday morning is totally deserving of its own magazine. Hey, whatever works. The magazine had a pretty wide circulation and even pulled some big name celebrity interviews, so judging by results I'd say Fox Kids made out pretty well on the magazine front. This pamphlet of a publication was filled with comics starring our favorite Fox Kids characters, promotions for Fox Kids shows, and of course some games and puzzles thrown in for good measure. Let me just say, I rocked those wordfinds. Just try to diagonal/backwards Babs Bunny on me. I'll find it. Just try me.


Bop/Tiger Beat

I know this pic isn't of Tiger Beat or Bop per se, but I just couldn't resist. I mean, look at that selection!

These flimsy fan mags were filled with cheesy foldout pinups of our favorite teen heartthrobs, their lack of content compensated for with glossy grinning celebrities. I've lumped the two magazines together because not only were they published by the same company, they often featured the exact same pictures and interviews. Why exactly they needed two separate magazine for this is beyond me, but as long as they keep giving me two page mini-mag spreads of JTT, I'll be happy.



These may not have been the most substantial sources of literary content, but they did play a major role in getting kids to enjoy reading. Yes, much of the content involved marketing toward us and trying to sell us useless crap while promoting their parent company, but as kids we were more than willing to go along with it. The magazines allowed kids to be kids, speaking to us at our level while discussing the topics that interested us. If we ended up begging our parents for Samantha dolls or Moon Shoes somewhere along the way, well then so be it.




Honorable Mention Classic Non 80s/90s-Specific Favorites: Highlights, MAD, Ranger Rick Magazine



*This award later went on to win the longest award name award