90s Hair Trends

It's always tough to judge a trend outside the context of its time. When it's current, it seems the hippest, most innovative idea any of us have ever seen. In retrospect, though, we've just got to wonder what exactly was going through (or in this case, on top of) our heads when we bought into these fads.

In the case of these hairstyles, hindsight really is 20/20. What seemed so stylish at the time inevitably ends up looking dated and at times, ridiculous. When your grandkids are mocking you in your yearbook photos forty years down the road, gently remind them that these looks were the height of style in our day. Just don't be surprised if they still make fun of you for your rat tail. You kind of deserve it.


For the Ladies:

The Rachel


Was there a female alive in the 90s who didn't want this haircut? Jennifer Aniston's hair quickly became an iconic 90s hairstyle, prompting women everywhere to ask their stylists to recreate her famous shaggy layers. It looked great on 20-and-30-somethings, but it was certainly an odd look for anyone outside that age range, especially children. It's just sort of unsettling to see this adult on a kid, though it didn't stop me from coveting my classmates' mature-looking Rachel cuts.


Mall Bangs or Leveled Bangs


A carryover from the 80s, mall bangs were a staple for anyone possessing a hair dryer, a round brush, and a gallon-sized jug of hairspray. These babies were poufed to the max and often featured strangely separated strands. Some bang-wearers took the look to the next level (literally) by establishing a bi-level bang that required not one but two rounds of styling to give each level a different layer of volume.


Scrunchies
These ponytail accessories were everywhere in the 90s. Retailers even sold matching scrunchies with their outfits so we could put together a coordinated look. Isn't that thoughtful of them? I distinctly remember owning a Limited Too outfit that included a matching scrunchie, and it was unacceptable to wear one without the other. Scrunchies were composed of oversized tubular pieces of fabric "scrunched" around an elastic band. The boldest among us even attempted multiple scrunchies in a single hairstyle by segmenting their ponytail into a number of elastic-separated bunches. Extra credit for wearing it with a velvet headband.


Sun-In

This one's been around for awhile, but young girls in the 90s were especially prone to its wrath. It seemed like a good idea at the time: your mom wouldn't let you dye your hair, so why not just spray a few hazardous chemicals in and do it the natural way? Sounds harmless enough. Girls seeking sun-bleached locks turned to Sun-In only to have their blond ambition crushed by the appearance of a splotchy orange tone. You could always pick out the girls who'd experienced unfortunate Sun-In "incidents"--they were the ones with the glowing hair.


Goth/Punk

You'd think hair dye had was a recent innovation given the way it caught on in the 90s. There were two parent-shocking routes you could pick: a flat goth black (with matching inch-thick eyeliner) or a rainbow of colors usually only found in a Lucky Charms box. In middle school, I longed to dye my hair pink. I was certain that was my ticket to hair nivana. My parents only let me get the comb-in kind supplemented by generous wandings of hair mascara, but it just wasn't the same.


Butterfly Clips
For some reason in the 90s, we just couldn't leave well enough alone. We simply weren't ready to go out unless our hair was jam packed with, well, stuff. All sorts of strange hair gems and metal fittings popped up at Claire's and The Icing, but none were quite so ubiquitous as the colorful butterfly clip. The tactic with these usually involved a semi-circular face-framing configuration that ultimately required a virtuous level of patience. The key was to get just the right amount of hair twisted under each butterfly. The whole ordeal made you look like you coated your hair in honey and were attacked in a butterfly garden enclosure, but dammit, it was popular.


Bra-Strap Headbands


Why, oh why would anyone think it acceptable to wear a discarded part of lingerie on your head? We wouldn't show up to junior high with panties in our hair, so why were bra straps an acceptable hair ornament? These caught on in a big way for reasons we may never understand. We have the salon at Bumble and Bumble to blame for this trend catching on in a big way.


For the Guys:


Hi-Top Fade

There must have been a memo sent out one day informing black men everywhere that Jheri curl was out, geometric hair was in. How else to explain the sudden switcharoo? The look entailed shaving the sides of the head and leaving all of the volume up top. It was a style some people carried better than others. If you were a rapper, you could certainly pull it off, you could even throw in some shaved zig zags for good measure. My personal favorite variation was "the gumby" which gave your head the illusion of being shaped like our favorite claymation friend.


Caesar

When we run out of new hairstyles to premiere, apparently we go pretty far into the back-catalogues. In this case, all the way to ancient Rome, mimicking the style of Caesar himself. George Clooney on ER helped to pioneer the trend by looking dreamy even with the straight short horizontal fringe. It was also a good look for those who had thinning hair, because the pushed-down front helped mask that effect.


Rat Tail

This one always came off looking like a horrible mistake on the part of the hairdresser, which wasn't always a fair assessment. It was actually a horrible mistake on the part of the person sporting the look. Whoever thought it was a good idea to leave a single lock of long hair in the back of a closely cropped 'do has some serious explaining to do. In every school, there was that kid with the rat tail. It was something of a mystery. Had the boy requested it? Had the parents suggested this? Did they just watch too much professional wrestling? We may never know.


Mullet

Okay, this may be a pretty exaggerated example, but it is pretty awesome

In the 80s and 90s, a group of misguided beauty school dropouts joined forces to unleash the ultimate trashy haircut: the mullet. It had popped up a few decades before, but it didn't have bonafide widespread appeal until the 80s and early 90s. The idea was short ("business") in the front, long ("party!") in the back. This, of course, flattered no one. The mullet wasn't just for men, either: some ladies jumped in on the action as well. There are still some diehard mullet throwbacks out there. You can usually see them on the Maury show.


Grunge

Grunge, unfortunately, was just what it sounded like. Yes, we got some good music out of it, but as the name implied, it was dirty. Grungy hair was greasy, stringy long locks meant to convey your angst and apathy. Why do you think they wore so much flannel? It wasn't just an unwavering love of plaid, it was for its superior absorbency.


Bowl Cut

Also known as a Mushroom Cut, the bowl cut was very popular among young males in the 80s and 90s. It looked like the stylist had overturned a bowl on your head and shaved everything that stuck out underneath. Younger boys tended to wear them Beatles'/Moe from Three Stooges' style with a straight across cut, while teens often parted theirs into two distinct hair curtains.


Spikes

It seemed half the guys I knew transitioned straight from the bowl cut into the spikes. The style required a staggering amount of hair gel to pull off the gravity-defying height favored by boys and young men. The popularity of this look ebbs and flows, but it's certainly not dead: just catch an episode of MTV's Jersey Shore. It's not just a situation, it's the Situation.


Bleach/ "Tips"

Sometime around Eminem's rise to fame, guys everywhere thought it would be a good idea to knock off his signature style. Not everyone's cut out to be a blond, and it showed. The bright blond hair definitely stood out in a crowd, but probably not the way the bleacher had intended. If you weren't quite ready to commit to the full-on bleach job, you could also isolate the tips of your hair and give them a little boost. It was hideous, yes, but at least you could just chop off your unfortunately-hued spikes.


These may not have evolved into classic looks, but it was the hairstyle hand we were dealt. Not every era can be full of timeless style. It's tough to imagine future historians waxing poetic about our choice to wear bra straps on our heads, but dammit, we're standing behind it.

Cheesy Made for TV Movies. Alternate Title: Our Favorite 90s Teen Stars Sell Out

Cheesy made-for-TV movies: are there any other kind? The whole idea behind a Movie of the Week is that it probably didn't pass muster to warrant a big-budget, big-screen premiere and thus was beamed straight to your television instead. Lucky for you, you get to watch it in the comfort of your own home rather than being ridiculed at the ticket counter.

As someone whose mother only tunes the TV to three channels (for the record: Lifetime, Hallmark, and Lifetime Movie Network), I am well-versed in the art of the made-for-TV movie. They're not hard to miss. You can usually identify them in the TV listings by title alone. I'll give you a hint: Article Adjective Noun/Verb: The ________ _________ Story. Popular variations of adages ("Too Little, Too Late" "For the Love of a Woman") made good titles, as did vague, overgeneralized cliches ("A Mother's Love" "A Daughter Scorned"). It wasn't exactly rocket science.

The 90s brought us some particularly cheesy TV movies featuring some of our favorite teen stars desperate to be taken seriously as actors. I'll give you a hint: a movie of the week isn't going to cut it. For the most part, viewers just couldn't get over the idea that Zach Morris raped DJ Tanner or that the pink Power Ranger was an anorexic gymnast. I'm still struggling with the idea that Rebecca from Life Goes On killed Donna Martin.

Here are just a few of the many, many made-for-TV movies starring out favorite teen sellouts:


No One Would Tell (Candace Cameron, Fred Savage)



Kevin Arnold, how could you? This one came as a real shock to me. In 1996's No One Would Tell, Fred Savage played high school BMOC Bobby Tennison. He begins dating the eager Stacy (Cameron) and wins her over with all sorts of romantic gestures. In Lifetime movie world, that's actually an ominous sign. Actually, if you're male and you're in a Lifetime movie, it's almost guaranteed you're going to have to rape, kill, or at least abuse somewhere. I think there's a clause in the actors' contract.

Predictably, Bobby grows more and more jealous, and his behavior eventually descends into abuse. Blinded by her love, Stacy refuses to leave, despite experience with her mother's abusive relationships. Bobby ends up slitting her throat and throwing her in the river, and Sally Jessy Raphael shows up as a judge to give us the requisite talking-to: "You have a responsibility to the people you care about. If you see them hurting or you see them in trouble, you step in and you TELL someone, so that this does not happen again." It's not the most subtle of messages, but at least it's a good one.



Fifteen and Pregnant (Kirsten Dunst)



Will they ever stop playing this movie? My guess is no, considering I've probably seen it around thirty times since it premiered in 1998. Kirsten Dunst stars as Tina, who is (you guessed it!) both fifteen and pregnant. Someone in their movie naming department really deserves a medal for this one.

This is pretty much the quintessential impregnated teenage girl movie, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It has it's moments, though like all Lifetime movies it tends to be a bit melodramatic and overwrought. It's not a bad movie overall, though it pales in comparison to MTV's 16 and Pregnant. It's probably not quite as scripted as the MTV reality show.



Without Consent: Trapped and Deceived (Jennie Garth)


Jennie Garth did a lot of these made-for-TV movie projects over the years, but this one may have taken the take for theatrical dramatics. She starred as Laura, a wild teenager who gets into a drunk driving accident. Her parents send her to a psychiatric facility in lieu of disciplining her themselves. The asylum, it turns out, abuses and drugs its patients. The doctors try to hold her down with tranquilizers, but she escapes and tells her parents the sordid tale of her experience there. They don't believe her, she goes back, they do believe her, they try to get her out. It may be based on a true story, but it's an old and tired one.



A Friend to Die For (Kellie Martin, Tori Spelling)



Yeah, yeah, I know, in the 90s we were supposed to buy that Tori Spelling was the popular girl because she got a nose job and a dye job and her dad was Aaron Spelling, but I secretly always thought she was more convincing as a nerd on Saved by the Bell. Regardless, here she was in a 1994 Move of the Week playing The Most Popular Girl in School, bitchy cheerleader Stacy. Life Goes On's Kellie Martin stars as Angela, the Girl with Low Self Esteem for whom we should all feel sorry until she stabs someone.

Like many made-for-TV movies, A Friend to Die For is based on a true story, and a juicy one at that. Angela is desperate to fit in and joins the Larks, a club to which many of her more popular classmates belong. Angela idolizes rich cheerleader Stacy, who couldn't want less to do with her. Angela vies for Stacy's attention and eventually gets her alone and confesses her admiration for her. Stacy is justifiably freaked out, and tells Angela she's going to tell everyone at school what a weirdo she is. What's a girl to do? Why, stab Stacy to death, of course. Oh, and blame a less popular goth girl. Eventually the truth comes out about Angela, but the whole thing serves as a sort of cautionary tale against cliques. Ignore a less popular girl and face uncertain homocide. Something like that.



A Burning Passion: The Margaret Mitchell Story (Shannen Doherty)


Biopic made-for-TV movies can be dangerous territory, particularly if the lead actor isn't quite capable of carrying the project. Such was the case of Shannen Doherty in her portrayal of Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell, who couldn't even be bothered to read the book (though she did see the movie!). The whole thing reeked of a cross-promotional ploy to promote Scarlett, CBS's miniseries based on the sequel to Gone With the Wind. Doherty's Southern accent was truly, truly awful, and her performance was rightfully ripped apart by critics. Frankly, Shannen, we just didn't give a damn.



She Cried No (Candace Cameron, Mark-Paul Gosselaar)


Candace Cameron just can't catch a break in these, can she? It seems she's always pitted up against some teen superstar as helpless victim. Why they always have to cast the most wholesome TV guys in these awful male antagonist roles is beyond me. I get it if they're looking for an image change, but I just don't know if abusive boyfriend of frat boy rapist is the direction they should be going.

Like all made-for-TV movies that deal with the theme of drinking in college, the message is that it's always, always bad, and you will inevitably end up getting yourself into terrible situations. Cameron plays Melissa, a sweer underage co-ed who has too much to drink at a fraternity party and is date raped by Scott (Gosselaar). Melissa eventually stands up for herself and takes action against Scott, which is great, but I can't let go of the idea that Zack Morris could be so cruel to DJ Tanner. It just doesn't add up.



Perfect Body (Amy Jo Johnson)



Amy Jo Johnson (the pink ranger and Felicity's friend) plays Andie, a rising gymnastics star who develops an eating disorder. She eventually turns to bulimia upon the suggestion of a friend and ends up passing out at competitions. It's all very The Best Little Girl in the World, but overall it's not bad for a cautionary tale. It highlights the pressure young girls (and particularly athletes) to be thin. Still, I just couldn't stop thinking of Johnson as the pink Ranger. You can take the girl out of the superhero outfit, but you can't take the superhero outfit out of the girl.



It seems the formula still holds true: if all else fails for a former teen star, they can always make a buck or two in a tearjerker Movie of the Week. Artistic integrity is always second place to a steady paycheck. Considering Tori Spelling received a whopping one hundred thou for her participation in A Friend to Die For, it's probably the actors who get the last laugh.

90s Live Action Movies Based on Cartoons

Have you ever been watching a cartoon and thought to yourself, "Huh, I wonder what these comically misshapen characters would look like in real life"? If so, then this next bunch is for you. Apparently movie studios believed this to be a relatively common ponderance in the 90s and supplied us with many, many live action movie versions of our cartoon favorites.

In some cases, they probably could have left the cartoon-to-real-life translation to the safer confines of our imagination, but there were a few breakout hits in the bunch. These may not have been Oscar contenders, but they were a fun bunch of family-friendly films. That's the best part about marketing movies toward kids: they like anything. Really. I walked past a screening of Old Dogs last week and heard rampant child laughter. Clearly not a sign of superior judgment and discerning taste.

Whether they struck a chord with audiences or bombed big time, the live action take on a cartoon was a pretty widespread phenomenon. Some of the most-watched examples include:

George of the Jungle



That's some catchy theme song, huh? We could probably lure children into theaters on the merit of this song. Parents, on the other hand, may feel a little differently when their child belts out "GEORGE! GEORGE! GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE!" for the two hundred and fifty first time.

The original cartoon ran for just 17 episodes in the late 1960s, so it wasn't exactly a long-running classic. The series featured a Tarzan-like protagonist comically matched with a far-smarter female mate and ape friend. In 1997, a live action version with the same name premiered, starring Brendan Fraser and Leslie Mann. Wait, what? Leslie Mann played Ursula in George of the Jungle? Where have I been? Obviously as a child I just wasn't attuned to pertinent future comedic references.

Brendan Fraser had already proved his prowess for playing a dimwit with limited linguistic capabilities in cult classic Encino Man, which remains one of my favorites despite conclusive evidence it's one of the worst movies ever made. As George, Fraser frolicks with his lap-elephant Shep and toucan Tookie Tookie while avoiding the advances of mysteriously evil hunters. He falls in love with city girl Ursula, and, well, that's a story for another post. Let's just say it amused many of us as children, but it might not hold up the test of time to us as adult viewers with sensible opinions.





The Flintstones



The animated Flintstones series ran for six years in the 60s, but continued to entertain many generations of children in syndication. For children of the 90s, the characters also promoted our beloved Pebbles-brand sugar cereal and amazing frozen push pops, so they weren't exactly a tough sell. They fed us sugar, and we loved them.

The original show was clever and full of cutesy puns and funny modern takes on historically inaccurate prehistoric life. The 1994 live action film version was not quite as witty, though it was a box office success. Looking back, this project was packed full of actors I didn't recognize at the time but that now I can't believe agreed to be a part of this. At the time, I recognized Rick Moranis (Barney) as that guy from Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Rosie O'Donnell (Betty) from A League of Their Own, but it went much further than that. We had John Goodman, who was probably meant to play Fred Flintstone on physique alone. The Flinstones also had Halle Berry, Kyle Maclachlan (you know, Trey from SATC and Orson from Desperate Housewives), Elizabeth Taylor, Jay Leno, Seinfeld's Michael Richards, the B-52s, and that big bald guy from Nightcourt. How did I miss all this?





Casper



The character Casper the Friendly Ghost goes way back. Like back to the 1930s back. The animated version first appeared in the 40s and was followed by a TV series a decade later. Casper was very popular in its day, but it wasn't a totally known quantity for 90s kids when the live-action version came out in 1995. To be fair, Casper in his ghost form was not played by a human actor, but by special effects computer animation. Or as it may have been known in 1995, magic.

In the movie, a woman inherits a spooky old manor from a deceased relative, which unbeknownst to them is haunted by Casper, Stinkie, Fatso, and Stretch. Casper sees Kat (Christina Ricci) and her father (Bill Pullman) the dead person's therapist (?) on TV and falls in love with the young girl. Kat and her dad come to the house, antics ensue, yada yada yada, Casper turns into Devon Sawa. Jackpot! I've never been so jealous of anyone as I was when Christina Ricci got to dance with Devon Sawa in this movie. Then again, he turns back into a ghost after that, so she gets sort of a raw deal.






Inspector Gadget



Somehow when I look at the cartoon Inspector Gadget, I don't automatically make the jump to Matthew Broderick. Never once have I been kicking back watching the old Inspector Gadget show and thought to myself, "You know who they should really get to play this guy? Ferris Bueller." Apparently critics agreed with me for the most part, as the movie was something of a flop. I liked it, but mostly just because my old friend Harriet the Spy (now known to me as Michelle Tratchenberg) played Penny and the gay fake fiancee from My Best Friend's Wedding (Rupert Everett) played the villainous Mr. Claw. The movie was so-so, but it didn't have the lighthearted bumbling appeal of the animated series. Broderick just didn't have the chin for it.





Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles


Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Intro

S.O.B. | MySpace Video

The plot of the comic book and animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is so incredibly complicated and insane, I can't even begin to explain it here (luckily, I've already explained it here, so just check that out for a refresher course if you're in need). In short, it features a group of adolescent mutant sewer-dwelling turtles with exceptional martial arts skills and a penchant for pizza. I don't know what these people were on when they came up with this idea, but I would have loved to be a fly on the wall at that meeting. Or, you know, just one of the meeting participants. That would probably be better and more realistically feasible than the fly route. If I had a Delorean going 88 mph, I mean. Otherwise that's just ridiculous.

TMNT was a runaway hit, so a live action film seemed the logical next step. The first film premiered in 1990 to mixed reviews, but moviegoers ate it up. It's pretty violent for a kid's movie, but it does stay pretty true to the comics and cartoon so it satiated most of its young fan base. The first may be lacking sequel's amazing Vanilla Ice song "Ninja Rap", but overall it wasn't too shabby.



Dennis the Menace



Dennis the Menace has been an immensely popular comic and cartoon character since the 50s, with numerous remakes in subsequent years. Dennis was a well-meaning all-American boy with a habit of getting himself into all sorts of adorable messes. The iconic John Hughes did the 1993 film version, and in many ways it all too closely resembled another of his hits, Home Alone. I mean, how many times can we watch a little blond kid tie up a bad guy? It's not exactly the kind of material you can use again and again. Walter Mattheau and Christopher Lloyd were pretty entertaining as Mr. Wilson and Switchblade Sam respectively, so we'll call it a wash.




Turning an cartoon into a live-action film is something of a gamble. Just because something is popular in one form doesn't necessarily mean it will translate well to a different media. In most of these cases, though, crowds went crazy for the films despite their being panned by critics.

Their aura of feel-good nostalgia may have been enough to hold our attention, even if more impartial critics classified them as glorified dreck. Sometimes the fantasy is better than the reality, though, so I'll gladly abandon my cynicism and revel in the fun of these movies. They may not be masterpieces, but they had a power over us all the same.