Got Milk?

Without the helpful input of highly compensated celebrity endorses, how would we ever know what to like? Certainly we as consumers can't be trusted to make these sort of decisions for ourselves. Just imagine all the crazy things we would get into without the ever-sage guidance of paid spokespeople. No, we need to be told what to do from people we know from movies, sports, music, and television. They're pretty much our only reliable sources.

In 1994, the dairy industry had fallen upon hard times. Kids had tasted the forbidden sugariness of soda and it seemed that they had reached the beverage point-of-no-return. The once-ubiquitous cafeteria milk cartons had been replaced by Coca-Cola sponsored vending machines sure to fund our schools and cavitate our teeth. Our bones were brittle, our blood sugar was high, and we knew little of the beloved milk of our forebearers. Milk producers knew it was time to take action.

Milk producers knew they needed something a bit punchier than "Milk: it's Cool" Cafeteria Milk Machines

The bottom line was that kids were not convinced that milk was cool. I know what you're thinking, kids weren't won over by the glamorous lives of those in the dairy industry? Next thing you're going to tell me is that they were careless about maintaining their calcium levels. Hard to believe, yes, but milk's image was on a downswing. It was as if milk was some washed-up celebrity past her prime; once cast in great roles, she was now generally relegated to grandmother and old-version-of-young-starlet type parts. Milk producers knew they had to act fast if they were going to bring their former key player into the spotlight again after 30 years of poor management and competition from sexier thirst-quenchers.

Milk was down, but it was not out. Advertisers knew that if they could just convince the youth market that milk was hip and happening, kids would drink it up. Ripped straight from the dark imaginations of focus groups, the initial campaign focused on the horrifying consequences of finding oneself in a situation that demanded milk but where none was available. Frightening, I know. Just imagine, a mouthful of cookie with nothing to chase it down. A dire crisis, indeed. Marketers even referred to this as the "Milk Deprivation Strategy," to give you an idea of the seriousness with which they approached their dalliance with dairy.


Milk knew it needed to get by on more than association alone. Sure, cookies had reasonable child street cred, but they could only take milk so far. Advertisers knew they needed to up the ante a bit and inject some humor to hold people's interest and draw attention to their campaign. Continuing on their general milk deprivation theme, they released this television spot:



We can all relate to this situation. How many times do you find yourself, a devoted Aaron Burr historian and enthusiast, faced with the most simple question in your major area of study yet unable to answer due to unfortunate peanut butter stickiness side effects? Too many to count.

Soon, the phrase "Got Milk?" was everywhere, and as you can imagine, it did not dwindle in its humor or become even minutely annoying the 467th time you saw a t-shirt emblazoned with a "Got _________?" slogan. Endlessly hilarious.




The true heart of the campaign was in the print ads we all so know and love. Originally christened with such creative and demanding slogans such as "Where's your mustache?", these teen-attracting ads were soon absorbed under the larger Got Milk? ad campaign umbrella. Celebrity models sported somewhat unfortunate-looking milk mustaches as marketing teams superimposed witty first-person copy clearly not to be attributed to the person pictured in the ad. Regardless of the falsified text, preteens adored these ads. Young girls plastered the walls of their rooms with them, as if these omnipresent magazine advertisements were rare and collectible. There was even a book published full of these ads featuring behind-the-scenes information about the mustachioed celebs. I am only slightly embarrassed to admit that I owned this book and possibly read it cover to cover, seeking the goodness of milk in light literary form.

These ads were well-targeted and smart. Marketers knew that 90s children pledged essentially undying and unwavering devotion to their celebrity role models. Despite the fact that these celebrity teen role models were generally unqualified to preach anything and would go on to make all sorts of unfortunate life choices, in the 90s their innocence was still intact:




Aren't you glad we listened to these wise, learned teen stars and drank all the milk we could get our hands on? At the time, we wanted to grow up to be just like them. Unfortunately, at the time these ads ran, these adolescent celebrities had yet to grow up themselves. The versions of them that we looked up to had yet to reach their milk-inducing potential. Nowadays, these all-grown-up former teen sensations may not be the picture of wholesomeness and stable health, but at the time we saw them as pure milk success stories.

Sure, the ads also featured real role models like triumphant Olympic athletes, but if you weren't into sports it seemed the best you could wish from milk was to end up like Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan. Now aren't you glad you listened to these good mustachioed people and drank your milk?


Check it out:
Official Got Milk? Website
MooMilk: A Dynamic Adventure into the Dairy Industry
Got Milk? Ads Photostream

Drug PSAs

Drug Public Service Announcements: love 'em or hate 'em, they're here to stay. Drug-centric PSAs skyrocketed to popularity in the late 80s and early 90s based on research that kids, well, enjoy drugs. Luckily, adults were here to put a stop to all that to-be-expected teenage experimentation by use of scare tactics and what can only be characterized as unfair equivocations. For instance, a logical human being may not immediately associate a single puff of a joint with a future of relentless crackheadery, but alas, there was a reason they hired the "creative" types for these ad campaigns.

The themes and approaches of 90s drug PSAs were all over the place; this was certainly not a well-thought out, focused approach. No, that kind of reasoning would be too effective. Instead of banding together to fight a common cause, anti-drug groups felt it better to create a free and unfettered marketplace of anti-substance ideals in which any organization could put out any ad as they saw fit. Never ones to be outdone, all sorts of people in the entertainment industry came out of the woodwork eager to put forth their own PSAs, such as in the following Ninja Turtles' sponsored Anti-Drug Ad. We can only assume that Leonardo really pushed for this as a positive career move for our half-shelled friends, as the notion that any actual human writer with limited functional brain capacity would ever conceive of the following ad is too much to take:





Oh no! Joey's in a jam! Joey's in a jam, indeed. You have to love the way that every anti-drug ad explicitly depicts drug users as overly eager to share their expensive and limited supply of drugs with uninterested others. The way the agressor states, "I've got some stuff you've just gotta try!" you'd think he was begging someone to take these joints off his hands. This kid looks all of 12 years old, so I'm not exactly sure what his major source of income is, but I think it's pretty safe to say that he wouldn't be overly eager to share the fruits of many weeks of allowance-saving with a casual acquaintance who clearly wants no part of it.

I also love the way that they cut to the Ninja Turtles doing a Q&A postmortem on the peer-pressure scenario video segment with a random elementary school class. Usually, when I'm in jam not unsimilar to Joey's, I use my Zack Morris "Freeze!" power to assemble a bunch of random children to talk out my problem with the TMNT themselves. At least the turtles keep it light with their pizza jokes. Get real, Michaelangelo. You also have to love the eagerness with which that kid in front shrieks, "Get out of there!" With enthusiasm like this, it's fairly certain that there are no marijuana users in this classroom.

So way to go, Joey. Call him a turkey! Take that, bully five times Joey's size! And as the turtles say, drug users are dorks! Who better to trust than martial-arts trained sewer-dwelling half-masked pizza-loving mutant turtles? Who, I ask you?

If that one didn't quite jive with you as a child, there was always this more, er, subtle approach:




Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Backtrack a second. I see what you're getting at here with your extended metaphor and all, but...really? I have quite of few points of contention with this ad, the foremost of which being that it's obviously and blatantly insensitive. Of course, though, it doesn't end there! Why does the narrator insist on referring to native Africans of 400 years ago as "African Americans"? They weren't African-Americans when they came here, they were Africans. What a total shot in the dark attempt to be PC in an utterly un-PC commercial.

Oh, voiceover, what gem of wisdom will you share with us next? Oh wait, if I am of African American descent and use drugs, I'm directly dishonoring my ancestors and reenslaving my people? You were always one for subtlety, disembodied voice.

If you still weren't off drugs forever after watching that sobering ad, you could always wait a couple of years to be influenced by this one:




N*Sync, your light and playful tone will surely deter heavy drug use, especially among alternative kids. I don't know if it ever occurred to somebody that N*Sync fans may not be the population most heavily correlated with drug use, but here they are telling us what they're into. And boy, do they have some hilarious fake hobbies! Oh, scriptwriters, have you got these boys pegged. As a former synchronized swimmer, I may have to take some offense to JC's jab, especially because the other lines they give him ("baroque minimalism!") implies that synchronized swimming is in some way wacky and insane (if you are unaware, it's not). You have to enjoy the pre-outed Lance Bance shrieking effeminately, though. At least they had the wisdom to throw some foreshadowing in there for good measure. Oh, and to have him say he's into acting. Touche, scriptwriters. I guess those girls are in the ad to illustrate how desirable N*Sync is. I can't really fathom any alternate explanation for their presence. If anyone was yet to question N*Sync's crediibility and/or masculinity as musical artists, I think this ad probably sealed the deal.

Of course, there was also the more serious (some may say, depressing) approach:




Cue up the maudlin music and watch an adorable inner-city black kid with the hi-top fade haircut dodge the drug pushers. As in the first ad we saw here, it's fair to assume that all drug users are out to force their expensive fare on us. They will not rest until every pocket-moneyless child is forced to try their limited supply of drugs free of charge.

Unfortunately, my favorite-ever anti-drug commercial from 1998 has been forever exiled into the black hole of internet obscurity. Despite an inordinate amount of time spent searching for my once-beloved animated anti-drug PSA, it seems to be completely absent from an otherwise well-stocked video cyberspace. Lucky for all of you, I took a memorization class in gifted summer school in 2nd grade* and have the words forever branded into my once-impressionable childhood brain. It goes a little something like this:

I'd rather eat a big old bug! Than ever take a stupid drug!
Drugs aren't cool, they can mess you up at school,
Drugs are a pain, they can hurt your body and your brain!

A big ol' bug with an ugly mug, is better than any stupid drug!

They make you sad, they make your parents mad,
Drugs are dumb, they make you clumsy, slow, and numb!

I'd rather eat a big old bug...

(Bug interjects:) Don't do drugs!

Than ever take a stupid drug!


There are a lot of confusing elements of this anti-drug jingle, so I'll try my best to break it down for you. First off, are we to believe that the size and age of a given bug are inversely proportional to its desirability relative to drugs? In which case, a young, small bug may not hold the same anti-drug message. Very interesting. And what a kind, selfless bug he is. Even though he knows his life to be at stake with such an anti-drug proclamation, he can tell right from wrong. You just don't see that sort of self-sacrificing sprirt in animated insects these days.

And another thing! Drugs can mess me up at school? My parents will be mad? Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, anti-drug commercial. I'd never considered any of these outcomes before, I was only thinking of the joys of ingesting plump, juicy insects as a healthy alternative to drug use. Now that you've shown me the light (or darkness, of it may be) of drug use, I will dutifully chomp down on this animated bug sandwich to do my part to deter childhood drug abuse. Thanks, Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

For any of you out there (and I assume you are!) thinking to yourselves, "But what of all my favorite non-drug related PSAs from the 90s? Are they doomed to never see the light of Children of the 90s?" Well, I'm sorry to cause you that brief moment of anguish and withdrawal, but fear not; as God as my witness, those PSAs will be here for your enjoyment in a multi-part series I like to call, "Educational Advertising in the 90s is Completely F-ing Insane." Stay tuned!

And if you don't, the drug dealers from that last videos will most likely hunt you down and force it upon you unprovoked. True story.



*This fact is embarrassingly and unjustifiably true

Daria

Hearken back, if you will, to a time when MTV's original programming budget could afford more than the middle school dropout scriptwriters they currently employ to pen Date My Mom and A Shot of Love with Tila Tequila. A time when intelligent sardonic cartoons could still capture the imagination of a preteen audience not yet contaminated by the likes of High School Musical. A time when a contemptuous misanthrope could hold spotlight rather than be banished to the supporting character category.

And if you didn't quite see yourself as a Daria, well, there was always Quinn.

Daria Promo


The characters in Daria ran the social gamut in a manner of sharp satire rarely found in teen-directed television. This was no Saved by the Bell. No, Daria told it like it was; humorously and critically chronicling the vast teenage wasteland of suburbia. It's rare that such an abrasive character can be so likable, but the writers seemed to strike that perfect balance between edgy and observant. Sure, Daria wasn't all rainbows and sunshine, but she was complex and interesting. Not to mention that relating to her made us feel smart.

Yes, Daria Morgendorffer was of a rare breed. It's odd to think that such a profound and well-conceived character was spun off of such an utterly idiotic show as Beavis and Butthead, but so it was. The Daria sense of humor was fully distinct from the crude, if sometimes admittedly funny juvenile style of Beavis and Butthead.

Daria...from humble beginnings

Daria and her peers were developed in an intelligent way that had eluded their show of origin. The show mainly utilized Daria's derisive eye and provided us with endless satirical jabs at our own high school experience. Her distinct outsider status gave us all an opportunity to pretend for a brief moment that we did not occasionally shamefully see ourselves in the mainstream peers that she so disparaged.

Let's explore our quirky Lawndale cast:

Our Hero

Daria Morgendorffer, sarcastic extraordinaire and our eponymous hero. Her deadpan monotone packed a lot of punch into her exceedingly judgmental and smart-alecky comments. She met her best friend Jane in self-esteem enhancement class, if that provides any clue as to how she was perceived by others. She was cynical, opinionated, judgmental, and somewhat of a misfit, but there was something in her that was distinctly relatable nonetheless. The beauty of Daria was that even the most teenyboppery among us had some vague experience with teenage angst, though likely not on a Daria-level. As if by magic, the Daria creators were able to draw out (excuse the cartooning pun) that collective part of our adolescent selves who felt ill-at-ease in our orderly surroundings and make light of it.

The Trusty Sidekick

Jane Lane, Daria's rhyming-monikered partner in crime. Jane was a burgeoning artiste, favoring the odd and unusual in sync with her favorite TV show, "Sick Sad World." Her parents are frighteningly free-spirited, frequently leaving her and her older brother home alone for indeterminate periods of time to raise themselves as they saw fit. Jane had a comparable worldview to Daria, but was somewhat more relenting with her judgment of others and occasionally exhibited a weakness for the mainstream.

The Unrequited Crush

Trent Lane, Jane's brother and equally monotone misguided punk rocker in the band Mystik Spiral. Convinces Daria to pierce her belly button. Obviously bad news.

...Later Replaced by Requited Crush

Tom Sloane, Jane's former boyfriend and all-around likable wealthy snob. Unlike most other teen programs, Daria admirably did not eclipse this boyfriend switcharoo plot line in a single or two-part Blossom-style "Very Special Episode." Rather, the story arc of the tension between Jane and Daria over this clear case of boyfriend stealage was built over an entire season. In the end, Daria was likely just too awkward to maintain a steady relationship, though there was a hilarious after-school-special-esque "should-I-or-shouldn't-I" episode about Daria contemplating the loss of her virginity.

The Well-Meaning Parents

Helen and Jake Morgendorffer, hilariously overdrawn caricatures but well-intentioned parents nonetheless. Helen was a former-hippie-cum-high-powered attorney and was generally clueless about the lives of her daughters. Jake was a repressed stressball marketing consultant known for his ridiculous rants about the light childhood trauma of imposed military school. Helen and Jake would often spit out one another's names as if they were insults in a relatable if somewhat tragic way. These two were also known for occasionally getting freaky. It was relatively disturbing, if admittedly a tad sweet.

The Bubble-Headed Sister

Quinn Morgandorffer, Daria's ray of sunshine and spectacularly vain and materialistic lil' sis. You were never supposed to admit that Quinn was your favorite character in the face of Daria's more subtle humor and charm, but I must admit I was quite taken by Quinn. You wanted to despise her brazen superficiality, but there was something deep within her self-delusion and self-importance that was oddly appealing. If you could bizzaro-ize Daria exactly, Quinn would be the result. But in her own way, she was sort of cute, and not just because she constantly proclaimed herself to be so.

The Fashion Club

Quinn's ultra-superficial clique; Sandi, Stacey, and Tiffany, who possessed as a group probably my favorite voicework on any animated characters, ever. Sandi, the slowed-down-Romy-from-Romy-and-Michelle voice whose tyrannical leadership of the Fashion Club and constant rivalry with Quinn was a never-ceasing divisive issue. Born-follower Stacey, who probably should have been the one sent to self-esteem class for her unceasing agreement with everything ever said by anyone. Tiffany, who spoke so slowly you could knit a scarf in the time it took her to construct a sentence. Priceless. If you could have put a price on it, though, it's fairly certain these girls would have bought it.

The Interchangeable Quinn-Worshippers

Joey, Jeffy, and Jamie. All willing to drop anything to attend to Quinn's every whim. Their devotion and attention to detail was certainly admirable, though possibly a bit creepy.

The Requisite Dumb "Jocks"

Brittany and Kevin, dumb as rocks and constantly making out in the hallway. Need I say more?

Our Taste of Suburban Diversity

Jodi Landon and Michael "Don't Call Me Mack-Daddy" Mackenzie; the sole two black students at Lawndale High. Overachieving and sometimes a tad bitter about their ignorant classmates, but generally amiable.

The Generally Insane School Faculty

Lawndale High had a distinct knack for attracting faculty of the sanitarium-escapee variety. This ragtag gang of educators included an overly flirtatious bitter divorcee science teacher, the prone-to-shouting perpetually eye-poppingly angry history teacher, Stuart-Smalley-esque English teacher, and budget-hungry principal. Sure, there were a few normal ones in the bunch, but overall these teachers had a certain quality that made us wonder who let them work with children in the first place. We can only image it was part of some sort of work-release program.

As a burgeoning adolescent sarcastic, I too fancied myself some variety of Daria. The fact that I bought a ring bearing her sacred image at the Viacom store in New York City is a clear testament to my Quinn-rivaling lack of irony. This, however, reflected the beauty of Daria. It could be both a biting social commentary and successful commercial enterprise. They even shamelessly exercised some cute if somewhat tired gimmicks like musical episodes and full-length TV movies. The show differentiated itself from others, however, with its own unique brand of humor and distinctly un-MTV-esque quality. If you've ever sat through an episode of Parental Control, you know that's a good thing.

It also helped that the show didn't take itself too seriously, as many teen shows of the time were wont to do. Daria maintained a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek tone that created a cartoon world in which nothing was sacred, or at least nothing was safe from the show's critical lens. The wit was dry and sharp and utterly unapologetic. Better yet, the show's credits ended with "alter-ego" drawings of the main characters dressed as famous figures. What's not to like?


If you never got into it or simply can't seem to conjure up the memories, I've included a handy full episode (Season 3, episode 6, "It Happened One Nut") to revive what I can only hope will be your undying and forever devoted love to a once-great MTV show. If this doesn't convince you to join the fight for DVD release, I'm not sure what will:

Daria-peanut
Uploaded by micophive

Check it out:
Secret Stash of multi-part full eps on YouTube
Outpost Daria

Doc Martens

Who wouldn't get in line to purchase overpriced footwear once associated with skinheads and gangs of the 1960s and 70s? There's nothing like taking a ripe piece of subculture and mainstreaming it to the popular kids. How exactly the Doc Martens people ever convinced hordes of Abercrombie-wearing, gum-chewing, Backstreet Boy CD-purchasing teenyboppers that these grungy workboots were the height of cool is a mystery best left to professionals. There was clearly a force bigger than all of us urging all of these head cheerleaders and lacrosse team captains to beg their parents to shell out for these pricey shoes.

It may be fair to theorize that the rise of Doc Martens fell somewhat in step with the rise of grunge culture, but it's also relatively safe to say that many of the middle schoolers sporting Doc Martens in the mid-90s didn't know Kurt Cobain from Adam. It would be easy to shove the blame for this trend onto a reputable cultural phenomenon, but the horrifying truth was that these clunky shoes had a following entirely separate from their initial 90s grunge roots. No, many of these kids actually had the gall to like these shoes on alleged merit alone. To many of us, there was nothing sexier than seeing a potential mate clomping around in a charming pair of 12-pound clunky rubber-soled boots or sandals.

Truthfully, Doc Martens' popularity crested at the point of contact between grunge chic and preppy Clueless-style fashion. Lost and confused, we were eager to fit in but perplexed by the wide range of wardrobe trends to which we could feasibly subscribe. Like a deer in the headlights, many were so blinded to fit in that they were willing to forsake principles in their fashion choices and don a mishmosh of incongruous trends. Thankfully, Doc Martens were also available in styles I like to refer to as "Doc Marten Lite." This set of equally cumbersome but less counter-culture-esque footwear included sandals, mary janes, and ordinary-model shoes in lieu of the more in-your-face, take-that-authority style boots. It was as if kids were saying, I like the idea of these badass shoes but I also am concerned about completing homework assignments in full and not arriving tardy to homeroom.

In a time where name brands were king and no brand emblazonment was too brazen or tasteless, Doc Martens neatly filled a void in the shoe department with its easily recognizable signature stitching. The truly punk-rock or grunge among us liked these shoes for what they stood for, but the more shallower (read: the majority) of teens wore these because they were hopelessly lemming-like and wanted everyone to know exactly what brands they were sporting. There were countless imitation DMs on the market, but none of them could achieve that glorious undeserved sense of self-worth achieved by having a pair of shoes with thick yellow stitching just above the soles. Mainstream kids could breathe a sigh of relief that their yellow-stitched stompers would not go unnoticed.


These shoes weren't exactly cheap, either. Many of us were forced to deliver formal presentations to our parents convincing them of the merits of shelling out over a hundred bucks a pop for these babies*. Our in vogue classmates often had more than one pair so as to give their loud foot-stepping some visual variety, so parents came to know these shoes as a steep monetary endeavor. You could claim all you wanted that this was an investment and that you would wear them forever, but I challenge you to find more than a handful of 90s children who can recall the fate of their once-beloved Doc Martens.

Doc Martens weren't just iconic in the 90s for their presence, but for the inexplicable ways in which their bizarre trend was manifest on adolescent feet nationwide. One of the most curious exhibitions of Doc Martenry was the odddly sought-after socks-and-DM-sandals look. While just a few years ago we may have chastised our fathers on vacation for sporting a similar look to match their fanny pack and passport holder necklace, this look was suddenly all the rage. We're not just talking any socks here, either. No, the fashion-conscious knew it was specifically white socks--that is to say, those most closely tied to the dreaded tourist-father-with-straight-bill-baseball-cap look--that made you a genuine style maven.

While the shoes were certainly comfortable and functional (aside from the inevitable drag associated with carrying the equivalent of two-ton bricks on each foot), they could not remain in the fashion spotlight forever. Much to the I-told-you-so style castigations of our parents, so too did this trend eventually end up lost somewhere in the back of our closets next to the piles of plaid skorts and convenient 43-pocket cargo shorts. For those of you lucky enough to have preserved your shoes properly (if like me, your shoe store threw in a free tin of Doc Marten shoe shine balm!) there is still hope yet that these shoes will live to see another day outside the circle of gardeners and neo-Nazis who favor them today.

Quirky-styled supermodel Agyness Deyn has been seen all about town sporting these old standards, poising them for a comeback. For those of you who have been eagerly anticipating the second coming of these shoes (in your lifetime, at least), you may just be in luck.



Then again, she's also sporting white leggings, a sweater miniskirt, giant blue hair bow, and leather-and-shearling coat complete with multiple non-functional belts, so this trend may not quite be ready for the masses yet. Lucky for you, there may still be time for you yet to recover your old Docs.

But this time, let's lose the socks.





*Was this really just me? Because I must say I had some pretty penetrating pie charts.

Lunchables

In the late 80s and early 90s, the Oscar Meyer company was out to prove that they were more than just a catchy jingle and a Wienermobile. At this point, we were all fairly aware of Oscar Meyer's way with B-O-L-O-G-N-A. We were relatively proficient in identifying our bologna by both its first and second names. We even had general affection for ingesting the aforementioned mysterious lunchmeat daily. What more could they want from us?

Perhaps they were upset were were packing non-Oscar Meyer brand products in our school lunches. Maybe it was that sometimes we favored Jennie-O Turkey Breast over our old mystery meat pal bologna. Or possibly they were just concerned we weren't meeting our daily sodium level potential. Whatever the instigator may have been, the quest to streamline the lunch-packing process had begun.

When it came to the 1990s elementary school cafeteria, brown bags and insulated coolers were out and prepackaged boxed lunches were in. Suddenly the height of cafeteria coolness revolved around snack-like, nutritionally devoid, candy toting yellow boxes. To pull out one of those signature Lunchables boxes at lunch time was to declare yourself party to the latest in food trends and blatantly flaunt your parents' reputable recalcitrance for wholesome nourishment. Those of us whose parents insisted on packing us a food pyramid-inspired balanced meal were forced to hang our heads in shame at our lack of preboxed lunchtime delights.

The Lunchables roster certainly expanded over the years, but it began with a simple savory formula: crackers, adorably miniature slices of lunchmeat, and overprocessed and suspiciously orange cheese slices. Later models included such awe-inspiringly nutrition-void amenities as Capri Sun drink pouches and a fun size portion of candy. Some of us, though I won't say who, learned the don't-put-metal-in-the-microwave lesson the hard way via the addition of the metallic Capri Sun pouches. Her parents may or may not have frozen Lunchables for posterity and future lunchability, and she was not quite patient enough to let it thaw. Again, I'm not naming names, but she may or may not have broken her family's brand new microwave through this ill-fated Lunchable venture*.



Lunchable varieties became increasingly questionable with each successive incarnation. Each model stayed true to the original formula of a collection of spare lunch parts complete with assembly instructions, but Oscar Meyer certainly weren't afraid to experiment with creativity. They churned out pizzas, nachos, mysterious forms of "dunkers," tacos, and nearly any other fathomable junk food-based product. Naturally (or as the case warranted, by means of artificial flavoring) it was only a matter of time before anti-childhood obesity groups and health advocates stormed the Lunchables bastille in the name of all things overly salty.


Yes, these salt-packed snacks were tasty, but it's largely due to the fact that they were often packing a whopping three quarters of a daily recommended value of sodium for an adult. Mind you, these were mainly consumed by children, so it's fairly simple to deduce that the sodium content more than exceeded their healthy daily dosage. This preservative-rich snack boxes came under fire for their absolute defiance in the face of rising health consciousness. Essentially, researchers looked on in horror as morbidly obese children waddled to their lunch tables, inhaled a Lunchable, chased it with the fun size candy, and went into a salt coma. These were kids walking through their elementary school hallways single file not out of obedience to teachers but out of necessity to fit through the cafeteria door.

The Oscar Meyer/Kraft people could only hold out for so long. There was really no adequate defense for the remarkably low nutrition levels of their products, other than that children adored them and their junk-foody contents. As long as there was a consumer demographic of parents still willing to poison their children with dangerous sodium levels, there was no reason for them to make any sort of adjustment. However, as the pressure from nutrition advocates mounted and led to devastatingly bad press for Oscar Meyer/Kraft, the company quickly changed their salty tune.


It may be a bit harsh to say they sold out, considering the admittedly poor levels of nutrition in the original product. However, they did oblige to their opposition and began offering options such as fruit juice and yogurt. While these new additions may have had some grounding in health food, it's pretty safe to say they didn't significantly alter the overall caloric content. Regardless, as long as the juvenile salt-related cardiac arrest subsided, they were able to quietly continue packing children chock full of delicious artificial additives.

That said, it's important to note that some of their current releases are highly questionable. Take this disturbingly fizzy pop-rocks knockoff meat+candy creation.It just goes to show you that change does not necessarily equal progress. To its credit, however, the packaging does herald the excellence of the meal's calcium content. Calcium or not, the whole thing seems pretty suspicious. It's safe to say that while contemporary children may not enjoy the same levels of salty deliciousness, Lunchables continue to outrage parents everywhere in a distinctly kid-pleasing manner.

And isn't that what really counts?






*In case you failed to gather from the heavy hints, this was clearly me. I never did own up to breaking the microwave.

Body Glitter

Many people are slaves to fashion. They will blindly follow the trends presented to them as the height of attractiveness, regardless of the actual appeal. Or at least, one can only assume they do it blindly. There's not much of an excuse for those of us with fully functional vision to jump on the bandwagon.

Body Glitter is a prime example of this lemming-style following. We sheepishly (yes, sheepishly) look back at our complete lack of individuality and low sense of self as we wince and grimace over old photos of us sporting the most absurd of fashion statements. It was so obviously unbecoming, unsubtle, and unsightly, but we begged our parents to buy us great pots of the glittery goop nonetheless. We weren't picky about its form; it could be semi-gelatinous or congealed, liquid or solid, roll-on or spray mist, lip gloss or nail polish. If it sparkled, we were desperate to get our hands on it.

Not even top 90s teen celebrities were immune to the allure of slathering their stomachs in glitter

For young girls growing up in the 1990s, glitter was like a broad-point neon highlighter. We assumed that if there was something we wanted to call attention to, the only viable solution was to douse it in sparkles. How were middle school boys ever going to notice your stunningly feminine clavicle bones if not for carefully calculated application of glitter to that area? How, I ask you?

The glitter was ubiquitous. If there was some appreciably visible surface on our bodies, it was subsequently slathered in glitter. No bodily territory was sacred. We didn't so much treat our bodies as temples but as fun-houses. Cosmetic companies produced all fathomable forms of the stuff. You could paint it on your nails, gloss it on your lips, smear it across your chest and shoulders, or even spray or comb it into your hair. If there was an area you wanted glittered, cosmetic companies were eager to oblige and feed our frenzied desire to ensparkle every inch of ourselves.

Makeup companies like Hard Candy and Urban Decay capitalized on our vulnerability to sweeping trends and presented us with an unending array of glitterizers. They knew we were eager to indiscriminately smear glitter all over our faces, and they were properly prepared with plenty of sparkly ammunition.

Hard Candy supplied us with sugary-sweet candy-colored glittery nail polishes with names like Sunshine and Sky.


In contrast, Urban Decay provided us with an endless palette of of shimmery eye shadows with such charming designations as Asphyxia and Acid Rain.


Oddly, these companies marketed to the same demographic and we consumed them both with little thought of subscribing to two absolutely incongruous cosmetic-producing forces. As middle schoolers, we weren't much for irony. It is pertinent to mention that these companies are now owned by the same parent corporation, presumably stuck together with all the remaining mucilaginous glitter residue in their respective R & D departments.

With respect to our aimless glitter consumption, the problem was not so much in the shimmering. Sure, it can be nice to bring focus to some key areas through the subtle use of mainstream cosmetics. However, as sixth graders, we lacked this global perspective on socially acceptable makeup and instead sought out more age-appropriate incarnations of our earlier childhood EZ-2-do bedazzlers. It seemed harmless enough. What was the worst that could happen? So we sparkled for a few hours, and then we could rinse it off.

Or so we thought.

There's one serious problem with glitter that middle school girls of the 90s failed to foresee.

It. Never. Washes. Off.

Seriously. Never. If you don't believe me, consult Demetri Martin and/or this t-shirt (available here):


It never washes off.

It does, however, behave in some other notably unfortunate ways. I'm not sure if you're aware, but bodies tend to sweat, especially when thrust into a mid-90s rave-type setting (before they were all busted by Dateline NBC, that is.) While 250 young girls are out in some abandoned warehouse taking ecstasy, listening to techno music, and waving glow sticks, the carefully preapplied sparkles at the corners of their eyes and on their shoulders are beginning to gelatinize. There was no more disgusting visual as curdled, clumpy body glitter. Fortunately for the precendent ravers, they were fortuitously swathed in the incessant flash of strobe lights. Less lucky for us girls caught in such a dilemma at say, a bar mitzvah party or a junior high dance, where we were decidedly SOL under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the synagogue auditorium or school cafeteria.

Despite our knowledge of the semi-permanent consequences, we pressed on in our quests to out-sparkle our peers. While "body glitter" is a fairly unobjectionable blanket term, some of the products housed under that broad umbrella were downright revolting. Those of us with the most minor of flairs for subtlety would opt for a tub of glitter gel or a misting glitter body spray, but the major attention seekers in our 7th grade classes were blatantly envelope-pushing. They would paint it on their nails, only to realize they would remain in that fossilized form for years to come. These girls weren't content with shimmering Bonne Bell Lipsmackers like the rest of us; they had to resort to full on chunks-of-glitter in their lipsticks. They were also the targets of one of the more loathsome and confusing products to be launched by mid-90s cosmetic corporations.

Say it with me now: glitter hair mascara.


But wait, you say. Isn't mascara for eyelashes? What on earth is it doing in your hair?

Well, we were wondering the same thing. Unfortunately for us, our impressionability to peer pressure at that age left us powerless to stop this force. Yes, we dutifully combed glitter into our hair, only to find ourselves completely and utterly cemented to our pillows the next morning. But dammit, did our hair sparkle.

Whether you were a glitter dabbler or devotee, one thing was for certain: if you chose to apply it to your body, you were in for the long haul. As chemists project the glitter to have a 10 year half-life*, you're probably still scrubbing yourself raw in an effort to remove it.

Of course you're not alone. You can seek help here, here, or here, though there are no guarantees.

And if that doesn't work, well, you'll always have your sparkling memories firmly adhered to your cheekbones.


*This scientific fact is completely made up. Get it? Made-up? Makeup? Okay, fine, don't come along with me for that one. Either way, it's not true.



Check it out:

A website fully devoted to the sale of all things body glitter
The ultimate horror: a make your own body glitter kit

Bill Nye the Science Guy

Hello and welcome to Nineties Institute examination. I will be proctoring this examination. You must use a standard, wooden, graphite-based No. 2 pencil for all portions of the test. Bubbles next to your answers should be filled in completely. All other bubbles should be empty. Be sure to make your marks heavy and dark.

Ready?

Begin!

Question 1: When you think science, what comes to mind?

A) Petri dishes
B) Graduated cynlinders
C) Mysteriously smoking noxious compounds
D) Rap music video parodies

Question 2: Who is to thank for bringing you endless hours of science-based entertainment?

A) Your parents
B) Your teachers
C) Your classmates
D) Viewers like you

Question 3: When something in science excites you, your immediate reaction is to:

A) Record it
B) Share it with the class
C) Continue careful observation
D) Chant wildly, "Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill!"

If you answered all or mostly "Ds," you must have been a fan of Bill Nye the Science Guy. Or at least you watched it in middle school science class.



For some reason, this tall, lanky self-proclaimed "science guy" had a sort of hypnotizing quality over us. Maybe it was the cheesy way in which he and his cast mates sought to relate to contemporary youth culture. Maybe it was his ultra-dramatic voice-overs indicating the scientific value of the subject at hand. Maybe it was his bowties.

In retrospect, probably the bowties.

Although Bill Nye the Science guy was decidedly directed at a preteen audience, it was chock-full of teenage pop culture references. Perhaps the show's writers formulated the ratio Teenage Culture: Preteens ≥ Coolness and thus inferred that Teenage Culture + Science = Cool. It's all very scientific, but I swear it adds up in a deductive reasoning type of way.


In short, the show capitalized on 90s youth culture standards to entice tweens to learn a thing or two about science. If there was ever a more absurd adult-use-of-teenage slang than the catchy Bill Nye slogan, "Science Rules!" I'd like you to show me. Sure, we all knew it was corny, but Bill and the gang presented it to us with such enthusiasm that we often couldn't help but get caught up in it. Often before presenting some seemingly commonplace object, a voice-over would boldly declare "This is the _______....OF SCIENCE!" The ______ of science, indeed.

It also sometimes took on an children-directed sketch-comedy type quality à la All That, such as in this charming cross-dressing segment featuring Bill Nye as the lovely Vivian Cupcake:




Cheesy, yes, but at least you learned something and experienced some mild form of educational entertainment. Bill Nye the Science guy was into well-worn comedic territory in a big way. For some reason as of yet to be explained by indoor kids and middle school science teachers (i.e. the show's main audience,) Bill Nye loved parodies. And not necessarily clever ones, either. We're talking more Weird Al than Christopher Guest. Many of these parody sketches went a little something like this:





Aside from the regular sketch-comedy-esque spoken bits, most episodes also featured a parody music video as well. If I hadn't already mentioned Weird Al, this would be a great time to reference him. Unfortunately, I've already used that one so I may just need to let the following video speak for itself.

I present to you, the grunge-tastic Nyevana as "Smells Like Air Pressure:"



You may be asking yourself, wait, did they really just parody Nirvana in full costume to illustrate a scientific phenomenon? The correct answer would be yes, yes, they did. Nothing is too far in the name of lightly comedic science educational television programming. At least they got the correct dirt-to-hair ratio on that one.

As Nyevana, Sure-Floats-a-Lot , or Carpoolio, the Science Guy and his pals certainly had their finger on the pulse of America's youth. At the very least, they could provide some pertinent information on its beats per minute or arterial pathways.

Check it out:

Funny Bill Nye Onion Parody
Even funnier follow-up inquiry

Choose Your Own Adventure

You find yourself in an underwater palace. You see the walls slowly moving inwards on you, and begin to panic. You have 12 minutes worth of oxygen remaining.

To continue exploring the underwater palace for treasure, turn to page 18.
To swim ashore to safety, turn to page 22.

What would you do? The options are endless! Well, actually, there are only two. But, hey, I get to choose! Let's swim to safety! The word "safety" is right there! A clue!

You are nearly to the shore. Dry land is a mere 100 yards away! You notice a shark encircling you, blocking your escape to safety.

The shark eats you and you proceed to die a tragic, gory, horrifyingly gruesome death.

Okay, so maybe Choose Your Own Adventure books weren't quite so graphic, but there was a lot of dying. The publishers easily could have released a subseries entitled "Choose Your Own Death" and no one would bat an eye.

The omnipresent themes of untimely death led to the inevitable appearance of spoof CYOA covers like this one

Fortunately for persistent and patient (read: cheating) readers, there was usually one measly way out. However, if you took a single misstep (or mispage-turn, as the case may have been) you would have to spend hours retracing your path and trying to save your doomed reader self from certain death in endless capacities. The more savvy and lazy of CYOA readers would flip ahead in search of the heroically safe solution, but the real devotees suffered endless deaths in their quest for ultimate salvation.

Choose Your Own Adventure books were not solely a 90s phenomenon, but certainly enjoyed a heyday during the decade. In step with parenting trends emphasizing the individuality and uniqueness of each child, parents sought out reading experiences that would draw out their child's exceptional qualities. Okay, so maybe that isn't exactly true, but I had you there for a second, didn't I?

Initially formulated in the 1970s as Adventures of You, CYOA pioneer Edward Packard quickly saw the error of his grammatical ways and changed the title to the now known-and-loved Choose Your Own Adventure. You would be hard-pressed to find a more straightforward and self-explanatory name for a book series, but their charm was implicit in their simplicity. Perhaps they weren't literary masterpieces, but their interactivity certainly got kids reading, if only to find out all of the spine-tinglingly grisly forms of death that awaited them at every wrong page turn.

A seriously clever (if somewhat blurry) map of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Book from www.seanmichaelragan.com

With hilariously tongue-in-cheek titles like You are Microscopic (1992) and Tattoo of Death (1995), it was clear the series' authors didn't take themselves too seriously. Certainly there was never another series whose titles so frequently made use of poorly-placed exclamation marks. In fact, it was as if all the authors had taken some sort of Into to Choose Your Own Adventure course with a heavy focus in exclamatory punctuation. Such ridiculous titles as Hijacked! (1990), Kidnapped! (1991), Earthquake! (1992), and Typhoon! (1995) made use of this absurd formatting. It seemed to become a successful CYOA author, you needed only to think of a single theme, italicize it, add an exclamation mark, and you would be immediately added to the publisher's catalog. Come book-order time, your long-awaited title Unneccessary! would shoot to the top of the RL-6 bestseller charts.


Also notable in CYOA stylings was its unique use of familiar pronouns to address the reader directly. Usually, we open a book expecting to be a third party to the story and would be a bit shaken if the author began making direct requests of us. However, Choose Your Own Adventure books were formatted to make the reader feel as if he or she was actually directing of the action, no matter to what extent the quality and grammar would suffer. It was all about you, and it was thus necessary to begin practically every sentence with that pronoun. It's as if the authors feared that if they briefly diverged from constantly referencing the second person singular, the reader would be completely lost. "Well, wait a minute," they'd say, scratching their heads. "I thought this was about me. Why, I'm not in here at all!"

The best part of these books was that plot was generally a secondary feature. The author had used most of his or her talent and energy to produce a fully-functional interactive book that brings a reader to an ending with each read. It was almost as if the plot was an afterthought. After all, who was the author to be writing anything of substance when it was you, the reader, who was to choose his or her own adventure? To illustrate this point, I give you the back-cover copy off classic CYOA #11, Mystery of the Maya. Granted, this particular book was published in 1981, but I assure you it only got worse rather than better:

Your best friend Tom has been in Mexico for a short trip, working on a TV report on the ancient Mayan civilization. Three days ago, he vanished without a trace. The only clues you have are terrible, haunting nightmares where Tom is killed in a Mayan sacrificial ceremony. You must find him before these nightmares become reality! Can you even trust your own dreams? Maybe someone is telepathically leading you off course so you'll never reach your friend in time! What should you do next?

Of course! A Mayan sacrificial ceremony! There is really no other remotely credible explanation for your friend's disappearance. Well, except for that someone may be using their powerful influential ESP to lead you astray. Back of the book, you ask such powerfully deep questions. What should I do next?

If you've yet to get your fix of these, fear not, they're still available at fine retailers everywhere. If you're not into the retro reading, in 1998 they began publishing new CYOA titles under the cleverly-named Chooseco label. Just think, if they can select a company name like that, imagine what sort of choices they have in store for you!

Check it out:
Official Chooseco CYOA site
Choose Your Own Adventure...DVDs?
Awesome CYOA T-Shirt

13 Dead End Drive

Do you enjoy the murder mystery of Clue but yearn for the impossible assembly of Mousetrap? Have you ever said to yourself, why, I really enjoy this board game but I find the simple construction a bit lacking? Perhaps you fancy yourself the type who enjoys poring over 248-step instruction manuals, wishing for more detailed descriptions?

For some people, the journey is more important than the destination. These are the people you see out there now as adults scouring Ikea for the most complicated Splorgerfläts and Hoüfengloubers they can find, if only for the extensive diagrammed wordless instruction packets. They are still out there, looking for their next cheap assembly-induced thrill.

Who says children's games need to be simple? I say sucks to your Hi-Ho Cherry-O and Candyland. I'm talking about something here for our die-hard fans of never-ending, plot-twisting, perpetual board games like Monopoly or Risk. Something that comes with an instructional manual so long that it will make your eyes cross and your brain go numb. Now, if only there was a board game somewhere out there that was equally complicated to the aforementioned interminable bemusement but could be completed in full in roughly a quarter of the time.

13 Dead End Drive was one of these games, and it was gloriously, inimitably complex. In fact, it often required a set-up time nearly as long as the average gameplay. For patient children, however, there was great payoff. For those of us persistent enough to make it through the instruction novella, there was a hefty reward of secret passageways, booby traps, and the aspiration of hanging your character's portrait over the coveted mansion mantelplace.




There's nothing like a children's game with honesty. Kids have all sorts of day-to-day educational exposure from which to garner important if somewhat inapplicable moral lessons. Sometimes, what kids really need is the brutal truth about the way our world works. 13 Dead End Drive was able to fill that void of cynical realism for the under-12 set. The premise of the game centered around a wealthy heirless woman named Agatha whose death had prompted all those who knew her to emerge from the woodwork in hopes of getting their money-grubbing paws on her fortune. Why sugarcoat it? Kids should know it's a cold, cruel world out there, and if they can just obtain the good favor of a wealthy recluse they can undeservedly inherit her hard-earned cash. Nothing wrong with that, right?


For those of you who do not remember the game in all its complexities, I seek to remind you of its intricacies with the following board set-up diagram:



Still not convinced? Here are a couple of close-ups:



If you can't deduce the major aims of the game from those diagrams alone, here's a brief rundown. I'll try to keep it short to keep your head from spinning. At the start of the game, each player picks several cards featuring their assumed character identities. In a large gilt frame above the mansion's fireplace hangs an ever-changing painting featuring the likeness of one of Aunt Agatha's favorites to inherit her millions. While escaping the mansion with one of your characters' portraits displayed in the frame was a way to win and end the game, during the regular course of play it generally meant that everyone else was trying to kill you. Each player could move the game piece of his or her choosing on a given turn, regardless of to whom that character actually belonged. While there are numerous ways in which to emerge victorious, in its most simplified version you were trying to get your character out of this deathtrap safely while displayed as the favorite, end as the sole living potential heir, or go the more honest route and let the detective sort it out while your picture was in the top spot.

Sound confusing? Certainly! Did your eyes glaze over as you found yourself skimming and scrolling down past even that most concise of explanations of the game's rules? Of course! Now, imagine instructions five times as long and twelve times as complex as the preceding paragraph. Also, it was directed at children 8-12. We can only assume that as children, we had far more perseverance and commitment to finish the job than as lazy, web-browsing adults.

It was certainly cool (if a tad cruel) to beam your opponent's game piece on the head with a falling chandelier or a faultily-assembled suit of armor, but these intricate apparatuses don't build themselves. I dare you to check out the assembly instructions and emerge from your reading confident that you when where to attach pieces A-V. The instruction booklet is slightly contradictory in describing its "easy assembly" just briefly before the phrase "Then snap-fit the trigger (J) onto the beam. also in­serting its V-shaped tab into the rod’s slot. See Figure 6B. Hook the small rubber band over the trigger and rod in the notches as shown in figure 6C." Simple, yes?

At least once it was put together, you got to lure your unsuspecting fellow players into well-set mansion traps and bludgeon them to death with all sorts of dangerous fare. There were also innumerable ways in which to be utterly and unapologetically deceitful. You could make use of the secret passageways to push other players into the line of fire. You could also mislead your playmates by strategically choosing to move your own characters into a dangerous area, only to divert their attention from the wicked trap you were springing on one of their guys. In short, the game was endless fun but taught a series of skills more at home in a seedy poker hall than a basement rec room.

Summarily, the game was undoubtedly entertaining but morally bankrupt. At least we could possibly learn a thing or two about construction from putting the thing together. Kids these days would never be that patient and painstaking in their quest for board gaming fun. Right?

Wrong. There was actually a follow-up game entitled "1313 Dead End Drive" released in 2002. I assume their creative department was on break when that name got passed. Instead of 12 potential heirs, the new version includes a frightening 16. In this version, you also get to straight up steal bags of money, cleverly referred to as "moneybags". Reviews of this new version on boardgamegeek.com have such colorful titles as "Light, Fun, Brutal Game" and "Kill, Kill, Kill!", if that gives settles any doubts you may have had about the new game's nature.



Milton Bradley had it wrong. The game was solid enough in its original form. As too often happens with sequels, flashy gimmicks replace the substance we once reveled in. Then again, who am I to rain on today's kids' bout of light, brutal fun? You can purchase the old or new version and decide for yourself.

And for those of you who have graduated to an Ikea-level of assembly expertise, feel free to use the Swedish version of the rules.

Jock Jams

It only occurs to me now that the Jock Jams music series was in some way related to athletics in a "pump-you-up" sort of way. We all just accepted that the series was called "Jock Jams;" for years I thought it was a legitimate category of music. There was punk, top 40, rock, grunge, adult alternative, and Jock Jams.

Jock Jams was certainly unrelenting in its commitment to providing a singular type of music. Tack listings featured such non-sensically titled classics as "Whoomp! There it is!" "Boom, Boom, Boom" "Da' Dip" and "Tubthumping." Obviously, using words found in the dictionary was not a requirement for admission to Jock Jams stardom. If you could verbalize some sort of grunting sound and write a song about it, you were in. Pump-up themes were also prevalent and pervasive. The first volume featured a staggering 3 songs with the phrase "pump it up!" in their titles. There was no question this franchise was churning out upbeat tunes, as evidenced by a whopping 11 uses of the word "up" in song titles alone in the five Jock Jams albums.


These compliation CDs featured more than just music, though it was their main jock-inspiring focus. Jock Jams also included some spoken and/or chanted tracks full of strangely taunting remarks, often with vengeful undertones. These short tracks were cleverly faded into the next song, with little or no delay between tracks. Assumedly, this was to keep the jocks jamming uninterruptedly. There's nothing a jamming jock despises more than a two second pause between tracks. What sort of a bench press soundtrack would this be if lifters were forced to endure a one-second silence? How would they possibly build up the motivation to increase their muscular capacity if involuntarily subjected to quietude? How, I ask you?


Although the album covers declared the compilations to be presented by the distinctly athletic ESPN, in reality, these supposed "jock" jams were directed more at a teenybopper slash dance club crowd than their eponymous sportsmen demographic. In this sense, the spoken tracks were possibly misdirected with their vindictive themes. A bunch of 12-year olds chanting, "Hey, hey, you! Get out of our way because today is the day we will put you away!" is a tad more disconcerting and less appropriate than say, a football team delivering the same unsportmanlike message. Regardless of their out-of-placedness among the actual consumers, the spoken tracks had a certain charm to them that uniquely characterized the albums.


The most recognizable was of course the classic intro to the original Jock Jams (volume one) was the infamous boxing announcer Michael Buffer's trademarked phrase, "Let's get ready to ruuuuuumble!" Listeners were indeed, ready to rumble, possibly not in a punch-you-out fashion but at the very least in a 90s dance-club rump-shaking manner.

Jock Jams actually had listed tracks attributed to their very own Jock Jams cheerleaders, presumably those pictured on their various album covers. Though it was never made clear exactly what the prerequisites for Jock Jam cheerleaderdom were, we can only assume that the audition process required a yelling/spelling combo exam.

"Alright girls, all 28 of you have passed the shouting test, great work. Unfortunately, only 3 of you passed the spelling portion of the tryout. For those of you who spelled 'action' a-c-k-s-h-u-n, better luck next year trying out for volume 3 when we'll be asking you to incorrectly spell the word 'rowdy' with an 'i-e'." (Note: there is indeed a track on Jock Jams Volume 3 entitled "R.O.W.D.I.E". Check out the track listing for yourself if you have any remaining incredulity about the ridiculousness of these anthologies.)


These CDs included many of our favorite standard 90s upbeat tracks like the Macarena and the Space Jam theme, but also had some odd remixes thrown in for good measure. I'd been meaning to remix the Mexican Hat Dance for awhile now, but the good people at Jock Jams beat me to it. I also played around with the idea of turning "If You're Happy and You Know It" into a rockin' club jam, but again Jock Jams had clearer foresight than I. Did I mention I've always loved when they play the Chicken Dance at classy church-basement weddings...aw, come on, Jock Jams! You've got to be kidding me. That too? What won't you remix? It's obviously back to the drawing board for me.

The 1990s were famous for megamixing everything. We could never be satisfied with just mixing. Even supermixing seemed too tame for our extreme 90s music tastes. No, it was was megamix or nothing. Megamixing was the fine-tuned art of taking approximately one line from every song, in this case from a single compilation album, and mixing them into a something that even the most attention-deficit nineties child could attend to.

"We've tried mixing it...but could we megamix it? Our demographic prefers to listen to their favorite songs in snippets, people!"



I'll admit it is catchy. While the Jock Jams franchise was not creative by any means, you have to admire them for holding out all these years with their initial premise. The CDs were wildly popular and sold hundreds of thousands of copies. No 6th grade basketball tournament would be complete without a pre-game layup show set to some variation of the megamix. Jocks or not, children of the 90s reveled in the eardrum-shattering flavor of these CDs.

So go ahead, children of the 90s. Pop a Jock Jams the boombox, crack open a bottle of Surge, zip up that Starter Jacket, and get ready to rumble.