Frequently Banned Young Adult Books: 90s Edition

On an aside, this is my 200th post! That's a whole lot of 90s. PS don't forget to enter all and any personal or family Glamour Shots in the Glamour Shots Challenge! Send your undoubtedly embarrassing photos to childrenofthe90s@gmail.com.

Not only did I miss banned books week, this poster is from last year!

I know I'm about a month too late to engage in any sort of nationally conscious discussion during Banned Books week; my complete inattention to detail and timely pertinent bookstore displays is starting to show. It's an important issue at any time, though, and if it means we get to join in on mocking all those who seek to censor our allegedly inappropriate literary content, then all the better. If there's a bannedwagon out there, I'm jumping on it. Get it? Bannedwagon? Anyone?

*Cranes neck and shields eyes from monitor glare to gaze out at bewildered readers through their computer screens*

Painful puns aside, it's an issue many of us may not have been aware of as children but that continues to plague libraries and school systems everywhere. In any given society, there's bound to be a vocal contingency of uptight people engaging in the rectal transport of sticks. In a society that enourages free speech, however, the irony of their existence is no doubt lost on their closed minds. That is, the free speech stipulations that allow them to spout misguided uneducated drivel without consequence is the same ruling that upholds these authors' collective right to publish what they please. Quite a conundrum, huh?

Unsurprisingly, parents make up the majority of literary naysayers. It's natural for parents to be concerned about their innocent children's easily corruptible young minds, but the idea of each of us having our own parents is that families can make decisions for themselves and not society at large. Unfortunately, whoever yells the loudest often gains the widest audience, meaning these book banners garnered a lot of attention for their shouting and finger-pointing.

The most frequent reasons cited for protesting a book are sexuality, language, or "unsuitable material". In short, our intellectual freedom to grow and mature as eager young readers is most often suppressed by a bunch of prudes. Because why encourage a child to enjoy reading when you can teach them the value of complaining?

Here's a light sampling of the most frequently banned young adult books during the 90s. Many of the books were written decades earlier, but remained in the forefront of the censorship agenda:



The Giver


In this 1984-esque Utopian science fiction novel, Lois Lowry outlines a world of compliant individuals content to languish in their colorless world. The protagonist Jonas is stuck in a frightening sterile world where people are tightly controlled and exist without emotion. They even take pills to quell the sexual "stirrings" they feel beginning from puberty. You'd think our book banners would be all for that with all of their anti-sex rhetoric, but apparently what comes next is too inexcusable to give the book any merit in their eyes.

The Giver was banned largely for its themes of community-sanctioned suicide and euthanasia, the "release" characters receive if they fail to fit into the well-ordered society. Admittedly it's a pretty heavy issue for young children, but the book touts these behaviors as a negative consequence of an overly uniform society. In more common terms, they're saying it's bad. Don't do it. The book has a strong message of individuality and personal freedom, which we all know censors don't like one bit. It's no wonder they don't want us thinking for ourselves; they want us thinking for themselves.


Forever


Oh, and pretty much every other book written by Blume over the span of the preceding few decades made the list. Some authors really know how to cause a stir amongst conservative morally straitjacketed PTA types. Forever was a shoo-in for raising a ruckus with its explicitly sexual content, detailing the experiences of a high school girl and her boyfriend's foray into physical intimacy. Let's put it this way: the book was released in 1975 and remains in one of the top spots on the banned books chart. I'll give you a hint why it remains so popular among young readers: it's about sex.

On an aside, some statisticians speculate that the dip in popularity of the name Ralph is in direct correlation to the fact that that's what the protagonist's boyfriend names his, er, private parts. Now that's a lasting impact.

Go Ask Alice


This story has a seriously awesome punchline. After years of speculation over the identity of the anonymous author of this drug-addled teenage memoir, it was revealed that it was actually penned by a Mormon youth minister. One of the censor-mongers' own! Ba-Dum-Ching!

Okay, so that didn't really kick the censorship habit. If anything, it just added fuel to the fire. As an anonymous diary, the book was provocative in its depictions of sexuality and extensive drug use. As a book written by a Mormon youth minister, it lost a little of that street credibility. Just a tad. Author Beatrice Sparks allegedly based the novel on the diary of one of her real psychiatry patients, but still. Regardless of the fact that the book is a cautionary tale against drug use, some parents obviously their kids will be drawn to try drugs after reading descriptions of the main character trying to bite her fingers off on a bad trip. Right.




Goosebumps


Not all banned books were contested on sexuality. Some were just plain unsavory. At least that's what parents claimed of the wildly popular Goosebumps series. The books had kids delighting in reading, but apparently at the cost of exposure to some cartoon-grade violence. The horror!




Alice Series



A book about teenagers with sex on the brain? Why, I've never heard of such a thing! On her own blog just a few weeks ago, Reynolds Naylor addressed the issue of parents protesting the content of her book:

It’s usually parents who want their children kept “pure,” as many parents tell me, “from harmful influences.” The mother of a ten year old girl was very angry with me for talking about how babies are conceived in Lovingly Alice. She wrote that since her daughter read that book, “the words penis and vagina will be forever ingrained on her mind.” Another mother tearfully accosted me because she found the word “condoms” in a novel for teenagers, and said, “My eighth grade son doesn’t know what condoms are and I don’t want him to know.” Whenever I hear comments like these, my heart really goes out to their children.

Well put, Phyll. Parents are entitled to raise their children however they see fit, and they certainly don't need to check this one out of the library for their kids if it's in contention with their moral values. It's general right to exist, however, is a whole different story. (That story is called Achingly Alice, available at bookstores near you!)



The Boy Who Lost His Face


The Boy Who Lost His Face was written by Louis Sachar, the author behind the Wayside School books. The protests against insinuations of witchcraft I may support, but I can understand them. My favorite challenge, however, was the inclusion of "obscene gestures". Yes, you read that right. The reader doesn't actually see any obscene gestures, he or she just reads a description of them.




Harry Potter


This one is probably sort of a given. Sorcery, witchcraft, magic: all that good stuff is more than enough ammunition to set off religious protest groups. Despite the fact that the novels fell into the fantasy genre, many censors fear that that faithful children will abandon their Biblical aspirations in favor of a career in the dark arts.

Many parents also feared the books were a bit too dark and scary for young children, which is a reasonably legitimate concern. I'd advise for those parents to not let their six year olds read it. On the other side of the banning spectrum, some critics contended Harry and his pals set a bad example for their kids. He gets into all sorts of mischief and doesn't always obey his elders. You know, he has fun and he's a kid. Quick, hide the book!



Scary Stories


They're too scary. We get it. Let's move on.



The Face on the Milk Carton


The "sexual content" charge, though minimal, I can kind of understand, but the "challenging of authority" allegation? I mean, the book is about a girl who's been kidnapped by her own grandparents. Whose authority exactly is in question? Is it just the general notion that adults can make mistakes, commit crimes, or otherwise act unwisely? It's a bit of a stretch, to say the least.



Everyone has the right to their own opinion, and my disparaging remarks about the tightly wound moral crusaders is just another blissful exercise in free speech. Let me freely say that most of these challenges are the most ridiculous, asinine ideas ever to spew from the mouths of overzealous overprotective over-meddling parents. You, of course, have the freedom to disagree with me. That's the beauty of it. Embrace it. Freely.

Let the Glamour Shots Challenge Begin!

We have our very first taker in the Glamour Shots Challenge! I can only hope there are more entries on the way. Get out those scanners and send your most wildly embarrassing 90s Glamour Shots to childrenofthe90s@gmail.com!

Our first brave soul is Shannon, one of my favorite bloggers out there. For those of you who don't know her, she's the esteemed proprietor of a wonderfully snarky Sweet Valley High blog. She always has me laughing, and in her willingness to laugh not only at Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield and friends but also at herself she volunteered the following photos:


Who would have thought it would be so visually pleasing to pair the hair of a young DJ Tanner with the attire of Fred Flintstone? I'm telling you, these stylists are pure genius. Also, that's an A plus head tilt if I do say so myself.




Oh, oh, oh, there is totally a fringe on that jacket, too! Nice touch, GS. They gave Shannon the cowgirl biker look with pageant hair and earrings from the evening gown competition to match. An original pairing indeed.




The jacket nabber! You all knew it was coming, but who knew it would come with the added bonus of studded denim vest/cuff combo jacket with lace sleeves? That button glare could put an eye out, too. Well played, Glamour Shots.




The Over the Shoulder Smolder! Luckily her photo stylists had the good sense to let her smile in lieu of staring come-hitherly into the camera. After all, she was only fourteen. This shot gives us the full effect of the hair and the jacket, and let me just say it's a 90s Glamour Shot dream.


Obviously a huge round of virtual applause to Shannon, the first taker in what better be a long string of entries. I'm looking at you, readers. If you've got 'em, send 'em!

Glamour Shots

Note: I don't actually know any of the lucky stars of these Glamour Shots portraits, we were simply introduced through our mutual friend Google Images. If any of them are of you, well, then...I'm sorry. On so many levels.

It's always been a dream of mine to shell out fifty bucks for some underpaid mall clerk with three weeks beauty school experience to JonBenet Ramsey-ify me for photographic posterity. Call me sentimental, but I just can't think of any way I'd rather be remembered than wearing a feather boa, my wash-out perm blowing in the wind machine-generated breeze. In soft focus, of course.

In the 80s and 90s, Glamour Shots photography studio franchises were cropping up at malls across the country. Glamour Shots studios convinced us that all we needed to infuse a little glamor into our lives was a string of fake pearls, a cowboy hat, and a blurred camera lens, prompting women everywhere to whip out their faux leather checkbook wallets for a piece of the action. There was just something inexplicably irresistible about the opportunity to appear back-lit in an off the shoulder sequined gown.

The Glamour Shots experience was intended to make everyday average women feel like models at a photo shoot. For some clients this was more of a stretch than others, but our chipper mall stylists were more than up for the challenge. After a few hours in hair and makeup, anyone could look fabulous. Or at least that was the idea.



Unfortunately, this notion worked far better in theory than in practice. The studio's main clientele was made up of middle aged women, most of whom sought to take some non-racy but nevertheless boudoir-esque photos for their husbands. Glamour Shots took a distinctly one-size-fits-all approach to their model-style photo shoots, meaning their stylists were probably only trained in a single technique.

That must have been the case, as I'm not quite sure how else you could account for the sweeping uniformity of looks for Glamour Shots clients* nationwide. There were a few not-so-secret ingredients that formed the underpinnings of every Glamour Shots session throughout the decade, the most obvious of which was the enormous mall hair. It shouldn't have come as such a surprise considering the shoots did indeed take place within the confines of a mall environment, but I doubt any of these housewives went in asking for the Tiffany.

The next ingredient in our Glamour Shots recipe for alleged success was the ubiquitous presence of all things sparkly. Be it enormous earrings, a sequined jacket, or a bedazzled headpiece, each Glamour Shots studio followed the mantra of shiny equals universally flattering. It's a well known fact that not every woman is meant to wear a gold lame gown. When paired with oversized glasses and a portly figure, these dress-up implements could be more of a curse than the gift they'd claimed to be on the certificate in your Mother's Day card.

The final and most critical element of any Glamour Shot worth its weight in retouching equipment was the almighty signature pose. Aside from the usual hand-shelf-chin-support pose we saw at photography studios everywhere, we had some distinct poses that were pure GS through and through.

There were a few poses in particular that these studios were especially partial to, most often the over the shoulder smoldering gaze. Again, while this may have been a prime way to showcase the aesthetically pleasing attributes of an actual fashion model, it had a uniquely comical effect when applied to your grandmother.

The over-the-shoulder smolder

The head tilt was another popular choice, giving the subject a look somewhere between deep thought and mild confusion:

The Head Tilt

And of course, our classic "grab-part-of-your-shirt/feather boa" pose:

The Jacket Nabber

In the luckiest of client cases, you may have been subjected to all three, also known as the Triple Crown. Okay, I just made that up, but it would have been a totally apt descriptor in its time. I'm standing behind it. Actually, I'm crouching behind it in a three-quarter profile with a half head tilt, but same difference.

The holy grail of Glamour Shots posing: with our pose powers combined, who knows what we might unleash in this smirking housewife

As children, many of us begged tirelessly for our own opportunity at being shot glamorously, and many of our parents were wise enough to deny us this fleeting pleasure. The desire for these photos peaked right about at the same pubescent time as the height of adolescent awkwardness, meaning these photos would be a testament to our largest glasses and most prominent acne.

Especially in the midst of the JonBenet Ramsey murder case, it was considered less than good form to doll up your daughter in all the finery mall photography studios could muster, particularly if they involved a sparkly cowboy hat of any kind. Pageant moms may have embraced the opportunity with open arms, but these over done-up preteens were at best unsettling to the general public.

Cute kid, or future Enquirer cover? You decide.

For those parents who gave in to their teenage children's whinings for Glamour Shots, congratulations. Your scrapbook contains the ultimate blackmail tool against your child. Daughter forget your birthday? Time to take out that scanner and release these bejeweled cowboy hat-tipping beauties into the Facebook wild. There is probably nothing in the world more certain to humiliate them than an unwelcome trip down a softly focused memory lane paved with sequins and hot rollers.

To my loyal readers, I pose to you** the following challenge. If any of you (or your briefly glamorous family members) ever had Glamour Shots taken, I implore you to email them to childrenofthe90s@gmail.com. Please, sacrifice yourself on the altar of shame and allow others to join in your humorous commiseration. I promise to give them the ultimate Children of the 90s mocking treatment and to open it up to reader votes for the best Glamor Shot. I might even throw in a prize. So get to it, children of the 90s. Track down those embarrassing mall studio photographs, throw 'em on the scanner, and let the fun begin.




*Now known as "victims"
**Get it? Pose?

80s and 90s Spontaneous Movie Group Dance Scenes Where Everyone Knows Exactly What to Do

Photo: LA Times

All movies require a certain degree of suspended disbelief. We know and understand that these words and images do not constitute real life, nor should they. If we wanted real life, we'd go out and live it. If we want a brief period of escapism, we shell out ten bucks to watch other people lead more exciting lives.

Despite this understanding that movies should not be taken as real life, there are some scenes that make it more difficult than others. In real life, very few of us are trained dancers who have spent grueling hours under the guidance of professional choreographers and stage blockers. In movies, though, we're just supposed to ignore the fact that the cast has put in hours of dance rehearsals (or better yet, have body doubles) and just assume that there lives are just so exciting and carefree that it's impossible to not spontaneously break into well-organized group dancing. It's awfully convenient when someone spontaneously breaks out into dance and their costars know all the complex prechoreographed steps, but we just accept it as movie truth.

This trick was especially prominent in 80s and 90s movies, with directors throwing in a spontaneous eruption of dance whenever things seemed to be getting a little slow. Nothing like a foray into the art of dance to get things moving again. Except, you know, some plot twists and character developments. Honestly, though, that would probably be asking too much from these films. It's almost better to just take their cop-out flashy spontaneous dance distractions for what they are.

Regardless of their plot-thickening merit, these scenes are pure fun. They're almost enough to make us wish our current coworkers would toss aside their desk chairs and assemble into formation for a grandiose musical number. Until that happens, though, you'll have to rely on these clips to hold you over for your spontaneous dance fix:



She's All That


Let's start strong here with the classic 90s teen movie example, She's All That. This movie is not exactly grounded in high school reality, so it's not wonder they were able to pull off this spontaneous eruption of choreographed prom dancing. Depending on your definition of "pulling off", of course. The scheming prom attendees got down to the Rockerfeller Skank by Fatboy Slim, proving that a movie doesn't need a wealth of substance to crank out a spontaneous dance number. Well played, She's All That.



Encino Man


I'm not embarrassed to admit my boyfriend and I watched this entire movie in full this weekend. Okay, I lied, I'm incredibly embarrassed. What I thought was a hilarious caveman comedy is actually possibly the worst movie ever made, though this glaring fact won't stop me from loving it unconditionally. This ending dance scene was indeed the inspiration for this entire post, so I refuse to concede that I wasted 88 minutes of my life engrossed in this glaringly awful piece of 90s cinematic ridiculousness. The entire movie is so hokey and nonsensical, this dance number almost seems like a shot of realism.



Austin Powers


As a parody, Austin Powers was a prime candidate for a group dance number. It was already mocking everything these movies stood for, so why not throw in some groovy swinging moves well-timed to catchy theme music? It was a dance that spurned a thousand imitators, each more annoying than the last, but you must admit the original was pretty entertaining.




Ferris Bueller's Day Off


I've never been in a marching band so I can't say for sure, but I imagine it's not the kind of thing you can just orchestrate with a snap of your fingers. Unless you're Ferris Bueller, that is, in which case the world is your parade float. Like I said, though, I'm not expert in this arena, so it's possible my inexperience as a marching band member is throwing off my judgment a bit.

In this now-classic scene, Ferris performs a spur-of-the-moment show-stopping version of "Twist and Shout" atop a parade float at the Von Steuben Day Parade in Chicago. Everyone joins in on the dancing, from his Oktoberfest costume-clad floatmates to scaffolding-bound construction workers. It's classic John Hughes: totally over the top, yet almost believable in the moment.



Footloose


This one isn't quite a stretch considering the whole movie hinges on a dancing equals social freedom plot line, but the dancing is great nonetheless. You've got to admit, these kids seem incredibly at ease with their moves for people who've never danced a step in their lives. Just saying.



Breakfast Club

Breakfast Club Dance from Brandon McGhee on Vimeo.

I still can't watch this clip without yearning for Molly Ringwald's awesomely 80s dance moves. This scene embodies the movie because it pounds each character's two-dimensional stereotype into our heads with their personality-specific dance moves. The wild one is going crazy, the nerd's nerding out, the weird one is going nuts. We get it, they're all different. I'm not sure if I could have grasped at that conclusion without the help of this handy dance scene.



Teen Wolf


Do the wolf, man. Or is it...do the Wolfman? We may never know for sure. Either way, it's cheesy 80s school dancing at its finest.



Fame


I admit, with its 1980 release date it's pretty unlikely many of us children of the 90s grew up with this one, but the scene is just such a classic example of the spontaneous group dance I would be depriving you by leaving it out. At least in this case, most of the group in question is actually made of trained dancers, so it fits in well. Plus, it's just a really catchy song. I'm pretty sure if someone started singing it while I was on the street, I'd bust a move or two also. Probably two.


Reality Bites


This movie was meant to be the defining Generation X film, so it's fair enough that this group doesn't go for the all-out choreography. They're far too cynical and angsty for something that mainstream. No, they're content with their makeshift moves certain to humiliate Ethan Hawke's character. Can you blame him, really? I'm not saying the gas station attendant is there to judge, but if I were him I certainly would be. If nothing else, I'd be judging the hell out of Janeane Garafalo's bangs. What is up with those?


These movies may not be especially reflective of real life, but they're entertaining enough to almost make us believe that a crowd could instinctively just feel the moment was right for breaking into some serious dance moves. Our everyday lives may not contain copious amounts of extemporaneous group choreography, but that just makes it all the more fun to watch.

Girly Board Games

Male readers, you may just have to bear with me on this one. Actually, maybe you should use this as a welcome opportunity to bask in the notion that board games targeted at your demographic did not limit your life goals to princessery and shopping. You guys got to be ninjas and surgeons and we got to worry about getting a zit before our dates. And you wonder why we don't have a woman president yet. She'd probably get a zit before the big inaugural ball and concede. Damn you, Girl Talk, and your powerfully brain-dead life lessons.

I'd like to say this was an isolated phenomenon of archaic norms, and it was what I was planning on saying until I took a stroll down the toy aisle today at Target. Lo and behold, High School Musical Dream Date. That's So Raven Girl Talk. Hannah Montana Mall Madness. As if the frighteningly stereotypical girly game offerings weren't morally void enough, we've added new corporate sponsors and Disney tie-ins. Ah, the sweet scent of moral apathy. Now that's progress.

This genre were certainly not exclusive to the 80s and 90s, though it is more surprising that we upheld such outmoded norms this late in the game (some pun intended). With an increasing focus on gender equality, it seems that game producers chose to ignore any feminist progress and steer us straight toward the mall where they felt we belonged. All we needed was a fake credit card and some plastic crowns and we'd be back on track in no time.

Here is a light (pastel, if you will) selection of the games that kept girls beneath the plastic ceiling* of legitimate board game accomplishment:


Girl Talk



Girl Talk was a sort of innocent-ish truth or dare game that came with preset questions in board game format. It was also a teeny bit like MASH, as our accumulated points won us "fortune cards" that told of our future. Of course, according to Girl Talk, the future we yearned for was focused on marriage, career, children, and so-called "special moments". I'd like to give them some credit for including career, but if the game saddled you with a deadbeat husband and 12 kids, you were pretty stuck.

It being a parent-sanctioned game, the questions and dares were pretty tame. Dares included tasks like "Call a local radio station and dedicate a song to a boy you like!" "Make a prank phone call and hang up!" or "Lap water out of a bowl like a dog!" If you failed to perform the dares, you had to don a bright red zit sticker. On the plus side, if you agreed to be scorekeeper you were to be addressed as "Point Princess". Overall, not a bad deal.


Mall Madness



I know I've ranted on this one before, but it's so truly deserving of relentless bashing. Very few games are so shameless in their complete disregard of all things morally grounded. Mall Madness not only takes the cake on that one, it teaches us to put it on our credit card. We raced around chasing sales and scrambling back to the ATM for cash, which is just what 9-year old girls should be learning about.

The electronic version gave us an eerily disembodied voice, cheerily delivering commands to us. My all-time favorite is "You left your lights on! Go to the parking lot!" Now we're not only frenzied consumers, but vapid ones at that. It's only a few notches up from Teen Talk Barbie's "Math is hard!" and that's being generous.l


For the full post on Mall Madness, click here


Pretty Pretty Princess



This was amongst the most coveted of little girl games, teaching us at a young age that it's okay to play games as long as you end up with some jewelry. Many of us went on to build romantic relationships on that very notion.

The object of the game was to be the first player to collect our designated color of ring, earring, bracelet, and necklace plus the almighty crown. That damn black ring would always thwart our well-intentioned efforts, so we'd have to pawn it off on someone else in order to win. I'm not sure if there was any actual educational value to this game, but it did teach us how to cunningly set up our friends for failure.


Girl Talk: Date Line


I will admit that this game had me totally fooled. I thought that they'd come up with some fantastic technology that somehow converted my boombox cassette player into a predictor of romantic matches. You'd put a boy card and a girl card into this mysterious contraption and a conversation would play from the tape to see if it was a match or not. Only later did I discover that if I played the tape without plugging in that stupid little pink box, it had the exact same conversations. Obviously Milton Bradley doesn't think very highly of young girls if they thought we'd play this over and over again without growing suspicious. Then again, they had me fooled, so maybe they were right on.


Electric Dream Phone



In an age before all 8-year olds had cell phones, this game was awesome, if only because we briefly got to pretend we had our very own phones. It was kind of like Guess Who, only for squealing boy-crazy little girls eager to call up some totally buff hotties. We all went out in search of our secret admirers, though sometimes our hints were not so secret if someone pulled that speakerphone card. We all crossed our fingers to hear the magic words, "You're right! I really like you." We'd spend the better part of our teen years trying to replicate that thrill.


Girl Talk Secret Diary:

I know, I know. How many versions of this game were they going to release? The correct answer was "as many as naive young girls will blindly consume", translating to quite a few. Each one more brainless and boy-crazy than the last, many of us nevertheless adored these games. This version was sort of a cop out, as it was admittedly less involved. It came with a massive diary of some girls secrets. We were supposed to care about them for some reason or other, plus it forced us to divulge our own. It was basically like a confessional with less priest or Real World staff, depending on how you look at it. That is, whether you were raised Catholic or by TV. Just in case you needed clarification on that one.


These may not have been the most enlightened toys on the market, but that didn't stop us from going after them like a pack of shopping-crazed jewelery-adorned date-seeking wolves**. We might not have come out from them smarter or better or stronger or...what was I saying? Oh yeah, these games were pretty worthless, but we loved them all the same. We're all probably a bit more superficial and vapid for it, but at least we've got the balls to cluck like a chicken when Girl Talk tells us to. If nothing more, our subconscious avoidance of zit stickers will serve us well in life. I know it keeps me on my toes.


*I was going to say glass ceiling, but no toy company would have included glass in any of their products. Their lawyers would never go for it.
**In other words, not like wolves at all

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