90s Fruit Snacks Craze

Here's a novel idea: take a vaguely berry-flavored candy, label it a fruit product, and market it to gullible parents who will delude themselves into believing it has a smidgen of fruit content. They could lull their guilty consciences into submission with self-reassurances that the products were labeled 100% natural. What? Corn syrup is natural. Well, corn is, at least. And I'm pretty sure you can locate that gelatin somewhere in an 100%, all natural horse hoof. Just turn left at the glue.

Heavily marketed at children during popular TV shows, these alleged "fruit" snacks became something of a lunchbox staple. It was a lot easier than cutting and tupperwaring real fruit. Plus, if we happened to lapse into nuclear fallout, these babies would assuredly survive. They're virtually indestructible, expiration-wise. I have yet to back up this conjecture with empirical evidence, but I hypothesize that if I found a Fruit Roll-Up from my childhood, it would probably taste just as fresh today as it would have in 1995. That's the magic of plastic for you.

While there were countless fruit snack options and shapes available, these were among the most coveted in the cafeteria:


Fruit String Thing

Fruit String Thing Ad
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You really have to admire the vagueness of Betty Crocker's marketing department. Or at least the one that exists in this imaginary reformulation of their fruit snack christening process:

Executive 1: We've got this new product, see. It's a...thing. It resembles string.
Executive 2: Stop drilling, you've hit oil. Let's call it a day.
Executive 1: Do you think we should be more specific? What if people think it's made of real string?
Executive 2: Good point. Let's add the word "fruit" just to be on the safe side.

Fruit String Thing was a sort of bastard child of Fruit Roll-Ups and Twizzlers' Pull n' Peel. The taste wasn't particularly palatable, but its gimmickiness was just enough to make kids beg for it. I'm pretty sure I even convinced myself I liked the flavor, though really I just liked the unraveling aspect.


Gushers



First of all, that ad is terrifying. I couldn't sleep for weeks for fear I'd be zapped into a human-size semi-peeled banana. The image still haunts me. This near-banana experience, however, did not deter me from begging my parents to buy Costco-portioned cases of these liquid-filled fruit snacks. They just had a sort of pull over me. Maybe it was the hypnotically prismatic shape. Or, more likely, mind control serum in the mysterious filling. Whatever their tactic, it certainly was effective. They had us all convinced these were nothing short of a snack food revelation.

In retrospect, these are a bit troubling. What was that mysterious goo lining the interior of our beloved fruit snacks? It was sort of like a tart, tangy eyedropperful of fruit juice embedded within a fruity gel coating. By description alone these sound disgusting, so let me assure you that they absolutely are. I'm sorry, but I find something inherently disturbing about my food "gushing". I just don't feel comfortable using verb for my snack food that better describes the rush of blood from a wound. It's just not right.

To read the full Gushers post, click here



Fruit by the Foot



As an avid Fruit by the Foot and Bubble Tape fan, let me tell you: I like quantifiable, lengthy snack food. When I'm eating a cake or a pie, sure, it tastes good, but I feel a little empty without knowing precisely how it would measure up to a yardstick if unraveled. It just isn't quite the same.

For some reason, in the 90s it was totally acceptable to describe our snacks by their standard-measurement dimensions. The fact that it came with its accompanying joke and fun-fact printed wrapper was just a bonus. With found-in-nature flavors like tie-dye berry, how could you say no?



Fruit Roll Ups



Fruit Roll-Ups were launched in 1979 and enjoyed a heyday of popularity in the 80s and 90s. They were certainly mysterious in texture and content. The preservative-rich ingredient list was more than enough to befuddle our fragile young minds, particularly those amongst us who were in the lowest reading group.

Despite the questionable recipe, these things were a kids dream. They were sticky, they had punch-out shapes, you could put it over your face like a mask. Really, they thought of everything. Fruit Roll-Ups also stuck to themselves, so you could make a lumpy mound of gooey goodness and attempt to down in it a single gulp. Those were the good times.



Amazing Fruit



I'll be straight with you on this one. I was sold on commercial alone. Who could resist a gaggle of load-bearing gummy bears conga-ing to the maraca-shaking rhythms of the "It's Amazing Fruit!" chant? Who, I ask you?

It's never a good sign if while the voice-over announces natural ingredients, a fine-print caveat appears onscreen admitting they're actually made up of natural and artificial flavors. Which means, in short, there's pretty much no fruit in there. On the other hand, there are bears, so it's sort of a draw overall. I'm leaning toward bears, myself.


There's no reality-grounded explanation that can tell us exactly why we so loved these artificially flavored, plastic-scented fruit snacks. Even more perplexing is why our parents thought packing us chock full of concentrated sugar was a wise idea. Then again, this was the same generation of parents who sent us off to school toting Lunchables. Whether they were extraordinarily lazy or just not particularly health-conscious, I'm sure kids today are kicking themselves for not being born a decade earlier. They could have had String Thing.

90s Holiday Pop Albums

Seasons Greetings, children of the 90s. Welcome to the first of what's sure to be a many, many-part 90s Christmas post series sprinkled intermittently throughout this holiday season. Brace yourselves. It's going to be festive.

While driving to work this morning, the radio was blaring Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas" and I came to the stunning realization that I know all of the words and musical nuances to this song. Now, I don't personally celebrate Christmas, but I do participate in another critical holiday tradition: shopping. Stores know that if they pipe Christmas music into the stores, we'll all get a bit glassy-eyed and nostalgic and our credit-dependent inner gift givers really come out to spend. Let me tell you, based on all the merrily decorated green and red shopping bags littering my apartment, this theory holds pretty true.

There are only so many holiday classics to play, though, and the pop music industry is quick to fill this void with auto-tuned covers and horribly corny new songs. Back in the days when people actually purchased tapes or CDs at their local music emporium, Christmas CDs were a sort of cop-out way for artists to make a quick buck and eke out some allegedly new material for holiday season live performances. These days, it's more likely we'd be roasting chestnuts on an open fire while listening to a pirated mp3 version of our favorite Christmas tune.

In the 90s, though, it a pretty a lucrative enterprise, and many many pop music makers jumped on board the Christmas Album express to bring us this mixed bag of the good, the bad, and the horribly cheesy:


N*SYNC: Home for Christmas

A mishmash of original songs and traditional covers, N*SYNC's 1998 Christmas album gave us a syrupy dose of holiday time bubble gum pop. It was tough to pop this one in the boombox without suffering a serious toothache. They released the single "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays", garnering some moderate radio play. It's since become a standard in many mall stores' Christmas music rotations. I'm pretty sure I had this on a mixtape somewhere. It was catchy, plus the video features Gary Coleman as an elf. What's not to like?


N Sync - Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays (Official Music Video) - For more amazing video clips, click here


Spice Girls' Christmas Wrapping

The Spice Girls were wildly popular in the late 90s, meaning that even two enormously pregnant group members wasn't enough to stand in the way of production of this cover of The Waitresses' 1981 "Christmas Wrapping". Geri Halliwell had since departed the group, and between her absence and Mel B's and Victoria Beckham's respective pregnancies that left only Emma Bunton and Mel C on vocals. Still, it's kind of catchy. In a Spice Girls sort of way.





Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas

Released at the pinnacle of Carey's 90s fame, Merry Christmas quickly became one of the bestselling Christmas albums of the decade. Another compilation of original songs and covers, producers released several singles from the album. By far the most successful was "All I Want For Christmas is You", which even the sometimes-finicky New Yorker admitted was of the only new Christmas songs worthy of breaking into the traditional "holiday canon".

In typical diva fashion, Carey released several videos for her top single. To her credit, though, her song has the staying power that so many others did not. It remains amongst the most popular holiday cell phone ringtones, so don't be surprised it you still hear it playing in purses and pockets everywhere.





Adam Sandler's Chanukah Song

Most stores still shuffle this in their regular assortment of holiday songs as minor consolation to Members of the Tribe. Sandler's song appeared on Saturday Night Live and on his comedy album What the Hell Happened to Me? While subsequent performances have featured updated pop culture references in the lyrics, the original is still pretty funny. It served to remind those of us who don't celebrate Christmas that, hey, we may not get to delight in presents under the trimmed tree but we have many, many compadres in the show biz industry. The song taught young Jewish kids that they can claim Captain Kirk and Mr Spock alongside all three stooges as their brethren, so maybe it's not so bad after all.





Celine Dion: These are Special Times

These are Special Times remains one of the best-selling Christmas releases, selling over 15 million copies internationally. It's sort of an eclectic mix, with some traditional songs and others with...R Kelly? Really? Their duet "I'm Your Angel" charted at number one and remained there for weeks. The single went platinum, proving that pompous Canadians and legally troubled rappers can produce beautiful music together. I mean, it's no "Trapped in the Closet", but it'll do.





Hanson: Snowed in

Who better to count on in the mid 90s to give us some squeaky clean family-friendly fare than the Hanson brothers? They must have been doing something right, as their Christmas Album Snowed In went platinum. It was pop holiday music at its most innocent and least offensive.





New Kids on the Block: Merry, Merry Christmas

New Kids on the Block opened the floodgates to the boy band phenomenon of the 90s, and their 1989 Merry Merry Christmas was a prime example of their cheesy charm. With songs like "Funky, Funky Xmas", how could you lose? That one sounds like a guaranteed hit. My personal favorite is "This One's for the Children", which is corny even by NKotB standards.
New Kids On The Block - This One's For The Children
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These may not all have been musical masterpieces, but did allow usually surly teenagers to delight in the holiday with the help of their favorite pop singers. The albums all get essentially a free pass on cheesiness because it's the holidays and we're supposed to be generous, kind, and forgiving. Which is a lucky thing, as many of these albums were completely and totally over-the-top cornball. They do have an uncanny way of putting you in the holiday spirit, so go ahead and revel in the only time of year where you can suspend your judgments and just enjoy it.

Office Space

Certain movies get funnier as we get older. As carefree children the cynicism and satire is pretty much completely lost on us. We may think we like a movie as a kid only to find out years later that we didn't really get it the first time around.

Office Space is one of those movies. Released in 1999, its theatrical release fell just short of a complete financial flop just barely breaking even on production costs. Despite the near-abysmal ticket sales, a few years later Comedy Central took on the Office Space cause and proceeded to play the movie ad infinitum. Between 2001 and 2003, you had something like a one in ten chance of flipping your television to Comedy Central and seeing Office Space. For a movie that bombed in the theaters, those odds were looking pretty good for viewership.

As a teenager I recall thinking the movie was kind of funny, but I couldn't quite pinpoint why. I'm pretty sure I just like all the flair Jennifer Anniston had to wear for her job at Tchotchkie's restaurant. I probably saw the movie 20 times during high school, though, and I consistently believed I enjoyed these viewings.

I grew up, as people tend to do, and got my first office job. I saw the movie again. I was shocked to find that it was brilliant. Not just the flair this time around, either. This movie was genius. How had I missed it?

"We need to talk about your TPS reports"

In the years between, the movie gained something of a cult following. Office drones everywhere gather to bow down at the Office Space altar, delighting in its depiction in all that is horrific and mundane about cubical monkeyhood. The satire is spot-on, which is pretty impressive coming from the guy behind Beavis and Butthead. Mike Judge took a critical eye to the sterile corporate life so many of us are entwined in and let us live vicariously through the reckless and satisfyingly vengeful actions of our protagonists. In this movie, the good guys were the bad guys. Sure, they were stealing money and destroying the company computer system, but how many times can a person be asked about a memo? It's pretty inevitable that he's just going to snap one day.

Our hero Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) is an office drone with great aspirations: to do nothing. Anyone who's ever slaved away at their desk knows that no matter how ambitious you once were, it's impossible to stare at your computer eight hours a day without this thought filtering through your brain. At that point, nothing seems like the ultimate something, and something you may never be rich enough to achieve. Depressing, right? It's almost as bad as coming down with a case of the Mondays.



Unsurprisingly, Gibbons is not much of a go-getter. His only real motivation to do any work at all seems to lie in his desire not to be fired, but he spends most of his time staring at his desk. As a kid, I thought, "Well, isn't that nothing?" but as an adult, I realize that it is indeed something. Something that makes you a slave to the system rather than an agent of your own free will.

It's 1999, and Gibbon's task at work is to reprogram computers for the allegedly impending Y2K computer crisis. His job at Initech is further compounded by the ever-irritating vice president Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole), who constantly suggests he just go ahead and get on with those TPS reports. He's not a particularly good listener, completely tuning out Peter when he explains that yes, he did get the memo.



Initech brings in a pair of so-called "efficiency experts", the Bobs, to bring costs down. This is a benign way of saying they're going to can as many people as they want, and Peter and his coworkers aren't exactly thrilled by their doom-impending presence. By this point, Peter is just going through the motions of his life. His relationship is souring, he hates his job, and he's generally unhappy. I know, I know, this is a comedy? Don't worry, eventually we get to the part where they bust out with "Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta". But not quite yet, so hang in there.

The cast of characters is pretty ripe for the downsize picking, featuring cartoonish over the top caricatures of coworkers. There's Milton, originally of the Saturday Night Live sketch on which the film was based, who's forever blathering about his red stapler and talking to himself in a generally irritating manner. There's the super multi-syllabic Indian tech worker Samir Nagheennanajar. In case you were wondering, that's pronounced just like it's spelled. We also have Michael Bolton, a pencil pusher with the unfortunate luck to share a moniker with the easy-listening pop star. It's certainly a motley crew here at Initech.

Peter's girlfriend makes him visit a hypnotherapist in an effort to get him to relax. The therapist suffers a fatal heart attack while in the midst of hypnotizing Peter to the point of total relaxation, leaving Peter with a permanent glaze of a relaxed attitude. Seeking to follow his dream to do nothing, he simply decides that he will from then on ignore his unfaithful girlfriend, ignores Lumbergh's long-winded pleas for weekend overtime, and generally takes a lax attitude to work. He also entertains the possibility of a romance with Joanna (Jennifer Aniston) based on his impressions of her from his Tchotchke's dining experience. That place is like the bastard love child of TGIFridays and Chili's, but with far better regulated uniform flair.

Alright, you've been patient. You've waited long enough. You ready for it? Here's Michael in the "Damn it Feels Good to Be a Gangsta" montage. Oh, and you know, warning for coarse language and all that.



The Bobs, with their twisted logic, recognize Peter's newfound laziness as the free-thinking spirit characteristic of management and in their finite wisdom grant him a promotion. Meanwhile, his more hardworking pals Michael Bolton and Samir are given the axe.



Samir, Michael, and Peter hatch a crazy revenge plot against Initech. They plan to infect the computers with a vicious virus that will glean tiny amounts of money into a separate personal bank account. It's revenge of the nerds, tech industry style. They also enact a smaller, more personal revenge on one of their office nemeses: the temperamental printer that tortured them with phantom paper jam messages. This scene has since become an iconic bit of Office Space nostalgia, with many making their own parodies.

ofiice space printer destruction
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There's a glitch in their plan and they accidentally end up stealing way more money way faster than planned, a blip sure to register on Initech's management radar. Peter begins to feel guilty, particularly after some goading from the flairful Joanna. He returns the money to the office in travelers checks, complete with a signed letter accepting the blame. He's ready to accept the consequences and face the strong arm of the law when things take a turn.

Turns out bumbling coworker Milton made good on his repeated grumblings to burn the place down, and Peter and friends watch on as Initech goes up in flames.



In the end, everyone gets a little bit of what they want. Peter finds a construction job more suited to his lifestyle, Samir and Michael find jobs at a rival tech company, and Milton whoops it up across the border using the travelers' checks left by Peter. All in all, not a bad deal.

The movie isn't meant to be a real, it's meant to be a fantasy. While the depiction of office life is at times uncanny, the revenge storyline is a manifestation of what all of us office drone dream of on our worst job-hating days. We may not be able to take the Xerox machine out back for a little go 'round with the ol' baseball bat, but at least we can pop in the DVD and watch Samir, Michael, and Peter do it for us.