Saturday Night Live 90s Commercial Parodies

The 90s may not have been the golden age of Saturday Night Live but it was certainly a consistently funny time for the show, featuring a versatile and talented cast willing to do almost anything for a laugh. True to SNL tradition, the era featured an abundance of parody commercials, spoofs featuring the cast actors that closely resembled and not-so-subtly mocked real television ad spots. So many of these fake commercials were so spot-on that they became indistinguishable from actual commercials. Save for the content matter, that is. I highly doubt "Oops I Crapped My Pants" would sell well on real store shelves, but SNL does an impressive job of making it seem almost plausible.

There were countless fake commercials throughout the years, but the 90s gave us many of our most memorable. If nothing else, this trip down SNL memory line is enough to make you miss Phil Hartman's unique skill at incredibly effective deadpan. Here are just a few of the satirical gems that entertained us between sketches:



Old Glory Insurance

Robot Attack Insurance

Chris | MySpace Video

In a time when many celebrities (Alex Trebek, Wilford Brimley) were out there hawking insurance, it was tough not to poke fun at the incredibly somber and humorless tone of their paid spokesperson delivery. This Old Glory bit definitely did the trick, spotlighting the dead-on deadpan intonation of Law & Order's Sam Waterston. He really had me going for awhile. I was almost certain this was a real ad, until they brought on the robots. Waterston, completely straight-faced, announced that killer robots were among the leading causes of death among the elderly. Without his pitch-perfect delivery, this could have been a dud, but Waterston definitely brought it. I was practically at my phone frantically dialing Old Glory for robot protection, and I was only ten. The robots weren't even after me yet.


First Citywide Change Bank


The voice-over confidently proclaims, "When you only do one thing, you do it better." It seems almost like a legitimate tagline for a bank. That one thing, however, was making change. As in changing monetary denominations. The proud and suave bank manager (Jim Downey) asserts, "We have been in this business a long time. With our experience, we're gonna have ideas for change combinations that probably haven't occurred to you. If you have a fifty-dollar bill, we can give you fifty singles. We can give you forty-nine singles and ten dimes. We can give you twenty-five twos. Come talk to us." And so it went, with helpful examples endless recombinations of change. Every aspect from the camera angles to the lighting to the booming voice-over was so similar to the real thing, you'd almost wish they would give you twenty singles, two tens, one five, eight quarters, forty nickels, and a hundred pennies. Wait, is that fifty? You shouldn't count on my skills, I couldn't even get through 8th grade Number Munchers the other day.

Bug-Off


In a time when some pest control agencies were focusing on humane treatment, Bug-Off would definitely have stood out in its approach. As an alternative to the paralyzing poison used by its real-life competitors, Bug-Off tears off the roaches legs, scorches its reproductive organs, beats it to unconsciousness with its own limbs, stuffs cotton in every opening, and torments it with out-of-reach morsels of food. All through a clear viewing window to boot! Now that's a show. It admits that it won't kill the roach, but it will "give him plenty to think about". After all, isn't that what we want from our roach-killers? A thought-provoking experience for our victims. Sold.

Crystal Gravy


During the ongoing cola wars, Pepsi released Crystal Pepsi, a ridiculous attempt to fool people into thinking that clear beverages were purer and less tainted. Never mind that the new product had pretty much the exact same makeup as the original, save for the dark syrupy color. Using the same "Right Now" background music as the original, SNL gave us Crystal Gravy. I know, I know. Ew. It did effectively showcase the stupidity of Crystal Pepsi's premise. Still, though. Gross.


The Love Toilet


Some of these ads weren't necessarily based on real-life products, but were just ridiculous tangential ideas likely thought up by their writers at three in the morning. I imagine the Love Toilet fell into this category. The voice-over asked sexily, "Why not share the most intimate moment of them all?" Again, ew. The Love Toilet was a side-by-side toilet, made for couples to share this, um, special time. It was certainly a novel idea, I'll give you that.


Super Colon Blow


With a rise in health-consciousness, many commercials played to our sense of nutritional superiority. Super Colon Blow did a fine job of mocking cereals like Total, with the voice-over imploring Phil Hartman to guesstimate just how many bowls of his regular cereal he'd need to equal the fiber content of Colon Blow. Correct answer? 30,000 bowls. Yikes. Sorry I'd asked. As for Super Colon Blow? A whopping 2.5 million in fiber exchange rate. Hartman was catapulted skyward on the aforementioned bowls, giving us the visual fright of colon-blasting fiber. Ouch.


Bathroom Monkey


Really, who is more prototypically 90s than Janeane Garofalo? Her stint on SNL may have been brief, but she did give us this memorable commercial. Yes, it's silly, but that's the whole point. It looks like an average cleaning product testimonial ad spot but with one twist: the product in question is actually a monkey. Janeane muses, "Idon't know where monkeys come from.. I don't know how they reproduce.. I don't know how they eat. But I do know one thing: they were born to clean bathrooms." With a smile, she continues, "And when it's cleaning power is all used up.. (throws away used monkey)..simply pick up another in any of three decorative colors: Red..(cut to monkey in red diaper)..Blue..(cut to monkey in blue diaper) ..or Orangutan". The voice-over helpfully intones, "Orangutan will not wear diaper". Sure, it makes no sense, but you've got to admit it's funny. Disturbing, yes, but funny.


Bad Idea Jeans


90s Dockers commercials were enough to drive anyone crazy after a few viewings, so the Bad Idea Jeans parodies absolutely came at an opportune comedic time. Like the Dockers ad, this featured casual conversation between regular men. The difference? I don't think any Dockers ad star would utter, "Now that I have kids, I feel much better having a gun in the house". At least, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't.

Happy Fun Ball


To avoid lawsuits, more and more ads in the 90s were tacking on every imaginable disclaimer. It wasn't quite at today's levels (today an Ambien commercial told me I might experience sleep eating/ driving and more outgoing and aggressive behavior with memory loss and hallucinations) but it was a growing trend. The Happy Fun Ball commercial aptly pokes fun at these ever-increasing warnings. It could cause everything from itching to temporary blindness, and of course if it begins to smoke, you shouldget away immediately, seek shelter and cover your head. Sounds harmless enough, right?

Oops I Crapped My Pants


I do realize these ads are abundant in bathroom humor, but that's probably why we got such a kick out of them as kids. In this spoof of a Depends ad, we see a kindly old couple with their granddaughter. The young girl asks her grandmother to play tennis, but the old woman looks pained and says she needs to "sit this one out". Up until this point, this could be an actual ad. I was pretty convinced until they revealed the product in question to be "Oops I Crapped My Pants". Other than the name, every other element of the ad is pretty much right on point with a real Depends commercial. How can you not laugh at old people saying "Oops, I Crapped My Pants"? That's like saying you didn't laugh when that LifeAlert lady fell and couldn't get up. For shame.


Yes, many of these ads employed shameless tricks and ploys to get us to laugh, but more often than not it seemed to work. In many cases, the parodies were so on target that it became tough to tell whether we were watching the show or the commercial break. No target was too big or small to be the subject of mocking in these short fake ad spots. Whether our interest was in ruthlessly maiming bugs and leaving them to die while watching through a viewing window or safeguarding ourselves from the inevitable onslaught of giant killer robots, Saturday Night Live was there with a laugh.

Saved by the Bell

If we've learned anything from being raised by TV, it should be that continuity errors are a basic part of life. Whenever a location, plot point, or character gets tiresome, simply replace them without explanation or any nod to their past existence. Whether or not these things actually happened is unimportant. The important thing is to never mention them. Ever.

Saved by the Bell was famous for its arrant disregard for continuity, changing settings and weaving in new characters whenever convenient. They simply made them disappear, never to be mentioned again. Bored with your show's bland suburban Indianapolis backdrop? Move to Palisades! Tired of your show's major characters? Replace them with newer, more attractive actors! Two cast members want to leave the show before it runs its course? Replace them and later reintegrate them, never mentioning either their absence or the new best friend you briefly had during their leave. It's pretty much a perfect system.


While other shows may have prided themselves on meticulous attention to detail, Saved by the Bell got away with changing the rules over and over again. It didn't seem to matter much to its frenetic young fan base. For one, the show was marketed toward children, allowing producers to operate under the assumption that kids don't notice when their beloved favorite character is mysteriously sliced out of the picture. More importantly, though, the show was a fantasy. It wasn't meant to be reality. It was meant to entertain and allegedly educate on the importance of partaking in good clean fun, and those aims took precedence over any semblance of sense.

The original incarnation Good Morning Miss Bliss premiered in 1988. Watching this horribly cheesy introduction, it's amazing this even got picked up for one season. The opening is seemingly more focused on the adult characters than our lovable middle school miscreants, and that music is truly terrible in a late 80s slow melodic jams sort of way. It had potential, sure, but it didn't exactly seem poised for great success.

It's also entirely possible there were just too many quirky curly-haired players in the original; we wanted to see some beautiful people, dammit.

So what's a network to do? If your response is to completely change the premise, back stories, location, and characters, then congratulations. You're on your way up on the ruthless cheap-ploy television executive track. Kudos to you. You'll receive your certificate of achievement in 3-5 business days.

NBC repackaged the original show into a new Saturday morning series they called Saved by the Bell. They brought in Tiffani Amber Theissen, Elizabeth Berkley, and Mario Lopez to round out their all-American crew, switched the setting to Palisades, California, and pretended that most of them had been friends since birth.



The show became wildly popular, quickly developing a substantial young following. It didn't seem to matter that critics tore the show apart. Entertainment Weekly described it as "featur[ing] stiff acting, cheap sets, and plots that seem lifted from Happy Days reruns." It didn't seem to help that the show was both morally conscious and outstandingly superficial at the same time. Despite the poor critical receptions, kids ate this up. They adored it. They couldn't get enough.

The show also frequently broke the Fourth Wall, with Zach talking directly into the camera and occasionally and inexplicably relying on the power to freeze the surrounding action. It was cheesy, sure, but Zach was admittedly charming. It's tough to find a girl who grew up in the 90s that never had a flicker of a Zach Morris crush. It was pretty much inevitable.

Our show featured an assortment of two-dimensional characters:


Zach Morris (Mark Paul Gosselaar) is an endearing slacker, a twinkling-eyed schemer always seeking to cheat the system. He's a good kid overall, following the TV trope of lovable mischief maker. He gets himself into his fair share of jams, sure, but he never stretches his rule-breaking so far so as to constitute actual trouble-making. Plus, he had that hair. Have you seen that hair? Sigh.




Lisa Turtle (Lark Voorhies) is a gossip queen and shopping addict extraordinaire. She comes from a wealthy family (both her parents are doctors) and is constantly getting herself into shopping related jams in between dodging unwanted advances from Screech.



Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley) is a feminist overachiever who is borderline obsessive about her grades. She's somewhat of a do-gooder, but more often she's a prima donna perfectionist with a penchant for caffeine pills. Okay, so that only happened in one episode, but I still see it as major character development. I mean, she was so excited. She was so excited. She was so scared.




Kelly Kapowski (Tiffani-Amber Theissen) Kelly was the All-American good girl, a cheerleader whose good looks win her an outpouring of male attention. She wasn't the smartest girl in the bunch, but she was sweet and we were supposed to feel sorry for her because she was sort of poor.




Albert Clifford "AC" Slater (Mario Lopez) is a tough-talking jock who disparagingly refers to Zach as "Preppy". The two are often rivals but eventually form a solid friendship. Slater is a wrestler and a pretty impressive dancer, though I wouldn't comment on it while he's looking all bad-ass in that bomber jacket. Though Mario Lopez is obviously Mexican, his family is mysteriously not and it's left pretty much unexplained until we get to the college years and they give us some halfhearted explanation for it. Thanks, guys.




Samuel "Screech" Powers (Dustin Diamond) is our well-meaning nerd, a geek who somehow managed to kick it with the cool kids. He has an intense unrequited love for Lisa, feelings that are for obvious reasons not reciprocated. He's generally smart but quirky. It's tough to watch him now and separate Diamond from the tool he's become, but back in the day he used to be pretty endearing.



Mr. Belding (Dennis Haskins) was an oddly meddling principal who played a major role in the daily lives of our main characters. He never seemed to interact with any other students because they were all pretty much part of the scenery, so I'll assume he took a special interest in our heroes and focused his entire career on dealing with their antics and encouraging their potential.


The show played stereotypes way over the top, with dumb rocks-for-brains jocks and pocket-protector sporting nerds at every turn. They also threw in a "message" or two for good measure, reminding us that it's not good to drink and drive or that setting up a secret video-dating service using the school's virtual yearbook equipment is wrong. I know I learned a valuable lesson from that last one. I started all my video dating services out in the open, thank you very much.

Chuck Klosterman describes the last season's odd character swap best when he examines what he calls the "Tori Paradox". All of a sudden Kelly and Jessie have disappeared and no one says a word about their absence. Instead, we get the tomboy, leather jacket-wearing Tori character who mysteriously swoops in and immediately becomes a part of the gang. Just as quickly as she'd appeared, she was gone without a trace and Jessie and Kelly were back as if nothing had happened. No one said anything about it, so we were just supposed to assume everything was fine and we shouldn't question it.

There were later more continuity errors to be had when we rejoined part of the gang for Saved by the Bell: The College Years, but that's a post for another time. NBC further milked the franchise by creating a spin-off Saved by the Bell: The New Class. There was no integrity to it, just pure money making. I mean, honestly, I owned Saved by the Bell Zackberry scented shampoo. Zackberry! You try to tell me that's not squeezing the franchise for all it's worth.

Of course, the big news today is of the purported SBtB reunion, reported in People magazine.



Over the summer, Zach--er, excuse me, Mark Paul, appeared in full Zach Morris garb and gave an in-character interview with Jimmy Fallon, complete with giant cell phone and fourth wall breakage:



Of course, don't expect to see Dustin Diamond in any reunion hype. He recently released a tell-all book alleging the gang was not quite as squeaky-clean as their on-air image. I resent that, of course. I'm almost certain they scrubbed diligently with Zackberry-scented toiletry products.

Don't Tell Them It's Educational....

With the rapid rise in household personal computer ownership throughout the 80s and 90s, children faced an entirely new arena of play to conquer. While kids may have viewed computers as a new uncharted frontier of free play, our parents and teachers were somewhat the wiser in regulating our zeal. Computers, they realized, were a perfect tool for tricking kids into learning material that would only otherwise be absorbed against their will. This backhanded approach to learning may not have been a perfect system, but dammit we would learn our multiplication tables and enjoy it.

Computer game manufacturers released heaps of educational titles cleverly disguised as amusing games. Bright colors and flashy animations effectively distracted children from the realization that they were indeed learning, and in their spare time to boot. Sure, we had an inkling deep down that these games were more substantial than our usual trivial fare, but throw enough Troggles or buffalo hunting into the mix and we were putty in your education-molding hands.

Whether in old-school Macintosh computer labs at school or on our crappy primitive homebound PCs, we collectively spent countless hours playing educational computer games. Parents and educators were usually pretty adept at remaining tight-lipped over the educational nature of the game, leaving us to our delusions of frivolous game play. As far as adults were concerned, what we didn't know couldn't hurt us...and it may just help us pass a geography test along the way.


Oregon Trail



Oregon Trail was the classic 80s and 90s educational computer game. It was a pioneer (this pun may be too horrible even for me) in its field, teaching children everywhere about the Westward bound wagon trains during our love affair with manifest destiny. The game was chock full of kid-friendly elements that easily outweighed our distaste for all things educational. For one, we got to name the characters after ourselves, meaning when our friends died of dysentery along the way we could write mean things on their editable tombstones. We got to pick our professions, make little computer-based lives for ourselves, the whole shebang.

The real appeal though was in the hunting portion of the game. If you weren't naturally sadistic in your youth, Oregon Trail was enough to bring out your inner puppy kicker. Whether you were into the challenge of shooting down a skittering squirrel or you preferred the Native American-decimating cultural significance of killing the snail-paced, monolithic buffalo, the hunting segment had something for everyone. Yes, our wagon could only hold 100 measly pounds of meat and we'd killed a whopping 1430, but we could always hope for one of our wagon-mates to get the measles and clear the space for more sweet, sweet buffalo.

To read the full Oregon Trail post, click here



Math Blaster



The game's producers had actually the audacity to put the word "math" in the title. The jig was up, we knew this was arithmetical. They did, at least, have the minor courtesy to include a video game word like "blaster". Do I get to kill math? Explode times tables in a fiery haze of unbridled and highly potent explosives? I guess I'd just have to play and find out.

It didn't turn out exactly as I hoped, but I did get to be a Blastronaut, which at least won major points in creative wordsmithery. The game itself was a essentially a school math worksheet cleverly disguised as a fast-paced game. Solving math problems earned you valuable ammo in your space blasting quests, which certainly came in handy when firing the lasers.




Storybook Weaver



I should have seen through this one, but I was totally fooled by its veneer of fun and whimsy. Storybook Weaver was not really a game at all, but a means of encouraging children to write and illustrate their own stories on the computer. In short, was an imaginative kid's dream. The possibilities were endless--well, almost endless, as we were limited by the available illustration graphics to augment our woven stories.

The best means of circumventing the educational aspect, of course, was to focus mainly on the illustrating process. With scores of backgrounds, characters, and design elements to choose from, it was like the world's most exciting and interactive sticker book. Even just reminiscing about it makes me yearn to drag and drop some princess images.



Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?



Broderbund released the first Carmen Sandiego games in the mid-80s, launching a vast and imposing educational game franchise. The creators' original aim was to get kids pumped about using the almanac; the first version was even released with a companion almanac included in the sale. How this premise managed to grab the attention of young people is a true testament to the entertaining nature of the game because let's be real here. Almanacs? Really?

The game featured elusive jewel thief Carmen Sandiego, who we were meant to capture and arrest in her globetrotting travels. We could interview bystanders and call CrimeNet, collecting clues and traveling from Kiev to Carolina in hot pursuit of our scarlet-hatted target while avoiding her VILE henchmen. The mystery element was more than enough to make us forget that this was essentially a map study session.



Reader Rabbit



Again, the titular focus on reading was enough to make us suspicious of this one, but it was admittedly pretty fun. The initial version was very simple, focusing on simple letter recognition and sounds, but they quickly released more advanced versions for a wider range of ages. We played some little games to form words, we got to watch some cute little animations with a little song and dance thrown in, everyone won. Unless you couldn't spell. Then you were pretty much screwed.



The Incredible Machine



Puzzle and strategy games were also pretty effective educational tools, particularly if they came in such a kick-ass cool form as The Incredible Machine. Each phase of the game gave us a delightfully eclectic assortment of random objects and charged us with completing a simple task using the implements at hand. I'm telling you, I could spend hours figuring out how to light a candle using a bowling ball and a medium-sized pulley. This game could seriously pull you in, especially when it teased you with the many near-miss solutions where you almost get the water in the bucket but then it spills all over the floor and ignites your electrical cord. Damn.


Living Books

Exactly what it sounds like. These would probably not hold the attention of today's technology-hungry overstimulated children, but they were quite a revelation to those of us who knew books only as a collection of paper pages bound with a spine. I am pretty sure that watching the Living Book version of Stellaluna would still amuse me equally as much as back in my third grade computer lab days.



Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing



Believe it or not, once upon a time typing was not an innate inborn skill we possessed from the tender age of three. While today's kids' fingers may fly over a keyboard, we needed a little guidance in the right direction. I'm not sure who Mavis Beacon is, but she has truly had a profound impact on my life. Are you out there, Mavis? I want to thank you.

Mavis Beacon was not all fun and games, though it was part of it. We had to complete a series of tasks and tedious drills before we got to move on to any of the fun stuff. By fun stuff I mean typing sentences to make a car race or typing number values to represent a grocery store checkout. Come to think of it, that doesn't sound that fun at all. Regardless, it seemed like a pretty worthy endeavor at the time. I even printed out the certificate displayed onscreen when I reached 30 WPM. Now that would be a great display piece for my office.


Number Munchers




Mmmm, numbers. Delicious. Well, at least they were to our Muncher pals, who greedily gobbled them up just as quickly as our nimble little fingers could identify multiples of nine. We did have to contend with those pesky Troggles, the imaginatively designed monsters who stalked the board in hopes of digesting our little green arithmetic-solving agent. If you aptly outsmarted the Troggles and managed to maneuver your way to the next level, you got to watch a little animation depicting your inevitable triumph over the evil Troggle. Good times.

To read the full Number Munchers post, click here


Some people criticize the "make it fun" approach, dismissing it as an ineffective means of teaching. I resent that assertion, though. Sure, while researching Number Munchers for this post I briefly played the free version online and found I don't know what a prime number is, but that's not the point. The point is that I played these games day in and day out without parental intervention. I actually wanted to learn. These games were no substitute for actual classroom-style education, but they were a nice change of pace from drill-and-test. At the end of the day, if we were motivated to begin some supplemental learning unprovoked, everyone was pretty happy.

Home Alone

No real-life fantasy can even begin to compare to the glory of parent-free burglar-thwarting amazingness that is Home Alone. Even the most imaginative of children lack the capacity to dream up a scenario so perfectly aligned as to leave you both completely free to wreak havoc on your own home as you see fit and act as the hero. In child imagination-run-wildland, it's pretty much the perfect crime.

Many of us have a soft spot somewhere in our hearts for Christmas movies. I'm pretty sure it's congenital. In the case of Home Alone, however, Warner Brothers gave us the ultimate one-two punch: a heartwarming family Christmas movie with a heaping helping of general kid mischief. The film's iconic nature was no accident; it was written and produced by cinema auteur extraordinaire John Hughes. The man who gave us classics as National Lampoon's Vacation, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Sixteen Candles found his most financially successful project in Home Alone.

The film also acted as a star vehicle for Macaulay Culkin. While Culkin had acted in previous movies such as Uncle Buck, it was Home Alone that ultimately gave him the elite status of bona fide breakout child star. Home Alone largely hinged on Culkin's solo scenes, in which his well-timed humor and general adorableness won over audiences worldwide. Kids everywhere wanted to be his character Kevin McAllister. We got our chance, too, when Nintendo released the Home Alone video games as part of the fast-growing franchise.



Home Alone revolves around the bustling McAllister family, a large clan who gathers to fly together to Paris for the Christmas holiday. In the chaos and stress of transporting the entire family from the house to the airport in the morning, the McAllister's completely forget about Kevin who has been banished to the third floor as punishment for his behavior at the previous night's dinner. Upon receiving his punishment, Kevin wished that his family would disappear. Incredibly, he wakes up the next morning to find that his wish is reality. Not a bad deal, overall, when you're an eight-year old kid yearning for a little space.

Almost immediately after boarding the flight, Kevin's mother Kate (played by one of my personal favorites, Catherine O'Hara) muses that she is certain she's forgetting something. After ticking through her mental checklist, it finally occurs to her that she's left her eight-year old son alone at home. Oh well, at least they remembered to lock up and set the alarm, right?

Kevin's totally reveling in his new found freedom, indulging in junk food, jumping on the bed, and generally causing destruction and mischief within the confines of his lonely house. His carefree parentless lifestyle is interrupted by the Chicago Police, upon whom his parents called to ensure his well-being and general not dead-ness. As if that weren't enough to shake things up, he also discovers that the infamous "Wet Bandits" burglar duo is headed his way on a rampant crime spree. Talk about your bad luck.

Kevin ingeniously devises a defense system made up of elaborate booby traps. Sure, it's a little violent, but come on, these guys are criminals. We don't see little Kevin bopping his mom on the head with a hammer or anything. As long as it's directed toward the bad guys, a little violence is A-okay in setting an example of angry revenge for children. Really. It's a commonly understood rule. Regardless, Kevin must be some kind of genius to come up with this stuff. Here's a little comically soundtracked montage someone (not me, of course) put together on YouTube of the general anti-robber mechanisms:



Needless to say, that stuff looks painful. It was all pretty slapstick, though, and in good fun. We never really thought these bad guys were going to shoot up the place, leaving a mangled Kevin in their wake. We knew our hero was safe and sound, and probably more dangerous than Harv and Marv (our merry burglar men) combined.

Simultaneous to all of this anti-burglarizing, there's also a subplot involving allegedly creepy neighbor Old Man Marley. The kids in the neighborhood are convinced he's offed his family, so imagine Kevin's surprise that he's actually a lonely old man painfully estranged from his son. Marley and Kevin become unlikely friends, and Marley even swoops in and rescues Kevin from a rather inextricable burglar-induced jam. All this sweetness and togetherness leaves Kevin ready to reunite with his parents, hopeful for their return.

On Christmas morning, Kevin wakes to find his mother and later his whole family returning just in time to celebrate the holiday together. Magically, there's no evidence of the break-in (save for one of the intruder's flashy gold teeth) of the family's none the wiser to Kevin's solo antics. Marley and his son reunite per Kevin's insistence, and all in all, it really is a wonderful life.

It wasn't the most probable of plot lines, but it sure did leave an indelible impression on moviegoers. The film became one of the highest grossing ever, showing you don't need flashy cinematography and Oscar-worthy acting to be a resounding success. All you need is a mischievous little boy, some injury-prone robbers, and one semi-creepy but inevitably lovable old man, and you've got yourself a winner.

90s TV Shows Based on Young Children's Book Series

There are only so many ideas in circulation at one time, so sometimes we've got to work with recyclable materials. Luckily for children's television programming producers, there was a wealth of ideas available in the juvenile literary world. Armed with familiar and much-beloved characters, these shows were near-guaranteed successes as children were eager to see their favorite storybook stars yukking it up on the small screen. Here are just a few of our once book-bound friends who made the leap from two-dimensional picture to, well, okay, two-dimensional picture. But, you know, with sound and animation.


Arthur



Who better than an anthropomorphic talking preteen aardvark to teach children life lessons? I really can't think of any superior alternative. Well, unless maybe you also threw in some monkey and rabbit pals. That would be the cherry on top of the talking animal role model cake.

Marc Brown began writing Arthur books in 1976, publishing the bulk of his cutesy aardvark-centric stories throughout the 80s and 90s. Brown was especially adept at slipping in a convenient pro-literacy and library friendly agenda, skyrocketing the books to popularity in schools and public reading settings. There's nothing a library loves quite as much as a book that loves libraries. It's just really the most perfect fit. I mean, for God's sake, the main character's last name is Read. How unsubtle can it get?

While the books had been enjoying a wave of popularity for a couple of decades, 90s kids were treated to an extra special supplementary means of Arthur enjoyment. In 1996, the Arthur TV series premiered on PBS, the Mecca of educational children's television entertainment supported by Viewers Like You. PBS did not disappoint in their interpretation of the new book classics, providing a series that was enjoyed by children and adults alike. Even those kids who veered into the gray area of a little too old for kid's shows often watched the show in secret, delighting in the clever wit and catchy reggae theme song performed by Ziggy Marley.

The books were delightful to children throughout the 80s and 90s not because of their exciting, fantastical nature, but because Arthur was just a regular third grade boy--er, aardvark--who suffered the same daily humiliations, irritations, and apprehensions as the rest of us. His sister DW was a total pain in the ass, he has a baby sister and a playful puppy, and deals with the daily dilemmas common to third grade Suburban life. Not to mention the show pulled guest voice actors like the Backstreet Boys, Joan Rivers, and Alex Trebek. Not bad for a show aimed at 8-year olds.



The Magic School Bus



What kid doesn't love a happy trip to imaginationland? A vehicle to get there is always useful, so when author Joanna Cole offered us a magical schoolbus, we were all more than willing to jump on board for some good ol' fashioned imaginary field trips. Plus the TV series was Canadian. How much more inviting and welcoming can you get?

As was the standard for 90s educational television program, the cast was composed of one-off token members representing a virtual rainbow of animated diversity. We had the Jewish kid, the Black kids, the Irish kid, the Mexican one, the Chinese one...pretty much if you can name an ethnicity, one of its well-spoken young representatives had a reserved seat of the Magic Schoolbus. The group was led by the eccentric frizzy-coiffed Ms. Frizzle, voiced by Lily Tomlin. We followed our bus-bound friends as they entered the human body, blast into space, or through the water cycle. Oh, and did I mention Danny Tamberelli voiced the Jewish kid and the Mexican kid was Jason from Mean Girls? I'm not really what else you could ask for from a kids' show. Oh, except maybe a theme song performed by Little Richard. I know I'm sold.



The Busy World of Richard Scarry



There's nothing quite like a warm fuzzy value-laden story starring anthropomorphic animals to convince parents to let the TV babysit their kids for a half hour or so. I'm pretty sure if I were a parent on the fence about letting children's TV programming play nanny, seeing that little worm driving an apple car would undoubtedly push me over the edge. It was fast-paced enough to keep children entertained, featuring three mini-episodes in each show. Since kids are not exactly known for their ability to sit still and patiently enjoy audiovisual media, there was more than enough material to satiate them.

The stories focused mainly on the Cat family, made up of Huckle, Sally, Mother, and Father. For no good reason, they cohabited with Lowly Worm. You know, because everyone knows that cats and worms are natural compadres. We also had police officer Sargent Murphy, the chronically unemployed and banana-desperate Bananas Gorilla, and the dumpster-diving friendly trashman Mr. Fixit. It was an eclectic bunch, but they were admittedly chock-full of talking animal wisdom and values. If nothing else, it sure beats what passes for children's programming these days. Send one of those Yo Gabba Gabba critters up against Lowly Worm and his applemobile and I'd put my bets on wormy.




Little Bear



Speaking of tedious sanctimonious children's programming. He's cute and all, but he just has so many feelings. The books were pretty sweet, though no one would declare them overly creative. With animal characters aptly named Duck, Owl, Hen, Cat, Mother Bear, Father Bear, and Little Bear, they weren't exactly breaking new ground here. For no reason at all, there was also a little girl named Emily and a skunk named Marshmallow. Just go with it.

Like The Busy World of Richard Scary, each Little Bear episode featured three vignettes. Our titular character is a curious shoeless six-year old little boy bear who provides the childlike perspective. The show has a sort of old-fashioned feel, though it premiered in the 90s. Our characters hand-knead bread by candlelight, so perhaps they're not the most relatable characters for kids. Then again, they're also bears, so we can probably just let that go.




The World of David the Gnome



Based on the children's book The Secret Book of Gnomes, Daivd the Gnome is a Spanish television series later dubbed in English and narrated by our pal Captain von Trapp. You know, from the Sound of Music? Anyway, the show introduced us to the curious world of gnomes, a miniature community of half-foot tall pointed-hat sporting little people who lived in forests, farms, or gardens. These little guys were hundreds of years old and full of a fun type of gnome-specific wisdom that only children can appreciate. Because looking back, I think I'm just too jaded to appreciate this kind of stuff anymore. Back in the day, though, with my thriving imagination, I was all over this stuff.

Our buddy David the Gnome (Tom Bosley!) is a forest-dwelling gnome in the medicinal healing mold, doling out acupuncture and hypnosis to his gnome neighbors. He's got a wife named Lisa, his best friend is a fox, and his family is forever being pestered by local trolls. At the time, it made perfect sense, believe me. The show had environmental undertones, with the gnomes charged with picking up after us selfish and uncaring humans. Damn humans. We're so cruel and we have no sense of appreciation for primary colored pointed hats.



The ideas may not have been original, but most of the stories translated pretty well to television. The shows also had the effect of easing our parents' guilt of parking us in front of the TV with the hope that it might inspire us to someday pick up the book itself. So what if all we came out with was an encyclopedic knowledge of children's TV theme songs? The point is that they tried.

Britney Spears

Oh, what a different a decade can make. Reference Britney Spears ten or so years ago, and you conjured up an image of a teen cultural phenomenon, a gorgeous fresh-faced midriff-baring schoolgirl with a cascade of beautiful golden hair. Reference Britney Spears now, and you're taken to a different place entirely. Images come to mind of an out-of-control out-of-shape washed-up train wreck chowing down on Taco Bell barefoot in a gas station in a bathroom somewhere with an unfortunately bald head. Sure, she's managed to turn herself back around and re-reinvent herself thanks to the help of an incredibly adept mangement team and conservatorship, but the original image has been tarnished as we watched our favorite pop princess spiral into the void.

Funnily enough, whenever Britney Spears tickets go on sale nowadays, I hear squealing teenagers everywhere on the radio begging for tickets. It's as if a new generation has rediscovered our old Britney, and that period of lapsed judgment simply never happened. The Britney these kids know, however, is a very different Britney than the ones we knew. Once upon a time, girls everywhere yearned to be Britney. While you'd be hard-pressed to find a teenybopper today willing to trade places with Brit, in our day it was essentially the dream of every mainstream girl who'd ever stood in front of the mirror lip-synching in her tied-up Catholic school uniform.

Hearken back, if you will, to a time when Britney was just a fresh-faced chipper little brunette thing, bouncing around with Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake on The Mickey Mouse Club. It didn't get any squeakier clean than this. The show had been popular in the 50s and 70s, but a revitalized 1990s version brought new life to the concept. Though she auditioned at 8, Britney landed a role on the show at age 12.


Yes, Britney and Justin, the way we'd like to remember them...together.

Of course, I'm getting ahead of myself. For all the anonymous gossip blog hater commenters claiming Britney to be a talentless shill, we've got to remember that though she may have been famous for her dancing she was first noticed for her singing talent on Star Search at the age of 10.



The stage seemed set for Britney to take off in a major way. In '97 she briefly joined the dead-end girl group Innosense. Get it? Innocence...in. no. sense? These 90s music managers sure were clever. Here's Brit and the girls from Innosense, in case you can't remember. This probably was after their stint as musical conspirators, but it's still adorably vintage Brit Brit.



Just a few months after joining Innosense, Britney was signed to Jive Records, the company responsible for misguidedly catapulting manufactured and highly managed groups like *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys to atmospheric fame. Britney was cute, innocent (after all, this was pre "not that innocent" era), and had that all-American personality that endeared people everywhere to her sparkly smile and Southern accent. She was more than poised for fame, though no one could have anticipated what happened next. I do imagine her managers were pretty pleased with it, however.

In 1998, she released "Baby One More Time", becoming the first ever single released by an unknown new artist to hit number one. The video was late-90s pop at its finest, cementing a Britney Spears brand based on tongue-in-cheek naivete and latent sexuality. In it, Brittany donned pigtails, a tied-up oxford shirt, and a borderline indecent plaid schoolgirl skirt, giving dirty-minded old men everywhere a troublesome jailbait Lolita fetish and forcing Catholic schools everywhere to invest in additional security. I'm also not too proud to admit I coveted those feather pigtail ornaments with a near-religious fervor, buying what essentially amounted to a Britney Spears starter kit at Target and dutifully lacing them through my pigtails at all available opportunities. And that scene where she's got the pink sports bra, the white pants, and the half-pigtails? I yearned to replicate this look more than anything, much to the chagrin of my midriff-abhorring parents.



Britney became something of an overnight sensation, with her fluffy bubble-gum pop hits blaring from middle schooler's discmans (discmen?) across the world. Coupled with a racy Rolling Stone cover shoot, Britney Spears had solidified her semi-contradictory role as virginal teen queen and forbiddenly sexual temptress.


This image was further compounded by the fact that Britney jumped aboard the current pop sensation trend train in declaring herself a virgin, a puzzling statement in the wake of her suspiciously physical and potentially cohabitational relationship with childhood pal Justin Timberlake. Now the idea of their public declaration seems utterly laughable, but at the time it probably seemed like a fairly smart publicity move for their ever-more famous starlet. I suppose it is possible they weren't having sex. They did, after all, show up to an event wearing this grotesque denim-on-denim-on-denim set of matching ensembles. I imagine it was some form of fashion-driven sexual behavior deterrent. It's really the only explanation.



In 1999, Brit's follow up single "(You) Drive Me Crazy" was another successful record, though not on the scales of her debut "Baby One More Time." The song was featured on the Melissa Joan Hart/Adrian Grenier teen movie vehicle Drive Me Crazy.



Britney even did a crossover promotional appearance on Hart's sitcom, Sabrina the Teenage Witch. It was, well, magical.



She was nothing short of a rapid-fire hit-making machine, a year later releasing "Oops I Did It Again", a red-jumpsuited, hair-extensioned cheesefest complete with a spoken interlude chock-full of Titanic references. You just can't make this stuff up. No matter the low level of substance, it didn't deter girls everywhere from yearning to learn these dance moves.



Back in the day, Brit wasn't above poking fun at herself. Observe in this 2000 intro to her hosting gig on Saturday Night Live as she makes fun of rumors surrounding speculations over a purported boob job.



Of course, she couldn't keep up her good-girl image forever. Itching to break out of her schoolgirl shell, Britney pushed the limits with a slightly edgier image in her next album. She cemented this move with a sexy MTV Music Video Awards performance featuring dancing nearly-naked with a boa constructor. Nothing says "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman" like dancing with reptilian life.



Itching to get into film, Brit gave us a cameo in Austin Powers in Goldmember:


Followed by a slightly tragic foray into acting with her supposed movie star-making vehicle, Crossroads. Really, I don't care how big a Brit Brit fan you are. It's totally painful.

Holy crap! That is totally Justin Long, about to have sex with Brit's character Lucy n the trailer. I will hold back the mocking, though, I met him once at a craps table in Vegas and he was totally nice even though we were totally drunk. From what I remember, that is. Hence, I'm going to let it go, Justin. Just this once.

Britney stayed famous as ever, but things took a turn as she ached to break the shackles from her tightly managed life. She rebelled, dating and then marrying and then divorcing Kevin Federline, though not before popping out a few wee ones. We all know what happened next, though I'd prefer to gloss over that part. That's neither the Brit I thought I knew nor loved, and I'd prefer to just watch it on E!'s "Britney: Fall From Grace" than recount it myself.

Luckily, she's made a major comeback, though she remains a bit tarnished in reputation from her various past exploits. An MTV documentary can only reinstate you so far. Regardless, her new album is possibly her most successful since her debut, and it's likely she's more famous than ever. Love her or hate her, you've got at least admire her team's well orchestrated comeback:

Britney Spears - Circus
Uploaded by BritneySpears-music. - Explore more music videos.

Is it embarrassing to admit that as I type this, I have that bottle on my desk next to me of that Curious perfume with the atomizer she uses at the beginning of the video? C'mon don't judge. Just think of it as a crossover tie-in promotional item.

Children of the 90s TV Superheroes

Every generation of children has their own group of superheroes to admire and adore. Admittedly, ours was somewhat of an eclectic bunch. If our 90s TV superheroes were forced to square off against, say, some 1970s TV superheroes, we'd probably be pretty screwed.

It's not so much that they were unskilled heroes or their powers were not useful. Okay, that may have been true in some cases (Ghostwriter, anyone?), but certainly not all across the board. Generally, though, 90s TV superheroes seemed a bit more down to earth than the heroes of days of yore. Many past superheroes had been virtually untouchable, so on top of their game that we could do no more than stand by in awe, mouths agape in bewonderment. As time went on, however, there developed a prototype for superheroes to whom we could more readily relate. By the time our superheroes were debuting on the airwaves, many of them had been reduced to mere gung-ho environmentalists and literacy-minded street youth.

Like us, many of these heroes were children or adolescents, most made foolish mistakes, and generally were highly fallible characters. Again, maybe not the type of dream team we'd put up against the classic comic book types, but certainly more endearing to the average child. These were a kinder, gentler bunch, and though many could still command some pretty impressive powers, they were certainly not without fault.

Behold, a brief assortment* of some of Children of 90s unique television superheroes:



Darkwing Duck




Darkwing Duck is a spinoff of Disney's Saturday morning DuckTales cartoon featuring an undercover superhero who goes by the alias Drake Mallard. Darkwing Duck is fairly adept at undercover crime-fighting, but he does manage to have the inflated ego and fumbling befuddledness lacking in many of our shinier superheroes. Darkwing is most directly a parody on the earlier Batman comics and show, with many of his attributes and behaviors echoing the Batman character. He doesn't seem to have any real superpower other than being a general protector of good and defender against evil. I know I say that like it's no big thing, but I mean that he never mutated and developed any sort of totally awesome superhuman powers. He's more of a super Samaritan.

In poking around into Darkwing Duck's background, I did come across a rather humorous bit of information. His trademark catchphrase, "Let's get dangerous!" got a bit lost in translation during international syndication. To Indonesian viewers, he declared "Let's charge the danger!" To the Russians, "Well, clear prop!" The Dutch heard, "Let's get nice and risky!" The clear winners, however, were our French viewers, to whom Darkwing Duck declared "This song is creepy!" I don't get it either.


Quailman (Doug)



I know, I know, a middle schooler's daydream fantasy sequences don't necessarily constitute an actual superhero, but for a sideline story Quailman's premise was pretty well-developed. He was, though, an apt superhero role model for children as most of his imaginary dilemmas were based on the actual middle school struggles of the Doug Funnie character. Quailman's main powers were those of patience, intelligence, and speed, leading us to believe we could pretty much do what he did with enough virtuosity. Well, until he broke out the Quail Eye and stupefied his adversaries. Either way, the alter ego was essentially Doug wearing a cape, underwear over his shorts, and a belt on his head. If anyone's still looking for a Halloween costume, I'd say call the search off right now, strap on a belt headdress and over-underwear and you've got yourself a look.



Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles


Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Intro

S.O.B.|MySpace Videos

You've got to hand it to the original masterminds behind Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, these things were specific. I'd love to have sat in on a brainstorming session about these guys. Certainly the premise is creative, but it's also insanely intricate. We all just accept is a sensible fact because we grew up with it, but any outsiders would tell you in an instant that the notion of a group of sewer-dwelling, pizza-chomping, rat-led giant turtles named for Renaissance artists is completely absurd. They would, of course, be right.



Captain Planet and the Planeteers



Ooh, environmentalism. Now that's a badass power. I imagine Al Gore had a hand in this somewhere. This show is education-disguised-as-entertainment (edutainment to those crafty insiders) at its finest. The Planeteers are not only environmental protectors but as a group are also incredibly multi-cultural. Furthermore, our heroes even travel by solar power to cut down on pollution. How much more pious of superheroes could you get? Captain Planet laid it on pretty thick though when he told us "The power is yours!" Nothing like a combination Saturday morning cartoon/public service announcement to get me going.


Ghostwriter



Speaking of impressive powers, I have to say I'm shocked to see literacy didn't make the cut on any of these other shows. What, you don't think reading and writing skills are superpowerful? Think again. Our again incredibly culturally and racially diverse group of preteens went about their lives solving mysteries through the use of (gasp!) their reading and writing skills. I can not tell a lie, I played along at home with my Ghostwriter pen, too. My solutions, unfortunately, were rarely accurate. I blame the fact that I never actually communicated with Ghostwriter himself.


Alex Mack



Alex Mack was just an average teenager when a freak encounter with some suspicious spilled chemicals renders her superpowerful. She's a classic example of a "they're just like us!" emerging class of superheroes. Sure, she could melt into some amorphous metallic liquid, exercise telekinesis, and issue bursts of electricity with a wave of her finger, but otherwise she was just your average junior high student struggling to find her place. Okay, well I guess the mysteriously evil chemical plant wants to kidnap her and turn her into a human guinea pig, which might not fit into the daily lives of most middle school kids, but you get the point. She wore overalls and backwards baseball hats and had crushes and public embarrassments just like the rest of us.


Mighty Morphin Power Rangers


Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Intro

S.O.B.|MySpace Videos


The MMPRs were a legitimate pop culture phenomenon in the 90s, with kids everywhere clamoring to get their hands on their share of merchandise and memorabilia. Essentially, a group of five sassy teenagers are charged with protecting the Earth. I'm almost positive that's who we'd entrust it to if it really came down to it. Teenagers can have some serious attitude. Their wise leader gives them the power to change into Power Rangers, meaning they get some kickass weapons, cool costumes, and access to Zord hangouts. All in all, not a bad deal. Plus, they came with corresponding colors! What more could you ask for? I personally always thought of myself as the Pink Ranger type. This association quickly became an indicator of personality types amongst the under-12 set.


The Tick



Like Darkwing Duck, The Tick had a largely satirical premise. The Tick is the ultimate parody, featuring a strong-jawed, muscularly defined superhero who is incredibly enthusiastic, a bit dim-witted, and prone to giving long, droning motivational talks full of inane points and comparisons. His trademark cry, "Spooooon!" is also a nonsequitor, originating from a flash of inspiration one morning while eating his cereal. He has a variety of superpowers, such as the inability to be physically hurt in painful situations, but my favorite was always his "drama power". This basically boiled down to the Tick becoming a better superhero as his surrounding situation became increasingly dramatic. Brilliant. I think many teenage girls possess this power, as well.


Sabrina the Teenage Witch



Following the cancellation of Clarissa Explains It All, Melissa Joan Hart stumbled into another successful television franchise in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Par for the 90s superhero course, Sabrina thinks she's just an ordinary teenager until she learns on her sixteenth birthday that she's actually a witch. You'd have thought the talking cat may have tipped her off, but it might have been a bit too subtle**. Every plot seems to revolve around a balance between being a teenager and restraining the abuse of power, but it's cute enough to let the repetitiveness go a bit. And when she poses in the mirror during the intro? Teen sitcom gold.


We may not have had the most enviable superheroes, but they were certainly a fun and eclectic bunch. Perhaps they weren't the best and the brightest or the most talented, but they were...wait, where was I going with this? They're starting to sound pretty lame. Oh, right, the gap between ourselves and our TV superheroes narrowed, making them into characters that we could both relate to, idolize, and find humor in. And really, if you can't laugh at your superheroes, who can you laugh at?



*A Children of the 90s Sampler Pack if you will, I've even removed all the gross coconut-filled ones for your convenience.
**I know, I know, that part came later. It's a joke.

2ge+her

I'm all for satire and parody. There's nothing quite like issuing well-placed subtle jabs and barbs at a mockable target. While at times parody can be forced and rigid, in other cases it's almost impossible to not make fun of a phenomenon. Such was the case with boy bands, giving MTV the perfect satirical opening with which to unleash their made-for-TV movie, 2ge+her.

You really have to give MTV credit where due. As a major source of the hype and hysteria surrounding the boy bands of the late-90s, MTV was not above poking fun at their own bread and butter. Who better than the people constructing the boy band craze to parody their own product? With their insider expertise, they were that much more qualified to offer us a frighteningly accurate tongue-in-cheek portrayal of their bestselling output.

Boy Bands such as *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys were serious moneymaking enterprise in the late 90s, and their penchant for taking themselves incredibly seriously just begged to be parodied. They were far more of a heavily manufactured and well-orchestrated product than a musical act. Sure, they released songs and put on concerts, but you'd be hard pressed to find any respectable musician claiming boy bands as peers. Their squeaky-clean image, pretty boy looks, and high-pitched vocals weren't doing them any favors on street credibility either.



2ge+her was the first MTV made-for-TV movie, a fledgling attempt to capitalize on the cliches and tragically comedic industry standards that put money in their executives' wallets. Though the details were exaggerated, many of the plot points hit remarkably close to home with actual boy band behavior and management. If badly executed or poorly received by fans, MTV could have easily shot themselves in the proverbial foot. After all, they were essentially telling tweens and teens--their target market--that the albums and video their network was peddling were indeed little more than well-polished tripe.

It was a risky business, with MTV teetering on the fine line between satire and flat-out mockery. Luckily, the satirical elements were funny enough to lighten up the darker themes, allowing even the most rabid fans of boy bands an opportunity to step back and laugh a bit at the inane world of prefab music acts. We watched as our tragically humorous heroes were assembled, branded, and marketed by industry managers. While the band was a blatant farce, it was an interesting theme-within-a-theme situation that put 2ge+her dangerously close to their real-life counterparts in their road to success. After all, so-called "real" boy bands were similarly cast, molded, and marketed, leading us to wonder which scenario was indeed more grounded in reality.

MTV utilized much of their own clout as the experts in pop music to offer credibility to the film. The movie opens with a mock MTV news segment that looks and sounds exactly like the ones featured daily by the network. Well, save for the fact that it features the fictional news of music sensation boy band "Whoa" whose hit single "Rub One Out" is ruling the airwaves. That part seems a bit off, right? Maybe it's just me. Other than that, it's spot on.



The movie recognized the usual lineup of cliches favored by boy band managers, with each member appropriately pigeonholed into a character mold and marketed as a two-dimensional musical personality. 2ge+her did not disappoint on this front, featuring some of our standard boy band fare in a new, more comical light. Behold, our heroes:


Mickey Parke: The Bad Boy




You can tell he's bad because he speaks pseudo-ebonics and pretends to rap. Wait, is that the passive near-racism of the milky white boy band world rearing its ugly head? Hmm. Might be.



Jason "QT" McNight: The Cute One



In a dark incident of art imitating life (the term art is used loosely here), part of the QT character's shtick was that he was beloved for being not only adorable but also terminally ill. Tragically, the actor who played QT was actually battling cancer and passed away a couple of years later.



Chad Linus: The Shy One


"Shy" is apparently in this case synonymous with IQ-deficient and a little bit sensitive. In an endearing sort of way.



Jerry O'Keefe: The Hearthrob

The Hearthrob represents the requisite eye candy, but also usually the strongest member vocally. The character truly aspires to be a singer and is relatively dreamy, so it's safe to say he's been appropriately typecast.



Doug Linus: The Older Brother


Poking fun at the fact that most boy bands had one member in their mid-20s, Chad's balding brother Doug is tottering somewhere in the realm of his mid-thirties (though he does hope his braces make him a tad more relatable with the young folk). Oh, and did I mention in he's played by Kevin Farley, Chris Farley's younger brother? That in itself deems him worthy of comedic excellence.

Funnily enough, unlike many artists of today, the ensemble actors actually sang their own songs:


Calculus (U +Me=Us)


A breakout hit in both the movie and real life, the single went on to enjoy a good bit of radio play. It's hilariously on point with actual boy band standards, which is unsurprising as many of the group's songs were penned by songwriters with a track record working with boy bands and pop music acts. This song is fun pure and simple, a no-frills approach to parody that so closely imitates its real-life muse it's nearly impossible to distinguish from the real thing. Well, except that the lyrics are pretty ridiculous. It did come with a fun little dance to the part that goes, "You! Plus sign! Me! Equal sign! Us!" That pretty much makes up for any shortcomings.


Say It (Don't Spray It)



This song is completely ridiculous, but their earnestness in presenting it to us makes it all the funnier.


The Hardest Part of Breaking Up (Is Getting Back Your Stuff)


From their second album, "2ge+her Again", this song was off the wall absurd but still managed to reside in plausible boy band territory as they crooned, "You had my heart, my soul, my attention/but you walked out my life/with my CD collection". It also included some great spoken lines like, Man you ever break up with a girl And she keeps your stuff? Man, What's up with dat?! I dunno man, something wrong! Ya know what I'm sayin'? Something wrong with dat...." Unfortunately, these lines were frighteningly plausible as real boy band song chatter.

The movie was such a hit and the songs such a runaway success that MTV adapted the premise into a weekly series. The band appeared in character on TRL, starred in their own episode of MTV's Making the Video, and even opened for Britney Spears in concert, further blurring the lines between real life and the eerily similar echo of satirical fiction. From the group's formation and initial hype in late 1999 to the show's end in 2001, the band enjoyed relatively realistic music-world success. Pretty impressive for a group of vocally capable comedic actors.

The death of 2ge+her member Michael Cuccione (QT) marked the end of the series run, further blurring the line between Cuccione's reality and his terminally ill character. Despite the tragic circumstances surrounding the act's cancellation, the show proved that MTV not only had a sense of humor but was also surprisingly adept at relentlessly mocking themselves. If only we could get them to do the same these days with those Hills girls, maybe MTV could redeem itself. I wouldn't bet on it, though.