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
Uploaded by blue-screen. -

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.

Evolution of the Cell Phone Throughout the 80s and 90s

How badly do you want this set of Russian doll-style cell phones created by Karl Bean? Image via geekygadgets.com

These days you feel off kilter and uneasy if your phone is out of your reach for five minutes, but years ago cell phone technology was a flashy trend accessible only to the super rich and Zach Morris. 20 years ago, no one could foresee that even the homeless would be yapping away on cellular telephones, not to mention the growing number of elementary school students who tote personal phones in their backpacks. In an age where we feel a constant need to be plugged in, it's difficult to remember a time when we wouldn't think to tell the whole world of our mundane hourly activities in 140 characters or less. I almost can't believe that I survived an entire decade without knowing via Facebook that my ex-neighbor's daughter-in-law was vacuuming her apartment . A scary thought, indeed.

In the days before communication technology played a major role in our everyday activities, the cell phone was nothing short of a modern marvel. The idea that someone could whip a fully functional phone out of their pockets (or for earlier models, giant carrier bags) was astounding. Let's take a brief trip back through time to an age where simple technology could still delight and amaze the consuming masses:



Motorola DynaTAC 8000X (1983)


While we did see car phones before the 80s, we'd never seen anything quite like this. This was portable enough to be carried around, at least by 1983 standards. Unlike car phones, the DynaTAC series could connect without the intervention of an operator. Oh, and did I mention it cost $3995? In 1983 dollars. That's something upward of $8000 when adjusted for today's inflation. Needless to say, these were not within the reach of most consumers.



Nokia Mobira Talkman (1984)


Even under ideal care and conditions, the more portable DynaTAC could only eke out about 60 minutes of talk time. It was flashy and interesting, yes, but practical, no. On the plus side,these unwieldy battery packs on the Talkman models could allow for extended cell phone life. On the minus, you had to carry a giant battery around with you.

Motorola MicroTAC 9800X (1989)

This phone was widely revered for its small and light construction, boasting "pocket size" proportions. It even featured a revolutionary flip mouthpiece, which of course made it look infinitely cooler than the Zach Morris model. On the low end, no-frills versions of the MicroTAC sold for around $2500, still falling short of the release of a reasonably priced cellular telephone.



Pagers/Beepers

Yes, I admit, it's not really a cell phone. The pager, however, was a stepping stone into regular consumer ownership of phone-related devices. While cell phones were still pretty pricey for the general public, pagers became a sensible means of getting a hold of someone while they were out. For example, the babysitter could alert the parents of their child's incessant projectile vomiting, and the parents could rush to a nearby payphone to offer cleanup tips. It was a handy way to keep track of people, and far cheaper than a full-fledged phone.

As the affordability of cell phones rose, pagers were once again relegated to use by businesspeople and doctors. It almost makes me shed a tear to think that a generation from now, no one will think Daria's Quinn Morgendorfer's line, "Mom! I'm not my sister's beeper!" is funny. It is, by the way, hilarious.


First Cell Phone TV Commercial (1989)



That 80s music! The lack of voice-over! The cheesy montage quality! This commercial had it all. Well, all by the standards of horribly corny 80s commercials. I do kind of like when that guy tries to call his way out of the sheep traffic jam on the road. Classic.



Radio Shack Cell Phone TV Commercial (1990)



Just take a look at that battery pack! I mean, really. Doesn't this seem like somewhat of a step backward toward Talkman territory? Didn't they already have a few phones without enormous battery packs? Why do I need to carry the equivalent of a lumberjack's hearty lunchbox just to make a call on my boat? I assume cost and battery life had something to do with it, but that thing is an eyesore.

Motorola International 3200 (1992)
The first to utilize GSM (Global Systems for Mobile Communications) technology, this is the first of the cell phone dinosaurs that would actually still work on today's network. It also had an LCD screen, though you certainly couldn't do much with it.

First Person-to-Person Text Message (1993)

This nugget of information is included solely to bask in the memory of a time before text messages and the inevitable carpel tunnel developed thereafter. Back then, the idea of composing the equivalent of an entire letter via cell phone was unfathomable. Despite the available technology, it would still be several years before texting took off in a big way.


IBM Simon (1994)

IBM and BellSouth teamed up to produce the first market-viable SmartPhone, released in 1994 as the IBM Simon. The Simon had, alongside its regular cell phone capability, the power to send and receive faxes, a pager function, and the features of a PDA. It even came with games and had a touch screen. How progressive is that? At $899 it still wasn't a bargain, but it was slighty more within the range of access for ordinary consumers.



Motorola StarTAC (1996)

Our first flip phone, or as they are more adorably known, the clamshell model. It was extremely compact for the time, and the design looks pretty close to that of a basic flip phone today*. Magazine ads even featured a punch-out picture version of it to illustrate its real size, which was pretty well-received as far as marketing strategies go. On the other hand, this baby still cost you a grand, so you might have just stuck with faking it with your magazine cutout version.

Nokia 5110(1998)

One of the most popular models of the time, this phone was everywhere. Even Scully from the X-Files used it, and I certainly trust her taste in communication technology. This was the first phone I owned, rewarded to me upon receipt of my driver's license, and I certainly treasured it. I lavished it in gifts like jeweled buttons and electric pink faceplates, and let me tell you, I know my 5110 appreciated it.

The 5110 was also the first phone to have the game Snake, which entertained me through a serious bulk of my high school classes and study halls. Seriously, I rocked at Snake. This was also the first phone to feature interchangeable faceplates, meaning you could alter the design and make it look, in many cases, ridiculous.



Nokia 8810 (1998)

Our good friends at Nokia had a novel idea: why not fold up the external antenna and stick it inside the phone? The resultant 8810 with internal antenna was extremely popular, and looked pretty futuristic for its time. Just take my word for it.



Nokia 7110(1999)

Alright, finally we're getting somewhere connectivity-wise! The 7110 was the first to include WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) technology, meaning it had pretty limited access to some online material and capabilities. Plus, they modeled the sliding bottom after the phone in the Matrix. All you needed were a pair of sunglasses and a simulated reality environment and you could be just like Neo.

Nokia 3210 (1999)

Internal antenna? Compose your own ringtones? Switchable faceplates? And the first with T9? Where do I sign up?

My brain is now specially wired (or perhaps in this case, wirelessly capable) to know all of the distinct nuances of T9 without even looking at my phone. Predictive text was a new and exciting concept that meant you didn't have to press every damn button 4 times to get the letter you want, one at time. Well done, Nokia.



All of these phones are a far cry from today's ultra sleek, ultra capable phones, but at the time they were greeted with great enthusiasm. We never knew quite what they'd come up with next. Nowadays, it's hard to imagine how much further technology will go. I can't fathom what more they can do with it, but I'm sure they'll think of something. Catch up with me in 20 years when I'm chatting on my sandwich phone and we'll talk.



*Not that anyone except me still has an archaic phone like that, but still

Rocko's Modern Life

If you're going to do weird, you have to do it right. If you manage that, you can do quirky, surreal, intriguing, enthralling, and interesting=. If you do it wrong, though, it's just plain weird.

Rocko's Modern Life is without a doubt one of the weirdest children's cartoons out there. When I say out there, I mean out there as in that remote distance past normalcy and into a realm of the strange usually occupied by giant squids and Japanese gadgetry. With Rocko, creator Joe Murray managed to strike that delicate balance between strange and entertaining that so appeals to children. As kids, our imaginations have yet to be quashed by harsh cynicism, and we're far more willing to accept the absurd at face value. At least I think that's right; I'm not quite sure how else to explain the success of a show like Rocko.

Murray set out to create a show both edgy and funny, which is a lofty ambition for an ordinary show, let alone for a children's show. He and his team reworked one of his earlier animated concepts (My Dog Zero) to produce Rocko, a mild-mannered Australian wallaby transplanted to America. They packed the show with quirky secondary characters and a hearty dose of silliness that earned it a surprisingly large and loyal viewership over its four-season run.

The first episode of Rocko aired by Nickelodeon was No Pain No Gain/Who Gives a Buck, establishing the show's unique sense of humor, satire, and quirkiness. For your viewing pleasure, I present the first aired episode:


Watch Rocko's Modern Life No Pain, No Gain in Animation | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com


Watch Rocko's Modern Life Who Gives a Buck in Animation | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com


Let's meet our cast of characters:


Rocko

Like Madonna or Cher, our title character is without a last name. Unlike Madonna or Cher, he doesn't possess any diva-like qualities. He is the star of the show, sure, but he is determinedly non-confrontational and non-offensive. I guess they wanted him to be a fresh burst of sanity in the sea of crazy people inhabiting his O-town locale. He works at Kind of a Lot O' Comics and in his spare time enjoys recreational jackhammering and not wearing pants. How's that for a personal ad?



Spunky
Rocko's trusty canine companion, Spunky is an ordinary non-speaking domestic pet in a world of anthropomorphic animals. He also has two awesome parasites, Bloaty and Squirmy. I always liked Squirmy.



Heffer Wolfe
Heffer, a steer, is Rocko's dimwitted but well-meaning best friend. As a child, he was adopted by a family of wolves that benevolently deigned not to eat him. Though he tries to deny it, he really is a big fat cow. That guy could put away Chokey Chicken like nobody's business.



Filburt Shellbach


Filburt the turtle is about as nebbishy as you can get with his over-sized glasses, self-deprecating attitude, and overall low self-esteem. He has a sort of Woody Allen thing going on, though we wouldn't have known it as at the time as kids. He's frequently getting nauseous, cursing fishsticks, and turning a page/washing his hands/repeating. He later did some serious inter-species mating with a hook-handed cat. Like I said, weird.



Ed and Bev Bighead

Rocko's obnoxious neighbors, Ed and Bev are a toad couple. Ed works at the town's major employer, Conglom-O as manager. He generally abhors the existence of Rocko and Co, though Bev seems to like them okay.


Melba Toast

(No photo available. Obviously)

The semi-anonymous never-seen neighbor who serves as Rocko's romantic interest. Oh, and her name's a joke. Get it?



Really Really Big Man


Our resident superhero, RRBM was indeed a really, really big man with super strength. Plus, if you gazed into his Nipples of the Future, you might foresee something exciting. Yep, Nipples of the Future. Really. They spun and everything.



Dr. Paula Hutchinson

Paula eventually becomes Filburt's wife, though we first know her as a one-handed Jill-of-all-trades professional. Rocko legend has it that the good folks at Nickelodeon were none to pleased with the lack of positive female characters and asked for "a professional woman, someone with a good hook." Always ones to get the last laugh, the Rocko team gave Hutchinson a literal hook. It was, to their credit, pretty good. Mission accomplished.

The show was often crude and featured sexual innuendo and adult-style humor that usually eked by the censors. Some scenes, however, were omitted from the rebroadcasts due to their allegedly questionable content deemed inappropriate for juvenile audiences. The scene below was only broadcast once before it was cut from the episode "Road Rash":



The episode "Leap Frogs" was also pulled after its initial airing due to inappropriate content. "Leap Frogs" featured Rocko's neighbor Bev Bighead attempting to seduce our wallaby frontman. It's a wonder some of these episodes ever made it past the censors the first time around. I suppose it was a different time, when sex-crazed cartoons were par for the course.


Watch Rocko's Modern Life - Leap Frogs in Animation | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

You must admit, the show has a certain appeal, even now as an adult viewer. I got sucked into that last clip with as much interest as I had as a kid, probably more because my reaction now is peppered with the shock that this Mrs. Robinson-esque episode is exclusively about sex. In Nickelodeon's defense, I liked it the first time around and it was sly enough not to state outright its complete focus on sex. I just thought she wanted to give him some ice-cold lemonade. What's so wrong with that?

On the other hand, that part where he massages his eyeballs was enough to give me some minor-league nightmares. Part of the show's idiosyncratic charm was its almost repellent slapstick gags. Rocko's Modern Life was tough to pin down. It could be sweet, it could be funny or sardonic, and it could be gross-out disgusting. The show's charm lay in the fact that it was unlike anything we'd ever seen, particularly from a kids' show. It was sharp, it was funny, and best of all a whole lot of it was completely inappropriate.

It was all in good fun, though, and kids and adults ate it up like Pasture Puffies. Though you could certainly offer some heavy critiques to content, the show never took itself too seriously, nor did it ever ask us to take itself seriously. It was meant to be funny, and it was funny. Like I said, they did weird right. It was still weird, sure, but more importantly it was entertaining.

Ubiquitous 80s and 90s Advertising Slogans

An effective and memorable advertising campaign can be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, a phrase associated with your product will be forever embedded in your consumers' minds. On the other, they will probably find this mentally inextricable campaign to fall somewhere between mildly irritating and hair-tearingly unbearable. So to review, yes, they'll remember it, but they'll also grow to hate it. Sort of a mixed bag if I ever saw one.

Adhering to the age-old adage of "all publicity is good publicity", these advertising agencies pushed forward with these catchy campaigns that with repeated viewing came to resemble nails on a chalkboard. Regardless, if we're still remembering them a decade later, it must be a testament to their effectiveness. Here are just a few of the ads that populated our favorite TV blocks and haunted our dreams throughout the 80s and 90s:




Where's the Beef? (Wendy's)


There must be something to be said for repetition. By my count, the old broad on the right croaks, "Where's the beef?" three times in a thirty second spot. No wonder we all remember it so well: they were essentially drilling it into our consciousness with these ads.

The ad served to showcase the perceived poor ratio of bun-to-burger we find at most fast food restaurants. Not at Wendy's, though, according to our elderly spokesfriend Clara Peller. She's not sold on that all bun/mini burger combo and is quick to question the relative location of her cow byproducts, and with good reason. Nice going, Clara. You tell it like it is.

"Where's the Beef?" became such a popular slogan that 1984 presidential candidate Walter Mondale actually adopted it for his campaign, accusing fellow Democrat-in-the-running Gary Hart of being all show and little substance. Admittedly, Mondale didn't ascend to the presidency either, but you have to admire his cajones for adopting a fast food slogan as a debate point.



Got Milk? (Milk)


The Got Milk? ads are still circulating, but they premiered and reached their peak popularity in the 90s. Above is the first television spot in which an Aaron Burr fanatic fails to win the $10,000 radio call-in prize about, you guessed, it, Aaron Burr. And why, do you ask, were his noble Burr-loving efforts thwarted? Why, a peanut butter sandwich of course. With no milk to wash it down. All sandwich and no milk makes a very sad boy. Or at least one out $10,000. It seems the message here was fail to drink milk, miss out on valuable contest prize opportunities. You don't have to tell me twice.

The ads featuring the trademark mustache ran in many popular magazines, showcasing milk mustachioed celebrities with a blurb about their calcium-rich lifetstyles. We'll just ignore that many of the young starlets featured in these ads went on to lead drug-addled, eating-disordered, generally troubled lives and chalk their resilience up to milk-related bone strength.

To read the full article about the Got Milk? campaign, click here



Wassup? (Budweiser)



This ad is proof that more irritating your ad, the more likely it is to catch on as a general societal phenomenon. These Budweisers commercials feature a group of beer-drinkin', football watchin' fellas greet each other on the phone with the phrase, "Whasssssup?" There was a certain inflection and accompanying head-shaking movement that made the phrase distinctive from its less idiotic counterpart, "What's Up?"

The ad was actually based on a short film entitled True, which was basically the "Whassssup?"-loving premise we see here only with less direct product placement. That film caught the attention of someone over at Anheuser-Busch, and the rest was irritating catch phrase-spewing history. This ad was shown so often and parodied so frequently that it was quickly woven into the fabric of our daily speech patterns. I will admit, I did like the international version of the ad Budweiser put out. When that Japanese guy bellows, "Konichiwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?" I just melt a little inside.



Yo Quiero Taco Bell (Taco Bell)



There's nothing like good old fashioned animal ethnic stereotyping to bring something fresh and fun to the fast food advertising table. Thanks to Taco Bell, I can't imagine any of my friend's chihuahuas speaking in anything other than a Mexican accent. Granted, they don't really speak so much as yip, but I'd prefer to not feel guilty over my racial profiling-style translation of their yips into requests for cheesy gorditas.

Taco Bell's chihuahua became a very popular advertising icon, and his trademark phrase, "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" quickly rose to catch phrase status. All this dog did was walk down the street, proclaim his desire for Taco Bell in Spanish, and everyone loved him. It seems the second you throw another language into the mix, the ad suddenly becomes exotic and interesting to the general public. I can't imagine we'd have reacted the same to a Staten Island Taco Bell Dog.



I Want to Be Like Mike (Gatorade)



In 1992, who didn't want to be like Mike? We were all in awe of the basketball star's incredible prowess on the courts, and if Gatorade promised to make us just a little more Mike-like, well, then we were going to take them at their word. I drank hundreds of Gatorades and have yet to make a jump shot. How do you explain that one, Gatorade? Huh?



Keeps Going and Going and Going (Energizer)



Though most of us 90s kids wouldn't know it from our own respective childhoods, the Energizer Bunny actually started as a parody of their battery-producing rival Duracell's trademark Duracell Bunny. I know, right? A Duracell bunny? Who knew? The popularity and resonance of Energizer's mascot far outlived its competition, and its Energizer Bunny soon became a highly recognizable character. I mean, he wears wayfarer sunglasses and plays a marching band-style drum. What's not to like?



What Would You Do For a Klondike Bar? (Klondike)



The people at Good Humor-Breyers just knew that we were all gaga for the rich chocolatey ice-creamy taste of their trademark Klondike Bars. So they posed us a simple question: What would you do for a Klondike Bar? According to their commercials, it seemed we'd do quite a bit. The ads were definitely memorable, but they also made me seriously question my candy-coated ice cream intervention. I'm still working on my 12 step program. I'm just about to apologize to my dog in the above ad for mocking him just to get my fix. Sorry, Fido.



Just Do It (Nike)


What exactly is this mysterious "it"? We may never know, but at least Nike dropped us all some helpful hints in the slogan's premiere ad spot in 1988. "It" must be some sort of athletic ball, though its exact specifications are never clarified. I guess we'll just have to keep buying Nike products till we find out. I have a feeling that Swoosh will eventually point us in the right direction, though I can't be sure.



Once You Pop, You Can't Stop (Pringles)


Yes, that's right: not only did this decade's advertising campaigns encourage us to embrace our addiction to Klondike Bars, we were supposed to take on the Pringle fix as well. I'm not exactly sure what all of these addiction-themed ads are trying to tell us about the relationship between advertising and susceptibility to addiction, but I don't think I want to know. I can't even look at a duck anymore without picturing myself in full on Pringle duck-bill mode. That's how far this has gone. Are you happy now, Pringles? Well? Are you?



Pardon Me, Would You Have any Grey Poupon? (Grey Poupon)


When I think class and upper crustiness, the first place my mind usually goes is mustard. I can't help it. I know they must eat caviar and filet mignon also, but my childhood advertising never exposed that side of wealthy living to me. No, all I got was the Grey Poupon angle. Apparently, if you're classy and you drive a Rolls Royce, people are bound to trouble you for some Grey Poupon so you sure as hell better have some on hand. I mean, can you imagine the humiliation if another Rolls pulls up alongside yours and you don't even have any mustard to offer? For shame.



I've Fallen, and I Can't Get Up! (LifeAlert)



Okay, okay. I admit it. This one is such an easy target. It just oozes a corniness and poor reenactment quality that rivals any grainy black and white fake footage I've seen in those Discovery documentaries about unknowing pregnancies. And let me tell you, that's no easy feat.

Despite the fact that our narrator informs us that she was allegedly "deathly ill", she still summoned the mental wherewithal to press her LifeAlert button. Now that's a powerful system. Death doesn't stand a chance against it. Whether it's Mr. Miller's poorly acted chest pains or Mrs. Fletcher's trademark falling/inability to get up, this commercial was really asking to be mocked. If you're trying to convince children to respect the elderly, I'd advise never showing them this commercial. Even after the laughter eventually dies down, they're doomed to forever think of the old as both helpless and in desperate need of acting classes. Not exactly the respectable combination they may have hoped for.

To read the full post on the I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up! campaign, click here




Whether or not you'd like to admit it at this juncture in your life, most of us shamelessly repeated these refrains as if we'd discovered the golden ticket to comedic exceptionality. At one point or another, you probably pretended to be a Rolls Royce patron in desperate need of spiced mustard or a Chihuahua seeking his favored cheesy sour cream chalupas. It's time to embrace your embarrassing youthful slogan parroting and remember these campaigns for what they were: brilliant forays into the realm of eternal memory. Someday we may be old and senile, but we will probably still quip from our adjustable hospital beds about the addictive qualities of Pringles or the basketball skill-affirming powers of Gatorade. Now that's good advertising.

90s TV Thanksgiving Specials, Part III

Hope all of you in the states had a great Thanksgiving! To those of you outside the country you can just revel in the notion that your country is probably not quite as fat as ours. Not yet, at least.

Home Improvement Thanksgiving

Today's 90s Thanksgiving TV episode selection is from Home Improvement. Love it or hate it, it was an old 90s standby, and this episode should not disappoint. Enjoy!

90s TV Thanksgiving Specials, Part II

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all*! As promised, Children of the 90s is bringing you 3 fun-filled days of 90s Thanksgiving episodes!


Garfield's Thanksgiving

Today's is a goodie. Garfield and Friends gave us this fun little Thanksgiving special way back in 1989, but I dug it up so you can all enjoy it all over again. Hopefully you can squeeze in watching snippets of it somewhere in between your meal-induced food coma and dozing on the couch watching football.








*Even though I'm back home in my home state of Minnesota, I'm contractually obligated by the state of Texas to say "y'all" at least once a day to validate my residency

90s Thanksgiving TV Episodes Part I

We* here at Children of the 90s wish you safe travels and a happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the States! I too will be traveling and will not have internet access to write full posts. Also, there's an imminent likelihood of me ODing on green bean casserole, so this may be the last time we see each other in awhile. I ask only to be buried submerged in a layer of cream of mushroom soup and topped with zestily seasoned crispy onion strings. It's sort of like a Viking funeral in a casserole dish ship, only they just go on to serve you en flambé.

If you do manage to sneak away from the family onslaught for, oh, say, 22 minutes each day this week, I will not disappoint. I am proud to present the first installment in a three-part series of 90s TV Thanksgiving specials, scheduled and ready to go for you to enjoy this Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Now there's something you can be thankful for.

I had to search far and wide for these videos (which, of course, I'd like to disclaim that I do not own nor do upon which do I intend any type of copyright infringement. The people who posted them may have, however, so I recommend you go after them.)


Today's Offering--Friends: The One with All the Thanksgivings

I'm going to be up front with you and let you in on a little secret: I don't speak Romanian. Nonetheless, I spent 20 minutes of my life browsing a Romanian equivalent of YouTube to bring you one of my favorite Friends episodes, "The One with All the Thanksgivings". I scoured the internet for an embeddable version of this episode, and let me just say that it was pretty well hidden. You're welcome.








*Okay, Okay, it's just me

AOL/AIM Guide for the Perplexed 90s Child

I had the abrupt realization the other day that I no longer use America Online Instant Messenger (AIM). Their instant messaging program used to be the very cornerstone of my existence, and it's simply faded into the obscurity of my impending (okay, imminent) adulthood. Though functions like Facebook Chat and GChat keep us messaging our friends instantly, the loss I mourn is of our quirky but universal rules of AIM etiquette and practice.

Hearken back, if you will, to a time before Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and all other social media. Back when your online persona had a single avenue of emergence. When our away messages, chat icons, and AIM profiles defined us so completely to our judgmental online peers. A time when just the right balance of ~*~*~* to words with aLtErNaTiNg CaPiTaL aNd LoWeR cAsE lEtTeRs were enough to make your profile sparkle.

Yes, it was a simpler time. My boyfriend and I were discussing the issue and he mentioned his previous middle school AIM addiction that bordered on meriting a 12-step program. "I remember thinking to myself that if I were really rich, I would make a handheld device so I could take AIM wherever I went," he mentioned. Just imagine how it would shock his middle school self to learn that nearly every one of us has one of these in our purse or pocket right now. They're called cell phones.

Evidence of a simpler time. Oh AOLBuddy and InternetFriend, how we miss your newbie-like innocence

Before we were constantly plugged in to ten different networks of social media, we were a single-minded bunch. There were a complex set of unwritten rules that governed our AIM behavior. Let's explore a few of the universal norms and mores that drove our socially conscious AIM activity:


Create a Screen Name that Conveys Your Personality

Generally, these types of screen names included words like "Sweet" and "QTpie" for a girl and sports or athlete names for boys. Because our middle school minds were so achingly unoriginal, at your suggestion of a screenname AIM would inevitably spit back something like, "How about QTpie18483134852?"

Inclusion of birth year, age, or graduation year numbers was a popular motif, one that would likely have brought many of us into To Catch a Predator-like scenarios in the current online climate. In the early days of AIM, choosing a non-conventional or highly unique and personalized screenname was akin to social suicide. Yes, we had 12 versions of KittenLuver on our buddy lists, but it was far better than having been perceived as an individual.


Read Everyone's Away Message Religiously and Addictively

Nowadays we can get our fix via Facebook or Twitter, but it was back in the AIM glory days that we first grew enamored with the notion of broadcasting our every activity cyberworldward. If God forbid our internet was ever down, we would shake and convulse with the pains of voyeurism withdrawal.


Update Your Own Away Message to Show How Interesting, Witty, and Popular you Are

Helpful Hint: Single word informative away messages are always a social faux pas. To simply write "Showering" or "Eating" is the equivalent of admitting how boring and mundane your life really is. No, you needed to be "Gettin' my shower on" or "Foodin' it up" instead. See how much more interesting you seem?

More often than not, it was important to let people know that not only were you out doing something, but that you weren't alone. "Out with my girls!" or "Playin Bball with Dave and Dan" were variations on socially acceptable norms. No one would ever, ever write "Quietly reading alone in my room". The only time you were allowed to be alone was while studying, and you better have used that away message to complain about it or you'd be suspected of (gasp!) enjoying schoolwork. For shame.


Choose the Perfect Icon


When AIM released the icon option, we all eagerly pored through the catalogs with Talmudic levels of focus and analysis. Was I more of a kitten or a flower? It was a tough call. Deliberation over whether I made the right choice haunts me to this day.


Select the Most Emo Available Pre-Emo Era Song Lyric for your Profile

This was before the coinage of the term "emo", but it's generally a good fit for the style of song snippet we placed meaningfully (or so we thought) in our profiles. The lyrics were supposed to have some type of personal meaning, but usually you just saw it in someone else's profile, thought it made them look wise and thoughtful, and adopted it as your own.

Extra Credit: Include a link to your angsty xanga or LiveJournal


Pick a Fun Sound to Chime when your Boyfriend/Girlfriend/Crush/Stalkee Signs Online

What's your auditory fancy? AIM had you covered. Rather than the basic open door/slam door sounds, you could choose an "Eep!" or "Ding Dong!" to alert you of the arrival of a socially significant peer. That signature noise was enough to make any of our pre-adolescent hearts skip a beat or two.


Know the Lingo and Punctuation Norms


The moment I realized that when I think to myself "I don't know" the letters IDK appear instantaneously in my mind's eye, I knew my love affair with IM had probably gone too far. Most of the old standards are still in circulation today ("OMG", "WTF", and the like), but we did have a few incredibly complicated ones to deflect our parent's curious eyes.

Speaking of i's, no one dared capitalize theirs in casual online conversation. The aforementioned alternation of capital and lowercase letters was, however, acceptable. Also, the proper way to end every sentence was with an ellipsis, even if it gradually trailed off an incomplete thought...


Choose Your Emoticons Wisely


Writing online comes with the added trouble of people misinterpreting what you wrote. The upside to this, however, was that you could always, always claim you were "jk" if what you said went over like a ton of bricks. Accidentally tell your friend they looked fat in their swimsuit at Susie's pool party? Simply add a :p or a ;) and you were totally off the hook.

Extra credit for more technically difficult but wholly unnecessary shapes such as:
A rose: @>---,---
Elvis @;^[)
Fish <')))))- <


Group Your Buddies by Lists with Ridiculous Names that Contain Words like "Peepz" and "Homies"



It's important to categorize all of your friends into groups, so be sure to come up with some catchy and vaguely descriptive names. Any sort of trite, overused slang to describe your friends was always a good move, especially if it was something your parents didn't understand and thus re-cemented their position as ignorant no-nothings. There are only so many times that you can explain to them that the categorization "Tight People" was not a sexually loaded term.


Find the Font and Color that Represents Your Personality


This was especially important, as it stood for how people would perceive your online identity. Were you more of a powder blue Comic Sans or a neon green italicized Helvetica? You better pick something and stick with it, because nothing was more irritating than those AIMers who would change font style and color every time they signed on. That's like them speaking in a falsetto or false baritone every time you had a conversation. It wasn't tasteful, and it just wasn't done.


Play Semi-Cruel Mind Games Through Use of AIM Functions


Not all AIM actions were well-intended. In fact, some were rather diabolical. When you were fighting with a friend, it was critical to use your AIM functions to your advantage. For example, you may select the "do not show as idle" function that forces people to worry erroneously that you're there, but you're ignoring them. Very tricky, yes, but very effective.

Blocking certain users was another popular ploy, as was clicking "Warn" to up their warning level. Bonus points for using your away message to write cryptic, esoteric things like, "You know what you did." Come to think of it, plenty of us employ these very same methods on Facebook today. You can take the 90s kid off the AIM, but you can't take the AIM out of the 90s kid.


It just goes to show you that no matter how mature we may think we've become, we can still read through these and think, "Oh, that's a good idea!" So, farewell for now, everyone, or TTFN for those of you who are so AIMily inclined. Check back the rest of this week for some wonderful 90s Thanksgiving TV episodes to tide you over for the long holiday weekend. Until then, *~*~*~hAvE a GrEaT tHaNkSgIvInG eVeRyOnE~*~*~*

The Real World

Last weekend, sometime between my many hours wasted watching For the Love of Ray J, World's Strictest Parents, and MTV Teen Cribs I got to thinking where exactly reality TV has veered off course. We all know it's far cheaper and easier for networks to produce reality shows that actual scripted TV shows with content and purpose, but somewhere along the way the phenomenon has spun out of control. While now we're now looking for the greatest American dog and giving Brett Michael's most curious female cast-offs their own half hour of television, in the 90s reality TV was still a burgeoning idea. It may shock and amaze you now, but the modifier "reality" once preceded the noun "TV" without even a trace of irony.

The Real World is still on of course, but we can all agree it's gotten a whole lot less real over its 22 seasons-to-date run. Now at open casting calls I imagine they have check boxes with labels like "Drunken Frat Boy Likely to Pick an Ignorant and Poorly Thought-Out Fight" or "Frustrated Psuedo-Intellectual Racial or Sexual Preference Minority Prototype", but in 1992 when the show premiered the show was a fresh concept.

Producers (and now reality show moguls) Jonathan Murray and Mary Ellis-Bunim initially considered making The Real World a semi-scripted soap opera, giving the preselected cast members a blueprint of their character development and storylines. You know, like they do nowadays on reality TV. If this idea had come to fruition with the quickly dissembled so-called "Season 0" cast, we could have seen Tracy Grandstaff (the then-future voice of MTV's Daria) play out as a character on The Real World. The pilot was soon dropped and exchanged for an actual set of seven strangers, forming the 1992 premiere season of The Real World.

In 1992, we first heard of MTV's grand social experiment, as the New York season premiered with these now-familiar words:

This is the true story... of seven strangers... picked to live in a house...work together and have their lives taped... to find out what happens... when people stop being polite... and start getting real...The Real World.


For your viewing pleasure, a montage of Real World Intros. I couldn't find them any other way. The first one on there is New York, my favorite part of which has got to be when they intone "...and start getting real," after which we hear a cast member yell, "Can you get the phone?" This was them not being polite/being real in 1992. Amazing.

So, what exactly happened when people stopped being polite and started being real? In 1992, this was actually a provocative and novel question. MTV brought in Becky, Norman, Heather, Julie, Kevin, Eric, and Andre to help us find out. I'm going to go out on a limb here and side with pop culture critic Chuck Klosterman in declaring the first season to be the only season of TRW that was actually "real" by any definition of the world. There was no meta self awareness going on, nor was there shameless self promotion in pursuit of low-tier fame. The first cast was the only one with no idea what was in store, what would get them screen time, or how the show would look as a finished product.

This was a short-lived phenomenon, of course, and soon the show was riddled with the kind of drama producers and sponsors salivate over. Here are just a few of the many, many ratings-skyrocketing dramatic moments that characterized the show in the 90s:



Puck vs. Everyone, Especially Pedro (San Francisco)


Sometimes good heartedness and good TV just don't mix. David "Puck" Rainey was a prime example of this phenomenon. No one could deny that watching his puzzling, over-the-top, and frequently unhygienic antics was entertaining. His worldview, however, was not quite as appealing to viewers as his penchant for picking his nose and eating peanut butter from the jar with his fingers. Puck was a notorious attention hog who represented the brazen new class of wannabe fame-seekers who made up the rising underclass of reality TV. He came to blows with pretty much everyone in the house, but the most memorable and shameful was his confrontation with Pedro Zamora.

Zamora had been diagnosed with AIDS, and his kind spirit and desire to battle ignorance against his disease made him the ideal target for Puck. Essentially, Puck became incensed that Pedro was a far more interesting character than him and thus was receiving far more attention. The only logical solution in his deluded mind was to attack Pedro constantly, instigating unnecessary confrontations. Pedro, in all his goodness, was ready to leave the house under the siege of torment until the other cast members decided to evict Puck. Sadly, Pedro died almost immediately after the airing of the San Francisco season finale, but his triumph over an asshat like Puck was a well-deserved minor victory.



Melissa and Dan Fight Over Postal Rights (Miami, 1996)



I don't know about you, but I take the US Postal Service's code to honor the privacy of my mail very seriously. Which is why it came as no surprise to me when Dan exploded upon finding that Melissa opened his letter containing pricey materials for his work. He goes so far as to call her a stupid bitch, which seems a little harsh for some innocent housemate mail-tampering. Things escalate quickly, as they tend to do on The Real World. In retaliation, Melissa flung some anti-gay slurs at him, which in retrospect was probably not a wise move. The drama just oozes from this clip. It's ridiculous TRW at its finest.



The Slap Heard Round the World (Seattle, 1998)

Stephen slaps Irene
Uploaded by 1dobiedc. - Classic TV and last night's shows, online.

Possibly the most infamous of Real World moments was what MTV dubbed "The Slap Heard Round the World". Even this early in the game, MTV realized the value of branding and packaging TRW's drama and making it seem like news. I suppose it's a testament to the show's resonance that people still remember this moment, though to its credit it is absolutely crazy.

Irene was looking for an out, so she cried Lyme Disease and asked to leave the show. To be fair, she did actually have Lyme Disease, but her claims of its debilitating impact may have been just a bit exaggerated. In what must have been a Lyme Disease-induced bout of insanity, she outs Stephen as a homosexual. Smooth move, Irene. To retaliate, Stephen does what any normal guy would do. That is to say, he throws her prized stuffed animal into the watery abyss and then stops her moving car to slap her in the face.

If he was working to quell those murmurings about his sexuality, this may not have been his best move. All in all, Irene may have had the last laugh, or at least a validation of her character over Stephen's. In the early 2000s he was arrested for prostitution and then for stealing a 1988 Toyota Camry. Smooth move, Stephen. We can only imagine his indisposed clients asking to reenact that fateful slapping scene. Though to be honest, I'd prefer not to.


As many of you well know, these moments are just the tip of the iceberg. The crazy seemed to snowball with each new season, turning the show into a free-for-all frenzy of threesomes, stereotyped character molds, and general drunken debauchery. In the early years, though, it was more of a legitimate social experiment to see what happened what people stopped being polite, and started getting real. Okay, so that reality may have included a verbal pillaging for semi-innocent mail tampering, but it still beats watching The Real World: Cancun.

The Magic of Science: 90s Shows that Made it Fun to be a Nerd

Considering educational science-themed kids shows of today have names like Dude, What Would Happen?, you have to wonder how far this type of programming is going to backslide. In our day, these shows didn't need cheesy gimmicks to pull in our attention. Except science-themed music video parodies on Bill Nye. Oh, and the penguin puppets on Beakman's World. And the swashbuckling sword fights on Mr. Wizard's World. Okay, so I made that last one up, but the underlying point was that no matter what the decade, you usually need a little more than straight educational segments to sell science to kids.

These shows must have had something special, though, to get us to voluntarily subject ourselves to learning in our precious free time. I'm sure some parental coaxing or even in-class watching sessions may have been in order, but no matter the means, we were watching. These shows found a magical point of compromise between education and entertainment and served it to us in a bubbling beaker of science learning. The producers and writers knew that kids are inherently inattentive, so they were sure to throw a fair amount of explosions in the mix.

The straightforwardness of these show's educational value was remarkable. Unlike some of its edutaining contemporaries (I'm looking at you, Ghostwriter), kid's science shows weren't tricking us into learning while we thought we were simply enjoying some mindless show. With science programs, it was all out in the open. Sure, they took pains to make learning fun and interesting, but they never once tried to hide the fact that we were doing what amounted to extracurricular science homework. Whatever the impetus for our spontaneous bouts of learning, our teachers and parents weren't complaining.



Bill Nye the Science Guy



Catchy theme song, right? It's all I can do to not start chanting Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill! alone in the comfort of my living room. The folks behind Bill Nye definitely achieved their goal of making science seem fun and exciting, at least in the opening credits. They take all the vaguely science-y sounding words and use them as mere background noise for the the snappy theme. The things floating across our screens seem vaguely educational, yes, but when they're flashing in a maniacal strobe-light manner, they seem just a tad more exciting than they do in our Earth Science textbooks.

Bill Nye was a fast-paced, engaging show aimed at the learning resistant tween demographic. The show utilized humor and sight gags while constantly cutting from one experiment to the next. It didn't give us time to get bored and change the channel. If we were nearing that boredom threshold, though, Bill knew just what to do to keep us hooked.

Two words: song parodies. Yes, you heard (er, read) right. Nye offered us Weird Al-esque song parody musical videos with scientific themes. The "Soundtrack of Science" segment was truly ridiculous, but it demonstrated the show's good sense to not take itself to seriously. For your enjoyment, I offer my very favorite Bill Nye parody, the truly absurd "Bill's Got Boat" a parody of "Baby Got Back" sung by fictitious musical act (wait for it) Sure-Floats-A-Lot.

Can't you see she just wants to be buoyant?

To read the full post on Bill Nye the Science Guy, click here



3-2-1 Contact



The visuals in that intro really make you nostalgic for a simpler time. When I see that bar graph on that black screen computer, I just light up. It's kind of cute and kitschy-looking now, don't you think?

The show also made a version especially for in-class use, further blurring the line between formal and voluntary learning. You may have enjoyed watching it in school, but you were still essentially shackled to your desk by law. It's a fine line, don't you think?

3-2-1 Contact had a variety of segments including features on such exciting scientific topics as volcanoes and robots. My favorite recurring segment was The Bloodhound Gang, which back in the day meant cool scientifically-minded child detectives, but now brings to mind the images of humping music video stars dressed as monkeys. Thanks a lot, musical group Bloodhound Gang. You've tainted the innocence of my intellectually curious youth.

I yearned to answer the phone, "Bloodhound Detective Agency: wherever there's trouble we're there on the double!" I'm thinking of starting to pick up at work that way, just for fun.

This intro is pure mid-to-late 80s, and that song is amazing

Mr. Wizard's World




If that intro just doesn't do it for you, check out this 1990 promo. It just screams excitement. Learn to make clouds! Blow up two balloons at once! Run backwards! Golly, Mr. Wizard, is there anything you can't do?



This 80s and 90s version was a revival of Mr Wizard's (nee Don Herbert) show decades earlier. In the 1950s and 60s, Watch Mr Wizard launched thousand of Mr Wizard science clubs. If you're ever feeling a little nerdy for liking the third version of the show (that's the 80s/90s one), just think to yourself, by 1955 100,000 kids had applied to be club members. Now that's nerdy.

We may not have had local watch-along clubs, but we did get our own healthy dose of fun experiments at which to marvel. Mr Wizard would perform some sort of mysterious trick, we'd ooh and ahh, and then we'd be stuck sitting around for the tedious explanation. The show ran in reruns for several years and often played very early in the morning. I distinctly remember irritating my parents with my wide-awakeness at 6 am and being stuck in front of the TV for some good old fashioned science learning. Oh, the memories.




Newton's Apple



If you thought TV scientists from the 1950s were interesting, just look at the winners we got to host Newton's Apple. An NPR broadcaster, a museum director, and even future MTV News correspondent SuChin Pak. Now there's a selection! Of course, this was all over the span of several years, but you get the general idea.

I admit my allegiance to this show stems from a similar place to my fervent devotion to Mystery Science Theater 3000. Being from Minneapolis, these shows were something of hometown heroes, produced in my own backyard. Well, not literally in my own backyard. Though I do think our shed would have been a lovely scenic backdrop for bottle rocket launching.




Beakman's World


Beakman's World was sort of like a modified Bill Nye. It covered many of the same topics and scientific phenomena, only its eccentric host was fictitious. Beakman was played by Paul Zaloom, a lively pupeteer and actor who brought to life the world of science through amusing experiments. Beakman was quite popular with the lab-assisting ladies; he had three comely female scientific companions throughout the course of the show. He also had a guy in a rat suit. Don't ask, just infer that it was funny.

They also had the aforementioned puppet penguins, which were of course adorable. They were sort of crotchety and judgmental, but then again they lived in a place where it was consistently below zero temperature. I'll cut them some slack.




These TV shows prove that adults needed not be sneaky to try to get us to sit down and watch something educational, they just needed to be kid friendly and have a good sense of humor. Oh, and have lots of explosions. Lots of explosions.