How did so many of these bands follow the same messed-up paths? Did they all run into each other at rehab, or bankruptcy court? Whatever the reason, the show was a soothing hour full of smugness for viewers. We may not have had a string of number-one R & B hits in 1975, but we also never threw away millions of dollars on sub sandwich franchises and polo ponies.
STATUS: The show shows no sign of ending after fifteen years. As long as there are bands, there will always be bands that get themselves into trouble.
FUN FACT: The Simpsons dead-on spoof, Behind the Laughter, even borrowed Behind the Music’s actual narrator, Jim Forbes. “I had no business hosting the Oscars,” explains a confession-minded Lisa. “Meryl Streep spit on me!”
The Big Lebowski
Poor Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski. Man didn’t want much from life: Nights spent bowling with Donny and Walter. Time to relax in the bathtub without a ferret being dumped on top of him. And most of all, a rug that tied the whole room together.
But that was not to be. Mistaken for a millionaire also named Lebowski, our Los Angeles stoner, hero of Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Big Lebowski, finds himself caught up in a world of German Nihilists, vaginal art, a car-thieving schoolkid, and a laid-back cowboy narrator.
Robe and jelly shoes on, White Russian in hand, he bobs and weaves through the plot, just trying to get back his simple life. Toes are amputated, Creedence is stolen, but through it all, The Dude abides. We don’t know about you, but we take comfort in that.
STATUS: Released in 1998, the film found a new cult following in later years, and a traveling Lebowski Fest now celebrates it annually.
FUN FACT: The Coen Brothers were well aware that it was a ferret, not a marmot, thrown into The Dude’s bathtub, but figured the character himself would get the two species mixed up.
Big Mouth Billy Bass
It was the worst thing to happen to mankind’s relationship with sea life since Jaws ate all those people. Part robot, part wall art, all bad idea, Big Mouth Billy Bass looked like a stuffed fish mounted on a plaque, but all it took was a quick press of the red button—or, God forbid, doing anything to trip his motion sensor—and battery-powered annoyance kicked in.
A staple of rec rooms everywhere, he’d launch into “Take Me to the River” or “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” complete with fish choreography, his little mouth flapping along with the music. Even with his big surprise move (he bent in the middle and did a ninety-degree turn halfway through to stare at you with those dead fish eyes), Billy quickly outstayed his welcome. People all over the world prayed for the sweet relief of dead double-As as they suddenly realized they were severely allergic to rubber seafood.
STATUS: Mercifully, gone for good, although you can still find Billy online and at garage sales everywhere. Before the trend started to smell, it also took the form of a singing lobster, a deer head, and even a fish skeleton.
FUN FACT: Knockoffs and variations included a toy truck draped with a deer carcass that woke up and sang along with the hunters that shot it.
Bill Nye the Science Guy
In the ’90s, Bill Nye the Science Guy helped more than a few middle schoolers limp through science class. The PBS show, which ran from 1993–1998, tackled everything from eyeballs to evolution, lifting normally dry topics out of textbooks and bringing them to life with a nerdy but fun zing.
Lanky Nye was the science teacher we all wished we had, complete with bow tie and sky-blue lab coat. His show incorporated TV show parodies, James Bond–style scenes, and song spoofs. He dressed in a suit of armor to explain reptile scales and stood in Puget Sound for a lesson on primordial soup. And his techniques actually helped us remember concepts too—in one, he began a bike trip at a red balloon representing the sun, and demonstrated how far it took to reach each of the planets.
Humor, charm, and we were learning too? Man, the best we could hope for from our real teachers was that the pop quiz would get postponed for a day.
STATUS: The show may be gone for good, but Alton Brown’s Good Eats, which ran from 1999 to 2011, featured a similar nerdy, likable host explaining science-y topics (in this case all related to food) to a general audience. And Nye is still around, blogging and making videos about science.
FUN FACT: A lecture by Nye inspired the creation of the CBS crime show Numb3rs, which ran from 2005–2010.
Billy Bob Thornton
Mmm-hmm, Billy Bob Thornton was in movies and TV shows before, but it was in 1996’s Sling Blade, when he melted into the role of a mentally disabled man who reckons he likes them French-fried potaters, that we all took notice. And got more than a little weirded out over just how much Thornton transformed into the murderous but oddly gentle Karl Childers, who called his weapon of choice a Kaiser blade, while some folks call it a sling blade. For a while in the 1990s that line was as popular as the Macarena, and about a million times more menacing.
Thornton wrote, directed, starred in, and won a screenplay Oscar for Sling Blade, and quickly became Hollywood’s newest “it” guy. He went on to earn acclaim for roles in 1990s hits Primary Colors and A Simple Plan, among other films, and became known as an offbeat actor with a quiet intelligence and tough-guy persona.
Thornton wasn’t your typical heartthrob, but he was soon dating one of the most beautiful and intriguing women in Hollywood—Angelina Jolie. They wed in 2000, and the media erupted with headlines after learning that the two wore each other’s blood in vials around their necks. That’s something, all right—when your freakiest role is something out of your real life, not the one where you kill Dwight Yoakam with a lawnmower blade.
STATUS: Still makin’ movies.
FUN FACT: He comes by “Billy Bob” naturally—William Robert is his name.
The Blair Witch Project
1999’s The Blair Witch Project is remembered as much for its separate elements as for the film as a whole. The shaky camera work that made some viewers nauseous. A disturbing close-up of Heather’s dripping nostril. The “found footage” gimmick, supporting the rumor that these weren’t actors but real filmmakers gone missing. The sense that, given willing friends, a camera, and some ornate piles of twigs, you too could have made this movie in the woods near your house.
Thankfully, though, the novelty added up to a really good scare. When Heather, Josh, and Mike realize they’re walking in circles and Mike kicks their only map into the river, when Josh discovers that his belongings have been covered in slime, when Heather unwraps a disturbing bundle of hair and teeth—a sense of dread steamed out of those woods that rivaled anything Jason Voorhees could conjure up.
STATUS: The original film is available on DVD, but more important, the “found footage” genre it helped popularize continues to be popular, especially with horror movies.
FUN FACT: The bloody teeth that are supposed to be Josh’s were real human teeth provided by a Maryland dentist.
Blossom Fashion
Yes, Blossom had a plot—the eponymous character (Mayim Bialik) maneuvered through life with her single musician dad and two brothers, one a recovering addict and one who was a few peas short of a casserole. But no 1990s kid remembers more than a handful of actual storylines from the 1991–1995 show. We were too busy being completely stunned, intrigued, and occasionally blinded by the weird and wacky wardrobes.
Some people are staunch believers that sunflowers should stay in the garden, where they belong. Or that while Grandma’s crocheting may be the pride of the nursing home, when she crafts you a lime green sweater, it’s probably best to thank her profusely and wear it only on her birthday. But others looked at Blossom and her best pal Six as trendsetters, slamming together funky, creative, eclectic outfits that somehow…worked. Blossom’s granny dresses, clunky boots, vests, oversized jackets, and—especially—her floppy, flower-bedecked hats influenced a generation of kooky, fiercely independent kids.
Blossom planted the style-setting seeds that let a generation fly its quirky freak flag—even if it was cobbled together out of yel
low long underwear, floppy hats, and a skirt made out of neckties. In our opinionation, that’s reason enough to induct her into the ’90s Fashion Hall of Fame.
STATUS: Gone for good. Although, in 2012, Bialik and TV sibling Joey Lawrence reprised their roles in a commercial for Old Navy. Whoa. Loads of other shows went on to inspire teens’ wardrobe choices, from Gossip Girl (headbands!) to Sex and the City (tutus!).
FUN FACT: In 2009, Bialik got a post-Blossom fashion update on the TLC show What Not to Wear. The hosts called her real-life style “homeless hippie,” and ripped on her “Blossom-ish” clothing choices that included men’s shirts, an antique silk kimono, and yes, her actual grandma’s sweater.
Blue’s Clues
Only the luckiest kids got a real dog when they begged and pleaded. The rest of us got Blue, the neon cerulean puppy from Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues who lived with a motley menagerie of other anthropomorphic animals, furniture, and tools and their flesh-and-blood overlord, Steve Burns. No one thought it was odd that Steve heard the saltshaker, side-table drawer, and pail and shovel talking to him? Or that it took him a half hour to solve a mystery that most preschoolers figured out in the first three minutes?
When Steve left the show in 2002, a new dude named Joe moved into the Blue’s Clues world and the Internet went nuts with rumors that the original host had actually died. That mystery was quickly solved. (Surprise: He was fine. Steve split to pursue a music career.)
We wish that they’d have given some time to the show’s real mysteries. Like how Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper gave birth to a jar of paprika, or why Steve always wore the exact same light-and-dark-striped green shirt? Or the solution to the biggest whodunit of all: That when Blue left clues all over the floor, it probably meant she needed to go outside.
STATUS: The show stopped production in 2006, but reruns still air on Nick Jr.
FUN FACT: Steve Burns played a murderer on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1998—still wearing a striped shirt.
Bob Ross and The Joy of Painting
You never really intended to watch The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross, but maybe it was late at night, or maybe you were stuck at Grandma’s and the remote was not within your control. Or face it, maybe you had just settled down on the couch after a night out and were completely baked.
And there was this guy, in jeans and a white man’s Afro, speaking in the gentle voice of a pastor, offering up a painting lesson so sparsely shot it may have been filmed in his garage. He murmured the names of the colors, from titanium white to Prussian blue to burnt umber, as if they were his beloved children. And like a good dad, he had complete faith that his audience could do anything he could do, which in this case meant turn a blank canvas into a mountain masterpiece or a seascape in one half-hour show—if they didn’t nod off to sleep first. The New York Times once called his voice aural Demerol.
Fans learned a little about Ross in the process, including that his mom was his “favorite lady” and that when fishing he “put a Band-Aid on the fish and gave it CPR” before releasing it. Like Mr. Rogers, he seemed unquestionably good at heart—how could anyone painting “happy little trees” be otherwise? For that half hour, you were in the hands of a gentleman, and there was nothing bad in the world.
STATUS: Gone for good. Ross died in 1995. A personality like Ross’s can’t be replaced, but his memory lives on through reruns and his line of art supplies.
FUN FACT: A Far Side cartoon shows a woman watching a Bob Ross–like show who’s crushed to death when a real “happy little tree” falls on her house.
Body Glitter
How did you apply your body glitter? A spray? Lotion? Powder? Those Kissing Potion–like roll-on bottles? Really, the question should be: Why did we apply it at all? What was it about 1990s fashion that made us feel we could best accessorize by coating our skin with sticky, messy sparkles, as if we’d first dressed to the nines, and then sat down and rolled all over a kindergarten craft table?
Cosmetics companies indulged us by offering glitter in all scents, colors, and formats. Want to paint it on your nails? Squirt it in your hair? Dab it on your lips? Sweep it on your eyelids? Mostly we just splashed it on anywhere skin was at all exposed, envisioning ourselves to be hip and trendy club kids, instead of preteens who might as well have asked Claire’s at the mall to set up a direct-deposit account for our allowance.
You’d roll the glittery blueberry- or strawberry-scented goodness all over your shoulders, chest, and sometimes midriff, envisioning that the sparkle would surely catch Nick Lachey’s eye as he stared out into the nosebleed seats at a 98 Degrees concert. In reality, painting the glitter on was the most fun of the whole exercise, and the least fun part was finding the little sparkly speckles for days afterward on your jeans, in your bedsheets, and absolutely everywhere else.
STATUS: Glitter cosmetics are still around, but you’re most likely to find sparkles in fingernail polish these days.
FUN FACT: Glitter was so popular in the 1990s that even mega-chain Bath & Body Works had a line of products, Art Stuff, that seemed designed only to showcase glitter.
Bottled Water
Pay for water? When it already comes free out of the tap, the hose, the drinking fountain, even the sky? Our dads found the very concept as horrifying as leaving the lights on when no one’s home. In the 1970s or even 1980s, buying water seemed as silly as the old jokes about selling ice to Eskimos, but by the end of the 1990s, it was a billion-dollar industry.
The bottled-water craze made sense in a way. Water is better for you than sugary pop, so who wouldn’t feel a bit smug toting a bottle of the clear stuff instead of a Mountain Dew? But the craze brought its own problems—endless water containers clogging up landfills, as well as concerns about BPA, a chemical used in some plastic bottles. And don’t forget the cost—the New York Times estimated drinking eight glasses of tap water a day costs a consumer $0.49 a year vs. $1,400 for bottled water.
STATUS: Water continues to be a popular carry-with-you beverage, but more and more people are refilling the same container, oftentimes out of the tap. Thankfully, the next evolution in the you’re-paying-for-what? craze—oxygen bars—has yet to quite take off.
FUN FACT: “Evian” spelled backward is “naïve.”
Boy Bands
Boy bands weren’t invented in the 1990s—just ask moms who once swooned for the Monkees. But the late ’80s and the ’90s saw the trend explode, and junior-high lockers and concert promoters were the richer for it.
Whether you grooved to New Edition, Boyz II Men, ’N Sync, 98 Degrees, the Backstreet Boys, or earlier offering New Kids on the Block, the most important part of boy-band fandom was selecting a favorite band member. Every girl knew immediately if she was going to fall for the Cute One (’N Sync’s Justin), the Shy One (Backstreet’s Kevin), the Bad Boy (NKOTB’s Donnie), or the One Who Was Left Over After All Your Friends Already Called Dibs (oftentimes he was the one who quit the band early and immediately flopped at a solo career).
Thanks to teen magazines and TV specials, you soon knew your favorite’s hobbies, dog’s name, preferred foods, and of course his astrological sign and how it compared with your own. Your slightly older brother would mock you endlessly for this trivia, but really, he had no ground to stand on, considering he knew the same factoids about his own chosen idol on the Vikings or Red Sox.
Boy banders embraced the clean-cut, cookie-cutter image that made girls swoon. From the meticulously coordinated outfits to the never-out-of-step choreography, this was music cranked out by the corporate machine. But who cared? The harmonies soared, the tunes made for perfect prom themes, and the singers themselves were cuter than Beanie Babies. They had the right stuff, baby.
STATUS: Various bands popular in the 1990s have made comebacks, and in the 2010s, Europe began feeding us new boy bands, with One Direction leading the way.
FUN FACT: New Kids on the Block spawned a short-lived cartoon in 1990–1991. The real band members would appear briefly before the
episodes to deliver messages about how much they loved camping or to urge fans to stay in school.
The Brady Bunch Revival
Here’s the story…of a lovely lady. And her family, who never left our minds.
Campily classic sitcom The Brady Bunch was canceled in 1974, but never really ended. Reruns ran eternally, and there also was a cartoon, variety show complete with synchronized swimming, The Brady Brides TV series, and A Very Brady Christmas.
But it was in the 1990s that the famed blended family came back into the spotlight. The Real Live Brady Bunch dramatized scripts onstage. The 1990 drama The Bradys brought the family into a more troubled era (Marcia’s an alcoholic! Bobby gets paralyzed!). Two big-screen movies parodied the original series. Suddenly, the Bradys, who’d never really been cool, were everywhere.
Many kids who grew up watching the Bradys didn’t have the happy family they saw on the show. They sought comfort in it as kids, and as adults, they enjoyed the family reunion. Interest in the Bradys peaked around 1995, but it’s never truly gone away. Every generation, it seems, longs to somehow form a family.
STATUS: Members of the Bunch keep popping up, and in 2012, Vince Vaughn and CBS were working on yet another reboot of the famous family.
FUN FACT: Stars who made it big after stints on The Real Live Brady Bunch include Andy Richter (who played Mike), Jane Lynch (Carol), and Melanie Hutsell (Jan).
The Totally Sweet ’90s: From Clear Cola to Furby, and Grunge to “Whatever,” the Toys, Tastes, and Trends That Defined a Decade Page 3
