Top 10 Things 90's Kids Used to Do
#10: Watched TGIF
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For grownups, TGIF has always been “Thank God It’s Friday.” But for kids in the 90s we had our own TGIF with the “Thank Goodness It’s Funny” television lineup on Friday nights on ABC. Depending on when in the 90s you were watching, the 8-10pm lineup would have included one or more of the following shows: “Full House,” “Perfect Strangers,” “Family Matters,” and “Boy Meets World,” to name just a few. It was a family-friendly block of television that many of us watched every week. And if we couldn’t watch, we’d would get our parents to set the timer on our VCR to record it.
#9: Record Songs Off the Radio
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Okay, so there’s a lot to unpack with this one. Starting with the fact that we all listened to the radio. No, not satellite, station-for-every-artist radio. This was regular listen-and-hope-they-play-a-song-you-like radio. Then there was the device we listened to the radio on, which also had a cassette tape player. What’s a cassette tape? Well, that’s a whole other discussion. But needless to say, we would keep a blank tape in the player ready to go. And when we heard a song we liked we would quickly hit the ‘play’ and ‘record’ buttons on the cassette player, which would record what was playing on the radio onto the tape. Isn’t technology wonderful?!
#8: Wanted, or Had, a Tickle Me Elmo
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If you were a child of a certain age in 1996 there was one thing you wanted. Well, there were probably a whole lot of things you wanted, but one of them was most likely a Tickle Me Elmo doll. The doll was released earlier in the year and by Christmas time had become the hottest toy on the shelves (assuming you could even find one on the shelves). It was a real life “Jingle All the Way” situation. Scalpers were reselling the doll for upwards of $1500 and there were even reports of physical altercations at stores. Think Black Friday but with dolls instead of discounted TVs.
#7: Drink Orbitz Soda
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You know what’s missing from today’s noncarbonated fruit-flavored beverages? Little floating balls of gelatin. At least that’s what the good folks at The Clearly Food & Beverage Company of Canada thought, back in 1997 when they introduced their Orbitz drink to the world. Looking like a drinkable lava lamp, few parents could pass by the drink fridge in a store with Orbitz bottles on display and not hear a “can we get that?” from their offspring. But obviously enough parents were saying “no”- or maybe they just didn’t taste very good - because low sales numbers led to the product being pulled from store shelves in 1998.
#6: Try to See Those Magic Eye Pictures
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Do you remember those Magic Eye illusions? If you were around in the 1990s you probably do. There were posters and books filled with page after page of Magic Eye pictures, and no shortage of advice on how to see the 3D images hidden within. Because we all had that person we knew who could see every image inside the illusion, while the rest of us would just stand there forever going cross eyed, but never seeing anything except wiggly lines. These things were so popular as well as frustrating, that one of the most iconic television shows of the decade, “Seinfeld,” made the posters a central part of one episode.
#5: Watched Saturday Morning Cartoons
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These days when kids wake up on Saturday morning they might watch something on Netflix or Disney+. Or maybe they’ll scroll through YouTube videos on their parents’ tablet or turn on their gaming system and play video games until their parents wake up. But in the 90s we didn’t have a thousand channels and 100 streaming services. In the 90s the “Big Four” networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox) still ruled the television landscape and - as they still aired cartoons on Saturday mornings. From “Tiny Toons” to “Darkwing Duck” we would eat our cereal, sit too close to the television, and be oh so happy.
#4: Raised a Tamagotchi
Today we all have smartphones in our pockets, but back in the late 90s many of us were carrying around Tamagotchis. Our parents might have said no when we begged them to get us a dog or a pony, but millions of them said yes to our request for these digital pets. Released in Japan in 1996, these pocket pets made their way to North America the following year. The special thing about them was that they went through several life cycles - assuming their owner looked after them properly! They soon became one of the stand-out toy sensations at the end of the 20th Century, and the beginning of the 2000s.
#3: Waited for Internet to Connect
They say that patience is a virtue. If that’s true, then kids of the 90s might have been some of the most virtuous children ever - at least if compared to the high speed internet-spoiled youth of today. Sure, we didn’t have to walk 20 miles to school uphill through 5 feet of snow, but we did have to wait for our internet to connect if we wanted to search the worldwide web or chat with our AOL friends. The beeps and hisses of a dial-up modem connecting is one of the most iconic sounds of the decade. And one that brings with it instant feeling of nostalgia and frustration for anyone who lived through those early internet years.
#2: Playing With/Collected Beanie Babies
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Little toy animals stuffed with plastic pellets. That’s all they are. And yet, we all either had some or knew plenty of other kids that did. And the odds are good you also knew at least a few adults who were obsessed with collecting them as a financial investment for the future. While that seemed like a good idea at the time, these days most Beanie Babies aren’t worth much more than the $5 we originally paid for them. But in the right condition, with certain tag errors and such, you can see certain Beanie Babies selling for hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions. Learned Music Trivia from Pop-up Videos VH1’s Bubbles of Music Miscellany Encarta Encyclopedia Microsoft Gave Us an Encyclopedia on a CD-Rom Danced the “Macarena” It Was the Chicken Dance for a New Generation Watched Our Parents Read Maps Before Google Told Us How to Get Everywhere Polly Pockets Who Doesn’t Want a Dollhouse & Dolls to Carry in Their Pocket?
#1: Rented Movies at Blockbuster
To those born in the 21st Century, there’s a chance that nothing about the sentence “Rented Movies at Blockbuster” will make sense. But it’s true. Back in the 90s we couldn’t scroll through movies on our phone, computer or television and stream whatever we wanted to watch. We had to physically go to a store such as Blockbuster, where they had all the movies. Instead of scroll, we would stroll through aisles of VHS - and later DVD - boxes. We’d pay for them, and take them home for a day or two - until we had to bring them back (rewound of course!!). If you’re curious about the experience, there remains one Blockbuster location in the world, in Oregon.
