The Totally Sweet ’90s: From Clear Cola to Furby, and Grunge to “Whatever,” the Toys, Tastes, and Trends That Defined a Decade (20 page)

1973's
An American Family
got there first, but
The Real World
is credited for the modern resurgence of reality TV that brought us such treasures as
Jersey Shore
and
16 and Pregnant
and pretty much erased music videos from MTV. From real to unreal to crazy-wackadoodle surreal in just two decades.

H
e
may have claimed to be a little bit rock-and-roll, but audiences just weren't buying it. Seventies icon Donny Osmond—all gleaming choppers and eye-rolling corny jokes—found himself stuck in a career-endangering prison built by his own teenage success as a goody-two-shoes. Turns out, '80s audiences weren't exactly looking for middle-aged crooners who got their start on
The Andy Williams Show
.

That all changed in 1990, when he was cast in the hit stage musical
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
. Suddenly, '90s kids fell in love with the talented, good-natured, and slightly goofy guy just like their moms did two decades earlier. Donnymania was everywhere. Audiences ate up his nice-guy appeal, first as the host of a popular syndicated TV talk show with his sister Marie, then as a voice in Disney's
Mulan
, and later when he took over Dick Clark's mic as host of
Pyramid
. He was back, baby, embracing his Donny destiny.

T
hey
were the only piece of bling that could give you type 2 diabetes. Ring Pops, the ubiquitous 1990s lollipops molded in the shape of a giant diamond, added a delicious new dimension to the world of candy jewelry. Kids who couldn't care less about cut, clarity, or carat weight were all about the most important “c” of all: corn syrup.

Like candy necklaces before them, Ring Pops were wearable snacks—both high fashion and high fructose. You could coordinate the color of the hundred-carat fruit-flavored gem to your outfit, and when you were looking for a sugar fix, the treat was just an arm's-length away. Some kids simply refused to take them off altogether, and accumulated everything from cat hair to pocket fuzz on the sticky surface. A quick dip in the drinking fountain, though, and they were good to go.

The popularity of Ring Pops prompted a rash of playground weddings. And why not? The little suckers were sweet, they were sparkly—and they didn't cost two months' salary. But then came the inevitable playground break-ups. Soon the merry-go-round was packed with six-year-old recent divorcées, all looking for a new sugar daddy.

T
he
'90s are famous for their boy bands, cute and nonthreatening as litters of puppies. But it was a musical movement run by the girls of the decade that smashed down gender barriers, capturing a young feminist sensibility and Do-It-Yourself mantra that still reverberates today.

On its surface, riot grrrl describes the group of mostly female '90s punk bands coming out of Washington, DC, and the Pacific Northwest with a musical mission. The songs of Bratmobile, Bikini Kill, and others were impassioned and angry, and they sang about real issues that affected the lives of young women without pulling punches or softening edges. More than that, they proved to a world used to seeing male lead singers and hearing the lyrics of male songwriters that the perspective of half the population deserved to take center stage too.

But the bands were only the most visible part of the scene. Girls inspired by the empowerment of the movement started zines, spoke out for political causes, gathered other girls and encouraged and taught them to do the same. Even a mainstream magazine, Jane Pratt's
Sassy
, spread the riot grrrl word. This generation of
girls didn't believe for a minute that they couldn't do everything their brothers could, and then some. It was time for a revolution—grrrl style.

L
ike
the British royal family, Disney's line of princesses had started to get a little musty and boring. Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty—they were as familiar and yawn-inducing as Prince Charles's comb-over. But then, in the late 1980s and 1990s, a princess renaissance!

Ariel of
The Little Mermaid
swam into our hearts in 1989, and was quickly followed by Belle from
Beauty and the Beast
, Jasmine from
Aladdin
, Pocahontas, and Mulan. These were new-generation
princesses. They loved their men, but they weren't passive slipper-losing, poisoned-apple-chomping, someday-my-prince-will-comers—Mulan, for one, pretty much singlehandedly saved China.

Not that the new-look princesses weren't a little loopy—Ariel hoarded trash, after all. But if you were a girl of trick-or-treating age in the 1990s, we'll bet you a pumpkin full of fun-size Snickers that you dressed as one of them for Halloween.

F
aith
and begorra: If your parents forced you into taking Irish dance lessons—even though your last name is Martinez—you've likely got
Riverdance
to blame. The Irish stage show reeled and tapped its way to America in 1994, and taught us that Celtic culture had a lot more to offer than just Guinness and pots o' gold.

With arms at their sides and legs kicking and flicking like epileptic leprechauns, the dancers in
Riverdance
—including lead hoofer and choreographer Michael Flatley—sparked a resurgence of interest in all things Irish, even by people who assumed everybody on the Emerald Isle only ate yellow moons, pink hearts, and
green clovers. Twenty-two million people in forty countries saw
Riverdance
live, and most left the theater doing a little jig.

W
hile
kids in the '80s vainly wished for a jet pack they could use to rocket around the playground, '90s kids actually got something almost as cool: roller shoes. Part Nike, part inline skate, roller shoes let kids wheel it up just by shifting their weight to their heels. Off they'd shoot, like prepubescent pool balls. Boys and girls who successfully begged their parents for a pair felt far superior to their classmates with more pedestrian footwear, and for good reason: Their feet were Transformers.

While most kids used them to roll from English class to Math, or from Cinnabon to Benetton, others took unexpected side trips into traffic or, we're assuming, down the occasional escalator. Some shoe-skaters took to the wheels like mini Wayne Gretzkys; others constantly careened out of control, banking into lockers and rolling into lakes. A growing pile of injuries prompted schools,
malls, and even some towns—especially hilly ones—to ban the flying footwear. And God help the kid whose shoelaces came untied midroll and got tangled around the spinning wheel like spaghetti around a fork. Chin and teeth, meet sidewalk. Still, his likely last words before the doctors wired shut his jaw? “At least I didn't have to walk to the bus stop like the rest of you schmucks.”

T
hey
weren't the Huxtables, that's for sure. Unlike
The Cosby Show
's lawyer and doctor couple, Roseanne and Dan Conner struggled to get by with menial jobs that rarely lasted. No New York nightlife or Malibu beach parties here—instead they bowled, wore sweatshirts, and lived in a small Illinois town. But the Conners' love for each other and their children wrapped the show like the grandma-style afghan that permanently draped their plaid couch.

Weight problems, elaborate Halloweens, and all, Dan and Roseanne were about the most relatable couple on TV in the '90s, and it was hard not to envy the smart, hilarious way they faced life
head-on. “What did I tell you about killing your brother in the living room?” Roseanne chides Darlene in one scene. Dan and Roseanne weren't bitter about their working-class lives, but they wanted better for their kids. They taught them to bloom where they were planted, but also to dream big.

After eight rollicking seasons, the show pulled a fast one on viewers. The family supposedly won $108 million in the lottery—except in the final episode, Roseanne revealed the riches were just a dream brought on by her sorrow at Dan's early death from a heart attack. Even
M*A*S*H
didn't take its humor from such soaring heights to such utter sorrow this quickly. As in real life, the tears and the laughs were inseparable.

T
here
are mullets, and then there's the coonskin-cap-meets-Garfield-pelt that sat on top of Danny Cooksey's head on
Salute Your Shorts
, which ran on Nickelodeon from 1991 to 1992. Before
Shorts
, Cooksey was best known for playing Sam, the little
bowl-haircutted add-on in the final seasons of
Diff'rent Strokes
. But as troublemaker Bobby Budnick on
Salute Your Shorts
, Cooksey took his hair to a whole other place: Camp Anawanna. The catchy theme song said it all: “Camp Anawanna, we hold you in our hearts. And when we think about you, it makes me wanna fart!” Yep—for real. Stay classy, Nickelodeon.

Thanks to Budnick and fellow campers Sponge, Z.Z., Donkeylips, Dina, Telly, and the rest, every viewer wanted to pack up and head off to sleepaway camp. Even though camp life on the show was mostly shenanigans like putting somebody's boxer shorts up a flagpole, subjecting a kid to the dreaded Awful Waffle (pouring syrup on their stomach—don't ask), or having to look at Cooksey's hair. Good times, good times.

Those of us who later went on to real camps were upset to learn that they were heavy on macaroni crafts and canoeing and light on the syrup pranks and food fights that
Shorts
conditioned us to expect. Thankfully, though, Budnick was nowhere to be found.