The Totally Sweet ’90s: From Clear Cola to Furby, and Grunge to “Whatever,” the Toys, Tastes, and Trends That Defined a Decade (15 page)

R
emember
when Benson voiced a baboon, Ferris Bueller played a lion, and Darth Vader was his fa-thaaaah? In 1993's blockbuster
The Lion King
, Robert Guillaume, Matthew Broderick, and James Earl Jones led an all-star voice cast in a classic animated tale of death, darkness, and fart jokes.

Even though it was rated G,
The
Lion King
was much more adult-themed than bouncy, Elton John–penned tunes like “Hakuna Matata” initially made it seem. It tapped into common fears all kids had, like losing a parent and getting trampled by wildebeests.

With his slinky prowl and slithery speech, baddie Scar (Jeremy Irons, at his creepiest) ranks right up there with Cruella de Vil and
Snow White
's Evil Queen as the most terrifying Disney villains ever drawn. And (spoiler alert) Mufasa's death packed an emotional wallop equal only to Bambi's mom becoming a rec-room trophy. Parents always die in Disney films, but in
The Lion King
, little cub Simba was even blamed for his beloved dad's demise. “No worries for the rest of your days”? For kids in the audience, it was more like “tortuous nightmares every time mom turned out the light.”
The Lion King
taught a generation of American children that “the circle of life” was nothing to mess around with.

P
anda
bears juggling paintbrushes. Penguins perching on rainbows. Bunnies dancing ballet. Puppies sniffing starfish on the beach. Kittens snuggled into giant sneakers. And all of it was drenched in rainbows, as if a clown had sneezed. If it involved a cute baby animal and a helluva lot of bright colors, you could probably find it on a Lisa Frank folder.

Lisa Frank was around in the 1980s too, but it was in the 1990s that she really ruled the kingdom of cool school supplies. From folders to pencils, backpacks to book covers, her acid-trippy, neon-bright designs were everywhere. It was like an animated unicorn ate a rainbow and barfed all over America's junior high lockers.

W
hile
many '90s kids got their first taste of home computers by banging around with their older siblings' Commodore 64s or TRS-80s, it was the Mac Classic II that created a generation of gadget addicts. Born with the decade in 1990, this was the first Mac for the masses. It had personality—and had us salivating at the prospect of a future filled with sleekly designed,
whimsical robots that lived on our desktops and did our homework while we grabbed a quick nap.

Because the Mac Classic II was relatively affordable (around one thousand dollars), the little guy showed up en masse in classrooms from coast to coast, and quickly became the coolest dude in school. We didn't care that it was a cutting-edge educational tool—we just wanted to be friends with it. We could play games (
Stunt Copter! Lode Runner!
). We could change the system sounds, from
bink-bonk
to
boiiinnngg
. We could even make it swear, thanks to the speech synthesizer. Did every kid make their Mac utter the famous line from
WarGames
, “Shall we play a game?” or was it just us?

The fact that it had a nearly microscopic nine-inch, black-and-white screen was beside the point. We had Apples in our eyes, and could taste the juicy, gadget-filled future.

T
rying
to remember exactly how long Aunt Julie and Uncle Steve have been married? If you remember doing the Macarena at their wedding, they almost certainly wed in 1995 or 1996, when the loopiest dance this side of the Hokey Pokey held America in its thrall. Part country line dance, part calisthenics, and a little bit follow-the-leader, the dance and its thudding earworm of a song were as ubiquitous at mid-'90s nuptials as Jordan almonds and drunk cousins.

Nobody ever knew the words and half of them were in Spanish anyway. It didn't matter. All you did was stand next to Grandma Bev and try to follow along, hopping here, slapping your palm out there, grabbing your neck when everyone else did, and randomly chiming in on “Hey! Macarena!” The smart dancers would time their hopping and twisting to get them over closer to the bar to grab a G&T and a chair before “Achy Breaky Heart” started up.

O
h,
the '90s—what other decade could have launched a craze where you just stand there and stare? Magic Eye images were everywhere—from books to mousepads to neckties. With so many people contorting their eyeballs, it's a wonder Visine's stock didn't go through the roof.

Magic Eye was 3-D without red-and-blue glasses—all you had to do was relax your eyes and look “through” the image, and all of a sudden it'd come into focus: A jumble of stars would melt away and reveal a hidden picture of Saturn. Or a bunch of cereal logos would turn into a dinosaur (yes, this really happened—on the back of a box of Honey Nut Cheerios).

Hit any mall in the early '90s, and you'd see groups of people from all walks of life huddled around a poster kiosk, staring at a picture in slack-jawed silence. Eventually, someone would exclaim, “I see it!” like they won the eyeball lottery and then stand there smugly gloating. (“He can't see it. Can you believe it? What a tool.”) Eventually, most people would get it. But there was always that one kid who couldn't see the picture, no matter how hard he strained. And after his friends had all seen the hidden sailboat and were getting antsy to go to Orange Julius, he suddenly lied and
exclaimed, “Oh,
there
it is.” It was obvious he still couldn't get it, but everybody just believed him, because hey, Orange Julius.

T
he
Keebler Elves seem awfully industrious for tiny critters who live in a tree. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they came up with one of their best inventions yet, the short-lived Magic Middles cookies. Why frost a cookie in the normal spot, the top, when you can shake things up by cramming the frosting inside instead? These shortbread cookies looked boring and plain on the outside, but one chomp bathed your tastebuds in icing heaven.

In the commercial, an Einstein-looking mad scientist elf danced around yelling about what “genius” the cookies were. And he was right, but like many acts of genius, the Magic Middles weren't appreciated in their own time. They fell off the Keebler tree for good by the middle of the decade. Only an IV hooked up between your mouth and a can of frosting could replace their gooeyliciousness now.

T
here
is nothing simple that Martha Stewart cannot make headache-inducingly complicated. The rest of us squash together a s'more from store-bought supplies; Martha crafts homemade marshmallows and chocolate and hand whittles a stick. The rest of us order a pizza; Martha cures her own pepperoni and whips up artisan cheese.

Want to know just how removed Martha was from the rest of us? Check out her monthly calendar in
Martha Stewart Living
magazine. You might think you were doing well if you remembered to make a dental appointment or walk the dog, but Martha's calendar included items such as “Have beehives inspected” and “Replace winter doormats.”

But her perfection hypnotized us. From her magazine to her TV show to her Kmart (Kmart!) products, the 1990s were Martha's era. Few thought they could match her, with her eight-page cake recipes and her hazelnut brittle wrapped in gold leaf, but it was tough not to admire her. You might not want to be her, but you sure wouldn't mind being invited to one of her parties.

J
ust
when we thought the national nightmare known as parachute pants was tucked back into our collective bottom drawer, in shuffled MC Hammer. Decked out in a wispy 'stache and chemistry-teacher glasses, the rapper became an instant pop-culture phenomenon with his 1990 smash hit “U Can't Touch This,” which combined the hook from Rick James's “Super Freak” with sideways-shuffling dance moves and those infamous baggy drawers. He looked like a pop-rap crab.