The Totally Sweet ’90s: From Clear Cola to Furby, and Grunge to “Whatever,” the Toys, Tastes, and Trends That Defined a Decade (8 page)

Y
ou
know the Paula Cole–sung theme song: “I don't wanna wait…for
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
to be oh-ver, so I can watch
Dawson's Creek
on the WB…” Well, we think it went something like that. We do know that in the late 1990s, TV-watching teens were transported weekly to the fictional seaside town of Capeside, Massachusetts, home of Dawson, Joey, Pacey, and Jen, and their
Falcon Crest
–meets–
Saved by the Bell
lives.

The show made teen idols out of its stars, and helped kick off the WB as a network, plus created a new national craze for angst-filled teen shows. You'd be angsty too if, like Dawson, you had a forehead so large fans dubbed it a “fivehead,” or if, like Joey and Pacey, you had names that might have sounded better on kangaroos or racehorses. But
Dawson's
devotees didn't care. They were sucked in by the undeniable charm of the lead actors, the ever-changing romances, and the engaging and witty dialogue. Sure, no one we knew talked as wordily as these kids, but then no one we knew had an affair with their English teacher or platonically slept in the same bed with the beautiful girl next door either.

For kids who grew up right along with the
Dawson's
four, the 2003 finale was a monumental event. A little sorrow (Jen dies!), a little romance (Joey chooses Pacey!), and a little wish fulfillment (Dawson meets Steven Spielberg!). The show's themes were hard to resist. Everyone can relate to the irresistible pull of home and the comfort and the confidence of childhood friends turned adults—even those of us who didn't have our own creeks.

T
hink
you're too old for a dollhouse once you actually have a mortgage on a real house? Think again. Thanks to Department 56 and its dozens of little ceramic houses, millions of collectors never had to outgrow their hobby.

Department 56 cranked out its first six buildings in 1976 and never looked back. Crafty moms (this was rarely a hobby for dads) chose one or more of the company's many series and started collecting the little light-up churches, homes, and businesses the way their kids collected baseball cards. The villages were almost all Christmas–themed, but once you had them installed on your bookshelves or end tables, they pretty much stayed out all year.

The buildings themselves might have sprung straight from a Thomas Kinkade painting. Quaintness and charm ruled, with the modern world only a distant memory (although there is a McDonald's, it's an old-fashioned one).

The ultimate frustration for kids? The delicate accessories would shatter like frozen taffy if you were at all clumsy. So while it might look irresistible to race those little ice skaters, put the dog in
the mailbox, or see if the caroling nuns could balance on the church roof, your messing around was bound to end in tears and a dustpan full of razor-sharp shards.

J
ust
when ice cream seemed like it was a pretty mature technology, along came the sci-fi snackable known as Dippin' Dots, ice cream frozen in liquid nitrogen and served up in little dishes of colorful, edible beads. Found at state fair booths and in some malls, it was a science experiment from the gods.

Who the heck invented this stuff, George Jetson? (Actually, it was microbiologist Curt Jones.) It looked like something that would pop out of the
Star Trek
food replicator. We didn't actually realize you could freeze ice cream any more than it was already frozen, but there was always something loopy and fun about savoring a dish of Dots. You shoveled in a spoonful and your mouth took it from there, melting and squashing the dots together and carpeting your tongue with cold. You could pretend you were eating food pills from the future, or that you were an astronaut sampling interplanetary cuisine.

Their slogan, the “Ice Cream of the Future,” always seemed a little odd to us, though. As futuristic as the treat seemed, how could we be eating the ice cream of the future here in the present? And if we had Dippin' Dots yesterday, didn't that make them the ice cream of our fairly recent past? Our advice: Try not to think about it, and just get us a spoon.

F
orget
the mind-numbing bleep-bloop of arcades. At indoor play-center chain Discovery Zone, kids got to run, slide, and jump like the little wild animals they were, burning calories and blasting boredom along the way. Who can forget that first-ever jump into a ball pit, swimming through the brightly colored circles like a happy gumball? Or crawling across the marshmallowy mats that were nothing like the rock-hard versions we knew from gym class? You could swing on trapezes, leap in bounce houses, or chase your little sister through different maze levels like mutant hamsters in a Habitrail.

Discovery Zone let imaginative kids write their own mental
screenplays that they'd then enlist friends to help carry out. Okay, we're moon explorers, and now we're diving into a crater! Or: There's a pirate treasure chest buried in this ball pit, and the first person to dive to the bottom gets it! DZ was a crazily creative, gigantic jungle gym, and for a certain segment of 1990s kids, it seems as if every friend you had hosted their birthday party there.

Of course, it was too good to last. Founded in 1990, the chain filed for bankruptcy mid-decade, and many locations were bought by Chuck E. Cheese, the pizza parlor arcade chain. Is it any wonder that America has a child obesity epidemic? RIP, DZ.

T
he
two kid stars of this classic anti-piracy video appear to have never seen a computer before in their lives, simply mashing their hands randomly down on its keyboard. When they attempt to copy a game, MC Double Def DP, the whitest black rapper ever, delivers a cringeworthy rap about the evils of piracy, name-checking classic games such as
The Oregon Trail
and
Tetris
, all apparently while suffering a shoulder seizure.

To send the video over the top, the rap pauses to let nerdy programmers drone on about their jobs, then finishes up with the kind of special effects that used to exist only on AOL home pages with dancing hamsters. We're pretty sure that for a background, the cameraman just propped up a Lisa Frank folder.

In the end, the kids decide to pay for the game, since then it will come with a manual. Because that's what kids of the '90s really wanted, an unreadable, jargon-filled, phone-book-sized computer game manual. Wrote a commenter on YouTube: “Well, I guess it worked. No one is copying floppies anymore.”

I
magine
how excited the food scientists at Frito-Lay must have been when they invented Doritos 3D in 1997, giving each other orange-fingered high-fives and relieved that they finally had a three-dimensional snack to rub in the faces of their Planters Cheez Ball-hawking competitors.

The snacks were a little Bugle-y, but instead of being horn-shaped, these were puffy pillows of corn that resembled rounded triangles with a bad case of gas. You'd crunch into them, hit the hollow center, and then chomp through the other side. It was like biting into a Christmas ornament, only with shards of zesty ranch-flavored glass. Some of us gobbled them plain. Some of us dipped. Some of us cracked the little guys open and filled them with squirt cheese. And all of us, whether we'll admit it or not, tossed, flicked, or chucked the fat little footballs across the room.

They were so fragile, if you tried to keep a few in your backpack or pocket, all you were left with was a pile of Dorito dust. So when they broke open, where did all that Dorito-scented air go? Our guess is it escaped into the atmosphere and now surrounds the Earth, protecting us like a jalapeno-cheddar-scented ozone layer.

W
hat
the Mystery Date board game was to an earlier generation, Dream Phone was to 1990s girls. Mystery Date featured a dorky plastic door that opened to reveal your date for the evening, but Dream Phone added technology, centering around a battery-powered hot pink cordless phone. Players found a photo card with the boy of their choice and punched in his phone number, and a geeky voice delivered a private clue as to which boy had a crush on you. Players recorded clues on a scorecard and when ready to make a guess, called the boy they suspected to learn if they were right.

All the little Dream Phone details added up to a major gigglefest.
Some of the guys on the cards were cute (Dave! Call me!) but others looked like psycho killers (Steve!), nerdy little brothers (Phil!), or your 'roid-raging neighbor who wore nothing but Zubaz (Carlos!). What was up with Tony's earring, Mark's rainbow shirt, John's dorky suspenders, and just how many layers of sweatshirts was Dan wearing? (We count four.) The clues were equally hilarious. “He'll eat anything, except hot dogs.” Well, then he really won't eat
anything
, now,
will he
?

At an age when calling a real boy was as unimaginable as going to the moon, Dream Phone let us practice for that far-off day by boldly punching up a number while our pals cheered us on. We would hold one-sided conversations Milton Bradley never dreamed of, suggesting Bob pluck his eyebrows or dissolving in hysterics at George's uneven dye job. And when you finally heard those magic words: “You're right! I really like you!” it was impossible not to shout out with glee and diss your undateable friends. Wrong number for you, suckahs!

K
ids
are trained early to dip their snacks. If it's not potato chips in onion dip, or tortilla chips in salsa, it's otherwise healthy vegetables in diet-destroying ranch dressing or McNuggets in sweet and sour sauce.

So in 1988, Kid Snack World was perfectly primed for Betty Crocker's Dunkaroos, kangaroo-shaped cookies that came with a tiny swimming pool of frosting. You sent your tasty Aussie friend off the high dive and into a calorie-laden bath of sweet, sweet icing, then barely let him have a second to shake off the excess before rebounding him smack into Lake Mouth. A later Cookies 'n Creme version let kids build and overstuff their own sandwich cookies, Double Stuf Oreo-style.