9 Crappy 90s Shows that Defined Your Tweens
Go back to a simpler time. A time of flared jeans and Adidas pants. A time of bucket hats and friendship bracelets. A time of TGIF and laugh tracks. A time when trying to master Topanga's hair was a completely acceptable way to spend a Friday night. Yes, return to the 90s and to the shows that once defined out lives. Sure, watching them now makes us cringe (what, with the sweater vests, cargo pants and lacklustre dialogue) but these shows once shaped our adolescences, dictated the way we saw the world, and helped make Katie Holmes a superstar. Geared towards females (sorry boys), they may have been cheesy, unrealistic and set the feminist movement back decades, but God damn it, they're still classics and they sure as hell beat Hannah Montana. So join me (and try not to judge) as we reminisce about the good old days and the shows that made our pre-teen hearts flutter.
Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Frankly, I don't know any self-respecting female that didn't believe she had the potential to be a teenage witch circa 1997 1999. Personally, I spent an unfathomable amount of time pointing at objects while attempting to transform them (thus explaining my lack of friends) while anxiously awaiting the day my mere presence in high school would seduce the captain of the football team (which didn't happen thankfully, since he was a douche). It didn't matter that Jenny disappeared after season one or that Harvey Kinkle looked closer to 24 than to 16; it didn't matter that my cat merely meowed or that my closet housed only towels. If Melissa Joan Hart could change outfits with a hand gesture, surely levitating while sleeping was within my grasp. Sadly, the witch's magic wore off as my eighth grade self quickly realized that high school was less spell books and magic and more teenage pregnancy and skipping class. Most football players were assholes, and cheerleaders (if the school could afford it) were socially awkward at best. However, before our innocence subsided, tweens of the world gathered on TGIF to live vicariously through the world of magic while spending hours attempting to successfully master the zig-zag part.
Boy Meets World
Another classic TGIF masterpiece defined by teenage drama and Tigerbeat hotties. The drama of Corey and Topanga, the comic relief of Matthew Lawrence and the eternal knowledge of Mr. Feeny truly a formula for teenage-based success. Unlike most shows on this list, it appealed to males and females alike as girls pined for the little Savage brother, boys longed to bang Topanga and everyone hoped their parents would evolve into nonchalant token cool Moms (and Dads). Who didn't attempt to re-create Topanga's expression during the opening credits? Who didn't cut layers in hopes their hair would mystically sprout volume? Who didn't attempt to anoint their eighth grade teacher as a hotter version of Mr. Feeny? (No? Am I alone on that one?) Sure, shit got weird after Corey and Topanga tied the knot (can we say child bride, boys and girls?), but as far as my 13-year-old self was concerned, 19 was plenty old to start procreating in the midst of sharing a dorm room. If only my eighth grade Mr. Feeny hadn't turned out to be such a pervert.
Breaker High
Truly the poor man's teenage dramedy, it didn't stop tweens of the 90s from tuning in to watch and re-watch the limited number of episodes on YTV every morning and afternoon. The concept of schooling on a boat was absolutely ingenious, and the heartthrobs enrolled in ocean-based education were of Seventeen magazine quality. There was Max and Cassidy (badass meets ditz to establish the ultimate vapid beautiful couple), Sean and Tamira (socially awkward underdogs unite), Denise and Jimmy (not a couple, but . . . whatever nobody really cared about them anyway) and Ashley and Alex (the bitchy prom queen and token beefcake hey, it really is high school all over again). Two dimensional at best, these characters convinced us we were watching one of the most original and wondrous shows ever offered and with the popularity of Titanic in our midst, I think we all longed secretly for some sort of illicit Jack-Rose situation (but again, that could've just been me). Offering some of our first celebrity crushes, I still flaunt that I took to Ryan Gosling circa Breaker High when everyone else joined team Max. Needless to say, those haters ate their words after watching The Notebook.
Dawson's Creek
Even at age 24, I still can't master the PhD vocabulary these alleged teenagers used while deciphering the meanings behind platonic sleepovers and alcoholic dads. I remember watching this show to feel grown up (despite the fact I felt much more comfortable watching Sabrina) and trying to understand what the girls of my Catholic elementary school were talking about at recess. Dawson and Joey, Pacey and Jenn, these tortured souls with their coiffed locks (iced tips, anyone?) dealt with grown up issues that even most adults don't encounter. Yet it was real, raw and scandalous and Barbies had nothing on this shit. Remember when Pacey slept with his teacher? When Andie went crazy? When bitchy Abbey died? Perhaps the greatest trauma of all was when Jenn abandoned her long blonde locks for an edgier do or when Dawson vanquished the ladder and closed the door on Katie Holmes forever (which likely resulted in her current TomKat status). Paula Cole theme songs, man-children and inappropriate relationships, Dawson's Creek made us all wish our problems were a little bigger than snagging the latest Backstreet Boys CD.
Student Bodies
A hit in the Great White North, this short-lived afterschool show combined cartoons and live action to create the perfect formula for unrealistic teenage comedy. If only my tween self had understood that writing for a school paper wasn't nearly as dramatic as the inter-office relationships and rivalries this poorly-written series boasted. I'm pretty sure the closest thing my high school paper came to scandal was when it stopped being published because nobody cared. The cast was diverse and boasted characters from all walks of life: Flash (the controversial voyeur), Victor (the rich bitch), Chris (the funny one), Romeo (the token hottie), Emily (the female token hottie), Cody (the . . . other token hottie), Mags (the redheaded token hottie), Grace (the Hispanic token hottie) and Morgan (the blonde token hottie). With characters as three-dimensional as these, it was natural to transition from goop and Miss Morton to issues like alcoholism and self esteem in hopes of garnering ratings nothing says serious like hand drawn caricatures of worms coupled with polyester and butterfly clips.
Clueless
As if. Sure, it paled in comparison to the 1995 original, but this TGIF series still dazzled the fashionably challenged (read: myself at age 13) with its valley girl lingo and mostly-original cast members. Sometimes. Although it attempted to recapture the magic of Alicia Silverstone through a nearly of-calibre replacement, it failed in the sense of storylines and acting well co-ordinated 90s ensembles could not make up for a lack of Paul Rudd or rolling with the homies. At times even I would turn it off out of embarrassment often to watch Student Bodies because it was far more realistic. Clearly. Regardless, it was a TV show that lasted long enough for us to pine for a gilded life in Beverly Hills for a few short months (without the sex, drugs and Brenda Walsh of 90210), making parents happy they weren't being barraged with what's a pregnancy scare? type-questions following an evening with Stacey Dash.
Saved by the Bell
If you try to tell me you didn't want to be Zack Morris or Kelly Kapowsky between the ages of 8 and 14, you're a goddamn liar simple as that. Nothing seemed as sweet as life at Bayside, and with Zack's boyish good looks, Slater's lack of shirts and Jessie's obsession with emasculation, this early 90s gem defined a generation of youth who used the term preppy without knowing what it actually meant. Sure, Mr. Belding was irritatingly obtuse, Screech should never have made it past season one (does anyone else remember the episodes with his robot? What the fuck?) and Lisa was no fashionably forward Denise Huxtable, but the show dazzled us with The Max, high-tech cell phones and the perpetual Zack-Kelly-Slater love triangle. Clearly we should ignore the season where Tori replaced Kelly (what was that about?) or the God-awful Saved By the Bell: the College Years and simply focus on the time the cast worked at the resort (Leah Remini, anyone?), the episodes where Zack dated a homeless girl or the magic of so excited! I'm so excited! I'm so . . . SCARED!
90210
This wasn't a television show it was a movement, a phenomenon. Premiering in 1991, this show made even six and seven year olds long for life in the prestigious zip code through themed Barbies, binders, stickers and a Twister game (place your right hand on Brandon's face; your left foot on Andrea's hand). Even at ages six and seven, my friends and I knew it was a big deal perhaps because we weren't allowed to watch it and as the infamous theme song blared on their siblings TV sets , we styled our Brenda doll's hair with the enthusiasm comparable only to a Kelly-Brenda showdown. Not only did the show dictate fashion, speech, heartthrobs and music of the most of the 90s, its scandal was unlike anything television had ever seen. Not only were these kids loaded, they were badass and socially maladjusted. Cocaine was snorted, sex was had, and U4 was slipped (to Brandon) all within the span of four to five years. The new generation's got nothing on this shit.
Full House
With the awkwardness of Danny Tanner, the man-child tendencies of Joey Gladstone and the utter hotness of Uncle Jesse came Full House: the go-to for dysfunctional-yet-functional family fun. As the Tanner clan grew in the wake of Jesse and the Rippers success, valuable life lessons were learned in half hour periods while heart warming music complimented the typical problem- confrontation-solution scenerio. Phrases were coined (Have mercy), Olsen twins were established and our childhood selves swooned over John Stamos glorious loaf of hair. It didn't matter that as the series progressed the episodes got notoriously worse (like the time it looked like DJ and Steve had sex because they fell asleep under a blanket?), or that the most serious episodes were by far the most embarrassing. Full House was the epitome of a problem-solving how-to guide complete with nobody understands me! outbursts and uncomfortable father-daughter dynamics. Now if only we known then that Bulwinkle impersonator and cut it out connoisseur Dave Coulier was the inspiration for the hate theme, You Oughtta Know.
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