Man, We Had Some Great Stuff In The 90s.

SQUEEEEEEE! Okay, sorry to open on a dramatic high-pitched girly screamy note, but I’ve just finished reading articles confirming that Boy Meets World is coming back to TV! They’re doing a sequel/spinoff called Girl Meets World, which centers around Cory and Topanga’s 13-year-old daughter, Riley.

This news makes my little 90s-kid heart squeal with joy, and also immediately has me wondering if Shawn Hunter will be around.

Look how wholesome and adorable they are!

I loved Boy Meets World as a kid, as well as Clarissa Explains It All, Step by Step, Full House, and anything else they showed during TGIF. You guys remember TGIF? Every Friday night, from 8 to 10, my family and I would hang out together and watch. It was awesome! Even my 7-years-older big brother watched it with us most weeks. And that’s saying something!

I don’t know if this show is going to be good. For all I know, it could go the way of the college years of the original BMW, wherein Shawn was super-broody and emo, Cory and Eric both got a great deal dumber, and Topanga got more typically girly. I still watched it. Heck, I even watched Saved By The Bell, The College Years! And that was pretty terrible. And we all (maybe) remember that Disney ruined Doug, when it switched networks. And yes, kids, the network that brought Hannah Montana into our lives is doing the new Boy Meets World show, too.

They should bring back Zack and Kelly, too! Z&K’s kid could go to school with C&T’s kid, and we could do a 15 year later spinoff-mashup thing. Man, I am on FIRE. We should all be writing these blasts of brilliance down.

Hmm, what else can I wax nostalgic on from the 1990’s? Well, for one thing, the cartoons were better. Come on, Recess, Ren & Stimpy, Doug, and Rugrats? Heck yes. We even had the original Beavis and Butthead. And there is no shortage in funtimes when calling someone a butthead. I cannot remember the movie to save my life, but there was a line where a girl calls a guy butthead, and the guy says “Did you just call me a butthead? No one has called me that since the 7th grade!” And the girl retorts, “Maybe to your face.” Ahhh, funny.

Recess was a personal favorite. TJ was a great group leader and best friend, and King Bob was ridiculous. Playground shenanigans!

You know what is absolutely, positively, ludicrous and grossly unfair? They don’t make cool light-up sneakers for adults. What the hell, shoe people? You don’t think adults want to be able to light up our path in the dark, have cool sparkly light up colors under our feet, or like LA Gear anymore? What? I WANT ALL OF THOSE THINGS. They can double as a tiny multi-colored flashlight if my power goes out, they are effective lit up missiles for chucking at people in the semi-to-full darkness, and I want them right this second!

Man, I was so cool, rockin' these with my Mudd jeans.

LA Gear, you are missing a huge opportunity here. The only reason little kids have light up sneakers is because their awesome parents buy them for them. And you would have more demographics! You’d have the little kids’ parents, the young-adult-to-late-20s nostalgic group who still love light up shoes, and then you’d ALSO have the crazies. There are adult women who try to dress like their short child all the time, in matching outfits, poofy hair, and shoes. Then you’d have 2 pairs sold at once. And that kind of crazy probably wouldn’t stop at just one pair! Especially if instead of one type of multi-colored lights, you have shoes with different color lights. One pair that only lights up blue, one pair only pink, one only red, and so on. I’d like to go ahead and reserve my free pair of black high-top size 9’s in light-up blue and purple, please. I assume you’ll at LEAST give me one free pair, seeing as how I am doing all the work here, designing and coming up with color schemes and stuff.

Whew, all that marketing and creative planning right there makes a girl tired! Maybe I should relax with a Surge soda and a bowl of Rice Crispy Treats cereal. Which I still miss, by the way. I loved that sugary crunchy cereal.

Boyfriend makes fun of me because I like cereal so much. Some nights, after work and the gym, I go home, relax with a string cheese, and then eat a bowl of cereal for dinner. He thinks it’s silly, but it’s actually the perfect meal. Here’s why: one bowl, one spoon, little to no clean up involved, end result is tummy full of delicious frosted mini wheats. AND you’re full when you’re done. I am a big fan of frosted mini wheats and honey nut Chex. Ugh, now I want a bowl of cereal, but I can’t have one because I am not at home. UBER-POUT.

I could go on for awhile about the things I am (probably needlessly) nostalgic about: Oregon Trail, Gushers, Super Mario Bros 3 (I still have and play that), chat rooms, Hocus Pocus, old-school kids shows like Wild n’ Crazy Kids, GUTS (I would’ve kicked butt on that!!), Legends of The Hidden Temple (those stupid Silver Snakes.), and more. But one thing I DO NOT MISS? I unrepentantly, unequivocally do not miss 90’s internet.

Oh, look! The one time it wasn't dysentery!

Remember that harsh, screeching fax machine sound it made when attempting to connect? And if your mom got a phone call, you were screwed out of internet usage for the rest of the day! Oh, AOL. I can miss you a little bit. I know you still exist, but no one uses you, and I have fond memories of AIM.

Hearing a fax machine nowadays always makes me cringe slightly. In addition to wondering why they even still exist. But mostly, cringe with the memory of a thousand unwatched videos that are still buffering back in the 90s.

I wonder if it’s like this for every generation. If 80s kids miss cone-bra young Madonna, especially when they see the plastic-filled, weird-armed, leotard wearing old Madonna in it’s place. Maybe 60s kids miss the free love carefree-ness that came along with not knowing about AIDS or the morning-after pill and wax poetic about the urine-and-drug-filled Woodstock. Come on, I know it was epic and legendary, but I’ve been to music fests, too. And while they are legendary and superfun and filled with rockin' good music, they are also filled with some bad-smelling people who are completely wasted and acting like idiots, a lot of “special” cigarettes, and the always hovering smell of the porta-potties. Maybe 50s kids miss the good values and morality that we see in Leave It To Beaver, before they fully understood gender discrimination and the epic divorce rates to come.

In the end, we feel nostalgic about anything we loved in the past. After all, we loved it once, and when we remember it, we tend to wipe off the bad stuff and dirt and shine it up into something more cool, more beautiful than maybe it really was. It’s like when you break up with someone, and a few years later, you can look back and remember how good it was, glossing over the vase she threw at your face and the screaming matches that inevitably regressed into “Well, I remember that one time 3 years ago when you said that Burger King cashier was hot and so you can’t even be mad at me for cheating (or insulting you in front of your parents/hitting on a bartender/spending all your savings on shoes)!” 

Mind blown. http://things90skidsrealize.com/2012/02/27/surprising-90s-voice-actors/

So, we look back, we smile, we move on to all the crappy stuff that this generation has, like terrible music, bad taste in pants, crappy role models...oh, wait. Yeah, every generation thinks the next one is worse than them. Take that, old people. 

Damn kids!