Roundtable Discussion: I Love the 90s

This past weekend my housemate Shane turned 26 and as a result we threw him the most ring poppy, most gushered, squeez-it filled 90’s style birthday party to commemorate his glory days. As such we rocked a 90’s playlist as detailed last week, had plenty of 90’s style treats… Lunchables aren’t as great as I remembered them being. So this week we posed a trip down memory lane to our PorchDrinking Staff about what their favorite memories were of the 90s!

Coit: 4 words. Teenage. Mutant. Ninja. Turtles. That is all I’ll ever need.

Ben: Starter jackets. I still wear mine. Ok not really, but I would if I could. I rocked a Bulls Starter jacket. No cooler athlete than Michael Jordan in the 90’s. You know you’re the best at something when you’re referred to as, “The Michael Jordan of _____”. Hard to find anyone that’s the undisputed best at anything like MJ was in basketball back then.

Chris M: 8 years of economic growth that saw the improbable federal budget surplus. It was so unexpected that the Debt Clock wasn’t even programmed to run backwards, and Clinton appointed a guy whose job it was to figure out what to do after we had paid off the national debt by 2016-ish.

Philip: Reebok Pumps, foursquare, tether ball and ‘butts up’ on the playground. My favorite thing from the 90s was definitely recess and nap time, oh and Magic, Start Wars and Pokemon cards.

Mike Z: The Simpsons was still funny in the 90s. N64 came out and Spongebob Squarepants also debuted. Clearly it seemed like there was very little effort to get kids outdoors at this time.

Adam: The 90’s had the BEST intro songs to TV shows. Fresh Prince. In Living Color. The Wonder Years. Cheers. The list is endless.

Karen: TV: Remember when ABC did “TGIF” on Friday evenings? Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Boy Meets World, Teen Angel, Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place, the list goes on and on. Also, TMNT and Power Rangers ruled.

Toys: One word – Tamagotchi. Did anyone else sneak theirs to school, and try to feed it under their desk? Before kids were texting in class, they were cleaning up poop and giving medicine to their sick Tamagotchi baby so it wouldn’t die.

Clothes: LA GEARS!! Apparently, in the 90’s, having light-up shoes meant you were the shit. They make adult versions (yes, I’ve researched this), and I would absolutely buy them if I wouldn’t look like a complete tool and/or club head.

Bethany: TMNT and TGIF. Yesssss.

Cat: First things that came to mind: Easy Bake. TMNT. Weezer. CAKE. Boys2Men. Spice Girls. No Doubt.

Mike Z: The nineties were the last time period where popular music was
actually good. Remember when bands like Soundgarden and Smashing
Pumpkins were on the radio? Also, remember the “radio”?

Plus: ridiculously baggy jeans, hair over one eye, flannel, doc
martens, and general glamorization of slacker culture.

I hear we can still get many of these things in Portland.

Coit: Where can I get my hands on a pair of JNCO jeans? Antiques roadshow?

Hank: Legends of the Hidden Temple. To this day, it makes me angry thinking of those assholes struggling to put together a four-piece statue of a monkey.

Also Guts. Specifically, Global Guts. I liked to imagine there was a back-room somewhere where a shadow cabal of the world’s military leaders met to watch this show and let their differences be settled by the kids climbing up the Aggro Crag.

My Grandpa bought me Glodeneye, totally out of the blue, and my mom didn’t want me to play it. She thought it was too violent. But it was a gift, so I had to play it—it would have been insulting not to. For months that was basically all my friends and I did.

Andy: Hank wins.

Karen: YES, GOLDENEYE!! The Moonraker Laser was my weapon of choice. Well, the laser and SLAPS ONLY, LICENSE TO KILL!