The Totally Sweet ’90s: From Clear Cola to Furby, and Grunge to “Whatever,” the Toys, Tastes, and Trends That Defined a Decade (22 page)

But maybe the coolest thing about Snapple was its ads, featuring the nasally New York–ish tones of Wendy Kaufman, a real employee who became known as the Snapple Lady and who answered reader mail. She gave the beverage its ideal image—a regular American, neither snootily pounding Perrier with the elite, nor downing Cokes with the herd.

The ads also claimed that Snapple was “made from the best stuff on earth.” Which was…what, exactly? Unicorn tears? Calorie-free chocolate? Gold
bullion? Our definitions of “best stuff” varied, but darned if we didn't drink it anyway.

S
o
let us get this straight: Socker Boppers were blow-up boxing gloves that let kids beat the living snot out of each other, and our parents didn't mind? Yup. We can't really fault Mom and Dad, though, since the toys looked harmless enough—and every kid in the commercial was smiling, even though we're pretty sure we saw a few teeth and a little trickle of blood flying out of one boy's mouth.

Kids everywhere blew into the giant, inflatable fists until they were light-headed—bordering on fainting—and then stepped into the ring. Ding, ding! We'd pretend to be Mike Tyson (except we rarely bit each other's ears off), jabbing, poking, and uppercutting each other with inflatable impunity. Even though the fists of balloon-y death were cushioned, a direct hit stung like a dodgeball to the face. Or they'd suddenly pop, and you'd find yourself getting
pummeled with bare knuckles. You'd never catch a kid complaining, though. Because everybody knew that the first rule of Socker Boppers is you don't talk about Socker Boppers.

I
n
the 1990s, candy trends scoffed at sweet and dove into the super-sour, with everything from cute little Sour Patch Kids to long and lanky Sour Punch Straws to tongue-burning Warheads getting in on the game.

Super-sour candy allowed you to challenge your recess buddies to a duel for sucking supremacy. How long could you savor a pucker-producing Mega Warhead? Who could shove more of the tart tongue twisters in his mouth without spitting them back out? You'd fight to keep the candy inside by pretending you were James Bond being tortured by a megalomaniacal super-villain, and later create your own candy-centered gang initiation for the new kid in school.

Overdose on the sour stuff and you could actually injure the little bumps on your tongue, a reaction you'd feel for days afterward whenever you ate anything. But if you tricked yourself into sticking it out, most sour candy gave up the ghost almost immediately, turning into something as mild as a lemon drop in under a minute. Shockingly bold, then suddenly gentle as a grandpa, it was the Ozzy Osbourne of candy trends.

I
n
the 1990s, girls were everywhere, from the garage rock–blasting riot grrrl scene to the vampire-staking Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One of the splashiest manifestations of all that euphoric estrogen was Britain's Spice Girls, a female answer to the boy bands that were hogging radio airwaves.

Young fans told their parents what they wanted, what they really, really wanted, and it was Spice Girls everything, from dolls to lollipops to a Polaroid camera dubbed the Spice Cam. Every radio-listening girl of a certain age immediately chose a favorite—Sporty, Baby, Posh, Scary, or Ginger—much in the same way their
big sisters once identified with Kelly, Jill, or Sabrina on
Charlie's Angels
.

The group was as prefab as the Monkees or Menudo, but their sense of Girl Power felt real and joyous. Not all their lyrics made sense (“I wanna really, really, really wanna zig-a-zig ah”), but the soaring chorus of “Wannabe” pounded home the idea that friends topped flings and sisterhood was still powerful. “Make it last forever, friendship never ends,” cooed the lyrics of that 1996 hit. It didn't, of course, as Geri “Ginger Spice” Halliwell left the band in 1998 and things fell apart from there, but stars like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Mandy Moore forever owe a debt of thanks to their swinging sisters from across the pond.

L
ook
up “It's a dog's life” in the dictionary, and you'll find a picture of Spuds MacKenzie, the luckiest bull terrier in the world. Once Bud Light anointed the furry little guy its beer mascot in 1987, Spuds traded in his leash and rabies tags for a tuxedo and cool shades. Through the early '90s, Spuds had women fawning over him, frat boys pampering him, and got invited to all the best keggers. Not a bad gig for a pup who looked like Petey from the Little Rascals, but drunk.

With his stout and wrinkly Ernest Borgnine looks, Spuds had an every-dog appeal. He was kind of like your college roommate: He lazed around all the time, rarely wore pants, and probably farted constantly. And we loved him for it, gobbling up his posters and stuffed animals by the millions. So much, in fact, that Anheuser-Busch faced accusations that it was using the party animal to market beer to kids.

Spuds died in 1993 of kidney failure, which was a surprise because after his years as a party animal, we were expecting something to do with the liver. But before he went to that great keg-filled
kennel in the sky, he came clean: Turns out he wasn't a “he” at all—it was revealed that Spuds was actually a girl, and named Honey Tree Evil Eye.

W
hen
you reached an age when you would rather be seen drinking from a baby bottle than a juice box, you knew you'd graduated to Squeezits. The colorful drinks came in tall, cartoon-shaped bottles that you'd squirt into your mouth with all the passion of Lance Armstrong grabbing a water break during the Alps stage of the Tour de France. You'd beg mom to stow them in your lunch in place of milk, feeling so superior to your pals stuck with Hi-C or Capri Sun.

Like Funny Face drinks before them, Squeezit flavors had their own names and personalities, from Berry B. Wild to Smarty Arty Orange. Which was both cool and disturbing, especially thanks to a commercial that showed kids grabbing Squeezits from the fridge and squishing them torturously as the cartoon bottles cringed and tried to hide in the Jell-O. But the best part was how the drinks eschewed straws or sipping, encouraging kids to just
squeeze the sticky juice straight into their mouths. We didn't know it then, but it was great training for college days of beer bongs and chug-a-lugs.

S
o
you say you never got into
Star Trek: The Next Generation
? Watch a few reruns. You will be assimilated.

Not all Trek fans were on board in 1987 when the series first dared to boldly go where a horny Captain Kirk and logical Mr. Spock had gone before. But somehow the new version blasted through the old show's cheesy outdated elements like a phaser through a loaf of Velveeta.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard made baldness sexy, and he was never led around by his Little Trouser Captain in quite the way Kirk was. Tough-talking Lieutenant Worf reminded us that the Klingons were the galaxy's true badasses—complete with a death ritual where survivors let out a bloodcurdling scream to warn the dead that a Klingon warrior was coming. And in
ST: TNG
, women didn't just
wear short skirts and flirt with Kirk—they were medical officers, security, engineers, and more, ranking right up there with the men.

The world of
Next Generation
was a sort of idealized version of our own, the fair and just future we all hoped we'd warp into someday. Space could be terrifying (those Borg!) but back on the Enterprise, Captain Picard was always calm, the final frontier always tantalizingly waiting just out of reach, a juicy reward for those brave enough to go sailing through the stars.