The Totally Sweet ’90s: From Clear Cola to Furby, and Grunge to “Whatever,” the Toys, Tastes, and Trends That Defined a Decade (4 page)

Things didn't end happily for Blind Melon lead singer Shannon Hoon, though, who according to VH1's
Behind the Music
was high on acid during the “No Rain” video. He died of a cocaine overdose in 1995, leaving a baby daughter who'd never know him and a band that would only have that one big hit. The '90s might indeed have been a more accepting decade for misfits, but that doesn't mean they lacked for casualties.

V
H1's
Behind the Music
is the juiciest of TV guilty pleasures. Watching an episode is like flipping through Mom's yearbook and having her explain that the star quarterback got the prom queen pregnant and later both ended up on crack. It zeroes in like Laser Floyd on those once-famous bands who soared close to the sun, then tumbled headfirst into vats of drugs and booze. In other words, all of them.

There's always a bad guy, whether it's the pig farmer turned band manager, the megalomaniacal second wife, or the drummer who can't lift his nose out of the coke mountain. The hits come, and just as quickly stop, while the tragedies pile up like 45s on a turntable.

How did so many of these bands follow the same messed-up paths? Did they all run into each other at rehab, or bankruptcy court? Whatever the reason, the show was a soothing hour full of smugness for viewers. We may not have had a string of number-one R & B hits in 1975, but we also never threw away millions of dollars on sub sandwich franchises and polo ponies.

P
oor
Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski. Man didn't want much from life: Nights spent bowling with Donny and Walter. Time to relax in the bathtub without a ferret being dumped on top of him. And most of all, a rug that tied the whole room together.

But that was not to be. Mistaken for a millionaire also named Lebowski, our Los Angeles stoner, hero of Joel and Ethan Coen's
The Big Lebowski
, finds himself caught up in a world of German Nihilists, vaginal art, a car-thieving schoolkid, and a laid-back cowboy narrator.

Robe and jelly shoes on, White Russian in hand, he bobs and weaves through the plot, just trying to get back his simple life. Toes are amputated, Creedence is stolen, but through it all, The Dude abides. We don't know about you, but we take comfort in that.

I
t
was the worst thing to happen to mankind's relationship with sea life since Jaws ate all those people. Part robot, part wall art, all bad idea, Big Mouth Billy Bass looked like a stuffed fish mounted on a plaque, but all it took was a quick press of the red button—or, God forbid, doing anything to trip his motion sensor—and battery-powered annoyance kicked in.

A staple of rec rooms everywhere, he'd launch into “Take Me to the River” or “Don't Worry, Be Happy,” complete with fish choreography, his little mouth flapping along with the music. Even with his big surprise move (he bent in the middle and did a ninety-degree turn halfway through to stare at you with those dead fish eyes), Billy quickly outstayed his welcome. People all over the world prayed for the sweet relief of dead double-As as they suddenly realized they were severely allergic to rubber seafood.

I
n
the '90s,
Bill Nye the Science Guy
helped more than a few middle schoolers limp through science class. The PBS show, which ran from 1993–1998, tackled everything from eyeballs to evolution, lifting normally dry topics out of textbooks and bringing them to life with a nerdy but fun zing.

Lanky Nye was the science teacher we all wished we had, complete with bow tie and sky-blue lab coat. His show incorporated TV show parodies, James Bond–style scenes, and song spoofs. He dressed in a suit of armor to explain reptile scales and stood in Puget Sound for a lesson on primordial soup. And his techniques actually helped us remember concepts too—in one, he began a bike trip at a red balloon representing the sun, and demonstrated how far it took to reach each of the planets.

Humor, charm, and we were learning too? Man, the best we could hope for from our real teachers was that the pop quiz would get postponed for a day.

M
mm-hmm,
Billy Bob Thornton was in movies and TV shows before, but it was in 1996's
Sling Blade
, when he melted into the role of a mentally disabled man who reckons he likes them French-fried potaters, that we all took notice. And got more than a little weirded out over just how much Thornton transformed into the murderous but oddly gentle Karl Childers, who called his weapon of choice a Kaiser blade, while some folks call it a sling blade. For a while in the 1990s that line was as popular as the Macarena, and about a million times more menacing.

Thornton wrote, directed, starred in, and won a screenplay Oscar for
Sling Blade
, and quickly became Hollywood's newest “it” guy. He went on to earn acclaim for roles in 1990s hits
Primary Colors
and
A Simple Plan
, among other films, and became known as an offbeat actor with a quiet intelligence and tough-guy persona.

Thornton wasn't your typical heartthrob, but he was soon dating one of the most beautiful and intriguing women in Hollywood—Angelina Jolie. They wed in 2000, and the media erupted with headlines after learning that the two wore each other's blood in vials around their necks. That's something, all right—when your freakiest role is something out of your real life, not the one where you kill Dwight Yoakam with a lawnmower blade.

1
999's
The Blair Witch Project
is remembered as much for its separate elements as for the film as a whole. The shaky camera work that made some viewers nauseous. A disturbing close-up of Heather's dripping nostril. The “found footage” gimmick, supporting the rumor that these weren't actors but real filmmakers gone missing. The sense that, given willing friends, a camera, and some ornate piles of twigs, you too could have made this movie in the woods near your house.

Thankfully, though, the novelty added up to a really good scare. When Heather, Josh, and Mike realize they're walking in circles and Mike kicks their only map into the river, when Josh discovers that his belongings have been covered in slime, when Heather unwraps a disturbing bundle of hair and teeth—a sense of dread steamed out of those woods that rivaled anything Jason Voorhees could conjure up.

Y
es,
Blossom
had a plot—the eponymous character (Mayim Bialik) maneuvered through life with her single musician dad and two brothers, one a recovering addict and one who was a few peas short of a casserole. But no 1990s kid remembers more than a handful of actual storylines from the 1991–1995 show. We were too busy being completely stunned, intrigued, and occasionally blinded by the weird and wacky wardrobes.

Some people are staunch believers that sunflowers should stay in the garden, where they belong. Or that while Grandma's crocheting may be the pride of the nursing home, when she crafts you a lime green sweater, it's probably best to thank her profusely and wear it only on her birthday. But others looked at Blossom and her best pal Six as trendsetters, slamming together funky, creative, eclectic outfits that somehow…worked. Blossom's granny dresses, clunky boots, vests, oversized jackets, and—especially—her floppy, flower-bedecked hats influenced a generation of kooky, fiercely independent kids.

Blossom planted the style-setting seeds that let a generation fly its quirky freak flag—even if it was cobbled together out of yellow long underwear, floppy hats, and a skirt made out of neckties. In our opinionation, that's reason enough to induct her into the '90s Fashion Hall of Fame.

O
nly
the luckiest kids got a real dog when they begged and pleaded. The rest of us got Blue, the neon cerulean puppy from Nickelodeon's
Blue's Clues
who lived with a motley menagerie of other anthropomorphic animals, furniture, and tools and their flesh-and-blood overlord, Steve Burns. No one thought it was odd that Steve heard the saltshaker, side-table drawer, and pail and shovel talking to him? Or that it took him a half hour to solve a mystery that most preschoolers figured out in the first three minutes?