The 90's

[Spawn67]

Now that the 90's are considered nostalgic by some. What's your take on the 90's in terms of Pop Culture? What movies, toys, music, shows did you like from that decade?...

[palitoy]

For me it has to be the music, it's where i seemed to have planted my flag. I am a huge fan of the Flaming Lips, Veruca Salt, Breeders, Juliana Hatfield, Butthole Surfers, Monster Magnet, Mike Watt, Sonic Youth, Stereolab, the Avalanches, Beastie Boys, Lucious Jackson, it's easier to list what i don't like (cough* Pearl Jam *cough)

TV I'd say Seinfeld still stands for me and a few Britcoms.

Don't own many 90s toys, I did back in the day but they didn't hold my attention long. I don't like most of the output by Playmates, toybiz or McFarlane. I find it all kind of joyless.

Movies- I loved all the indie movies coming out back then, some have held up for me and others not so much. Off the top of my head i love Fight Club, Ed Wood, Office Space, Tank Girl, Fifth Element, Boogie Nights, The Crow, Starship Troopers, High Fidelity, it goes on and on.

[enyawd72]

Toywise I'd have to say my favorite stuff was Toy Biz Marvel and Hasbro Star Wars POTF2. Honorable mention goes to Skeleton Warriors.

My two favorite 90's movies hands down are The Phantom and The Shadow...both criminally underrated. Batman Forever too...

Music...meh.

[Werewolf]

I really enjoyed collecting POTF2 before the speculators and scalpers came out in droves making finding every new figure a chore. I do find it darkly amusing they are all Now sitting on valueless cases and cases of the stuff. I still do have a lot of affection for the line and I loved seeing the Kenner vehicles getting reissued. I also really liked the 12 inch collector line Hasbro did. I do wish they had reissued more Kenner figures than just the one four pack, though.

I also still really like the Pokémon games.

[palitoy]

I really enjoyed collecting POTF2 before the speculators and scalpers came out in droves making finding every new figure a chore. I do find it darkly amusing they are all Now sitting on valueless cases and cases of the stuff.

I had early enthusiasm for it but it quickly soured thanks to scalpers and the realization that they were never going to stop making them! I sold my collection in 1997 or 98 and i think i came out even. Probably the last guy to do so, they were just dead by the early 2000s. I remember at one show a guy's entire booth was POTF2 and it was empty, he looked sad.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I was in high school as the 90s began and graduated in 1993, so the 90s were a pretty great time for me. Met my wife, went to college, worked at a comic shop while I was there, all before entering full-fledged adulthood. Some of the best times of my life.

The 90s had BTAS, STAS and Batman Beyond. That's some of my favorite TV series right there. And of course they begat toys, and BTAS was one of the best action figure lines ever found at retail, before Kenner/Hasbro gave into greed and let alternate, ludicrous Batman variants choke the life out of the line.

Chris

[Hedji]

The 90s, let's see...

Well, I enjoyed being college aged with few responsibilities. That was my favorite part, as opposed to being a 40 something.

Remember when the internet first became a thing? I can remember arguing on rec.arts.starwars that making the Prequels was a bad idea. I remember being in a library and first seeing starwars.com load slowly with amazing color images on the screen.

Comic Books: Well, the big two really took a plunge after art tried to be McFarlane or Liefield. It became more about hologram covers than anything else. But there was a nice renaissance in smaller titles like Hellboy and Madman that I was quick to appreciate. Wizard magazine was usually a more interesting read than the books themselves. Overall, though, the 90's were the beginning of the end for comic books.

Music: Never really got into grunge, so I'm not a good barometer on that. (I've always listened to film scores, so I can say that the 90s were fairly lukewarm for my favorite composers Williams and Goldsmith.)

Film: In my opinion, genre films suffered in the '90's. There's no question the Batman films dominated the 90s for me personally. Sci Fi had few highlights. It can't be overstated how successfully Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park utilized CGI. They still hold up today. But in general, there wasn't a lot of memorable Sci Fi until the end of the decade with Independence Day, the Matrix, and Phantom Menace (yes, I'm the guy who loves TPM). Honorable mention goes to the Rocketeer.

The one thing that most people agree on is that the 90s were not good for Horror Films. The Scream franchise made us look into the mirror of horror, and mocked conventions that were meant to be taken as fun date night scares. No really great Creature features either. The days of the Thing and practical beasties was gone. All the old masters seemed to have difficulty: John Carpenter, Dario Argento, and George Romero's output began to suffer quality decline. Probably the best horror of the 90s came late in the decade with Burton's Sleepy Hollow. The 90's were pretty strong for Tim Burton in general with Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, Nightmare Before Christmas, Mars Attacks, and Sleepy Hollow. Not a bad run at all.

Television: For me, Star Trek ruled the 90s. I was in college, so it was fun to get pseudo-intellectual with some adult beverages over the exploits of Picard and crew. Since Star Wars was really dormant, Trek filled the gap nicely. Never got into Seinfeld. I was more of a Friends viewer. For cheap thrills, I did enjoy E! Entertainment Television in its early years when Greg Kinnear would host Talk Soup. Also Cartoon Network was at the height of its power in the mid 90s. They seemed to have the perfect balance of new and classic animation. I miss that.

DVD: What a great format! Wow! I can remember being so excited to see the jump in quality from VHS to DVD. I didn't know those colors could come out of my 32" TV. And bonus features? I was in heaven, and was so glad I had never invested in those pricey laserdiscs (even though that $125 Close Encounters set looked pretty swell.) We got to finally enjoy films in their proper aspect ratio ("What are those black bars?"), and I got to discover things like Hammer Horror and Mario Bava. Good times, falling in love with great films you never knew as a kid.

Toys: Yeah, I was all about the Playmates Star Trek line, until POTF2 hit. Overall though, toys were not cute enough like vintage, or accurate enough like modern. So you have this sort of medium quality aesthetic about alot of it.

Did anyone else collect trading cards in the 90s? There was a mini boom there for me. Star Trek, Terminator 2, Star Wars Galaxy, Rocketeer, Batman Returns, Universal Monsters... there were some fine cards produced then. Before it became all about chase cards, it was pretty fun.

Overall... I'm not nostalgic for the pop culture of the 90s. I think we live in a golden time right now to be honest. There's something for everyone in terms of toys, music, film, etc. It's hard to look back and not miss being younger, but I think in terms of zeitgeist, things are more happenin' nowadays. Although I think the Internet can make people a little meaner. I'm just happy that we are living in a time when there are several superhero movies, annual Star Wars films, and easy access to viewing old films in top quality. There's so much choice now with toys, comics, films, music, you name it... it's pretty incredible.

[Hedji]

Sorry I wrote such a long post. I hope someone reads it. Maybe I'm more nostalgic than I realize.

[palitoy]

I read it and then I realized that my answers should have been more about what I liked then rather than what i still continue to enjoy.

Well, I enjoyed being college aged with few responsibilities.

THIS. I definitely loved my "basement apartment, crummy retail job, malt liquor and the last courses to get my diploma" year.

As for comics, I read the least amount of them during the 90s, a) because I had no money but b) because I really hated their gimmicky, foil embossed, death stunt directions. Those years found my money going more to trash film magazines and issues of Hate! more than cape books

[Earth 2 Chris]

Comics: Loved the Superman Book up until right after his return from the dead, and then it began to very slowly decline. Suffered through all the Knight-nonsense, but it was a fun ride by good creative teams. Loved all the Chuck Dixon Batman work (Detective, Robin, Nightwing, Birds of Prey). JLA was Morrison at his best and very exciting relaunch of the concept. And my absolute favorite comic series of all time, Starman, pretty much came and went during the 90s, barely eeking into the 2000s.

Chris

[palitoy]

The Morrison JLA got me back into that book around '97 and I had a dalliance with comics for a few years again (mainly because I started studying and teaching karate in the back of a comic store) but it petered right out once the writer's changed.

[sprytel]

Pulp Fiction
Beck
X Files
9 Inch Nails
Trainspotting
Smashing Pumpkins
South Park

[Werewolf]

The 90s had a lot of good video games. I spent a lot of time playing Zelda, Super Metroid and Final Fantasy 2 on my SNES.

[Hedji]

I re-read Brian's post and am ashamed I forgot to acknowledge 5th Element and Starship Troopers. Bram Stoker's Dracula was a really nice film, and the comic adaptation was a nice intro to Mike Mignola, an artist who came to fame in the 90s.

Let's also not forget the decade that gave us the rise of Alex Ross with Marvels and Kingdom Come.

[Nostalgiabuff]

for me the nineties was mostly forgettable, although I did graduate high school, college, got married, started my career and had my first child in 99 to close out the decade. but pop culture wise? Death of Superman was a good read. some great movies in the mid to late decade. independence day. Phantom Menace. I mean damn, whether you liked PM or not it was the first new Star Wars movie in 16 years.