Four things we miss about the nineties

Like most of you, I remember the nineties vividly: baggy jumpers, greasy curtain cuts and Noel Edmonds. But of course, rose tinted specs mean the decade that taste forgot is undergoing a full-on revival – the return of Dr Martens, garage music and Take That – are all enjoying a renaissance period thanks to our unwavering affection of all things nostalgia. In that spirit, here are some gems that I miss most about the era…


MELISSA JOAN HART
Before Bieber, Hannah Montana and bloody Zac Efron, this bitch was explaining all and seeking advice from a wise-cracking cat. Nowadays she’s more likely to be pissing off Perez Hilton and getting sketched at Disney World than putting the world to rites, making shakes with Britney Spears and getting that dude from Entourage to dress like a total tit. Actually, this trailer for her latest show, the abysmally titled Melissa and Joey (also starring Blossom’s Joey Lawrence! Bloody hell), does look pretty LOLZ.

SAYING ‘IT’S THE ‘90s’
Somehow applicable to any dilemma, suffixing every other sentence with ‘it’s the ‘90s’ was the get out clause to all deplorable situations in American TV shows and movies. While it’s weird people rarely went around excusing themselves with ‘it’s the millennium’ circa 2000 like goldfish (I seriously thought – nay, hoped – we would, for all it’s cringe inducing connotations), I wouldn’t mind bringing something like this back into the zeitgeist. Imagine, a typical Saturday night and you’re caught taking your third hit of crystal meth/meow meow/whatever relevant drug the kids are taking these days, and upon being caught, you simply look up at your accuser, care-free with a slight shrug of the shoulders and retort ‘dude, lighten up. It’s the teenies.’ …oh, hold on a second, that sounds SHIT.

THE ORIGINAL PLAYSTATION
Yeah yeah, it’s all very well blowing up your enemies on COD: Black Ops with a headset on, threatening twelve-year-olds in Hull you’re about to ‘bring the hurt’, but do you remember when game consoles really achieved their zenith? Despite my sub-par knowledge of the gaming world, I’m going to act like an authority on this and say – it was the K.O. skills of Tekken that kicked Street Fighter’s primitive arse, Crash Bandicoot’s colourful trackie bottoms and those shock controls that seriously revolutionised shit. I remember one day, being so afraid of The X-Files game – a role play live-action thriller ten times as frightening as the TV show – that I could only play it standing up, one foot in the doorway, on sunny days whilst talking to my dad in the next room just to be assured that EVERYTHING WAS OK. Talk about salad days.

LANDLINE PHONES / CRAP MOBILE PHONES
Back when Blackberrys and Apples were just types of fruit and email was in its infancy, landlines ruled our social lives. You could memorise numbers like fucking Rain Man and hold marathon phone conversations in the comfort of your own home without the worry it was sending radioactive cancer waves to your brain. Back then, mobies (did anyone ever call them that?) were clunky, ugly devices with giant aerials that emitted so much white noise, it made even the supposedly easiest of conversations feel like an aggressive shouting match with the TV from Poltergeist. But what I miss most about landlines is the experience of going out with your mates and them not staring at an electronic pebble like lobotomised lemmings, guffawing over Charlie Brooker’s latest tweet or – and god help me the next person who does this – recoiling, shrieking and jabbing in horror over an unflattering Facebook tag. Seriously, drink your wine and SHUT THE FUCK UP.

– Karmel Mandrick

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    Pinklilycat

    No really though what HAS happened to Joey’s hair?! That wonderful mulleted mane…

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