The Pre-Wonder Years: Episode 3

1990 was very different from most years.
Much like the Super Mario television series, it was divided into three courses.


Breakfast: Lunch: Dinner:





The actual Super Mario In the summer of '90, Finally, in the fall of
Super Show which stars Danny Club Mario replaced 1990, the adventures
Wells and Captain Lou the Super Mario Super Show. of Super Mario were
Albano. During the spring The Super Mario Super Show combined with the
of '90, you still had The was very reminiscent of the stories of Kevin Keene.
Smurfs (time traveling) on Howdy Doody show. Club This series was
NBC. Mario set the tone for all awesome because
video games shows after it. Link (from the Legend
G4 might not have been where of Zelda video game) was
it is today if it were not for in a Captain N episode
Club Mario. I know that seems during this season.
like a scary thought. The show The pop culture of the
"Hull High" premiered in that very early 90's began
summer. The pop group coming into their own
The Jets still had a song around this time.
on the Top 40 charts.


October of 1990 was when I realized that small change was on the horizon.


Episode 3
Dawn of a New Day


For most of 1990, I had been treated to stuff produced in 1989. Everything that was "new" in the spring of
1990 had a copyright date of 1989 on it. There was a lot of confusion in the air about what time I was
actually in. I thought 1990 would bring a tremendous amount of change to America. Instead, what I got
was the vibe that it was still the 1980's for the most part. Then, the latter half of 1990 happened.
We were truly in a brand new period...




Bigg Mixx cereal commercials were on tv every day. Kellogg's Bigg Mixx was THE cereal of the very early
90's (1990-1992). I thought the idea of a cereal trail mix was absolutely brilliant. Personally, I never once
got to taste this cereal. The image of the mascot, as a whole, was easy to remember. The Bigg Mixx
mascot was equipped with a nice warm smile. I guess I missed this because the cereal aisle looked like
this:


You have your Honey Nut Cheerios,
your Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, your...I don't remember the
last one. Cheerio as they say in Britain.

My eyes were on the true prizes of the cereal aisle then. The Jetsons may have met the the Flintstones
on tv already, but their cereals met on store shelves in 1990.


Did this really happen?

If I recall correctly, Jetsons cereal tasted like apple jacks with a strong cinnamon flavor to it.
This cereal really looked like dog food, though. I guess that is not surprising, considering that Ralston
is best known for their pet food. I cannot think of a single cereal that looks like that stuff today.
Cereal, in this day and age, does not have as much sugar as the Ralston cereals of the 80s
into the mid 90s had.

The clothing for the fall of 1990 best suited that time period. Here is what I wore in October:



A lot of stores were pushing Duck Head clothing line articles in the August of '90. So, it
was a no-brainer to wear Duck Head shirts when the back-to-school season began.
These shirts were one great big joke. The front of the shirt had "Duck Head" on it. The
shirt had "Duck Tail" on the back of it. Come to think of it, circles
were a big deal in '90. All of these clothes and accessories pictured below were a hit
at some time in 1990.




Girls wore shirts so over-sized in those days.

The last part of 1990 was very very awkward. I think that was due to the fact that I
never got to know the year very well. It is awkward in a good, funny kind of way. The
television stars that made the 80's were all there.



Sharon Gless may not have been on Cagney and Lacey anymore, but she played
the titular character in The Trials of Rosie O' Neill. Marsha Warfield of Night Court
had her own daytime talk show. The fall of '90 appeared to be very interesting to an
80's child like myself. There were a few duds for that season too.



The ABC network must have promoted the heck out of Cop Rock before the show premiere.
Everyone around me knew of this atrocity. Cop Rock was one of those shows that was so
awesomely bad you could not help but love it. Ferris Bueller, on the other hand, was one of
those shows you look at in different ways. This was the first show Jennifer Aniston appeared in
on NBC, to my knowledge. I guess that gave 1990 a 90s angle. No one knew she would go
on to be such a big star then. Well, the less said about this show, the better. The Ferris Bueller
show was not any different from most TV shows based on 80's movies. Honestly, does anyone
remember Fast Times or the Dirty Dancing show? The Ferris Bueller tv show made
fun of the movie character like The Real Ghostbusters series did.

The way some people perceived 1990 was different from how I see it now. The year
was where it should be in history. It did not have that identity to it overall. People were
looking at the 80's as if they were gone. 1980-1986 were the only years that were old
to most people then. Still, the stores of 1990 were flooded with stuff like this:



But...but...Trivial Pursuit was released in '82.


The anime of this time was not much different than the shows offered in the 80's.
Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest in Japan) was not as exposed as Voltron or Revoltech.
You had to wake up really early to catch Dragon Warrior. In fact, I have friends
who do not even remember that one. This show was aired just months before
the NES game came out. Here are some screen caps from Dragon Warrior:




My favorite memory from October of 1990 was when I saw those four brand new
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures. For most of '90, I kept seeing the same ole
Genghis Frog, Splinter, General Traag, Michelangelo, and Wacky Action figures. It truly took
a looong time for these new figures to be distributed to stores. Mondo Gecko, Scumbug,
Wingnut and Muckman MADE the 1988 toyline. Muckman was the most unique figure
in that toyline at that point, in my opinion. This X-Entertainment article sums up the moment
best : http://www.x-entertainment.com/messages/555.html.


I will greatly take you to the scene the purchase...


Old School.


Above all, I loved October of 1990 because of all of the ghosts. It was literally a great
time to a fan of those little obnoxious supernatural beings.