My Childhood in the 90's

Being born at the end of 1988, I got to experience the full 90's childhood. And since I was a little girl, that was even better. Too bad I didn't like dolls and Barbies!



Some of my favorite moments of the early 90's were playing with toys. At my daycare, if you had Littlest Pet Shop, you were automatically considered "cool". Especially if you had the Littlest Pet Shop store! I also had all the other playsets and animals, the videos (which weren't very good), and the board game. I also really liked the Kitty Kitty Kittens. You know, those toy cats you'd shake to hear a "purr" sound. However, I typically performed surgery on them by cutting open their stomachs, sticking weird things inside (like Legos or Silly Putty) and have my mom sew them back up without her knowing what I was doing. Lite Brite was also a personal favorite of mine. I mean, who didn't enjoy nearly getting their fingers off if it over-heated? Okay, so I didn't enjoy that part so much! I also enjoyed the Pound Puppies playsets, too. Did anyone else ever have the big pink van that had the whole town inside of it? And how about those little restaurants that you could carry around with you anywhere? Ah, good times.



And what little girl wasn't obsessed with Lisa Frank? I, like everyone else, absolutely loved it! I had a Lisa Frank themed party for my fourth birthday at daycare, and I still remember the other girls screaming with delight when they saw all the Lisa Frank decorations and goodies in the party area. And everyone sure loved those goodie bags!



Not only did the 90's have great toys, they also had great games! May it be a video game or a computer game, I loved it either way. Some of my personal favorites were The Lion King Print Shop, Rugrats Adventure Game, Spyro the Dragon, and last but not least, Crash Bandicoot. Oh, how I loved playing Crash on my Playstation! The games were completely awesome, especially the second one. That's a game that I'll never forget. Oh, and we can't forget about Pokemon! Of course, I hate it now, but playing Pokemon Red on my Gameboy Color was a lot of fun. I learned so much about Pokemon it wasn't even funny. A lot of kids I knew considered me to be The Master!



The 90's also had some awesome movies! My absolute favorite was The Lion King. I still remember sitting in theaters as a five year old and asking my mom why Scar hated Mufassa so much. And who could forget Simba's song number, "I Just Can't Wait to Be King"? That was my favorite song as a little kid! Other 90's movies I loved were That Darn Cat!, Hercules, The Rugrats Movie, and my current personal favorite, Space Jam. Believe it or not, I'm still completely obsessed with Space Jam over ten years later!



Also with the 90's was the revolution of cartoons, producing us some of the best ones to ever air on television. I loved nearly every nicktoon on Nickelodeon (Rugrats, Rocko's Modern Life, Doug, and Hey Arnold being personal favorites) and I also liked Cartoon Network a lot back when it was good. I loved seeing what antics Cow and Chicken would get into and how DeeDee would sneak into Dexter's laboratory. I also enjoyed PBS Kids. I could not get enough of Arthur! Although I still watch it, the show has deeply gone downhill once the new millenium came. However, the most recent season was good so there's still hope. But it'll never be as good as it was in 1996. I also liked watching Nick Jr. before the Blue's Clues era began. I mean, who didn't like Gullah Gullah Island, Allegra's Window, and Eureeka's Castle? Those shows were some of the best pre-school shows ever! And who else remembers when Cartoon Network showed pre-school targeted shows? Sure it was on at, like, five in the morning, but hey, I had cable in my room. If you can recall Small World and Big Bag, you're awesome!

Also in the 90's were some of the best game shows ever. Double Dare, You Can't Do That on Television, Global Guts, Figure It Out, the early Slime Time Live, and of course Legends of the Hidden Temple were all awesome. I wanted to go on Legends so much as a little kid. But when they started giving away parts of the set on Figure It Out as prizes, I knew my dreams had been crushed. But it was still fun to pretend.



Of course, not all of the 90's is based on media. There were also super-fun places to go to as well. Two words: Discovery Zone. Every kid loved Discovery Zone! Who else remembers climbing up the slide and then slipping down into the ball pit? How about climbing on the nets when it clearly stated "no climbing" on the signs? And how about playing laser tag with your favorite Men in Black characters? And before Discovery Zone came, I had Leaps and Bounds. I still remember the T-shirts from there were the 'it' style in pre-school. We had the choices pink, purple, and aqua to choose from with awesome logos on the front. But this place closed quickly once Discovery Zone opened. And years later, Discovery Zone unfortunately closed, too, never to be forgotten.