This is my place.

I got tagged by Foovay for this. The 90s were a while ago and this was a bit of an effort! I was busy raising two small children with my wife and didn’t pay much attention to it.

Favorite TV show?

What a horrible decision to make! The whole family watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer religiously. At its best, it was the most creative show on TV in its day. Willow in Buffy came out as a lesbian. Or at least bi. She did have a boyfriend before, Oz, who she really loved. They split up because he’d become a werewolf. Her relationship with her lover, Tara, even featured in a few episodes.

I’ve Got a Theory from a “special” episode, Once More, with Feeling.

Not everything was a fight There were lots of good scenes with emotional intensity.

Of course, we came for the fights…

But there was also Xena: Warrior Princess. It was a spin-off of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, another really fun show of the later 90s. Xena was incredibly popular, featuring strong female protagonists and bisexual content, among other things. She also had a child once – daddy was a centaur. Wonder how that went?

Gabriele eventually had a baby too. Daddy was a real devil of a guy.

Favorite 90s song?

That’s a tough one too! There was a lot of good stuff but nothing stands head and shoulders above the rest. I’d probably pick R.E.M.’s album, Automatic for the People rather than a specific single. It is packed with great music… every song on it spoke to me.

If I had to pick one song on it, this would be my favorite. It is a song about a middle-aged man looking back at the “recklessness” of youth, regretting things both done and undone, and the excitement and innocence lost with age.

Nightswimming deserves a quiet night.
I’m not sure all these people understand.
It’s not like years ago,
The fear of getting caught,
of recklessness and water.
They cannot see me naked.
These things, they go away,
replaced by everyday.

Bryan Adams did Everything I do I do it for You. That was another big favorite. It was the love theme from Robin Hood.

Favorite commercial?

I don’t remember many commercials from the 90s. It wasn’t an exciting year for them. Superbowl commercials are often the best of the year, so maybe this one. I’m a dog person after all. It’s kind of bittersweet…

Nsynch or Backstreet Boys?

Neither, really. If you were to put a gun to my head, I’d go for Backstreet Boys

Favorite music artist?

R.E.M. – see above.

What did I collect?

Rifles… Shotguns… pistols.  I inherited several from my father. Wife and I inherited several from her father. Bought several myself, including the one I’d carried as a guard when I was a youngster. Both my children learned to shoot before they were ten. Wasn’t an intentional collection, just was prone to accumulating them.

How many Tamagotchis did you go thru?

What’s a Tamagotchis? LOL! I think my daughter had one.

Favorite video game and console?

Back when I was still interested in gaming it was all chits on a board, like the old Squad Leader franchise. But by the 90s, my interest in games had waned. I played very few games of any kind in the 90s or since.

Maybe The Last Half of Darkness on an old DOS and then a Win 3.1 and then a Win 95 computer. Back when a floppy was 5.25 inches with 360K of memory, a PC XT had 640K of RAM, and hard disks were measured in very small numbers of megabytes instead of terabytes.

And yes, I do remember 8-inch floppies.

Favorite cereal toy, 90s crush growing up?
Favorite Disney Channel movie?

Obviously, this was started by a youngster!

Favorite cartoon show?

That is super tough!  WB had an afternoon animation show called Animaniacs which was a bunch of animation by Stephen Spielberg. Some of it got kind of edgy for kids cartoons. They had a number of different characters who all had their own shows within the show. I remember a smart cat (Rita) and a not-so-smart dog (Runt) in one of them saving Jews from the holocaust during the German invasion of Poland. Rita and Runt was one of several recurring shows within Animaniacs. The specific name of this segment was called “Puttin’ on the Blitz.”

Another show that was interesting was Goodfeathers, a show about pigeons in NYC that was a parody of the movies “Goodfellows” and “The Godfather.” Yup! a pigeon mafia.

I understand Hulu is going to revive it in 2020. One of my favorites was Pinky and the Brain.

Nick had a killer lineup. Hey Arnold, Fairy Oddparents, Doug, Angry Beavers, Ren and Stimpy, Spongebob Squarepants, and others. I was young Daddy at the time so Rugrats was my must-see animation.

Weirdest fashion trend

I can’t think of a single fashion trend I followed. I just went to a page called The 90 Greatest ’90s Fashion Trends and of the 90 trends they mention, I didn’t follow one. (Being naked wasn’t particularly trendy.) Shirt and tie for work. (Always tried to skip the tie.) Jeans and t-shirts elsewhere, some flannel in the cooler parts of winter.

Favorite toys

I had a Suzuki Samurai that was a better offroad vehicle than a jeep.

Disney, Nick or Cartoon Network?

Well, we didn’t get Disney, and Cartoon Network didn’t come to us until 1998. That kind of leaves Nick. You ought to have WB Kids (and/or Fox kids) listed in your question. Spielberg’s Animaniacs was awesome! I would not be able to choose between the two.

Early morning/weekend shows would you watch?

Didn’t watch much television in the am or weekend days back then. Whatever the kids had on.

Favorite McDonald’s Happy Meal toy?
What would you watch when you got home from school?

Happy meals? Home from school? You’re young enough to be my children.

Favorite book?

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. It is the hilarious autobiographical story of an aging travel writer’s attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail. They later made it into a movie with Robert Redford and Nick Nolte.

Favorite thing from the 90s that is not around today?

Believe it or not, Bill Clinton as president. Actually, I’d rather have any president of the 20th Century than the one we have now. That includes Richard Nixon, Warren Harding, and Herbert Hoover.

Tagging

The Unpopular Poplar
Matt in the Hat
Inskime

Anyone else who is interested!

Of course, some of you might be too young to remember the 90s. Do the 2000s instead!