Remember the '90s?

Kids these days have nothing on us who grew up in the '90s. So what if they have their PSPs and Nintendos? So what if they had Xbox and broadband internet?

We had:

1. The slinky

Remember tossing it down the stairs, the see-saw, any inclined surfaces? I used to spend hours untangling the coils from a hastily kept slinky.

They came in all colours and sizes, from the plain metallic ones to rainbow striped ones. Definitely one of my favourite toys when I was a little kid. (:

2. Tetris

Remember how cool it was that Tetris came on a hand-held console? Way before we had Gameboy Colour/Advanced, we had the huge Tetris console with its tinny music.

3. Hopscotch

Racing out to find a patch of empty cement during recess, and drawing on a hopscotch template with chalk stolen from the classroom. Also, tossing your wallet or coin pouch on a different square every time you advance a level.

4. Pinky and the Brain

One is a genius, the other's insane!

Is it insane that I can remember the theme song after all these years?

5. Goosebumps

Remember buying the entire collection of Goosebumps and getting freaked out by them? Then there was the book where you could choose what you wanted to do at the end of very page... only your character usually ended up trapped as a giant chicken prematurely, so you cheated and marked each page before you went on, making it easy to backtrack.

6. LDs

Remember renting cartoons every Friday, on gigantic LDs? They came in a cardboard slip, with huge pictures of Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny.

7. Floppy hair

Falling in love with guys with floppy hair was all the rage. Ben A1, Nick Carter from Backstreet Boys, Kian from Westlife...

8. Ring pops

The best candy ever! Had to save up for days with my 50-cent allowance before being able to get one.

9. Ice pops

Remember sharing an ice pop with a friend, snapping it off in the middle while the syrup dripped out and made your hands sticky, because even 10 cents was extravagant back then?

10. Stick-on earrings

Buying strips and strips of these, so you could change them every day. And being so vain that instead of having just one pair, you'd have 3, even sticking them on your hands and face.

11. Cassettes

Remember cassettes? The predecessor to CDs and MP3s? And also,

11. Walkman

Which was the height of technology back in those days.

12. Troll dolls

Remember the proliferation of these kids? Keychains, erasers, figureheads for pencils... aw I miss those colourful little things.

13. Magic School Bus

The cartoon that made you wish you had a teacher like Ms. Frizzle. Also an educational cartoon, which is nothing like what the cartoons these days are like.

Remember also buying into the Magic School Bus hype, with their bags and pencil cases and plastic lunchboxes? (:

14. When Microsoft still looked like this

Ah, I grew up using Windows 3.1! Every time I turned on the computer (a massive, prehistoric machine) I had to type "C:\" commands to access any programs.

15. Five stones

Remember sewing your own five stones from scrap cloth and green beans? There were about 5 million levels to this game, none of which except the first 3 I could remember.

16. Home Alone

Remember when Home Alone was the movie? You actually wished your parents would abandon you so you could have an adventure of your own.

17. Power Rangers

Back when the series wasn't so lame yet. I would spend large amounts of time discussing the merits of both the Yellow and Pink Ranger (who usually won out by dint of her nicer costume, and who I wanted to be when I grew up).

18. Water pistols

Before things got too complicated, we had these tiny plastic water pistols. Super fun at birthday parties.

19. Mister Men and Little Miss

Remember the days when they weren't yet considered vintage? *grumble*

20. Captain Planet

Whom the vintage craze completely skipped. ):

21. Enid Blyton books

This generation seems to have missed out on the gems that are Enid Blyton books. Secret clubhouses with passwords, mystery-solving, fantasy worlds, golliwogs (that don't seem to be featured anywhere else but here, so this generation will grow up not knowing about them)...


Oh, I can come up with plenty more things from the good old '90s... but you tell me what your favourite memories are! (:

(P.S. If you have any of the above items, short of Kian, Nick and Ben, and are willing to sell, please let me know!)