Friday Five – 90’s TV Shows

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Welcome to the Friday Five! Each week we help you get to know our writers with the help of a top 5 list! This weeks category: 90’s TV!
 
Growing up in the 90’s meant we had a ton of quality TV to watch. No lame shit. Everything was pretty much awesome. If it wasn’t awesome there was some channel running re-runs of some of the awesome 80’s crap! There was always something great to watch, and as a result we had a lot to pick from. It’s no surprise we had a few shows pop up multiple times however. . .
 

Pisko

The 90’s were a magical time in TV. Weird shows popped up that never would have been greenlit. Everything from soda to tv characters were X-treme (Poochie the Dog, anyone?) and for some reason people rollerbladed. Inline, of course.
 

1. 94’ X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons – I’m going to pick two here, but only because it’s a dead tie in my mind. These were the first superhero cartoons that were child friendly but also treated the subject matter with respect and didn’t water down the heavy issues that the earlier ‘toons did. Spider-man was free to deal with the reality of clones and his own mortality while the X-Men could talk about racism and inclusion in a world that feared them. The animation was also good enough to match the look of the comics finally which did a lot to bring the characters to life. Plus, Christopher Daniel Barnes as Spider-Man was awesome. Amirite?
2. DuckTales – This cartoon had it all! D-D-D-Danger right behind you. St-St-St-Strangers out to find you. Rewriting history?!? Yup. This was especially great because Donald Duck and his awful voice were nowhere to be found after the first episode when he drops Huey, Dewey, and Louie off at old Uncle Scrooge’s because Donald decides to join the Navy. (Though, I thought he was already a sailor) Besides this cartoon being directly responsible for the creation of Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin and Darkwing Duck. (Which Chris spoke highly of in last week’s Friday Five) Also, Gizmoduck and his stupid one wheel.
3. ALF – He’s an alien. He’s fluffy and huggable (Unlike that leathery ass screeching no sarcasm E.T.) and hilarious. Also, he wants to eat your cat! His actual name is Gordon Shumway but he picks up the nickname “ALF” (Alien Life Form) when he first crash lands into the garage of the Tanners. In typical 80’s fashion Alf comes with a moral. His homeworld was destroyed by nuclear war and arriving in the 1980’s USA he feels it could happen again to our planet. He even bends the president’s ear about it in an early episode. Not to mention all toilets on his planet are made of gold.
4. Boy Meets World – Not much to say about this one. Growing up and being the same age as fictional “Corey Matthews” gave my generation a lot to learn from this show that rarely got too heavy handed with its morals. Corey was an average middle kid from an average middle class family in an average area of Philadelphia. Yet his life was anything but average. The show did a great job of making sure that even if you felt you had no place, no purpose, no group you had an exciting and wonderful life if you only looked at it from anothers shoes. This is illustrated perfectly in the relationship of Corey and Sean who come from what seems two different worlds but really are more similar than they want to admit. It helped that Topanga got HOT at the end!
5. Duckman – I wasn’t supposed to watch this hilarious cartoon comedy starring Jason Alexander as Duckman. I wasn’t supposed to get a lot of the jokes, but, I did. And man, it’s hard being one of 5 people my age that remember Duckman. The show was lightyears ahead of its time and if it premiered today would be an Adult Swim program. Duckman was a private detective for money but a family man for love. His partner was a pig and his family a rag tag band of misfits. The best part arguably being that Tim Curry played his nemesis whom was named “King Chicken”. I rest my case.

 

 

Eric

1. 90’s Spider-Man – This was the show that fueled my love for the wall crawler, and redheads. . . It’s hard to go back and watch it today, but it still holds a special place at the top of my favorite shows list.
2. Bobby’s World – I always found Bobby’s voice incredibly annoying, but I still loved the show. I remember listening to the opening theme song in my head as I rode my bike as a kid.
3. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers – It’s no secret that I love this show. Altho I stopped watching it when I made it to fifth grade because my parents told me it was time to grow up. Sometimes you just need to not listen adults!
4. Beast Wars: Transformers – This is one of those shows I couldn’t get enough of. I had so many of the toys it wasn’t funny! Unfortunately most of them made it into a trashcan for the same reason I stopped watch Power Rangers. . . parents!
5. Nick Arcade – All of the Nickelodeon game shows were awesome, but this was by far my favorite! Don’t worry, Legends of the Hidden Temple is a close second.

 

 

Chris

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – While it started in the ‘80s this cartoon ran till the mid ‘90s and really started my lifelong love of these heroes in a half-shell.
2. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers – I loved this show when I was a kid, I had tons of the toys, granted I never got the Green/White ranger stuff that I always wanted. Those damn things were impossible to find and super expensive. I’ve recently watched some of those early episode, and while it’s really not a good show the nostalgia factor makes it just as much fun to watch all over again. And this time I realize just how goofy and poorly dubbed some of it was.
3. Batman The Animated Series – This is THE Batman series, there have been so many others over the years, one just started last week, but none of them quite stack up to the original Batman The Animated Series. Batman Beyond was close, but still fell a little short.
4. Spider-Man Animated Series – I thought the X-Men animated series was cool but it wasn’t anything compared to Spidey. I just wish it had gone out better!
5. Buffy The Vampire Slayer – The only non-cartoon I picked. I remember being like 11 or 12 watching this show, it was great up until the last few seasons when they just got a little to ridiculous with the stories. Come on Gods and resurrection stuff is a bit much for a campy WB show.

 
A special mention has to go out to TGIF, those early/mid ‘90s sitcoms had everyone home watching TV on Friday nights, now Friday is just where shows go to die.
 

 

Shannon

Being born in 1988, I had all of the 90’s to watch amazing TV. This one is really tough because I guess I watched more TV than I should have and this list should really be my top 30.

1. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
2. Doug
3. Bill Nye the Science Guy
4. Sabrina, The Teenage Witch (and shout out to Clarissa Explains it All)
5. ReBoot

 

 

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