Taking it Back to the 90s

Before smartphones, endless passwords, and streaming services for every mood, there was a decade that felt simpler, louder, and more fun. No notifications. No algorithms choosing what you’d see next. Just life happening in real time, Surge soda in hand, and a Backstreet Boys song stuck in your head.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome to the Cashley Show. We are Kevin and Ashley.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Hello.

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We started this podcast after recent tragedies to take a break from negativity and discover the good news happening all around us.

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Over there, and over there, and over there.

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Today we are taking it back to the 90s.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Ooh. Alright.

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Does it look?

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It's good times.

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Close your eyes for a second. It's Saturday morning. Yeah. The smell of cereal fills the air.

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What kind of cereal? What do you got? What were you doing in the 90s? What was your cereal?

SPEAKER_00 0:45

I always loved Lucky Charms.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Yeah, I was going to eat the marshmallow those first.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Yep. Yeah.

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No one wanted the rest.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

I never actually got Lucky Charms. I got whatever, like maltomill. Yeah, right. Whatever. Off-brand, whatever, yeah. Because there was a bunch of us kids. Yeah. We weren't we weren't buying five dollar box cereal or whatever it was.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

We weren't five back then.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Well it was like five dollars for inflation.

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Cartoons blast from the TV, and you have Nowhere You Need to Be. That was the 90s, and somehow it felt like it would last forever.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah. Wasn't thinking about next year or anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Nope. The sounds that defined us before.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

I want to talk more about like because I don't know where you're going with this, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

There's tons of stuff on here.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Well, like what was your Saturday morning cartoon?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Did you have like a favorite one? I don't remember. I know like my mom left us to go to work. Yeah. My dad didn't live with us. Um, like when I was in kindergarten first, second grade, my mom would leave to go to work. I mean, my sister would be home.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

With the TV babysitter?

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yep. We'd watch the TV until it was a certain time and then we had to walk to school.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Not on Saturdays.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

I know. I don't remember Saturday morning, so do you?

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Yeah, Saturday morning cartoons and like just what did you watch? That is a good question, though. We can move on. We can talk about it later.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

All right. The sounds that defined us. Before streaming and algorithms, there was TRL. You'd rush home from school just to see which Backstreet Boy or NSYNC video took the top spot. Loved, loved this. Yeah, TRL. Love TRL. That was good. How many? It means Total Request Live for those of you that didn't grow up on TRL.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Like you'd call in and request, like you'd vote type of thing. It was on MTV. Right. Which stands for music television.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Yeah. So like the ones that got the most. Carson Daily. Yeah, Carson Daily. And he's still doing something. He's hosting something, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Some show, yeah. Yeah.

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He had like a talk show or whatever after I don't know. So like you'd you'd cast your vote, like put in all your requests, right? The ones with the most requests.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

You would have to call because texting wasn't a thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah. Yeah. How many did they do? Was it 20?

SPEAKER_00 3:00

I don't remember. Like what? Can we look it up?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

You can if you want to.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

No.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

It doesn't really matter. Yeah. It was all about music videos. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

So I think like in the next one is cassette tapes. So I think the early 90s you did cassette tapes, and then later in the 90s it was CDs. Yeah. Cassette tapes were your everyday companion, worn down from rewinding the same song over and over.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yeah. And a Walkman.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Yeah. Oh yeah, I didn't put that one down.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Yeah, Walkman's. Yeah, Walkman and Discman. Yeah. Just burning through double A batteries.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yeah. Mixing.

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I had a oh we're probably gonna get there. Go ahead. Making mixtapes was an art form.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Yeah. I had so many. So like I had Boombox thing that had like the cassette and then the the CD on the top. So then you could record your favorite song off the CD and put it on the cassette. Or you would record it off the radio. You'd have to sit there and wait and then push record when the song came on the radio.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Yep. So many of I had so many tapes that had like right because you gotta cut it off as like the DJ comes back on, right? And like they would always like talk through the first part of the song and then start talking before the song ends, right? You guys. Yeah, so so many of my like the end of the song, it would catch like the whatever the radio like stations, like whatever. Yeah, right at the end, like my I had a boom box like you, but I had two two tapes, two cassettes on the front, and so you can put one in and then record it to the other one and bang. And it had like fast. So you could record things super fast, right? Like and like Yeah, that was fun.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Oh sorry, that says you'd sit by the radio for hours finger ready to record, waiting for your song to play, then carefully label the tape with your best bubble letters. CDs eventually took over, and suddenly you could skip tracks without rewinding.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Right? That was such a big deal.

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But nothing beat opening a brand new CD case, unfolding the liner note, and reading every lyric. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, blast from your older siblings' room, and in between, the spice girls taught us about girl power.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Those do they call them jewel cases? Is that what they were called? The CD cases? They were such trash though. They were garbage. They're always broken. Yeah, all the time.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

You would sometimes just open it and it would break.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yeah. They were they were absolute garbage.

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Yeah. TGIF.

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What was your thank goodness?

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It's freaking.

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I'm excited, so I don't I'm not waiting until you're done with your spots. What were your favorite TJF shows?

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Full House.

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Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

That's my favorite.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Full House. And Family Matters was on after it. Yeah, Step by Step.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Oh, I love Step by Step too. Step by Step. There was a lot of good shows. We're making our kids watch a lot of older shows. They were good.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

They were good. Back when shows were just fun.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

So D TJF was on ABC and Nickelodeon and their slime. So they had Doubledare, which was always fun to watch.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

I didn't watch very much Nickelodeon.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Was Double Dare on Nickelodeon?

SPEAKER_01 6:14

I I I would imagine so. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Oh yeah, they were the slime people.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

I don't think we had like cable cable. Like we had like right, like we didn't get like Nickelodeon or because my dad didn't really watch sports and stuff, right? So like we didn't get like the cable package. So I only watched Nickelodeon like at friends' house and stuff like that, if I was over.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

I was actually looking for stuff and there was a show on Nickelodeon. It was called Wienerville.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

I don't know the show.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

It's just this guy in this adult man.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

I don't like where this show's going.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

In like it's just his face on like a baby's body. It was weird. I remember the name, but I didn't remember the show. Was it on Nickelodeon? It was on Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon. They also had, and I don't know if this was Nickelodeon. I think it was Legends of the Hidden Temple. You remember that?

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Vague was like a game show, right? Yeah, vaguely.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

That was a good show.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Lots of game shows with like kids playing the games. Right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Saturday mornings belonged to kids. Rugrats, hey Arnold, Animaniacs, Ruled the Airwaves. Nobody had to schedule screen time because the TV schedule did it for you. You didn't get to, you only got to watch it when it was on. You didn't get to choose to watch it later. I remember watching Animaniacs at my neighbor's house. Yeah, Animaniacs. I still remember that song. Yeah. Yeah. You can sing it. No.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

You bust it out? That's the Tiny or Toonie. Is that it? Nope. No.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

And when you Yeah. No, that was Tiny Toon Adventures.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Tiny Toon Adventures. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

We also have one one of those DVDs. Our kids didn't like it. I liked that show.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

You flipped to MDV for Singled Out. You remember that one?

SPEAKER_01 7:57

I don't know if it was.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Where Jenny McCarthy and Chris Hardwick helped a room full of strangers eliminate each other in the name of love. It was chaotic, it was loud, and it was absolutely unmissable. I loved that show.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Singled out. I don't know if I saw it.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah, that doesn't sound familiar. I mean there was like Road Rules and Real World.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Yeah, I loved those too. Those were good too.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Yeah. The beginnings of reality TV.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Uh-huh. And when the cartoons ended, you went outside. Yeah, garbage on after cartoons.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Yeah. That was when, yeah. Like it was like TV LAN now, like all the old shows. Those would come on. Like the kids watched the morning cartoons and then the parents would watch shows.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

There'd be like the the soap operas and the infomercials and all sorts of garbage.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

What's the like the channel nowadays that just shows infomercials? Home shopping network or QVC? QVC, that's what I was thinking about. But yeah, same thing. Yeah. Yeah, infomercials. I remember when like Disney would always run like a week or something of like you got it for free to like they unscrambled it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

And you watch all these shows. Like, can we get Disney? Yeah. No. Yeah. Parents. They only we only watched, we only got what whatever came with like whatever sports package my dad wanted. So we we did have Nickelodeon.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Right. You had some of the good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Yeah, but never Disney. That was always extra. Alright, the toys we lived for. A Tamigachi clip to your backpack. Did you ever have one of those?

SPEAKER_01 9:36

These are like the little pet things. Yeah, I don't think I ever had one.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

I think I had one, but I'm pretty sure it didn't live very long. I could never get it to live because I would always forget about it.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

That sounds about right.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Our kids are fine.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

I didn't say anything about the kids.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

I also feed the animals or make sure they're fed.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

You were a busy child. You had lots to do. You have time to take care of a digital pet.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

I didn't have anything to do.

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TV shows to watch, you had candy to eat, sodas to drink.

unknown 10:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Yeah. Says you tried to keep your digital pet alive through the third period. They died so fast.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Yeah, I don't think I I don't think I ever had one.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Yeah. And the Furby stared at you from the shelf, blinking its mechanical eyes. Never had one of those. They were weird and still are weird. The skip it in the driveway meant counting every jump on that little plastic counter like it was the world record.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

And like it only went to 99 or something.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Was it 99 or 999?

SPEAKER_01 10:37

I don't know. I feel like it was only 99 because I feel like we'd go over and reset all the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Did you have to manually reset it or did it just reset it?

SPEAKER_01 10:46

I think it had like a a little push. Push square that you would reset.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Yeah. Pogs spread across the cafeteria table.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Pogs.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

I might still have some pogs.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yeah, you should look. I mean, like, I don't know if they're worth money or whatnot, but pogs and slammers. Yeah. They got banned from our school.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

People were still in them or fighting over them?

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Yep, both.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Yeah. Sounds right. The Game Boy was tucked under the covers long past bedtime.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

I didn't ever have a Game Boy. Like lots of friends had Game Boys and stuff. Oh really? But I had I remember going to like a brother's soccer game and riding with like a family friend, and they had like a Sega. What was that? I don't remember. Handheld Sega. I don't remember what it's called. I don't remember what it's called. Playing some hockey game. And again, double A batteries. Like just you had like bags of double A batteries. Yeah. And playing some hockey game from I don't know. It must have been like 1996 or something.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Yeah. I got I don't know how old I was, but I got like a little handheld TV.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

A handheld TV? Yeah, it had like with little antenna or something.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Yeah, like there was a string that was connected to the bottom of it. You like you could put it around your neck, but that was the antenna, so you had to like move it around sometimes. And it had like, I don't know, probably like four double A's in it, maybe six. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

That's why our landfills are so terrible nowadays. The tens of millions of double A batteries from the 90s.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Yeah. But it didn't work very well.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

I can imagine.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

But I had a Game Boy, and I actually had a red one when I graduated high school. I put it, I hit it, and just sat there and played the Game Boy during graduation.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

What did you play? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

No. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Tetris, probably. Dr. Mario.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

I don't even know what happened to it either. Must have broke. I don't know. Next is and then there was the Nintendo. Yeah. That was the best. Whether you blew into the cartridge to make it work or stayed up all night to beat a level, it felt like pure magic. I loved what's that running one? Remember you had like a mat and you had to run on it?

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Yeah, it was like Olympic. Yeah. Yeah. Olympics.

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Jump and run.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

And Duck Hunt was fun.

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Duck Hunt, yeah.

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And Mario Brothers. We had a we had a game genie.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

So you could cheat?

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Yeah. So you like put it on the cartridge and then plugged it in. And it gave you like all these cheat codes, like unlimited lives on Mario Brothers.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

And I still don't really know how Game Genie even worked. Like how did it modify? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

But that was great. Alright, next is Mall Madness. It brought the shopping mall to your kitchen table with an electronic voice announcing sale like it was the most exciting thing in the world.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

So it was a board game?

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Yeah, it was like a board, but then it had plastic shops kind of on it.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

I loved this game.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Why? What was so fun about it? I don't think I ever played it.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

I don't remember. I know I'm pretty sure it was my sister's. Yeah. Well, it was like there's a sale at this shop, and then you have to like get over there, and there's like one thing you can buy or something. I don't know. I should look on eBay and see if they have one.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Our kids will not like it, so just get it for you if you're gonna get it.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

Yeah, I'll probably have to put it by myself that the kids will like it. You can force them. They were they weren't just toys, they were status symbols. The food hit different dunkaroos, gushers, yeah, fruit by the foot, which is still a thing. Still around surge soda.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Surge soda?

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Do you remember that one?

SPEAKER_01 14:20

No.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

It kind of looks like Mountain Dew.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Yeah, I was gonna say maybe I do remember it because it's like a green, and I feel like I remember commercials. No surge soda.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Yeah. The pizzeria chips. Do you remember these?

SPEAKER_01 14:32

No.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

The pizza flavored chip that somehow nailed it and then vanished without explanation, leaving an entire generation quietly grieving. You don't remember the pizzeria chips?

SPEAKER_01 14:43

No, you might have to look it up and show me. Were they just like a regular chip, like triangle, like tortilla chips?

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Like a like a Dorito. Like this one, uh I think they had like pepperoni.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

There's a petition apparently to bring back. They had a very distinct flavor.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

I wonder if they got rid of them because they like caused cancer or something.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

It was like Yeah, probably just compete with Doritos?

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Well then they must not have been that good.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Lunchables felt like a luxury.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

It was.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

That was like You never got lunchables. Right. Our kids ask for them now, and I say, no.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Yeah, we're now on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

But now, but now I don't think our parents were like, no, because they're not good for you. They were just like, no, that's expensive.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

But now I'm like, why don't you just get some crackers and put some ham slices?

SPEAKER_01 15:33

That's what my that's what my parents would say. No, we'll go home when you can have baloney and crackers. It's like that's not the same.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Well, bologna's garb. I couldn't eat bologna. Would probably make me throw up.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

That's all I knew. Bologna ketchup sandwich.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Ew.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Yeah, to survive.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Nope. Nope. I wouldn't eat that. The scholastic book fair was basically Christmas in the school gym.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Yeah. That was fun stuff. It was. Still fun now. Our kids like the book fair.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Asking all week to go to the book fair. Like, you guys have so many books here you don't even read. Why do we need more books?

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Because it's on sale. They gotta make it over there so they can buy it.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

They're like, buy one, get one free.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

See, this is your mall madness game.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

The next one is Crystal Pepsi. You remember that?

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Oh yeah, it's clear, right? It was just Yeah. I wonder why that went away. Pepsi that's not dark? Yeah. Like what's what's not to like?

SPEAKER_00 16:24

I know. I wonder if it tasted the same. I don't remember the taste of it. I'm pretty sure I drank it. Crystal Pepsi came and went like a fever dream, but those of us who tasted it never forgot.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Except for you.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

I remember it though. Oh all right. Fashion. No regrets. Okay, some regrets. Slap bracelets. Still a thing. Our kids have those. But kind of different. Yeah. Not as painful as I remember them breaking through all the time and like stabbing me. Yeah. Jelly shoes. Jellies. Those ones give you really sweaty feet. Hyper color shirts that showed every emotion. Frosted tips. Seems like that never really went away. Overalls with one strap undone. Salt and pepper. Totally did that.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Is that who made that big salt and pepper?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

I think so. Because two straps were just too much of a commitment.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Gotta feel free.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Platform sneakers that added four inches and the whole and a whole lot of confidence.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

I don't think I ever had anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

I did. I had really tall white shoes.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Like the whole shoe was taller?

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

You didn't trip.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

No. I trip more with high heels than with us. And your caboodle. That pastel-colored plastic organizer holding every scrunchie lip gloss and hair clip you owned. Snapping open into a tiny treasure chest. We looked wild and wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

I don't Yeah, I was gonna say like the nineties fashion is kind of hard because you had early nineties, which was like kind of coming out of the eighties. Alright, and then late nineties, right? Going into the 2000s, like those are very different fashion eras.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Definitely. Alright, the simpler tech dial-up internet meant you couldn't use the phone at the same time. So the whole family had to negotiate.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Oh yeah. And I I'm pretty sure our internet was like billed by the minute. Oh really? I think so. I don't know. When we first had it, it was, yeah. It was like your or maybe it's by the hour or something. Like you you were paying like if you were on the internet for like twenty minutes, like you paid for 20 minutes worth of internet usage or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Wow. Makes sense. Cell phones used to be like that too.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

And the AOL instant messenger was your social life.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

I'm trying to think if that's the one or if it was like Yahoo chat.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

I think I did AOL and that noise when you got logged in.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

We I remember having group chats with people I was friends with. When I was in high school, I was friends with a lot of older people that were not in high school. And we had these group chats. And then even then I remember old men messaging me like, hey, no, thank you. In high school.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

You missed out.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

I don't think I did. Oregon Trail on the school computer was the closest thing to a video game at school.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Yeah, in the computer lab. Like you had a whole nother we had a whole nother building that we like went to. Like it was like a trailer, I guess. Not a bit. I mean, what'd they call those? Modules?

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Uh portable.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Portable, yeah. So we had like that, and that was our computer lab going there. Yeah. I don't remember doing anything besides playing organ trail in there. Like I don't know what was that about. Like you just take kids into a room, let them play video games.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Our kids, our kids do so much on the computer. And like they're learning to type young and not us. I don't think I took a typing class until I was in high school.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yeah, me too. High school.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

We just played organ trail. Yeah. I don't know what else we played.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Just just like the regular white men. I just murdered Buffalo and all sorts of things at Oregon Trail. Like, you shot 8,000 pounds of meat, but you can carry 200. Right. 200 pounds. That's fine.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Yeah. It says, and dysentery was everyone's greatest enemy. Yeah. When you weren't on on Oregon Trail, you were clicking through Minesweeper. Not at school. That was the home. I always hated Minesweeper. Stupid game. You could never win.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

What do you mean you could never win?

SPEAKER_00 20:41

I could never win that stupid game.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Did you try it on easy or beginner?

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Probably, but I doubt I like strategically did anything.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

You just clicking around, yeah. So it would be a terrible game if that's what you're doing. Just randomly clicking on squares and then it blows up. Oh, that was dumb.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

You know I have no strategy when it comes to games. I just go. Floppy disks held your most precious documents. The old floppies. Blockbuster on a Friday night was an event. You'd wander the aisles for thirty minutes only to argue about what to rent. If you couldn't decide, you'd call movie phone first.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Movie phone.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

You dial 777 film, listen to a man read every showtime in a booming voice, and hope your movie was still playing.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

That's right. You call up and they read out the times. Yeah. We had you know, I was in a smaller town, so we didn't have a Blockbuster or Hollywood. Oh really? Hollywood video is that the other one? Mm-hmm. Right. We had an I guess it was just like a one in the town. It's called All the Best. All the Best Video. But yeah, we go there. They had we also would rent Super Nintendo's from them. Yeah. Like you'd get it for like three days or something. So we'd rent it Friday after school. Mm-hmm. Play it like Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Just like nonstop. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

That's funny. You know that Mexican place by my mom's house where the subway is, and then there's a Mexican place? That used to be a blockbuster. Yeah, yeah, I remember. Oh, you do remember that? Yeah. TV guide sat on the coffee table like a sacred text.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

That's how you knew what was on. There was no guide channel.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

There was no. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

If we didn't have that, you don't know what was on.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

I remember I thought it was so cool. We got like in the mail, I forget what it was called, but it was the company that did the like this is how they did the ratings and stuff, and they knew what people watched. I forget what the company was called, right? But they'd send you a thing, and you'd have to like log and track like the shows you watched and the television.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

They sent you like a dollar or something.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Yeah, something. Yeah, right. And but I was like, oh, it's so important. And like I felt like, yeah, and I was just filling it all out. Like, Dad, you what what did you watch? Just like doing a service for my country.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

It's funny.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

As these people were probably making millions of dollars off of the data, right? All these people were just giving them for free. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

The phone book was a brick-sized directory that somehow contained the entire town.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Yeah, that's kind of wild.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

We had a class in like seventh grade of learning how to use the phone book.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

I have never heard of such a thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Yeah. My teacher was 6'10 or 6'11. Like he was tall and skinny and he was old. But he, yeah, we had to learn how to use the phone book.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Yeah, because you had the what white pages and then the yellow pages, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

So the white pages were everyone in like whatever cities it was included in the phone book. The yellow pages was all the businesses. Just for those who didn't ever use a phone book.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

And how did I don't even know how it showed up? Did it just show up on your door and you like you just got to do it?

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Yeah, they would just no, they would just put it on your doorstep, whether you wanted it or not, and they would keep bringing them. So annoying.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Because of the yellow pages, I think they get businesses.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Yeah, I think they get paid per phone book they would drop off. So they would just drop them off at your door.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

It's annoying. Well, thanks, phone book people.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

The phone itself had a curly stretched-out cord you'd wrap around your finger while chatting for hours, hoping no one picked up the other line. Do you remember if you had two phones? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Yeah, you could just pick it up.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

You'd quietly do it. Uh-huh. And then you'd push the button down and quietly hang it back up so they couldn't hear you that you were listening. That's funny. Colorade.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

I remember our first cordless phone.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Oh, do you?

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Yeah. And then like I was I would see it in like all the all the like TV shows and stuff. Like there was only one model. And it had the antenna that would pull out. Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

It was metal. If you had to push it down too fast, it would bend.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Bend and break.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

But you had to use it if you were away from its little stand.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Caller ID wasn't a given. So every ringing phone was a mystery.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yeah, I don't know if we ever had a caller ID. Wasn't there a number you could call? Star 6ix9ine? Is that what? And it would call call back whoever called you. Who is this? Who called me?

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Yeah, we had like a separate thing for caller ID, and then we had an answering machine that was separate.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Answering machine with a tape in it.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Yeah, a tape. You had to record whatever message you wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Right. Because you and your answer machine could fill up because it just had a tiny little tape, little cassette tape in it, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Payphones stood on street corners for those moments when you were out and needed to check in.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Are there still payphones around? Like do those still exist?

SPEAKER_00 25:41

I don't I don't not that I've seen. I don't think anyone would use it. Yeah, I don't I remember using them.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Yeah, well, I use them all the time.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

My dad wouldn't let me have a cell phone, so I had a pager. So people would send their phone number and I'd have to stop at the payphone to call 35 cents.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Which seems kind of expensive.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Like back in the 90s, you're 35 cents to make a it because it wasn't very long that you got the talk.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

No, I don't remember.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

I think I told you this. Like we would we would do the like collect call.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Right? And like say your name. And that's how like my dad or whoever like knew like we were like the movie was out. And like, so come get us. Yeah. We accept a collect call from Kevin. No. And then he would just come get us.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

That's funny. And cameras? They used film. You had 24 or 36 shots. Use them wisely.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

And you didn't know if it was good or not.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Yeah. You had to wait a week to see if any turned out. Right?

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Yeah. You just take these pictures. Take multiple. Hope. Yeah. Yeah. Drop it off at like there was like stores that that's all they did was just process film, right? Yeah. Yeah, and you had like those the envelopes you like open, you got and then like your film would be in there too. Yeah. And we would I think we would almost always get like doubles, right? Like you could like a little in your orders form, yeah, little checkbox. Like I want I want duplicates, like double. Because you gotta share. If it's a good picture, you want to share.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

And airports were a completely different world. Oh yeah. You could walk someone all the way to the gate, wait with them until the last boarding call, and wave goodbye through the window as the plane pulled away. There were no security lines separating you, no tearful goodbyes at the checkpoint. It was just you, your people, and the proper send-off.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Yeah, I can't even imagine. Like if 9-11 never happened and airports were still just like wide open. Because they seem so busy now. Like just so busy.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

And now if you imagine like another ten people with that person, yeah. Or, you know, I mean, I guess only if you're like going off somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

But next one is the trapper keeper.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Yeah, I was gonna say that when you said your little thing with like your your like Caboodle. Caboodle. I was like, what about trapper keepers, right? Like the Velcro and all the yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

The trapper keeper, it deserves its own paragraph. The trapper keeper wasn't just a binder, it was a command center. Velcro closure, color-coded folders, a place for everything. You picked yours out at the back to school cell, like it was a major left decision, because in a way it was.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

It represented who you were. Your whole personality is on that thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

You did you pick a Lisa Frank or a solid color? Geometric print or a neon splatter? Whatever you choose, you carried it with you with pride.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Yeah, mine was like a geometric print and had like then had like soccer ball and a football and like stuff on it.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Remember the Lisa Frank ones?

SPEAKER_01 28:43

I don't.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

I don't know who Lisa Frank is. They're girly ones.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

What's Lisa Frank? Lisa Frank? Is this a person?

SPEAKER_00 28:50

These are some of them. Uh only $22.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

They're just like girly pictures with like one has flamingos, one has penguins, one has why are they called Lisa Frank? It's just the person that designed it. Oh dolphins, just alright. That's all I have. I was gonna finish. Do you have anything else to say before I finish it up?

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Before you finish talking about the nineties, that was it. There's still so much. You didn't even touch on Save by the Bell.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

I didn't do Saved by the Bell.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Save by the Bell was quintessential nineties.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

That was good.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

I think it actually even started in the late 80s, didn't it?

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Well, I have another one, another time to do for the 80s, so maybe it'll pop up there. I'll make sure it pops up in that one.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Yeah. Uh-huh. There's like now I just want to reminisce about all the things. I remember coming home, like Batman the Animated series, because it was like a cartoon. But you know, it's a dark night, so the cartoons like dark and like mysterious and a little bit scary. Kind of like Scooby-Doo, but Scooby-Doo was more lighthearted, right? Mysteries and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Scooby-Doo was always scary.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Yeah, that's people have told me that, and like, I was like, uh, I never really thought it was like scary. But yeah, our kids when they were little wouldn't watch Scooby-Doo because they were scared.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Why we miss it? The nineties weren't perfect, but they had something rare, a sense of discovery. The internet was new, the world felt big, and everything from a new CD to a Friday night movie rental felt like an occasion. We didn't document every moment because we were too busy living them. Some things come back around. Dunkaroos are back on the shelves. I haven't seen them, but I haven't looked either. Scrunchies never really left. And now and then a Backstreet Boy song comes on, and suddenly you're ten years old again without a care in the world. Maybe that's the real magic of the 90s. It lives on, just waiting to be remembered. Remember, even a small act of kindness can be someone's beacon in their darkest moment. Choose kindness every day. Reach out to someone today. You have the power to change a life. Be the signal of hope this world needs.