MY 90's is not just any blog about the 1990's. This blog has a bit of a personal touch to it. I am a 90's kid and I miss this era. So many great things about this era. However, many people like the 90's for different reasons. For that reason, this blog will have some personal touches to it. It will be about the 90's I grew up with, the things I loved, and hopefully, things that other people can relate to.
The first episode of Rugrats I was introduced to was The Slide/The Big Flush. The first episode ever to be aired was Tommy's First Birthday, in 1991. However, that was not the first episode ever made. The first episode ever made was never aired, the name of the episode is Tommy Pickles and the Great White Thing. This episode has to do with a toilet. This episode reminds me of what the 90's were about for me. It was about being young, not worried about anything, feeling this nest of love, just a simpler time for me. This episode looked nothing like the other episodes. For one, all of the drawing of the characters seems a bit rougher, a bit less proportional compared to the aired episodes. Another thing is that Tommy is wearing an orange shirt. In the aired episodes, Tommy wears a blue shirt. I liked the music from the mobile hanging from Tommy's crib. So simple, and yet, peaceful in some ways. I never knew this episode existed until a few years ago. When I found it, it was like nostalgia of no kind ever felt before. It was "re-discovering" the old, but rather, finding something familiar, but never had been there before, until now. This episode was made in 1990, but never aired. I felt like someone was being hidden by not airing, something being kept away.
The last bit of the episode, well, I saw it on a Nickelodeon Promo, but I never knew it came this episode. Something never seen before.
Babies trying to mimic the real world, and do things in the real world. The 80s had Muppet Babies, but the 90's had Rugrats. Rugrats, that famous cartoon about babies, started in 1991. I never saw the cartoon until 1993. I remember the first episode I saw. I was in my bedroom one afternoon and watching the episode where Chuckie must conquer his fear of the playground slide. It was the start to a very interesting cartoon, a cartoon where babies live in their own little world getting into some of the wildest situations ranging from getting locked inside of a toy store to searching for Grandpa's teeth.
This will be one of many blog entries about the Rugrats. However, for this first one, I just want to start out with character introductions, from my point of view.
Tommy Pickles was the big star and he is known for being a leader. He was among my favorite characters. He knew how to lead the babies, even when they didn't want to go with Tommy's plan. He was obviously the youngest, but knew how to take charge when necessary. Clad in little more than a diaper and a blue shirt, he seemed to be unafraid of going into most places, whether it was the garbage or onto some ice rink while Reptar is skating. Tommy was voiced by E.G Daily
Chuckie Finster, Tommy's best friend and right hand man, always came off to be the scared person. His demeanor of fear seemed to be the big center for this character. His bushy red hair and being relatively bigger was a dead giveaway he was the oldest. I guess being the oldest seemed to make him more afraid of everything from the character on the oatmeal box to alot of other things. One thing I found cool was his shirt, with the planet Saturn on it. Chuckie was voiced by Christine Cavanaugh. She would also voice Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory and Oblina from Ahh!Real Monsters.
Phil and Lil DeVille. These are the twins on the show. They seem to have a love hate relationship. Alternately fighting and getting along at the same time. One thing that made them stick out was their gross behavior. Both of them ate earthworms(calling it "Chocolate Spaghetti) and Lil ate something out of her belly button. On the show, both look alike with a few difference. Lil has a bow and Phil has blue shorts. Both characters were voiced by Kathy Soucie.
Angelica Pickles is the bully of the show. She is the cousin of Tommy Pickles and much older than the babies. Because she is bigger, and relatively spoiled, she bullies the babies alot. Her blonde pigtails and purple dress tend to belie her evil personality. She can speak to the babies as well as to the adults. Cheryl Chase would voice Angelica.
Susie Carmichael, the one African-American main child character. She, like Angelica, is older than the rest of the babies. However, she is known to be very helpful and kind to the babies, often being like their teacher in some ways. Like Angelica, she can speak to the babies as well as the adults. Cree Summer voiced Susie Carmichael.
Dil Pickles. What an ironic name. What can be said about this character. He came along in later seasons. He couldn't talk or do as the other babies could with one another. He just sits there, but somehow has interesting adventures. Dil was voiced by Tara Strong.
Stu Pickles is Tommy's father, the wacky inventor. You can tell he is wacky by his unkempt hair and being in his basement alot. The voice for Stu was Jack Riley.
Didi Pickles is the mother of Tommy Pickles. I always wondered about her hair, being in a slight trident style. The creator must have had some interesting ideas when he designed Didi's character. She is known to be very idealistic and relying on the Lipschitz book for child-rearing advice. She is of Russian-Jewish descent. She was voiced by Melanie Chertoff.
Boris and Minka Kerpacketer-Kropotkin are the grandparents of Tommy, Dil, and Angelica. They are also Didi's parents. Both characters are Jews who immigrated from Russia. These two characters always made me think about stuff. For one thing, age. Boris and Minka on the show would have to have been at least 70 and Didi would have had to be at least 30. Micheal Bell and Melanie Chertoff voiced these characters.
Lou Pickles aka "Grandpa". It is ironic that Lou is referred to as "Grandpa" by Didi because she is actually the daughter in-law of Lou Pickles. "Grandpa" is the grandfather of Tommy, Dil, and Angelica. He can be kind of stuck in his ways according to Stu, his son. The children seem to love him alot. I envied Tommy because all of my grandfathers died before I was born. David Doyle was the voice of Lou Pickles from 1991-1997, when Doyle passed away. Joe Alaskey for the duration of the show.
Drew Pickles is the picture of coporate America in some ways. His big shtick is money and investments. He is the father of Angelica Pickles. He is known to discipline her, but mostly, spoils her. He is known to criticise Stu for his life and for not being "up to speed" and for not having the "keep up with the Jones" mentality. He is the eldest son of Lou Pickles. He was voiced by Michael Bell.
Charlotte Pickles. Of all the characters that make me wonder, it is this character. She comes off as detatched and being more about her money and career and always being on her phone. She is Angelica's mother. This character makes me think "battle axe". Maybe Angelica got to be the way she was from Charlotte. She is voiced by Tress MacNeille.
Chaz Finster is the father of Chuckie Finster. Like Chuckie, Chaz has red hair and can be somewhar frightened by things. Most of my life, I've been fed the stereotype that red-haired people have bad tempers. Chaz and Chuckie seemed to lean towards the opposite. Chaz is a widow, which was made sadly clear in the Mothers Day episode when Chuckie wonders why he doesn't have a mother. Later on he would remarry, specifically to Kira Watanabe-Finster. Chaz was also voiced by Michael Bell.
Kira Watanabe Finster would be the new wife of Chas Finster. She is from Japan. She and Chas met in Rugrats in Paris:The Movie. She worked as an assistant for EuroReptarland. She would later marry Chas Finster at the end of the movie. She was voiced by Julia Kato
Kimi Watanabe Finster is the stepsister of Chuckie and the stepdaughter of Chas Finster. Her mother is Kira Watanabe. She is the antithesis of Chuckie, being free spirited and adventurous. She, like her mother, is Japanese. She would be the last baby character added to the show. She was voiced by Dionne Quan.
Howard DeVille is the father of Phil and Lil DeVille. He is rather frail-looking and somewhat shy in comparison to his wife, which will be discussed later. He was voiced by Philip Proctor.
Betty DeVille is the antithesis of her husband. She is much louder, more aggressive, and larger than her husband. She seems to like working out. She was also voiced by Kathy Soucie.
Randy Carmichael is the father of Susie Carmichael. He is the writer for the cartoon Dummi Bears.
Lucie Carmichael is the mother of Susie Carmichael. When I was introduced to her character, she seemed like someone who was doing so many things at once from gets her pilots wings, being in the Peace Corps, and at raising a family. She is a doctor. She would remove her daughter's tonsils and help Didi deliver Dil Pickles.
Spike is the loyal, friendly dog. Spike is a friend to the babies, and seems to watch out for them.
One thing about the show was the fact that it felts like a 90's version of Charlie Brown, but with different things. In Rugrats, the babies are somewhat in a world of their own, just as the kids are in Charlie Brown. However, unlike the Charlie Brown characters, you actually see the adults in Rugrats and you see them caring for the babies, even if the parents were distracted in some ways. The kids in Charlie Brown seem to have less contact with adults despite being able to talk to adults. However, in Rugrats, the babies can't talk to adults, expect Angelica. Somehow, their lives are touched more by the adults. It is crazy the stuff these babies get into. Trying to find Grandpa's teeth, pretending to search for pirate treasure, Tommy walking through an auto shop, and so many things as a kid I never thought that deeply into. For the babies, it was some grand adventure. It showed the perspective of the world according to babies. You had so many malapropisms, such as poopetrator(meaning perpetrator), jerky(meaning jury). It is like the babies trying to live in an adult-ran world. Not many shows like it. Rugrats was so unique BECAUSE it wasn't like other kids shows. It wasn't like your run of the mill cartoons. Where else could you have a baby get mailed to his own adress, or ride on the back of his pet dog, or eat earthworms for the fun of it, or crawl all over a kitchen and land in a bowl of spaghetti? That was what the 90s had when Rugrats came to the scene. It was so unique because it showed the world from the perspective of a baby, and put the babies in so many REAL adventures. I sort of thought "if that was real life, DFACS would have showed up so fast". Rugrats was a really great Nicktoon that set the bar high.
A warm spring afternoon in Marietta,Georgia,USA, in 1997, in from of my apartment building. I discovered a new drink courtesy of some friends of mine. The name of this citrus pop was called Surge!! That drink that bore a strange resemblance to Mountain Dew. At the time, part of its charm for me was the fact that it was something us kids were drinking. It was OUR thing. A few of my friends were trying to make a song about the drink. That splat-like logo is reminiscent(for me) of one of the last vestiges of the 1990s, and for me, something new at the time. It didn't taste that bad. It has a resemblance to Mountain Dew, though not quite. Little did I know that in a few years, Surge would be off of the USA markets in 2003 and only sold in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway as Urge. It was sold as Surge in the USA, but it failed. Maybe the fact that it has a slight resemblance with Mountain Dew played a part. Or maybe when the 90s ended, Surge was taken with it. Either way, it was one of the things of the 90s never to been seen, at least not in the USA in its form that I remember it.
I was a bit of a science geek when I was a kid. One of the first things that sparked it was being in the 3rd grade. I remember coming home with my science book and looking up stuff about volcanoes. It was a picture of red, molten lava flowing from the volcano. One of the first things I thought about was "cool"!! I was too young and ill-formed for that moment to know that volcanoes were often dangerous and killed people. I remember seeing an experiment for a volcano and thinking "I need to get some baking soda, red food coloring,and vinegar". We had it, and would often have it, but it was one of those items that were not always deemed necessary to have.
Another thing sparked the science geek in me(aside from the Weather Channel, and I'll discuss that later). That other thing was a certain TV show on PBS called Bill Nye The Science Guy. A tall, skinny White male in his late 30's, possibly 40, teaching science on TV, and making it fun. He wasn't your typical "wacky scientist". He could have some elements of "wacky scientist", but it wasn't his persona. It could be appreciated because Bill Nye didn't have that same wackiness. It had elements of humor. The show went places, it was dynamic. It wasn't limited to the science lab. One episode, Bill visited a volcano. Another episode he went to the construction sight of the new Seattle Mariners ballpark . In most of the episodes, there was a music video at the end, pertaining to the lesson of the day, always a parody of some song.
There were also little tidbits added in the show. There was always some kind of game show, spoof sitcom, or some segment in the show, like "Big Sweaty Guy", and "Richie Eat Your Crust"(this one had to do with geothermal activity). I loved the part where Richie didn't eat his crust of the bread and then an earthquake happened. Quite ironic considering Seattle is located in an earthquake zone. What some of the segments interesting is that some looked like throwbacks to the 1950's and 60's. It was obviously made in the 90's, but they were made to look much older. Sometimes actual videos from a long time ago(the 50's probably) were added in.
Seeing kids perform some of the experiments was fun. It made me want to perform those experiments. Seeing a young person do that stuff, it said to me "they can do it, and so can you"?
This show pretty much had SEATTLE written all over it. The first episode was "Flight". The song featured was a parody of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana. The name was "Smells Like Air Pressure" by Nyevana. Nirvana was founded in Aberdeen,WA and known throughout the Seattle area. There was another song that was a parody of Jimi Hendrix's(a Seattle resident) Purple Haze called Cellular Haze by Mighty Chondria. The Space Needle was featured in a few episodes. The long gone Kingdome was featured as well. KCTS-TV(in Seattle) produced Bill Nye The Science Guy. Makes perfect sense that Seattle would be featured in one way or another.
Another thing I like about the show was this. Being a young African-American kid, seeing other Black kids on the show made it did help some. There has be a very low representation of African-Americans in the sciences and engineering. Seeing Black kids being interested in science didn't make me feel so strange. I look at it today and I say "Yes!!". I've been subjected to names like "overcooked White boy" "Carlton" and other epithets relating to the fact that I am somehow "not Black enough." I never felt like I wasn't Black enough when I watched those kids do science experiments. I don't speak ebonics. I didn't speak ebonics then and I don't speak it now. The kids on there didn't speak ebonics either. They were just like me.
Bill Nye started in 1993 and ended in 1998. It was in the middle part of the 90s(and I say it was the better part of the 90s). It is one of the kind in my book.
A spring morning, 1992, in Everett,WA(although this TV program was being filmed from Houston,TX). A little Black child, almost 6 years old walks into the master bedroom. He flips the switch of the Hitachi television and turns it to PBS(most likely KCTS because this is the Seattle area). I remember this morning because when I flipped the channels, I saw this purple, plush, loving, cuddly dinosaur(but the TV made him look red). The name: Barney. I nice way to start off a laid back West Coast morning.
Wait a minute!! A dinosaur? Dinosaurs aren't suppose to be plush. Dinosaurs aren't suppose to be loving cuddly and monochromatically in the purple range. Dinosaurs are scary, violent, flesh-eating creatures. For crying out loud, the root word of dinosaur(from the Greek words deinos and sauros) means "terrible lizard". Dinosaurs are suppose to be scary, and even further, dinosaurs are suppose to be gone from this earth. Last time I checked, the dinosaurs that we're familiar with are long gone, leaving only their dusty bones.
Oh well, whatever. Barney is, in my opinion, one of the most iconic figures of a 90's childhood. He represented not just a television show, but a whole other world, a world where not much bad ever happened. It was a world with unconditional love, a place where everyone loved each other. It was a world where we kids learned about stuff ranging from safety, bugs, places all over the world, to airplanes, being healthy, and learning that we are all special in some way, form or talent. It was a safe place where we were kept from the worst of what existed out there. There are some who may call it indoctrination. I call it teaching great things. If it talked about the love of Jesus Christ, and taught more about what to do in the real world, it would be a great Christian children's show. Still, it had subtle ways of how to deal with the real world. Teaching children to care for the environment, to be nice to one another, to help people. It dealt with some real world things(not alot of controversial things though) in a way where kids could understand it and not be made cynical and angry, like some of use adults are now.
I will remember how he would sing(along with everyone else), the "I Love You" to the tune of "This Old Man". I remember one episode Lucy(in the season one episode "Hola Mexico") sang the song in Spanish.
One thing I loved about the show was being influenced to use your imagination. It sparked a certain creativeness. Many things you want to do, but don't have the resources to do it with. You just simply used your imagination when you were a child. It was how you learned. It was how I learned certain things.
Many of the episodes I will remember is "Hola Mexico", where Lucy gets a letter from her grandfather in Mexico, which was in Spanish. I remember getting exposed to beauty of the culture in Mexico and learning some new words and hearing the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" song in Spanish, as well as the "I Love You" song in Spanish. Other episodes I will remember is "Happy Birthday Barney", where Kathy can't find a gift to give to Barney, so she tries to give her teddy bear away. Kind of a sad, but touching moment. I learned the Tagalog word for Happy Birthday, which is Maligayang bati. I learned that from the character Min, who is of Filipino descent. The Splash Party episode was interesting, teaching kids to mind their manners, of all places, a splash party, where one would not expect to worry about manners. Oh well, gotta learn somewhere. I also remember the season where characters Tina and Derek left, but then came back for a return visit. They had both progressed to another grade level.
Currently, the show is on a hiatus. I haven't watched the show since I was 9 or 10. I don't remember much of the show after that. I didn't know until about 2 or 3 years ago that Selena Gomez had been on the show. I wouldn't have known anyway. It was 2002-2003. By then I was 16-17. I was watching alot of documentaries and a few sitcoms. My tastes had differed. Still, I look back on those days in the early 1990s and see an era of what I found to be quality television. It was something that could be appreciated because cynicism didn't exist.
Ironic that it has been named among the 50 worst shows ever. Well, not so ironic when you think about it. People will hate on Barney and Friends. I just remember the show for what it was back in the 1990's. I don't think I would recognize it much today because none of the originally characters are there now, all of them are probably in their late 20s to early 30s. They could come back for a 20th anniversary reunion. I say it would sound nice.
As much as this was a 90's thing for me, the original idea dates back to 1988 when it started as Barney and the Backyard. It was in Dallas,Texas by Sheryl Leach, who wanted to create an educational program that would appeal to her son. It was originally a Texas thing, but PBS found out and in 1992, Barney AND Friends was born. So it wasn't officially started in the 1990s, but Barney and Friends was definitely something of the 1990s.
Here I am, sitting, listening to the song Jam by Michael Jackson. Makes perfect sense to listen to it, since this is a blog about the 1990's, and this song came out in 1991 on the album Dangerous. I think this song was an introduction to the 1990's. Two music artists, Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder, both stand out in my mind. They were the first artists I remember from the 1990s. Quite ironic since they were famous long before. The first picture I saw of Michael Jackson beguiled my 5 year-old mind. For one, I thought Michael Jackson was White. In 1991, I was 5 years old. I had no idea what vitilgo was. There were many things I didn't know, such as the nose surgeries. I didn't even know by the time the Dangerous was released, he was 33 years old. I couldn't tell that Michael Jackson was born in 1958, or that he used to be darker. I never knew(until today 15 December 2011), that "Jam" was written byRené Moore, an R&B artist known more for songs such as "Your Smile" and "You Don't Have To Cry" and who sang with Angela Winbush. I guess I shouldn't be surprised because Michael Jackson song love songs too. All I knew at age 5 was that I really loved his music and loved listening to it. I liked the trips in the car with my father and he would play that music. I grew up on Michael Jackson's music.
1991 was also the year Jungle Fever soundtrack was released. At the time, I didn't know that this soundtrack was part of the movie of the same title. Also, being a 5 year-old, I didn't know that the movie was of heavy subjects such as interracial relationships and marital infidelity.
In a way, the Dangerous album and the Jungle Fever soundtrack were both like preludes to new changes.The song "Jungle Fever" itself was like a sign of the new 90's, an era where there was to be more openness about things. After all, the song did talk about people of different races being attracted to one another. "Heal The World" and "Black or White" were like the anthems of the multicultural 90's. Talking about things such as making this world a better place, harmony with people of different ethnicities and generally, people loving one another more. It was like the new message was "come together".
