Pop Mythology Pop Mythology: Movie, Book, Comic reviews & commentary
Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about the worst such-and-such from the 80s, a decade often lambasted for its many sins against good taste. Maybe it’s because as we approach year’s end people tend to look back not just at the year that’s passed but at past years in general.
Lest we forget, oh fellow millenials, there were just as many atrocities produced in the 90s as there were in the 80s. I thus present my case for 10 things from the 90s that should be forever banished to Room 101:
Billy Ray Cyrus
1992 saw Billy unleash his “Achy Breaky Heart” single, creating an embarrassing line dancing craze amongst adults across the globe. Daughter Miley was also born the same year. Interesting, that.
Spice Girls
How these five dolls made it is anyone’s guess, but they managed to crack the States and made a mint in the process. Their image adorned every type of product you could imagine from bed spreads to Asda chocolate rolls.
Mr. Motivator
Seen as the saviour to morning exercise to many, the chirpy guy in the garish Lycra number motivated a lot of people to want to switch off their TV. He also wore one of those bum bags too (remember those?), just to be that extra bit lame.
Rover Metro
Originally created in a more forgiving 1980s, this feeble car was manufactured until 1997 and really was for those who couldn’t afford anything else. I’d rather take the bus despite that actually costing more over the long run. To solidify its status in the Lame Hall of Fame, Autoweb recently voted it 11th worst car of the decade.
Mr. Blobby
Noel Edmonds created a monster before our very eyes with the frankly creepy pink, yellow spotted freak of a character. It all got a bit silly when a massive a No.1 hit single and various product placements followed.
Power Rangers
This popular children’s show, heavily influenced by a similar Japanese show, really was quite laughable with its cheap, live action battle scenes and rubbery masked bad guys. It made a bundle for its producers however and is still going strong today, despite how bloody awful it is.
Clarissa Explains it All
Before becoming a teenage witch, Melissa Joan-Hart delighted teenage girls everywhere with this show about a rather smug girl who was apparently a fountain of knowledge. However, she never seemed to explain why the shows outfits were so, so horrid.
Furbies
Rewind back to Christmas 1998 and the must have item for kids was a Furby. Massively overpriced for what it actually did (which was next to nothing), many parents that didn’t get to toy stores on time to get this Gremlins rip-off were not spoken to for weeks by their children. Until they tried playing with their best mates’ Furbies and realized how useless they were. Imagine, then, how aghast I was to read that these rubbish things have made a comeback and are unbelievably the “hottest toy of the 2013 holiday season.”
Sunny Delight
This rank orange-flavored drink was so full of additives and preservatives that if you were given it as a child, chances were it was by somebody trying to make you ill! It could have at least glowed in the dark, but alas, it had no redeeming features and hit the headlines for turning one girl orange.
Titanic
This overrated 1997 chick flick launched DiCaprio into a mega star and people flocked to the cinema to see it several times a piece. Nobody seemed to care that they already knew what was going to happen at the end or that we were essentially waiting three hours for the bloody boat to hurry up and sink already.
Spicegirls weren’t a “fail” they where pretty amazing during their hayday
Actually, yes, I personally like some of their music too. This is just this particular blogger’s opinion.
Sunny D, Clarissa, and Power Rangers are far from fails.
Yup, I kinda like Clarissa and Power Rangers too. Like I said, just this writer’s personal opinions. I also like “Titanic” a lot more than this post author does.
Love the Spice girls~ Power Rangers~Pepper Anne Recess~Doug~
Probably should have just been a blogger’s post of “Things I hate about the 90s”, or something. Lol
You can’t call huge successes (particularly money-wise) like Titanic or the Spice Girls failures ~
I think there was a headline failure there, cause all those things were hugely successful.
um, you can call some of these these horrible, ridiculous or whatever but certainly not fails. Some of these were/are wildly successful in spite of your personal dislike for them. Try another headline next time.
@reverendcaptain:disqus, yeah, you’re right. I didn’t write this article (I’m the editor, hi) but I should have known better about the headline. Even from the standpoint of the post author’s personal opinion it isn’t accurate and so I’ve changed it. Thanks for bothering to leave a comment.
Perhaps the author just sees beyond commercial viability as the definition of success. Perhaps, as in the case of Titanic, they offer nothing to the world in terms of culture, art, or meaning. So, he feels validated in calling them “fails”.
That is also a very good point, @disqus_w3LGibLaP1:disqus, and that was my own thought at first. But at this point, I’m not even sure if I have a proper understanding of the slang term “fail” or if other people do either. But being slang, I guess what most people *think* it means *is* what it means. Before this post, I thought it just meant something lousy or crappy. But I got enough comments on social media from people saying, “No, the Spice Girls (or such-and-such) were successful, so they’re not a fail” to make me think that I had a wrong understanding of the term.