The '90s are like a friend you haven't seen in years—still close enough to feel familiar but distant enough that details about the memories have started to blur. So let's refresh them.
The Facebook page 'The Nostalgic 90's' is perfect for this task—it regularly shares memes that instantly take you back to the iconic decade. Whether we're talking about movies, music, gadgets, or toys, this corner of the internet has it all.
Continue scrolling to get your daily dose of feels, and don't miss our chat with Dr. Hal McDonald—you'll find it between the images.
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I still watch some of these from time to time just to relive the memories. Also, Brendan is awesome.
I tend to be behind in my watching. So this Thanksgiving I am watching The Whale. Bought soda and popcorn, whee.
Load More Replies...I love Airheads movie with Steve Buscemi and Adam Sandler. It's such a window back into a different, awesome time.
This is a myth! Chris Columbus (the director) has said there's no NC17 version. He said there were some more rated R takes but not entire's movie's worth
Yeah even I would like to see this. Can't even imagine what would make this NC-17.
And soon some nutters are gonna ban this too or make the original nc17 as it has a man in a dress and that's too "sexual" or something.
To learn more about nostalgia, we got in touch with Hal McDonald, Ph.D., a professor of literature and linguistics at Mars Hill University and author of The Anatomists.
"Literally any stimulus that enters our brain through any of our five senses can trigger nostalgia, from the smell of wood smoke on a crisp autumn afternoon, to the orange gritty taste of children’s Motrin, to the sound of a rusty spring on an old screen door, to the sight of a certain shade of purple on a Christmas tree ornament, to the feel of sun-warmed deck-boards under your bare feet," McDonald told Bored Panda.
If Bluey isnt the best parenting guide in the world i don't know what is. Who needs expensive advice when you have cartoon dogs?
I've recommended Bluey to everyone, regardless of age or if they have kids and everyone that's watched it has loved it. I love the fact they deal with some heavy scenarios in such an amazingly child friendly way
Load More Replies...Bluey, one of our great Australian exports! I'm so glad they haven't succumbed to pressure from a certain country to change to suit them and THEIR customs and have stayed true to themselves. A brilliant program, for children and adults alike, would have lost its charm and been ruined otherwise.
Oh I loved watching Blues Clues with my daughter! I still remember the words to the mail time song "Here's the mail, it never fails. It makes me want to wag my tail. When it comes I want to wail - Mail!"
bob ross was an air force drill instructor for many years! imagine, "and i am going to turn you into happy little airmen, DO YOU HEAR ME!?"
You'll remember the rewinder shaped like a car? Gosh I wanted one of those lol
I'm gonna go cry now. Man I miss Blockbuster on a Friday night, wandering around looking at movies, but not really looking at movies, just hoping someone would return that new release we'd been dying to watch. Add soda, candy and pizza hut pizza, it was just bliss
Blockbuster could still be here and relevant had they not passed on buying Netflix years ago.
Nah, that would be all of the cats chair if it were at our house cuz all of them are now. :)
None of this is an accident. "Any smell, taste, sound, sight, or feeling that finds a match in some isolated bit of sensory data stored in our brains can set into motion a cascade of neural activation that we experience in our conscious awareness as a full-blown multi-sensory autobiographical memory," McDonald said.
"Along with this memory comes the reactivation of whatever emotions we felt when we lived the remembered experience. The memory of an experience that stirred pleasurable emotions in the past will reactivate similar pleasurable emotions in the present (i.e. nostalgia)."
I always thought why do they make these rock hard? I ate one this last Halloween and it was soft! Guess the dozens I ate in the 90s were hanging around for awhile.
My grandma tried to eat one with the WHOLE wrapper in it. She kept waiting for the flavor to 'start.' We were at the movies. It was dark, so she didn't see the wrapper, she'd never had a Starburst before.
Me too. I wish people whp leave voicemail messages, including their phone number, would talk slower.
You should always state your number. The number doesn't always show up. I've had people leave me a VM (with no number) because my phone never rang. News flash, if the phone doesn't ring, there's not going to be a record of your number. Even then, sometimes when it does ring, the number still doesn't show.
I never leave voicemails because I'm not an uncivilized barbarian. Just shoot people a text message honestly.
Oh excuse this uncivilized barbarian for calling my Drs office and leaving a voicemail. You must be really special if you can text people you don't know personally 😒
Load More Replies...Not to be that person but since I was there and in my teens, many of these were actually Eighties things.
These were never cool in Seattle, unless you lived in Bellevue. Very midwestern
I still have one that I wear whenever it looks like it might be windy out or just because I love the colours, it is reversible the other side is purple.
"While it is true that any sensory stimulus is capable of triggering a nostalgic response in our brain, certain stimuli are particularly potent triggers," McDonald said. "As our common experience attests, our sense of smell is quite frequently a trigger of nostalgia.
"Because of the close proximity of the olfactory bulb—the part of our brain that processes information about smell—and the hippocampus—the part of our brain responsible for processing short- and long-term memory—smells from our environment are very readily processed as part of our autobiographical memories, and, in turn, very readily trigger memories in which similar smells are involved."
My nephew used his own money to buy a bunch of skins and cool things for one of his video games. We warned him that the game will make those items obsolute and unusable really quickly. Only months later, he is so upset that the game updated and made the items obsolete and unusable. I think Forza??
My colleague tried to prank me by sticking a small post it on the bottom of my (optical) mouse. Little did he know that I am of the "you just need to get the dust off the ball" generation so that is the first place I looked.
Hahaha I have a bluetooth computer mouse that uses a light sensor (or something, whatever) and my little cousin tried this trick on me, too. He called me old when I explained why I immediately flipped it over, because apparently it worked on his friend (the same young age) 😂
Load More Replies...I had a friend who, while cleaning the ball in his mouse, accidently lost it. He asked me where to get a new one. I said "Go to Radio Shack and ask the salesman 'Do you have mouse balls?'".
I was an 8yr old genius when my 39yr old mother almost threw out our computer mouse and I stopped her and took out the ball and did this and she was in awe 😂 I saw itn in a commercial or something and figured it out from there 😂
Peter: (Sighing) Come on, Shadow. He was old. It was too far. He was just too old. Laura: Oh, Peter, honey. (Laura gasps) Shadow: Peter. Peter: Shadow! Shadow: Oh, Peter. I worried about you so. Peter: Shadow! Shadow: Peter, you're okay! Peter: Shadow! Shadow: He's here! Oh, I'm so happy! I thought about you all the time. Peter: Missed you! Shadow: I missed you, Peter, and I love you. (Barks) Chance: (narrating) It was Shadow's victory, really. His belief was the thing that got us through. And in that moment, I saw the years lift from him. He was a puppy again, reunited with his best friend. (Shadow barking) Bob: (Laughing) Shadow! It's good to see you, boy.
I cannot watch the cat in the river, i sobbed uncontrollably as a child and turns out, I still do as an adult.
When my daughter was little and watched it, she screamed so loud I had to coming running. She was crying "Cassie fell in the water". :(
Load More Replies...I caught the end of this movie a couple of days ago...still made me sob.
This, according to McDonald, is why something like jogging past a yard in which someone has used their shredded Christmas tree as mulch, and catching a pungent whiff of Frasier fir in the air—as he did on a hot day in the middle of last summer—can instantly transport us back to a Christmas Eve from our childhoods, when we were hanging stockings in front of a flickering fireplace as snow fell outside.
Another reliable trigger of nostalgia, according to the professor, is music.
"Because so many different parts of our brain are involved in the experience of listening to a song, and so much emotion is wrapped up in that experience, hearing a song from our past—particularly if it is unexpected—can instantaneously transport us back to the time in our lives when it was popular, triggering all those same powerful emotions we felt all those years ago."
It is John Candy in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles". Now, I am off to hear Peter's version!🙂
Load More Replies...The tickets would pale in comparison to the cost of living and the taxes on that house considering where they supposedly lived. But I guess it gets down to the old saying, if you can afford the house then the rest is no big deal.
Most definitely, this "old saying" doesn't have it's roots in Europe. :D
Load More Replies...Whoever created this posts asumes all of us here are US citizens.
Load More Replies...That's the 70s and 80s. I don't know anyone who's house looked that old in the 90s
One of the markers for nostalgia is the strong sales of toys tied to beloved childhood franchises. In 2023, US adults made up 17.3% of toy sales, totaling $6.7 billion, while in Europe, adults over 18 contributed 2.6 billion euros ($2.76 billion) in sales. Popular releases like the Barbie movie and Star Wars series have boosted related merchandise sales, with adults now representing up to 25% of the sales of some brands. Additionally, 43% of US adults reported buying toys for themselves in early 2024, showing how nostalgia continues to drive this growing market.
In sewing class we would take a needle and thread and sew the first layer of skin on your palm. No,it doesn't bleed, you don't go that deep.
If you did this I guarantee the rest of us made fun of you behind your back over it... Probably to your face sometimes too. But hey at least you didn't eat paste right?.... RIGHT?
Inside everyones nose there live a sharp toothed snail and if you stick your finger in he may bite off your nail
And if you stick it father up he may bite your ring off. Stick it all the way and he may bite the whole dark thing off! ( Or something like that lol I don't have it memorized.)
Load More Replies...I dont understand. Why wont they know? We are still reading Grimms fairy tales, why not this ?
Because this is a post about sneering at another generation....
Load More Replies...I was about to ask how old you have to be to know these...I'm 40, guess I'll ask my 70yo parents (my grandparents are all dead).
Load More Replies...Why not? Are these books out of print? I used them in my classroom until I retired in 2019. I'm sure they are still being taught and shared.
Thank you for the information! I have been looking for some of these stories!
still exists in the airplane toilets for some reason even though it would cause a fire alarm
Load More Replies...True, we may not have been the first; but we were the last.
Load More Replies...i'm giving father a carton of smokes for presents & being sent to the store with a note from mom to buy them years old (& also 3 channels on the tv old)
Ugh. I don't find him attractive AT ALL. He looks skeevy & greasy, always has.
However, nostalgia often seems to inspire both positive and negative emotions. Professor McDonald said, "The characteristic 'bittersweet' feeling of nostalgia is built into the very nature of the experience."
According to him, the emotion "is 'sweet' because it allows us to mentally re-experience a happy time in our past lives [and] it is 'bitter' because, along with feeling the pleasure of the remembered experience once again, we are simultaneously aware that the experience exists only in our memory, since the remembered moment itself is relegated to a past that will never come again because it is, after all, the past."
"We take pleasure in the memory while lamenting the permanent loss of the thing we remember," he said.
In Australia it's beome ''take out a loan before you set foot in the door''.
Jeez, i know. Last i looked , it wss 10 bucks for a burger, fries and coke.
Load More Replies...They're unpleasant, unfriendly places now, with constantly beeping machinery. Arrrgh.
kinda sad they took out all the playgrounds (except the gross ball pits). fond memories of taking my kids there to eat/play
The weirdest McD location prize goes for McDonald's Viru https://maps.app.goo.gl/i4Q5DKzBQ3G2rN957
Ah, when you could ask for matches anywhere and they would just give you them.
Let's bring back matches and eliminate all those cigarette lighters in landfills.
Load More Replies...I remember going to a birthday party in the 80s at McDonald's and they would provide hats and a cake with Ronald McDonald on it. I was so jealous and wanted a birthday party there too. And yep saw those ashtrays too
Tales From The Crypt. I had to sneak downstairs to watch it after bed!
I just found out last week they used one of the original Chucky heads to make the cryptkeeper, you can check, see, the eyes are the same
In the end, however, McDonald believes that, despite the hints of bitterness, we’re still better off embracing—rather than avoiding—nostalgia.
"A large and growing body of research from both psychology and neuroscience conducted over the last couple of decades has identified a number of wellness benefits that accompany the experience of nostalgia, from emotion regulation to alleviation of loneliness, to mitigation of existential dread, to increased creativity and openness to experience," he explained.
"Even without such clinically measurable 'wellness benefits,' nostalgia feels good, and it's free—the ultimate cheap pleasure."
I definitely had one of these. You had to be careful about rough roads because the CD would skip if you hit a bump.
Until players with buffer. That mostly worked. Unless the bumps were for more than 10 seconds.
Load More Replies...For real though circa 1994, Odessa, TX; lunch friend drove a 70's model Buick with an 8-Track player; so, a tape-to-8-track adapter, and then a cd to tape adapter...and it worked and we liked it!
Howdy neighbor! I'm south of Cross Plains , but was in Abilene for ages
Load More Replies...He killed his brother and left his nephew to be crushed by stampeding wildebeests. Is that not worse than a fixable curse?
In her defense she was the ONLY one not invited meaning it was 100% a slight at her and thats just sh!tty on the king n queen
The Evil Queen ordered her huntsman to kill Snow White. Her own daughter... Just because she was hotter than her... So because of nature...
The Beast held a young girl hostage, gave her an entire library, all in an effort to get her to love him. And they call GASTON the villan? All Gaston did was try to get Belle AWAY from the Beast
Snow White's step-mother tried to poison her, and when that didn't work, she sent an assassin (woodsman) after her, all because she wanted her literal heart. She told the woodsman to bring her heart back in a pretty wooden box, as proof of her death. Given this was the first Disney film, I believe it set a standard for villainy.
The mummy’s lover, Anakh Sun-Amun I think her name was- still makes me feel things.
This was a pathetic movie. Have a look at ( if you can ) the original Boris Karloff one. OK, a bit corny because of age and black & white, but better overall.
Even the Battlestar Galactica reboot tv series is now 20 years old. Oh, and Star Trek Voyager turns 30 in January. Now...you kids get off my lawn!!!!!!
The little boy, Jake Sisko is now a 6'3" 46 year old man. And he is very nice.
I'm obviously way too old. When I think 30 year old SF I think of Star Trek - TOS!
Technically, you need to be born in the mid or late 80's, in order to grow up in the 90's and soak up its culture.
1982. Got the benefit of both the ‘80s and ‘90s as a kid/teen then graduated in 2000.
Load More Replies...Lol, my sister, compared to my brother and I born at the start of the 90s!
I watched this for the first time last weekend, and I have to say, I think I agree with this one.
All blue and green eyed people across the word have ONE common ancestor that proceeded to pass his genes very successfully. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130170343.htm Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
The bored princess is an age old trope that wouldn't still be used today if it didn't work. Not sure why this guy as the boring prince doesn't work for some people. My guess is there some issue with racism perhaps? How presumptuous to assume she wants John because he's white. It's clearly because they share the same adventurous and rebellious spirit. We don't have to twist everything to fit our cynical worldviews do we?
It doesnt say anywhere that she chose him because of racism or, more basically, because he is white.
Load More Replies...Also the late 70s (early 70s was Aqua Manda). Miss them both.
Load More Replies...This sh*t traumatized me and both my siblings. You deserved better Anty. Only thing worse was Artax from Neverending Story. Thanks for minor ptsd 80s Hollywood.
Atreyu’s horse in Never Ending Story might still make me cry if I watched it today, 35 years later.
We cried because of the sacrifice; it died saving the kid’s lives. I have tears in my eyes right now just thinking about it.
i ugly cried and was emotionally spent for a good hour, ngl. (again, in my 30s in the '90s.)
Yeah never cared about the horse in never ending story (cos I knew he was acting, mum taught me as a kid what that was about thank god) but the puppet ant death did kill me as a kid
My mom had a video she would play for the cats on the TV. It was of birds and squirrels. They would watch it every morning before they were fed.
When I had a cat and bought a laser pointer for her to chase. The first time I used it, she just sat there and watched me point it on the floorvand just watched it with her eyes. Never chased after it or try to get it.
Load More Replies...Where are his glasses, he can't see without his glasses! Ugh, tear jerker.
Load More Replies...Those scooters must be the fancy ones. Ours didn't have handles. If they did, I'd have certainly used them as hand guards while riding.
I'm Gen-X, and I think I'm the only person who NEVER got to to use the rainbow parachute.
I know the top right one, but the other ones I don't know. Those were after my time. The projector we had back in the 70's.
I lost a toe nail to one of those little scooters. Still one of the most creative ways I've ever injured myself.
No, mine was formica with plastic covered chairs that you stuck to in summer.
This, but none of our chairs matched each other or the table.
Load More Replies...This is close. The table was on rollers which were set on small blocks made for them so it would not move and the chairs came from estate sales for a few Canadian dollars. Years later, you can't do that as antique dealers would be all over the place.
Nope for me. Mine had been build by my great-grand-father and is still in my kitchen today.
I had this exact table but until now I've never seen it anywhere else.
Can someone please explain the “nobody, absolutely nobody” that precedes these memes??
It's sarcasm. My son does it IRL and it can be super annoying. He doesn't have an inside voice so he's shouting "Nobody, I mean NOBODY, drinks water when it's hot outside." Implying, of course, that everyone drinks water.
Load More Replies...i LOVED this cartoon, especially the dark phoenix storyline! (ok, i was in my 30s in the '90s, but that's beside the point, and i'd appreciate it if you get off my back about it.)
In fairness, they smoothed out her face: forehead smoothed; crinkes on bridge of nose gone; laugh lines softened.... but still, the point is excellently made.
They also drew in her eyebrows and opened her eyes more, and pointed her face more towards the camera. Can't really be an accurate comparison with so many additional changes made.
Load More Replies...At my school it was my mums wife, who worked with the Irwin team and all the reptile peeps back in the day, absolutely embarrassing as a kid, but kool to look back on now. She’s still a wildlife officer now
Load More Replies...My grade school did a yearly fire prevention event where the local fire company actually burned a small fake house right next to the playground then put out the fire. Complete with a clown who taught us to stop drop and roll. It sounds completely crazy now, but as kids we always thought it was epic. :)
When I was teaching grade 3/4 in 2014, our kids had a walk through house filled with smoke to practice escaping from house fires.
Load More Replies...My school librarian had a snake. She brought it in a few times and let us pet it. It was cute.
My art teacher did a dance with her pet snake at the yearly school concert! Was high school though and she was mocked a lot.
Load More Replies...The snake was a lot more portable than the cow they brought to our school to show us where milk comes from.
I worked with guy once who told me his young boa constrictor would escape from his cage at night and crawl into bed and wrap around his leg or arm in an attempt to cuddle him. I was like no my guy that thing is trying to eat you put heavier rocks on the lid bro...
Incursions like this are still pretty common, at least where I live. I have had to organise them for preschool and school holiday programs. They teach things in such engaging ways.
I love the movie Big Daddy. Actually my cousin and I have this thing, where I'll just ask him to say it and he knows I'm asking him to quote a certain part of this movie. He's great at talking just like Rob Schneider's character, the part when he is trying to read flashcards to practice his English. Specifically the "hip, hip hop, hip hop anonymous, damn you give him all the easy ones!" 🤣
I love saying the lamb and tuna fish quote 😂
Load More Replies...Well.... This was a qiet Hard moment to watch..... Like a proper punch directly in the heart
boo hooed like a baby. those lil twins that played that role were so freaking cute.
122 and an 1/8th, 122 and an 1/8th, where the heck is 122 and an 1/8th? Youre standin' on it dude!
I wish they still made Vans skateboarding shoes. I wore them all through junior high and high school and they were the most comfortable shoes I ever wore.
Omg, yes. I was so disappointed when Vans went to being as uncomfortable as Converse.
Load More Replies...Wasn't the point that if you bailed on your board, the shoe would just pop off and you wouldn't shatter your ankle?
Come on. We wore bell bottom jeans in the late 60s and early 70s. And yes, having wet bottoms was always the case when it would rain.
But not in the 80s or 00s, because us 80s kids weren't savages. ;-)
Load More Replies...I loved bell bottoms back in the 60s. But I'm so short that when my mom hemmed my clothes, the bottom had no bell.
boomer here - we had these in the 60' & 70's -and the real pain was when they froze in the winter !
I used to love a cherry coke at a soda fountain when I was a kid. Back then, it was just a glass of coke, with a couple of pumps of cherry syrup. Delicious!
I can taste it now like it was right out of my high school’s vending machine…
"Conjunction, junction - what's your function"?
Load More Replies...I still bust out the after these messages jingle whenever I can. You can tell someone's age by wheter they laugh or give you a weird look.
Look up Nostalgia Critic on Youtube and check out his Commercials episodes. Great to see the old commercials including the above "after these messages" part!
Well, she was a US Marine during WWII. (no joke) bea-arthur...-corps.jpg
Linkin Park Lyrics. The pictures are "IT Dozen Even Matter" where the actual lyrics are "It doesn't even matter"
Load More Replies...'Legend' was my introduction, although I wouldn't recognise that until I met Dr. Frank N. Furter.
I think nobody remembers that gta existed before 3 and vice city
Load More Replies...98° tried to enter as a third party, but was never able to make it that far.
98° was the Libertarian party of the two party system.
Load More Replies...I don't recognise them, but presume they were boy bands. I never really understood the appeal.
Only racing game I ever played was MotoRacer, which came free when we got our first PC and we used a joystick for.
Unfortunately, Dexter is a divorced father of five with five different baby mamas.
You're not going to mention that killing spree down in Miami?
Load More Replies...My house, after I tried to build a basement in a property that was 50 metres from the coast and only 2 metres above sea level.
None of the schools I attended ever had lockers big enough for even the smallest student to fit into.
We had two lockers on top of each other, that were only 5ft max, but I was tiny and could actually fit in one if I crawled in lol.
Load More Replies...There are these bird toys these days that do the same thing, but the playback is a higher pitch. They are so annoying!
wasn’t popular enough - they would have added the ad’s in the end! Like a certain BP…!
Load More Replies...For $2.00 today you can get a McBread. Two slices of bread and nothing in-between.
Maybe when the main voice artists start dropping dead (they are now all aged between 60 and 80) they might finally let this show end.
I tell people my life started as a Hallmark movie, but it's ending up like a Lifetime movie..
She looks so thin here. Did we know how bad a time she was having then? I wish she could have gotten some help.
Back in the 90s, I had a girl I was giving a ride. She opens the door and says " smells like weed.". I said " great. I was trying to get rid of the cigarette smell!"
Only albums I listen to are compilations, but definitely include songs from some of these.
Is this from 'King of the Hill' ? Love that programme but don't remember this scene
Me neither, but I'll still give credit to whoever edited it.
Load More Replies...Never gave it any thought as a child, but as an adult I have to say: I couldn't think of a worse kind of Hell.
Rugrats, Doug and Harriet the Spy. I loved the book of Harriet the Spy too and my brother and I would play 'spys' by walking past houses that backed on to the wetlands and wrote down what we saw people doing, like hanging out washing or getting out of their cars.
Memo to BP. There *are* actually other decades than the 90s if you want to explore those too. It seems you have a fixation with them.
Additionally, how about researching the time frame better and not including things that existed for kids 20 or more years prior to 1990?
Load More Replies...Very US-centric. Born 1980 and didn't recognise most of these.
I was born 85 in the UK and recognise most altho I know we do get a lot of what they get so that may be it, assuming you're Aussie goin by your name
Load More Replies...I have to pay for premium just to finish an article now? BP must really think they're actually providing some quality content
Been a minute since I been on bored panda , they losing so much money they force people to pay to finish the list now ??? Oooof get your screen grabs now kids I give them another year maybe 2
Memo to BP. There *are* actually other decades than the 90s if you want to explore those too. It seems you have a fixation with them.
Additionally, how about researching the time frame better and not including things that existed for kids 20 or more years prior to 1990?
Load More Replies...Very US-centric. Born 1980 and didn't recognise most of these.
I was born 85 in the UK and recognise most altho I know we do get a lot of what they get so that may be it, assuming you're Aussie goin by your name
Load More Replies...I have to pay for premium just to finish an article now? BP must really think they're actually providing some quality content
Been a minute since I been on bored panda , they losing so much money they force people to pay to finish the list now ??? Oooof get your screen grabs now kids I give them another year maybe 2
