You Know You Grew Up Aussie in the 90s When;

Don’t ask me how I came across this list randomly last night – it is purely & simply the wonder of the internets… but I believe it’s been doing the rounds via one of those “You have to read this!” forwarded emails for years now. I had to post it here because so many of the points had me going “Oh yeah!!!”. For your interest, I have highlighted those points… I have also deleted the ones that had me scratching my head… to save time… it’s a long list. I also think it should be entitled ‘You Know You Grew Up Aussie in the 80s AND 90s’, because I was 9 in 1990 & surely remember some of this stuff from before then… even the way the list is written, as though compiled by a 10 year old, takes me back.

Let us reminisce together, children of my generation…!

• You made worms by squeezing your Vegemite or peanut butter crackers together.

• The best parties always had fairy bread.

• You always used to see that dried out, white dog poo on the footpath.
  You never see that anymore. (Oddly, I was actually pondering this the other day. Go council by-laws.)

• SuperTed, Widget The World Watcher and Samurai Pizza Cats.

• Doing research for school projects by going to the library or looking up an encyclopaedia rather than using the internet. (Imagine!)

• Banana Man, Bangers and Mash and The Raggy Dolls.

• Game Boy.

• Waking up early everyday to watch Agro’s Cartoon Connection.

• Hey Hey It’s Saturday.

• Buying those 6 packs of Coco Pops, Fruit Loops, Frosties, Rice Bubbles, Nutri-Grain and Corn Flakes so you could have a different one each day and then opening the packets really carefully and removing the cereal so you'd have a mini wardrobe afterwards. You also most probably just let your parents eat the Corn Flakes.

• Postman Pat, Fireman Sam and Lift Off (that show with the dirty, blind doll named EC).

• The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

• Don’t push me, push a push pop!

• Nobody made not jokes... NOT!!

• That's so funny, I forgot to laugh.

• You decorated your room with glow-in-the-dark stickers.

• Feeling sad when your Tamagotchi died. (And Furby – don’t forget Furby! “Bright… light…. loud… sound..”)

• Seeing a small rack of DVDs in the video store and wondering if anyone ever rented them.

• Dolly the sheep.

• Getting up early to watch the Rage Top 50.

• Sonic the Hedgehog.

• Watching South Park for the first time and being really excited by all the swearing.

• Blowing on the Nintendo cartridge before putting it in the console to make sure it worked properly.

• Vulcan, Tower, Flame... the Australian Gladiators.

• Wolfenstein, Doom and Duke Nukem.

• “And the winner is… Sydney.”

• Mighty Max and Polly Pocket. Max and Polly always got lost because they were so bloody small. (I always wanted a Polly Pocket… ALWAYS. I think I might have got an opped one once…)

• Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

• Ray Martin hosted A Current Affair.

• Zoopa Doopa ice blocks were only 20c and if you couldn’t afford it, you asked the canteen lady to cut it in half so you could split it with a friend. (YES!!! ‘cept at ours you get a half for 10cents…)

• Happy Meals were only $2.95 and the toys were simple but actually good.

• Pogs and Looney Tunes Tazos.

• You ate Smarties instead of M&M’s.

• You tried Dr. Pepper and hated it. (LIES!!! DR PEPPER IS DELICIOUS IN IT’S COUGH MEDICINE-Y GOODNESS!)

• Goosebumps & Babysitters Club.

• You had to actually call your friends rather than send them an SMS.

• Hubba Bubba.

• Talk to the hand!

• Johnson and Friends, Noddy and Humphrey B. Bear.

• Slap bracelets.

• Jurassic Park and those toy dinosaurs where you could pull a piece of the skin out to see its insides.

• Roger Ramjet, he’s our man, hero of our nation.

• We had paper money.

• Good on ya Mum! Tip Top’s the one!

• Rocko’s Modern Life, Rugrats and Hey Arnold! (I looooooooooved Rocko’s Modern Life… did you ever watch it? I found a comic once that showed you how to draw Heffer in stages… I can still do it…)

• Noni, Monica and that bald guy named George on Play School.
• Watching The Lion King and feeling Simba’s pain when Mufasa died.

• Soft serve cones were only 30c and they never tried to up-sell a Flake because they didn’t have it.

• Wanting a Brain or Silver Bullet during the yo-yo craze.

• Nesquik without the Nes.

• Troll Dolls.

• Ba-na-na-na-na! Ba-na-na-na-na! Make those bodies sing!

• You had to get your photos developed.

• Your family didn’t own a 4WD unless it was a real one like a Land Cruiser or Patrol. Range Rovers were tough and nobody thought BMW would make a 4WD, let alone Porsche.

• Competing with your friends to see who could eat the most sour Warheads in one go.

• The Channel 9 logo had dots next to it and the Channel 7 logo wasn’t a folded piece of paper.

• No Hat, no play.

• Dr. Dreadful Food Labs. Kids these days wouldn't be allowed that because its not healthy enough. 

• High five! Up high, down low, too slow!

• Watching Round the Twist and getting pissed off that the actors kept on changing. You still loved it though.

• Cheating in Heads Down, Thumbs Up.

• Watching that game show called Vidiot. Game shows didn't have to be educational back then, like That's Academic... that show sucks.

• Healthy Harold day was the best because you got to miss class to sit in a tiny caravan and listen to a talking giraffe.

• Playing handball with Ace, King, Queen and Dunce and making up stupid rules as you went along.

• Skipping ropes and Jump Rope for Heart Day. (Do they still have Jump Rope for Heart Day?)

• Hypercolour T-shirts.

(Of course later in the 90s came the docs, flanno shirts, ‘Fudged’ hair, ripped jeans & ‘tencel’ overalls… but that is teen angst in the 90s, not the wonder of childhood…!)

What memories of popular culture do you have from your youth? Are you a 90s kid, an 80s kid (I consider myself one of those too, being born in ‘81 – Care Bears, Smurfs, Strawberry Shortcake, Popples!), a 70s kid?