I used to get smacked, paddled, get the belt and the extension cord. Let's just say that I've never been arrested...
But also, I do remember the summer days playing outside until it got dark. We used to go to our park and rides our bikes. Swings, jungle gyms, slides, water sprinkler. We got to stay up longer and play later in those days. Also, we inherited a Super Nintendo from our cousin and got Sega Genesis and Sega Game Gear. We played games like Troy Aikman Football, Mortal Kombat 1 - 3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman Forever, Terminator 2: The Arcade Game, Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2. We had hours of fun.
Man, in the early 90s on Sunday evenings, Nickelodeon would play Looney Tunes and then afterwards, I Love Lucy came on and then we knew it was bed time. And in the mornings, we'd wake up and watch James Bond, Jr. as we got ready for school. When we got back home, whatever homework we had got done and then it was Nicktoons time! Doug, Rocko's Modern Life, Rugrats, Hey Arnold! 7:00 & 7:30 was always the Doug/Rugrats hour. Summer afternoons were devoted to the Nicktoons marathons and our friend Stick Stickly. But around 3:00, we had to watch the Dark Knight fight crime in Batman: The Animated Series on Fox, also in its heyday. Fox offered us Eek the Cat, Mighty Max, X-Men, The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, the Fox Kids Club and of course its staple: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers! Whenever the Rangers were on, Fox would be on the TV.
On Saturdays we'd watch the usual Nicktoons, then during the afternoon, we' watch Double Dare, What Would You Do?, Wild N Crazy Kids, Hey Dude, Legends of the Hidden Temple, The Adventures of Pete & Pete and Salute Your Shorts. But when it hit 8:00, it was SNICK time! Clarissa Explains It All, Ren & Stimpy and Are You Afraid of the Dark, the scariest show in Nick history! Even Nick Jr. was in better shape. We got to watch Eureeka's Castle, Gullah Gullah Island, David the Gnome, etc. When there was nothing good on Nick Jr, we would watch syndicated shows like Doogie Howser, M.D. and The Wonder Years. All on Fox, during the day. Heck, even PBS had great shows. Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, Lamb Chop's Play-Along, Shining Time Station (with Thomas the train), and the best show it ever had: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? MTV, though it wasn't the biggest part of our childhoods, still played music and occasionally showed other types of shows such as the infamous Beavis and Butt-Head. At least that's all we children knew of it back in the 90s.
Toys R Us was another huge facet of life as a kid in the 90s. We would go back past the girls toys and head right for the action figures. The bikes were in the very back, just behind the action figure section. All kinds of toys, not nearly as articulate as the action figures of today. But still just as fun to bash each other. You could make your Ninja Turtles beat up the Shredder, Hulk Hogan bodyslam the Undertaker, or have some Beast Wars with your Transformers. Many hours were spent recreating adventures from the screen or making new adventures. I even tried to use my Batman Returns Batgun disk shooter as the actual grapple gun.
As a last note, we had some memorable kids movies. Ninjas were all the craze in the early 90s, so we got the Ninja Turtles movies, Surf Ninjas and 3 Ninjas. We had the Power Rangers movie and Mortal Kombat. We also had Disney's traditional animation in Aladdin, The Lion King, Mulan, The Hunch Back of Notre Dame and its first big Pixar film, Toy Story. Oh, the hours spent playing with Buzz Lightyear and Woody toys...
In summation, yeah the 90s were pretty freakin' sweet. Great time to grow up and I'll always look fondly on my youth in the 90s.
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