12 Things You'll Remember If You Were A Geek Kid Who Grew Up In The 90's

Was there ever a game more divisive than <i>Mario Kart</i>? The franchise was born in 1992 with the Super NES release, and returned to ruin the friendships of the next wave of 90s kids with <i>Mario Kart 64</i>. It is a miracle any of us have childhood friends left at all.

It was traumatic. It was not okay. The Rangers had worked so hard to rescue Tommy only to have to part ways with him as their battle buddy. Although they said they were always going to stay friends, let's face it, that was never going to work out. Being the normal dude among a group of super-powered friends sucks. In retrospect, it is fortunate for Tommy Oliver that the show departed from the original events of <i>Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger</i> in which (spoiler alert) Burai dies.

If you thought traditional troll dolls were creepy, <i>Battle Trolls</i> cranked the weirdness level up to 10 to the 20th power.

There were a lot shows that placed an emphasis on science and the environment. <i>Ocean Girl</i> was one of the lesser known ones, but it was a pretty great and under-appreciated show about a girl whose best friends were a whale and two kids who lived in an underwater city dedicated to science (so basically the coolest childhood ever). You knew that one day they were going to have explain how Neri could talk to Charlie, the whale, but the show quickly became bananas when a spaceship was found on Neri's island. Whether it became bananas awesome or bananas crazy is your choice.

The 80's gets credit for the <i>Land Before Time</i>, but the 90's was the better era for the dinosaur genre as a whole. <i>We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, Dinosaurs, Jurassic Park, Adventures in Dinosaur City</i>, and those inferior <i>Land Before Time</i> sequels all came out. I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting so make your suggestions in the comments.

Okay, so technically this is cheating. The Space Camp facilities as you remember them opened in 1988. I'm including it because you will all remember the commercials. Unfortunately, it's looking doubtful that we'll get to Mars by 2019 like Space Camp promised.

<i>Space Cases</i> was canceled before the kids ever made it home so they're all still lost in space.

The year <i>Star Trek</i> celebrated its 30th was the same year <i>First Contact</i> came out.

<i>Reboot</i> is such an amazing show to go back to now. The forced programming lingo that is now comically out-dated; the countless pop-culture references; the painfully bad computer animation - it's the very best kind of nostalgia trip.

If you're familiar with <i>Reboot</i>, you're familiar with the time slot in which it aired. <i>Toonami</i> was the television block that launched the anime obsession of most 90's kids with classics such as <i>Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, Gundam Wing, Tenshi Muyo, Outlaw Star,</i> and many more. (The meta story that would play out between commercials was also pretty fun to follow too.) So thanks Tom and SARA. I spent so much money on <i>Gundam</i> models because of you.

Remember when <i>Pokemon</i> came out and you were forced to make the intense decision between Red and Blue version? It seemed that most everyone was picking up <i>Pokemon Red</i> since that one had the cool dragon on it, but if you wanted both Vulpix and Growlithe, someone in the group was going to have to take one for the team. <i>Pokemon Blue</i>, I choose you.

Buffy Summers moved to Sunnydale in 1997 and stole our hearts while she staked others. Buffy and the Scoobies faced some really excellent villains in those years: the Master, dark Angel, Spike, Drusilla, etc. We laughed, we cried, we wrote a ton of fan fiction. You may not miss your own high school, but if you were a Scooby then you probably miss Sunnydale.

We think you'll enjoy <i>THE UNFORTUNATE DECISIONS OF DAHLIA MOSS</i> by Max Wirestone from our sibling imprint Redhook. http://maxwirestone.com/excerpt/