July 2, 2020

"The 90s were the best. We didn’t have coronavirus, or cell phones, or computers. We had 5.0's, blockbuster, Beavis and Butthead, Wayne's World, Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan..."

"... Mortal Kombat is still better than Fortnight ... the last of the great decades."

And we had Vanilla Ice — who is quoted above, from "Vanilla Ice throwing Fourth of July concert: 'We didn't have coronavirus' in the '90s/The 'Ice Ice Baby' singer will perform for thousands in Texas, where coronavirus cases are surging" (Entertainment Weekly).

The concert will be in a large outdoor venue — Emerald Point Bar & Grill, on the shore of Lake Travis in Austin — and they're only selling tickets for half the capacity, so people can socially distance.

By they way, "Beavis and Butt-Head" are back: "Beavis and Butt-Head being rebooted for a Gen Z world by Comedy Central" (Entertainment Weekly).

AND: With all that attention, he's out:

72 comments:

Automatic_Wing said...

You know things have spun out of control when Vanilla Ice is the voice of reason.

Temujin said...

I'd take the 70's over the 80's. 80's over the 90's any day. 90's over anything that has followed. We're not trending well. Or maybe I'm not trending well.

Paco Wové said...

So far, the 21st century has pretty much sucked.

Nonapod said...

I'm not a big believer in necessarily dwelling in nostalgia for particular time periods, or at least I don't think that it's useful to only focus on the good things when thinking back.

There were several events that happened in the 90s that weren't so good: The LA Riots, Ruby Ridge and Waco, the Oklahoma City Bombing, The Olympic Park Bombing, The first World Trade Center Bombing, The OJ Trial, the Rwandan genocide, The Bosnian War, the Battle of Mogadishu, AIDs was just generally more lethal back then ect.

Wince said...

The original [Beavis and Butthead] series was considered controversial in its time for its crudeness and its characters being obsessed with dangerous stunts, and was often the target of conservative critics.

Although I don't remember particularly "conservative critics" of B&B, interestingly, this time around to prove their comedy transgressiveness B&B will have to inflame woke leftist critics.

For that matter, would today's woke mob give the old B&B episodes a pass?

rhhardin said...

I had a UNIX-PC at home in 1987, replacing the dumb terminal. Everything still depended on the mainframe you were connected to, albeit across several state lines.

madAsHell said...

Vanilla Ice?

Yes, cell phones were big bricks in 1995. Think Maxwell Smart, and the shoe phone.

mikee said...

I recall the 1990s as a time of politics that were becoming more corrupt by the day, with a Hillary in the White House. Never, ever, let a Hillary in the White House.

Unknown said...

I doubt seriously that's he's going to stop. Probably not going to collaborate or listen either.

Unknown said...

So far, the 21st century has pretty much sucked.

I dunno. PUBG is a lot of fun.

Leland said...

I think Austin is just trying to create more reasons to extend their control of the citizenry.

Freder Frederson said...

I think the existence of Vanilla Ice is a valid argument to say that the '90s was one of the worst decades.

MacBlank said...

We still have Mortal Kombat, actually. New one just came out last year, bloodier and gorier than ever, with additional downloadable content still in the works.

Of course, this lends itself to problems now that the game’s as graphic as it always wanted to be: https://kotaku.com/id-have-these-extremely-graphic-dreams-what-its-like-t-1834611691

JPS said...

Butthead: "Uh, huh-huh. Vanilla Ice."

Beavis: "Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, everyone's always making fun of this guy, tearing him down, saying he sucks, but - heh-heh - he really does suck. For once, everyone's right."

Expat(ish) said...

@rhardin - AT&T PC6300 running 4.1C BSD?

-XC

Big Mike said...

Of all the things from the 90s to bring back, Beavis and Butthead?!?

Inga said...

Bar Lives Matter!

Being outdoors with masks seems far safer than sitting in a bar, maybe bars in Texas should all be outdoors in the parking lot. Don’t forget to wear your mask.

Joe Smith said...

Almost 100% B&B gets dumbed down for the easily-offended PC crowd who will never understand satire.

Judge also wrote and directed "Idiocracy" which was sadly prescient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy

Carol said...

The 80s were even better. It was a time of great personal freedom and hilarity.

Narrator: But not for People of Color!

Yes, in fact it was even worse than 1968, when I had a Japanese boss and black supervisor. But Reagan you know.

h said...

Beavis and Butthead in the era of that's not funny.

Hey Beavis (snicker snort snicker). Why did the chicken cross the road?
I don't know man. Why?
(Snicker snort snort snicker). To get to the other side, man.

(unbridled laughter)

tim in vermont said...

He’s right. Anybody who read my posts at the beginning of this knows that I am for protecting the vulnerable, and I was for buying time to learn best how to treat it and deal with it, but now death rates are dropping because it’s young people getting it and old people are wisely isolating, as are the the people in contact with them who love them. Treatments are improving.

At some point people gotta live and us alte kakas can stick to our gardens and books and woodland walks until this is over.

Unknown said...

I think the existence of Vanilla Ice is a valid argument to say that the '90s was one of the worst decades.

I see where you're going with that, but look at it t'other way: only the 90's has the audacity to birth Vanilla Ice. Word to your mutha.

Jake said...

If thousands of people can gather outdoors for protests and everyone says it’s cool, there’s no reason not to have concerts or parades or absolutely any and everything that can be done outside.

bagoh20 said...

The 90's were also the decade with the highest crime rates, but we're currently working on new ideas to beat that record in this decade.

buwaya said...

Its arguable when US civilization hit its peak.
Some say the tide of decadence started shutting down creativity sometime in the 1970's. This is arguable, if one wants to limit the question to art.

Technological progress probably started to flatten out late in the 90's.

The economy probably ceased to improve, as far as the median person was concerned, about 2000-2001, when the job market peaked. Median income has increased since then, in waves, but I am not confident that the cost of living adjustments are accurate.

Gunner said...

Beavis and Butthead came back 9 years ago. Making fun of fakeass "reality" tv is just not as funny as making fun of self important music videos.

buwaya said...

Mike Judge is a genius.
And I mean it sincerely.
He is matchless at capturing a milieu that includes the socio-economic-work-life-realities aspects.
This sort of thing may not matter to much of the entertainment audience, but it hits home to many who work for a living. "Office Space" and "Silicon Valley" (first three seasons) tell a story about a place, a way of life, a situation, that is completely true.

Amexpat said...

And in the 90's they were saying that the 60-70's were best. You didn't have AIDS. We had free sex, music that mattered and films much better than Wayn's World or anything with Jackie Chan.

CStanley said...

I agree with Tim in Vermont. I do wish that the shutdown time would have been used more productively though, to figure out better ways to protect vulnerable people.

But I acknowledge that people were and have been vulnerable to demise caused by the shutdown too. Sadly, we lost a young family member to suicide and while there were many contributing reasons I suspect that isolation pushed him closer to the edge.

Temujin said...

Ditto what tim in vermont just said.

Craig said...

Unknown @9:06, awesome.

tim in vermont said...

""Idiocracy" which was sadly prescient”

Except that he thought the idiots would watch Fox News, when now that the future is here, we see it’s CNN and MSNBC.

Enlighten-NewJersey said...

I had PCs, laptops and small cellphones throughout the 1990s.

walter said...

Yes Inga,
Just like those Open Wisconsin protesters did.

Tim,
Nice to see an unusually calm post on this...

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Inga, do you ever get out of Wisconsin? Texas summers are really hot. Go sit outside in your driveway when it's 95 and humid and tell us how enjoyable that is. Dullard.

Nichevo said...


Freder Frederson said...
I think the existence of Vanilla Ice is a valid argument to say that the '90s was one of the worst decades.

7/2/20, 9:08 AM


That's just how I feel about U2.

Bilwick said...

I like the nineties because--especially with the fall of the USSR-- it seemed like statism was on the run. To me, this climaxed with the 2000 publication of Jim Powell's THE TRIUMPH OF LIBERTY, but the title and the publication date illustrate the pitfalls of triumphalism, 2000 ushered in George W. Bush and his "compassionate" (i.e, statist) conservatism, setting up the ninepins for his successor, Red Diaper Barry. Now statism seems to have recovered its cachet, at least among the stupid, and backed by the urban lumpenproletariat, the"liberal" Hive's shock troops in the streets.

bwebster said...

“We didn’t have computers.”

Wha? Computers have been around since the 1949s. Personal computers (PET, TRS-80, Apple II) have been around since the 1970s.

Howard said...

Well tim in vermont, the opening should be better now that Dear Leader has decided a mask makes him look like the Lone Zorro or some such mans man character admired by his slovenly punters.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

I had my first PC with Unix in um, 1994 I think, since that's when FreeBSD1.0 shipped. The OS was solid, but man that Dell was flaky. Before that, I had a 1200bps USR Sportster and a green phosphor Liberty Freedom 100 terminal. I still set up all my xterms as green on black..

And the 90s? Last decade where rock still meant something.

rhhardin said...

The most impressive thing about the UNIX-PC was the shelf-length supply of bound manuals. The old plan was that you'd want to find out stuff in order to use it.

Wince said...

"Grunge" doesn't even get a mention.

"The 90s fucking sucked."

GingerBeer said...

Any decade with the Clintons in bloom sucks.

richlb said...

I live here in Austin and they were just talking about it on the radio. It was a hard rock station.

I've seen Vanilla Ice perform at a work function - he played 2 songs for our anniversary party. Yes, one of the songs was "Ice Ice Baby". The other song was "Ice Ice Baby".

bagoh20 said...

Beavis and Butthead sounded more intelligent than anybody I've seen among the protesters. And Cornholio could school them bigly.

n.n said...

Prudent and bold. The latest evidence indicates that the primary transmission path of the virus formerly from Wuhan is manual, not aerosol. So, wash your hands after interacting with fecal matter and mitigate the progress of cross-contamination... sharing is not caring.

William said...

Onjectively speaking, I think the Seventies were the worst part of my time on earth. There was a certain amount of sex to distract one from inflation, poverty and nuclear annihilation, but I definitely had the feeling that things were bad and were going to inevitably get worse.....The dominant, abiding feature of my life is that it sucks, but, back then, I thought it would be a lot suckier than how it actually turned out.....Back in the seventies, we made fun of Patti Page and Mitch Miller. We had no idea that such horrors as Vanilla Ice were even possible. I pity the poor fool who's nostalgic for Vanilla Ice.

Anthony said...

I had a good 1990s for the most part. Decent job(s). Went to Egypt several times and had fun and worked hard. Did my MA thesis and started on the dissertation. X-Files. Millennium. Grunge. 350-lb squats. OS/2! A lovely little Venezuelan stewardess.

Some of it sucked. Kinda downhill since then though, in many respects.

stlcdr said...

This is what we call 'rose tinted glasses'.

Big Mike said...

The 80s were even better.

But the 70s were the best. I met the most beautiful, the brightest female scientist since Irene Joliot-Curie, and married her. The decade closed with ABBA singing “Chiquitita.”

hstad said...

Well I guess he's somewhat right, "...The 90s were the best. We didn’t have corona-virus..." Maybe he should've been more specific. Because in the '90s we did have a "corona-virus" it was called 'Swine Flu' [H1N1] same family of corona-virus'. Like - 1918 - Spanish Flu; '57-'58 H2N2 pandemic; '68 H3H2 pandemic [Hong Kong Flu]; '02 - SARS; and finally the current version Covit - 19 another H1N1 derivative. Interesting I remember the Hong Kong Flu returning from Vietnam many service members had it. In fact 21 on our flight home were quarantined upon landing in the USA for 14 days. Yet, Woodstock was allowed to happen. Guess our 'wokeness' back then was as 'snowflake' as today. Read today that CDC is adding common flu to their B.S. statistics.

RigelDog said...

Have you noticed that all the references to in creases in reported cases say that the infections are "surging?" Not, "increasing." To me, it's a clear hype to fit in with the fears of a "second surge," but what does the term surge mean? As it was used in the beginning of the pandemic, it was a reasonable way to convey something close to an exponential climb in the infection rate. An exponential rise in cases (from what I've read) is simply not going to happen again. We are on a plateau---a "below the curve plateau," which is where we were aiming by use of lockdown---that will fluctuate over time and not overwhelm our systems.

Steven said...

"We didn't have . . . computers."

What do you mean "we", lameo?

Freeman Hunt said...

We had free speech in the 90's.

rehajm said...

Beavis: "Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, everyone's always making fun of this guy, tearing him down, saying he sucks, but - heh-heh - he really does suck. For once, everyone's right."

I agree with Beavis! When it comes to artists it's amusing how the future selects representatives of the past. As I recall from the 90s Mr. Ice was considered a talentless fraud and phony. Maybe the present doesn't remember one hit wonder Vanilla Ice's one hit was really Bowie's...

I have a hard time with the respect Journey gets as representative artists of the 80s. Also, any other type of respect...

walter said...

It will be difficult to fit in all his hits.

n.n said...

Ice, Ice, Baby... Lives Matter.

Francisco D said...

Freeman Hunt said...We had free speech in the 90's.

Not if you had libertarian or conservative views at a university. They were less obvious about getting rid of you, but if you did not have tenure you were out.

toxdoc said...

Hi hstad, I think I get your point from this: "Because in the '90s we did have a "corona-virus" it was called 'Swine Flu' [H1N1] same family of corona-virus'. Like - 1918 - Spanish Flu; '57-'58 H2N2 pandemic; '68 H3H2 pandemic [Hong Kong Flu]; '02 - SARS; and finally the current version Covit - 19 another H1N1 derivative." But, it is quite wrong if you are referring to pandemics/epidemics of the 1990s. The only common link between COV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) and H1N1 is they are from the same phylogenetic realm "riboviridae" in that they are RNA viruses. Other than that they are nothing alike. Surprisingly, there were really no global pandemics in the 90's for the most part, except for AIDS. There was a bat-sourced viral outbreak in late 1999 in Malaysia called Nipah virus. It was very nasty, mostly the worst part was it affected the CNS and had a very high fatality rate.

Craig said...

Freeman Hunt wins the thread.

Ralph L said...

Hugh Downs for the count.

Howard said...

We still have free speech. However, now people will more often call you out on your shit. Deal with it. Freedom is a competition, not a self-affirming koffee-klatch circle-jerk. Notice it's the libtards are fighting cancel culture with more free speech. It take huevos, something in short supply on the right.

rcocean said...

1990s' laid the foundation for all the rot that followed. Clinton and the Republicans in Congress agreed to destroy America through massive legal and illegal immigration, and banking laws that led to the 2008 crash. Not to mention 911 - done by Arab's here on visa legally & and are "Soft on ISIS" policy.

In terms of sports and movies it was pretty good, but it was running on built up capital from the previous decades.

rehajm said...

Not if you had libertarian or conservative views at a university.

Profs gave students with those leanings the cold shoulder..

stevew said...

The 90's were pretty darn good. I was in my 30's for most of it, my kids were young and growing, and my work was rewarding and my career growing. I would note that I'm particularly fond of all the decades in which I am alive; having not experienced the others.

Inga said...

“Inga, do you ever get out of Wisconsin? Texas summers are really hot. Go sit outside in your driveway when it's 95 and humid and tell us how enjoyable that is. Dullard.”

Oh dear, how unfortunate for bar flies and drunks. By all means do your drinking inside a nice air conditioned bar dear lady.

Nichevo said...

Freedom is a competition, not a self-affirming koffee-klatch circle-jerk. Notice it's the libtards are fighting cancel culture with more free speech. It take huevos, something in short supply on the right.


I didn't know freedom was a competition, I thought everybody was supposed to be free.So the big talkers are the masters of the less verbally inclined. Check. Let's start shooting now, then.

SGT Ted said...

Adults had computers. Kids had Nintendo.

cubanbob said...

Just about any decade or decades that one is from their late teens to their thirties are good decades.

Ambrose said...

The 90s were OK, but the 70s shine on. Bad hair, bad clothes and absolutely no morality at all, not even a smidgen to quote a guy. You just did whatever the hell you wanted to do and no one bothered you at all. We'll never be that free again.

Rt41Rebel said...

The 80s will be considered the last golden age of America, along with the 50s. And yes, 5.0s ruled! I had an '88 Vert that I kept for 25 years, so easy to work on. With only commons sense aptitude and decent tools, I was able to install EL headers, a cobra intake and throttle body, rocker rollers, short belt and undersize pulleys, H-pipe and 3.73s. When I was finished, I could rip off 4.8 0-60s, not so great these days, but back then that was fast.

I have to wonder how a generation raised on Beavis & Butthead, South Park, and Family Guy could be so offended by everything.

Aussie Pundit said...

"the last of the great decades"

Nice. I like that, and think it's probably true.