February 2022 – saleintothe90s

451. Seventeen, February 1994

Seventeen magazine back in the mid 90s was a work of art.

Cover Girl was over here being an innovator in eyeshadow primer/base technology. it didn’t seem to take off back then though. I didn’t see eyeshadow primer in the mainstream until I saw Urban Decay’s in the mid 2000s.

You know a couple of months ago, when I was compiling those oddball christmas gift suggestions from the 90s, and ‘Teen suggested to give lingerie as a present? Here are some “racy” red undies! Were we supposed to wear those as a present to ourselves?

I wanted this Teen Spirit shampoo so bad from our local Food Lion around this time. Mom wouldn’t let me have it! I used Head & Shoulders until man, high school I think. (see also this TikTok titled “90s products living in the crawl space of your brain”)

Can you imagine it being like, six thirty am, one bathroom house, and you’re fighting your sibling for who is going to use the shower first because you have to rinse out all that conditioner you put in your hair the night before. These little beauty tips magazines used back then were never practical for the 11 year old reading the magazine.

We were fond of supermodels back then, so this is a whole behind the scenes piece of the motels at the big fashion shows, like at Betsey Johnson. This was the closet thing I could find to the show on YouTube.

That short & slim dress is still a look today.

I totally thought that dying shoes to dresses was a totally normal thing that I would partake in several times as a teenager or a young adult. NO. Nobody was doing that in the early 2000s. Anyway, I was too ugly for formal events.

This was a “pre prom” section. We all know the real prom issue came in March.

There’s that Bobbi Brown stick foundation that’s still being sold today. Like I said earlier, we didn’t have eyeshadow primer back then, so we had to use Sonia’s advice of putting foundation on our eyelids.

oooo here we go.

Michelle placed 2nd at the Nationals in 1994, behind Tonya Harding, but was bumped off the Olympic team and became an alternate due to the whole Nancy Kerrigan incident, as we all know.

Nicole would become the national champion in 1995. I think 1994 was one of the last times we saw Lisa. Lisa skated at the 1993 World Championships, here is a fluff piece about her and her coach.

The wind never stood a chance you guys.

I have never heard of dye from socks leeching into your bloodstream. This is up here with taking horse medicine. The last time this happened was in the 1870s.

~diet news~, which would totally not fly today in a teen magazine. Pretty sure the second bullet point is what would become Alli. I remember when Alli came out, my local news station went to the drugstore and filmed a what appeared to be a kind of gullible lady buying it and they interviewed her, and she said something cheezy like, “I hope this is an ally to my weight loss!”

The pants hanging would become only worse as time went on.

This was a bit about guys favorite items.

Oh, I wanted this so bad. And then Jenna did it 24 years later.

Today is February 19th, so its hammernose day.

Hemlines are the same, hair color is the same, and I think Brad Mondo tried to bring back wet hair??

NO SUSPENDERS.

Oh no. Does anybody remember the old store One Price $7? it was like a precursor to fast fashion stores. Mom and I started shopping here around the time of this magazine and there were so many items of clothing that fit this perfectly.

Who approved that polo shirt looking shirt though. That is a shirt a middle aged mom would wear. Like that 90s mom character Eliza Hayes Maher does on Instagram.

Something I completely forgot about back then was teen magazines including way older guys. I didn’t scan it, but you know earlier when that boy was talking about how much he loved his shirt? Nearly every other guy in that story was over 18. One was even around 26? Here’s Eric Niles from the original Real World (22) dating a 17 year old. Young me thought that was completely normal.

This was from early 1994, but I remember all this pleather-y, silver-y stuff hitting the store shelves around here in 1996.

Already thinking about the new millennium.

Yup, this was during the low fat craze. I guess this is ok since it’s educational. I’ve mentioned the Salsa Ketchup by Heinz before.

This wouldn’t fly today either.

This was right before I began an interest in shoes.

I think this “no way” graphic that was intended for another question can fit perfectly with the advice needed. No way did this happen.

452. Super Bowl 1986 Commercials (1/26/1986)

This year, I decided to take a break from reviewing Super Bowl commercials of the early 1990s, and go back to an even more simpler time. I mean, how many times can we see those lil beer bottles run across a field.

(also, the only complete sets from 1992 I found on YouTube was from one of those channels that puts an intro in their videos — boy, those aren’t your commercials, stop pretending you have a TV channel, this is YouTube)

I chose this set of commercials, although this set is also available, and is almost the same…except for near the end, the first set I mentioned is from Seattle, so an Alaska Airlines commercial airs. That latter one? A United Airlines commercial is put in it’s place. So strange, like that time was allotted for the airlines. Airlines only!

These commercials immediately start out with a BANGER. HERB THE BURGER KING NERD. After all these years of compiling things, I finally get to discuss Herb, the disaster of a promotion.

Burger King thought it would be cute to invent this nerdy looking guy (played by Jon Menick) who had never eaten a Burger King Whopper. If Herb showed up at your local Burger King to finally eat that Whopper and you spotted him first, you won money. Everybody who was at that Burger King when Herb showed up was put in a drawing for a million dollars.

There was even a cute little promo that if you said “I’m not Herb!” you got a 99¢ Whopper meal. What if your name was Herb? You said “I’m not the Herb you’re looking for!”

Well, the marketing campaign tanked, people just didn’t want to go look for Herb at Burger King. Burger King likes to bring things back, they should bring Herb back. With social media, Herb could drop hints on TikTok on where he might be heading next!

I mean, there was a “pointing at the ingredients to entice Herb” commercial later on in the broadcast. Pointing at things is one of the TikTok requirements!

When I was lil and my mom would bring me home mid 1980s Sports Illustrated issues from the thrift store, I would see these print ads, and think that was the real Charlie Chaplin.

oo, the Tom Brokaw glamour shot reel.

Last year, I watched some of Barney Miller. When I saw Steve Landesberg, I wanted to point and say out loud, “Oo! Oo! The guy from all those commercials!”

All I have to say about this Johnson Controls (or is it Jooooohnson Controlls, lol) commercial is I love their old logo so much, why they change it to …. this?

I love how the UPS ad was just “we clean our planes. a lot. We like to clean our planes.”

Oh no this kid didn’t in the Duraliner commercial.

There were a couple of commercials for the major flop The Last Precinct with Adam West. I brought it up years ago in my Super Bowl lead out show flops entry. … did that first character in that commercial say she used to be a man? I just can’t imagine that poorly written jokes that entailed.

If there is one “being a fly on the wall during a recording session” moment I want to sit in on, it would have to be for the recording of the “cheese, marvelous cheese!!” commercial jingle. Why do I imagine a bunch of kids who sang for their college choirs singing this?

R.C. Cola had money for a Super Bowl commercial this year! It took place in a prison!

Finally, finally William Perry and Jim McMahon explain to us the difference between Coke (formerly known as New Coke) and Coca-Cola Classic. William likes Coke, because it’s “light and smooth”. Jim liked Coca-Cola classic because it’s “big and bold”.

I ADORE HER. When I was little, I took baton lessons, because my mom thought I would be a majorette just like my older half sister. One time, she checked out all these baton books from the library. In one, there was instructions on how to fire baton. I really thought that once I hit high school, I’d be twirling that fire baton at games. Ten years later I was fat, hadn’t twirled a baton since I was 10, and I didn’t care about sports.

450. Daily Press, February 1, 1987

After two months of complete flops, I finally have a good newspaper. ~~So good, it might be two parts.~~ Nah, I’m making you guys sit though all thirty something images.

Anybody else thought Jorel was a burnt up C3PO at first?

I looked up the memorial and while Judith’s name is fixed, you can clearly tell it’s been fixed.

I forget a lot about what all Montgomery Ward had. Mom and I never really went in there, and they closed when I was a senior in high school in 2001.

Like, they had paint? I want one of those paint cans, it has a kitty on it.

Getting big McDowell’s vibes from this. I tried to find an article about Mac Donald in Iran, and the closest thing I found was in 2015, there was a place called “Mash Donalds”.

HQ was a regional hardware store that started in nearby Virginia Beach. I had totally forgot about the animated H and Q mascots, and that one time I tried drawing them when I was a kid. HQ closed up shop in 1999.

Here’s another whimisical illustrated ad.

Oh, is this the beginning of E-Z Pass-like technology?

Hm, I don’t consider Baskin-Robbins a fast food chain. I mean, it’s just ice cream. Also, upper middle class people were getting their 31 flavors on back in 1986.

I wish this article was more about the California Raisins then people pooh poohin’ on raisins. I’ve never heard of the Fresno mini series. It had Dabney Coleman in it, I love him!

I’m surprised the NIE went with U.S. Acres (Jim Davis’ other comic strip, and the part of Garfield and Friends everybody fast forwards though) to promote the Newspaper in education Week.
I’m 38, so I guess I can’t color Orson and his friends.
Why isn’t Sheldon saying anything.

Why do I remember this Butcher Shoppe logo from 35 years ago?!

You got a dozen roses if you bought a car from Newmarket Hyundai. It would be funny to show this pic to a small child and tell them that this was one of the first Hyundai cars in America. I mean, you think of THIS when you see a Hyundai now:

Sooo, I died when I saw this, but I briefly came back to life to tell everybody about this. Mercury Mall was a small mall in Hampton, the oldest one in the area, opening in 1967. Only a few pictures survive online of the place, from the Daily Press’ website:

Obviously, when Coliseum Mall opened down the street a few years later, there were more shopping choices in the area. Montgomery Ward left, and moved to the Coliseum Mall in 1983, and that seems to be when the mall fell into disrepair. My whole life, I thought this place had shut down as a mall in the early 1980s, this sad lil guy held on until 1987! A Burlington Coat Factory put in the mall’s place. That Burlington always felt so ancient, that was another reason why I thought that the mall was gone by the early 80s.

The whole complex was torn down in the early to mid 2000s. Burlington moved to Coliseum Mall, killed the mall, and was brought back in nearly its same exact spot where it started back in 1987. Here’s more details.

Who wants to imagine that Oprah was on stage for about 30 minutes, but Lorraine, the Shisedio lady was on for like, an hour talking about the Replica Skin Diagnostic System after Oprah’s speech. And you couldn’t leave.

This whole time I thought Jason Bateman did lose his virginity in this episode.

I found one of these on eBay, going for the whopping price of …. thirteen dollars.

“Wish it, want it, do it” – Brian Griffin

Whooo, look at the “jungle mirage” sheet set from Kmart.

Also, piggy dippin on those dishtowels!

JCPenney still thought it was the late 70s.

These desks are never productive. You can’t fit anything on them!

Don’t buy you girl lingerie from Roses. What’s up with the dragonfly? underwear?

3M invented Post-It notes, who is Plymouth?

Remember these stinky lil things? People now have Bath & Body Works and Yankee Candle, but we had these.

That poor boy. That poor poor boy.

I remember Correctol looking like straight up candy.

These were shampoos made by L’Envie that were supposed to smell like popular perfumes at the time. ew?

I forgot about the brownie mix that came with the CAN of Hershey’s Syrup that always tasted better than the bottle.

Finally, I have two comics. This was around the time my mom began reading the comics to me. I didn’t know what my mom’s mom looked like until I was 12, because she lived so far away, the last time she had visited me was when I was a baby. So whenever I imagined her, I imagined her looking like Maw from Snuffy Smith?!

Also, when learning how to read, I totally thought the Biography comic strip was called “Broadway”. I was a pretty dumb kid.