Join us on a nostalgic journey through the 90s as we explore the iconic things that have vanished from our lives. From technology and entertainment to social experiences, we'll reminisce about the unique artifacts that defined a generation and are now nothing more than memories.
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00:00What we used to do with these Rolodex's is what you do on your phone today with your contacts,
00:04is we keep all important names and information, phone numbers, addresses, email, blah, blah, blah, blah,
00:10all recorded right here.
00:12Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for things that were all the rage in the 1990s,
00:18but have become all but obsolete in the 21st century.
00:21I want my MTV, MTV, MTV!
00:24Yeah, too much is never enough.
00:27Number 30, call in information numbers.
00:30555 film is movie phone.
00:33Movie phone?
00:34Yeah, so people just dialing it by mistake and getting you.
00:37What do you do when you'd like to know the weather forecast, or check available job listings,
00:41or even find out what movies are playing at your nearest theater?
00:44It's all a quick tap away, or maybe several on your phone.
00:47But did you know that there was a time when people would call a number for that kind of thing?
00:50Back in the day, before the World Wide Web, people kept a list of service numbers and hotlines on hand
00:55for when they needed certain information,
00:57like when the next showing for a movie was, or whether a store was having a sale.
01:01Hello, and welcome to Movie Phone,
01:03brought to you by the New York Times and Hot 97.
01:08Coming to theaters this Friday, Kevin Bacon, Susan Sarandon.
01:13You've got to get me over that mountain!
01:15No!
01:17No!
01:22There's no higher place than mountain high.
01:26Number 29, malls as the social hub.
01:29Put on your jelly bracelets and your cool graffiti coat
01:33At the mall, having fun is what it's all about
01:37Malls have unfortunately been on the decline for years thanks to the rise of online shopping.
01:42Along with dwindling in-person sales, their status as the default hangout place,
01:47especially among teenagers, has fallen to the wayside too.
01:50For years, many teens would spend countless hours loitering at the mall with their friends.
01:55There was no need to do any actual shopping.
01:57The mall simply served as the nexus for social activity.
02:00Since the introduction of social media,
02:02adolescent crowds find themselves gathering in virtual locations
02:05instead of leaving the house for that once so popular food court.
02:09Do yourself a favor, Brody. Don't wait.
02:12Because all the money, all the women, even all the comic books in the world,
02:17they can't substitute for that one person.
02:20Number 28, printed movie listings.
02:23We give it another day, two days max.
02:26We check the papers again and if they're still looking at them, we phone them and say...
02:29It's a Sunday afternoon and you're trying to come up with something to do.
02:33Flipping through channels on TV, you see a trailer for a new movie that looks pretty good.
02:37If it's 2025, you open your phone and Google when and where it's playing.
02:41But if you're back in the 1990s, finding the movie listings wasn't as easy.
02:45Many Gen X kids will remember having to pick up a copy of the newspaper
02:49to find out when and where certain movies were playing.
02:51Usually buried in the local entertainment section, printed movie listings were the norm.
02:56Oh, Odie, look, your movie's coming out. Let's see.
02:58Get the, uh, get the back of George of the Jungle.
03:01George of the Jungle.
03:03Number 27, UPN.
03:05I used to think I knew what tore our family apart.
03:08Now I'm sure I don't.
03:10But I promise this.
03:12I will find out what really happened and I will bring this family back together again.
03:17I'm sorry. Is that mushy?
03:19Well, you know what they say.
03:21Veronica Mars, she's a marshmallow.
03:25Fun fact, did you know that the television network The CW
03:28was actually the merging of two other networks, UPN and The WB?
03:32Paramount Pictures had been trying to get into the TV network business for decades
03:36with several failed attempts.
03:38They finally broke through and launched UPN in 1995
03:41with the two-hour pilot episode of Star Trek Voyager
03:44bringing in 21.3 million viewers.
03:47Over the next decade, the network showcased other hits like WWE SmackDown,
03:51Veronica Mars, and America's Next Top Model.
03:54After a decade of programming, UPN ceased operations as it merged with The WB in 2006,
03:59giving us The CW, which initially held on to much of both networks' original programming.
04:12Whatever your opinion of him, Steve Urkel was a staple of 90s television.
04:16Hi, Laura.
04:20I hear you can't get a date for the dance.
04:24So you wanna go with me?
04:26A breakout character of ABC's Family Matters,
04:28Urkel was the annoying neighbor who always got in the middle of all the Winslow family affairs.
04:32The character was so popular among audiences that he even inspired a doll sharing his likeness.
04:37Pull back his string and he'd utter one of a handful of his signature catchphrases.
04:41But as time passed and the show went off the air,
04:43Urkel's doll became yet one more piece of 1990s history.
04:51Today, when you think of multiplayer gaming,
04:53the likes of Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto may come to mind.
04:56Countless players across the globe play with or against each other,
04:59all thanks to the wonders of the internet.
05:05Yet there was a time when groups of friends would haul their gaming machines into a single room,
05:09connect them through cables and networking gear, and play literally face-to-face.
05:13Even colleges and universities would see students leveraging the school's network
05:17to battle it out and see who could win the next round of Quake.
05:20LAN gaming held a certain real-world vibe
05:22that seems to have unfortunately faded away with the advent of high-speed internet.
05:26And I just, like, been playing for hours every day.
05:29Like, at one point, I played 19 hours straight, just kind of shake.
05:33It was this one.
05:36Are you familiar with what this is?
05:39If you were born in the 90s or later, you may or may not know that this was called a Rolodex.
05:46Long before our pocket-sized computers did everything for us,
05:49many people, especially in the business world, relied heavily on the Rolodex.
05:54It was a spinning cylinder filled with cards.
05:56Each contained contact information for a single individual or business.
06:00People kept Rolodexes because they were an easy way to sort and find any of their notable contacts.
06:05This was a time when cell phones were rather rare and their storage limited,
06:09so physical directories were the obvious choice.
06:11With the exponential advancement of smartphones, however,
06:14it's clear why they didn't survive the new age of technology.
06:17I have been using Rolodexes for a very long time.
06:23I couldn't wait.
06:24I remember growing up and I couldn't wait to have my own Rolodex
06:28and keep my own information in them.
06:35Once again, thanks to technology,
06:37we now live in a time where people can enjoy connections across the planet
06:40without ever needing to leave home.
06:42Whether it's through messaging, online games, or video calls,
06:45having friends that span country borders is quite common today, although not new.
06:50Before online methods of meeting people,
06:52you could become friends with a stranger across the globe by exchanging written letters with them.
06:56You would have been pen pals.
06:58There were even entire organizations built around the idea of connecting people through the miracle of snail mail.
07:03This is one we'd like to petition to bring back.
07:05There's something touching and personal about connecting through handwritten letters.
07:21Adobe Flash
07:29Here's one many people are glad faded into oblivion.
07:32In the early days of the World Wide Web,
07:34online video, graphics, and even animation was extremely primitive.
07:38Along came Adobe Flash, which changed all that.
07:41It gave birth to some of the first web-based games
07:43and quickly became the standard for multimedia graphics.
07:51Flash
07:56However, as time went on and technology evolved,
07:59the issues with Flash became more and more apparent.
08:02Security concerns and poor support for mobile devices were among the biggest complaints.
08:12Newer and more stable platforms emerged,
08:14eventually pushing Flash out of the limelight and into the dustbin of history.
08:20MTV Music Videos
08:34It was a channel dedicated to nothing more than music and the videos that went with them.
08:38During its heyday, MTV helped launch countless artists into the stratosphere.
08:42To have your band in regular rotation or appearing on Total Request Live
08:46meant millions of new fans could hear your music.
08:48It transformed the entire industry by giving artists a new place to find fans.
08:52But as time passed, MTV became more about its original programming and reality TV than music.
08:58Today, the channel still targets the younger demographics with its content,
09:02but has long since moved away from the likes of Madonna and Dire Straits.
09:13Dial-Up Modems
09:19Internet Access
09:25Internet access has come a long way in the decade since the 90s.
09:29These days, wireless internet, broadband, and LAN cables
09:32provide fast and easily accessible internet for billions.
09:35But back in the day, the internet could only be accessed through phone lines.
09:39Dial-Up Modems took up an entire phone line at home.
09:42While a few remote or rural areas are still using Dial-Up Modems today,
09:47the rest of us will never have to hear that awful Dial-Up screeching again.
09:51Except in our nightmares and in nostalgic internet videos like this one.
10:02Butterfinger BBs
10:03There are plenty of discontinued candy products from the 90s.
10:06One of the most beloved are Butterfinger BBs.
10:09These bite-sized balls of Butterfingers were easy to pop in your mouth
10:13and still maintained the full-sized candy bar's unique texture and peanut buttery flavor.
10:17Plus, they were advertised by Bart Simpson.
10:22Unfortunately, despite the campaign slogan warning that
10:25nobody better lay a finger on our Butterfinger,
10:27the BBs were discontinued in 2006.
10:32Although no official explanation has been released,
10:35some have theorized that the BBs' chocolate coating, which melted easily,
10:39may have been responsible.
10:41While a similar smaller Butterfinger version was released called Butterfinger Bites,
10:45they never attained the same popularity.
11:01During the 90s, the internet was not the trusted source of information it is,
11:05well, can be today.
11:07Online encyclopedias were still in their infancy.
11:10Before the rise of Wikipedia,
11:12there was another computer-based encyclopedia called Encarta.
11:15Launched in 1993 and originally packaged in DVD form,
11:19this annually updated program contained thousands of informative articles
11:23on a wide variety of topics.
11:25Not only did Encarta include text,
11:27there were also videos, pictures, and even trivia games.
11:40However, naturally, the rise of online encyclopedias
11:43ultimately led to Encarta's downfall,
11:45and Microsoft ceased its publishing in 2009.
11:52During the 90s, audio formats were still very much a competition.
11:55One often forgotten contender is the mini-disc.
11:58Published by Sony, these miniature discs were envisioned
12:01as the next big thing to replace cassette tapes.
12:10However, despite proving popular in Sony's native Japan,
12:13MD players couldn't find success at a global scale.
12:16Record labels didn't take to the format quickly,
12:18leaving few albums available initially.
12:21Plus, blank MDs were twice as expensive as blank CDs.
12:25By the time MP3 players became available,
12:27mini-discs were on their way out.
12:29Although niche markets kept them in circulation until 2013.
12:41The 90s saw a trend of clear drinks,
12:43and alcoholic beverages were no exception.
12:46Coors got in on the trend and created Zima in 1994,
12:49a clear malt beverage intended as an alternative to beer.
13:05While the beer found more success among young women,
13:08Coors did their best to market it towards a male consumer base.
13:11In the end, most didn't especially enjoy the taste,
13:14and the product began disappearing from shelves,
13:17at least in the West.
13:18Coors discontinued Zima in North America in 2008,
13:21but the beverage remained popular in Japan until 2021.
13:34During the early 90s,
13:35the biggest one was easily milk caps or pogs.
13:44Players would stack cardboard discs with pictures printed on them,
13:48anything from cartoons to sports logos.
13:50Then, another larger disc, called a slammer,
13:53was used to knock down as many pogs as possible.
13:55Because each player would often keep the pogs won this way,
13:58it was viewed by many schools as a form of gambling,
14:01leading to widespread bans.
14:05When kids can't play something at school,
14:07it tends to kill the popularity pretty quickly.
14:10While they're technically still around,
14:12and there are variants on the game worldwide,
14:14pogs' popularity is far from what it used to be.
14:21Before and during the 90s,
14:23most screens were created using CRT,
14:26or cathode ray tube technology.
14:28Naturally, computer screens were no exception.
14:31But the last few decades have seen the rise of LCD,
14:34OLED, and plasma monitors,
14:36which are cheaper,
14:37and generally have larger screens than CRT monitors.
14:41Some people, particularly computer gamers,
14:44still prefer CRTs,
14:45because they don't have as much input lag
14:47and can display images in multiple resolutions more easily.
14:51In general, though,
14:52these guys have been around for a long time,
14:54and they're still popular.
14:57Video games were still considered a niche industry in the 90s,
15:00so they weren't mainstream enough to be covered extensively on TV,
15:04or the still newfangled internet.
15:10Enter gaming magazines.
15:12If you were a 90s gamer,
15:14chances are you were subscribed to one or more gaming magazines.
15:17And if you were,
15:18chances are you were subscribed to one or more gaming magazines.
15:21And if you were,
15:22chances are you were subscribed to one or more gaming magazines.
15:26Electronic Gaming Monthly,
15:28Nintendo Power,
15:29Computer Gaming World,
15:30Tips and Tricks,
15:31these publications gave gamers detailed articles on upcoming games,
15:35walkthroughs,
15:36cheat codes,
15:37and reviews.
15:38Plus, they had a surprising level of reader interaction for major publications.
15:42Tragically,
15:43most gaming magazines ceased publication
15:45as the rise of internet journalism
15:47made the old monthly issue model obsolete.
15:49Why wait to read about it in a magazine when it's already online?
15:55Removable computer storage in the 90s
15:57used to take the form of small 3.5-inch floppy disks,
16:00although the name is a bit misleading for those disks,
16:03which, unlike the disks of the 80s,
16:05weren't floppy at all.
16:07When you needed to save or move information between computers,
16:10floppy disks were everyone's go-to.
16:12You just popped them into the fabled A drive and off you went.
16:15They were so widely used
16:17that the save icon in most programs
16:19is still the floppy disk to this day.
16:21But as technology progressed in storage capacity
16:24and needs expanded beyond a few hundred kilobytes,
16:27floppy disks are no longer in wide circulation.
16:30But if you're missing them,
16:31they're still sometimes used for emergency booting in older systems
16:34and in other industries like aeronautics.
16:40Once upon a time,
16:41we scheduled our lives around what was on TV.
16:44This was because if you didn't see a show or a sporting event when it aired,
16:47you didn't see it at all.
16:49Each time an episode aired,
16:50everyone was talking about it the next day.
16:53And sure, sometimes you could tape a show and watch it later.
16:56But sometimes working VCRs was more art than science.
16:59Appointment television was the norm.
17:01And so networks did big ratings when a show hit it big.
17:08Of course, streaming platforms now make it easy to binge shows
17:12or watch them at your own pace.
17:14While some streaming series do release episodes weekly
17:16and the concept is making something of a comeback,
17:19Appointment TV isn't mainstream again quite yet.
17:23This is the way.
17:25This is the way.
17:29Doug, everyone here is waiting for the same thing,
17:31the stroke of midnight.
17:33We all know that the human race and planet Earth
17:35are not going to be around forever.
17:37But with the new millennium on the horizon,
17:39many believed the year 2000 was going to initiate the collapse of society.
17:43Now, the federal government is comparing Y2K to a huge natural disaster,
17:48like an earthquake, a hurricane, or a tornado.
17:51It disrupts people's lives for days, weeks, or maybe even months.
17:55In the 90s, several computer experts warned
17:58that because many computer systems represented years
18:01using only the last two digits,
18:03computers would mix up 1900 and 2000.
18:06This led some folks to buy up food and supplies
18:09to tide them through an imminent apocalypse.
18:11But as it turned out, the world stepped into the new millennium
18:14with minimal issues.
18:15It hit midnight and nothing happened.
18:17It was like crickets in the newsroom.
18:19While we have dealt with a few other end-of-the-world fears afterwards,
18:22like 2012, none quite reached the same level of paranoia.
18:26The end of the world is coming.
18:28Now, come on, get in your radiation suits.
18:30Peter, we are not missing a once-in-a-lifetime event
18:32because of some wacko doomsday theory.
18:34Okay, okay.
18:35Number nine, the Windows 95 3D maze.
18:39Screen savers aren't all that common anymore
18:41now that most of our devices have a sleep function to conserve power.
18:45In the 90s, however,
18:46there was one screen saver you'd see in many homes,
18:49the Windows 95 3D maze.
18:52Here, you're basically watching your computer play a video game
18:55as it automatically takes left turns until finding the smiley face,
18:59thus resetting and generating a whole new maze.
19:02There was something really mesmerizing about it
19:04between the artificial intelligence and guessing where the face might end up.
19:07Honestly, why hasn't Microsoft made a full-fledged game out of this?
19:11Number eight, the Delia's catalog.
19:13If you weren't sure what to wear for the girls' night or the high school dance,
19:16you probably referred to this mail-in catalog of fashion.
19:20Founded in 1993, Delia's was the go-to catalog
19:23for teens who wanted to wear the latest clothes and fashion trends.
19:26Unfortunately, Delia's would be buried by competitors,
19:29in addition to being spun off and acquired on a few occasions as time went on.
19:33By the end of 2014, Delia's filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
19:37and liquidated all of its stores.
19:40I declare bankruptcy!
19:45While it tried to bounce back as an online-only store in 2015,
19:49this venture was a complete failure.
19:51Now, you can only get their clothing through the Dolls Kill brand.
19:55Number seven, Orbitz.
19:57Yes, it's the magical beady beverage
19:59that has featured on many a WatchMojo list in recent years.
20:02Is it a bug?
20:03Did someone mistake your beer for an empty
20:05and put their cigarette butt in there?
20:07With Orbitz, there was no mistake.
20:09This obscure, non-carbonated drink was manufactured
20:12with a small variety of flavors to quench your thirst and hunger.
20:16From raspberry citrus to vanilla orange,
20:19the beads and beverage made for a unique type of drink.
20:22Alas, Orbitz would live a seriously short life
20:25because of its terrible commercial performance.
20:27Given the presence of gel and gum and high sugar,
20:30one can hazard a guess at why folks weren't picking these up off the shelves,
20:34especially when seeing the edible orbs inside.
20:40Number six, the iMac G3.
20:42You gotta see this thing in person, but I'll do the best I can with video.
20:45Apple's Mac computers have come a long way.
20:48Today, design is all about improving battery life,
20:51making everything as thin as possible,
20:53and getting berated about updating iTunes even if we don't use it.
20:57But in the late 90s, a common Mac computer
20:59looked about as chunky as a CRT television set.
21:02The faster, sleeker, quieter, redesigned,
21:08and even easier to use iMac.
21:12The teal-colored Macs with their translucent Bondi blue shells
21:16were especially a huge success for Apple.
21:18But looking back, these desktop computers
21:20were also incredibly hefty and awkwardly shaped.
21:23That's because it wasn't just a monitor.
21:25This was the computer itself.
21:27Heated leather seats sold separately.
21:30Just seeing pictures of these makes us glad
21:32schools are using laptops instead.
21:34Number five, PB Crisps.
21:36Yeah, we gotta squeeze another food product in here,
21:38and this is another snack that's popped up on our lists before.
21:42PB Crisps was a special kind of sweet treat from planters,
21:45consisting of peanut-shaped cookies filled with peanut butter inside.
21:53And if you wanted an addition to peanut butter,
21:56you could buy bags of the cookies that were also filled
21:58with chocolate or strawberry.
22:00Sadly, these snacks were not around for long due to low demand
22:04and have become a relic of the mid-90s.
22:06To this day, there is still a group of dedicated fans
22:10clamoring for the product's return,
22:12even going as far as to make a website dedicated to the cause.
22:16Number four, AIM, also known as AOL Instant Messenger.
22:20Just fire up that machine and off you go.
22:22You got mail!
22:24It's been a hot minute since we heard anything remotely relevant to AOL.
22:28While AOL currently exists and was acquired by Verizon in 2015,
22:33AIM ceased operations in December 2017.
22:36AOL's announcement said simply...
22:38Goodbye.
22:40We're shocked too.
22:41This service was introduced way back in 1997
22:44and became the leading messaging service in North America
22:47for roughly a decade.
22:48Wherever I go, I stay connected with everyone in my life.
22:51It's really easy to stay in touch.
22:53But as tech giants like Google and Facebook started taking over,
22:56AIM lost all purpose.
22:58I remain confused, empty.
23:01What am I evolving into?
23:03What is my purpose?
23:05I must know! Tell me!
23:07The two companies had better services and better security.
23:10Slowly but surely, AIM would begin shutting down features one by one,
23:14starting in 2007, before disappearing completely a decade later.
23:18Having failed to keep up with ever-evolving technology,
23:21we're forced to say TTFN to the iconic service and a simpler time
23:26we can only hope will be our beat.
23:29TTYL.
23:31Number 3. Netscape Navigator
23:33She was 18 years old.
23:34She doesn't even know what Netscape is.
23:36These days we have dozens of web browsers vying for our attention.
23:40From Google Chrome to Mozilla Firefox to Safari to DuckDuckGo.
23:44We remember way back when the internet was a baby
23:47that there was only one browser to use.
23:49Netscape Navigator.
23:51This browser was created in 1994
23:53and for a short time went uncontested in the industry.
23:56What about all those other low-cost guys?
23:58Don't you want an ISP that's fast, safer, reliable and more secure?
24:04What happened to cause such decline?
24:06Well, Internet Explorer happened.
24:09Then Chrome, Firefox, Safari, all of them.
24:12Netscape would receive its final update in 2007
24:15before ceasing support and development the year after.
24:18Everything has to change faster, obviously.
24:20You know, look at Netscape.
24:21It was born and died.
24:23I don't want to use the word died.
24:24They wouldn't like that word.
24:25But it basically was born and overtaken within four years.
24:29That's pretty fast.
24:30Number 2. The Discman
24:32Like Walkmans in the 80s, Discmans became a crucial part of our lives.
24:36There just wasn't anything like going on a walk or exercising
24:39while jamming out to the newest albums.
24:41Besides radios, this was pretty much the way to listen to music.
24:46Of course, as we find new ways to store data,
24:49we also kill off part of a medium.
24:51Nowadays, we can just open Spotify on our phones
24:54and jam to anything we desire without having to eject a CD
24:57and holster something chunky on our waist.
24:59Still, there is something tactile to be missed here.
25:02Your ears will tell you.
25:03It's not only what you play.
25:05It's what you play it on.
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25:23Number 1. Video Rental Stores
25:26Oh!
25:28Dork.
25:31Jesus, this place is packed tonight, man.
25:33Those who grew up in the 80s, 90s or 2000s
25:36fondly look back on video rental stores.
25:39While the very first such stores opened in the late 70s,
25:42it was in the 90s that bigger brands like Hollywood Video
25:45and Blockbuster boomed in demand.
25:47For some families, weekly trips to these stores would become a tradition
25:51as new movies made their way to the shelves
25:53and movie buffs sought out hidden gems.
25:56Wow! Wow!
26:02This industry would decline, however,
26:04as Netflix and streaming services became more and more prominent.
26:08Hollywood Video would go defunct in 2010,
26:10while Blockbuster enjoys a few thousand customers
26:13through its last and only store, located in Bend, Oregon.
26:17When you see them all next to each other,
26:19it's kind of, makes it easier,
26:22but with like on Netflix, you only see the title,
26:25and that's all, but you have to like scroll through it,
26:27and it takes a while to get through all of the movies.
26:29Did we miss any beloved hallmarks from the 90s?
26:32Let us know in the comments.
26:33And you're just playing with other people, and they're all nice,
26:36and you just have fun with other people,
26:39like from different, even different countries sometimes.
26:42Did you enjoy this video?
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