Hi friends.

I got an overwhelmingly positive response to my latest feature, entitled “Remember This?” where I reminisce about the good old days of the 80s and 90s and remind us all why our generation is so weird…

and then I went and dropped off the face of the planet for a whole week, bringing us to episode 2 of “Remember This?” with no blog posts in between. Why? Well, to make a long story short and not invoke a pity party, I ended up in the hospital again last Tuesday with an internal hernia and had to have my second abdominal surgery in the past year. I got to come home from the hospital yesterday, but it bodes to be another formidable recovery and I’m feeling a bit down and freaked out about it all. What’s a girl to do when she’s feeling freaked out and overwhelmed?

Distract herself with something fun, of course! So with no further ado, I bring you episode 2 of “Remember This?”

1. Mmmm Bop! Okay, so this one is kind of a freebie, since I’m pretty sure no one who lived on planet earth in the year 1997 emerged unscathed by Hanson‘s infections pop tune. No one knows any of the words beyond “mmm bop”, and no one cares. I wonder where those blonde brothers are now? VH1 owes us a special on this…

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2. Whistle Pops: I was so very obsessed with these candies (I was a girl who always loved a gimmick), where you could theoretically compose a melody before enjoying your lolly.

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3. Animaniacs (and other Tiny Toons): Okay, I’m not embarrassed to admit it- I had a crazy unhealthy obsession with these cartoons in middle school. I rushed home every day to watch wakko, yakko, and dot in their mischief around the Warner Brothers set, and even had several commemorative items of memorabilia that I got from cereal boxes and other marketing schemes. To this day, I still think this show is genius, especially Pinky and the Brain…

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4. Gumball machines: 2012 may have its cake pops and whoopie pies, but the sugary craze when I was in grade school was gumball machines. Do you all remember how popular it was to have your own gumball machine (whether large or small) for a few years there? I wonder what ever happened to that thing. I just know I got such satisfaction from buying myself my own gumball… that I had already purchased… and then getting the money back. Stupid, but I loved it.

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5. Trix color changing spoons:  Another marketing gimmick that my dorky self fell for, I remember everything being more exciting if I could eat it with a color changing spoon. Just today, I was using one of my reusable Target straws to drink a smoothie, and I noticed that it was color changing as well. It brought me right back to my spoons!

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Do you remember any of these things? Who was your favorite Tiny Toon or Animaniac?

Meri