Kids these days just don’t know what they’re missing. Glued to phone screens and Xbox remotes, they’ll never know the true joy that comes from an iconic Etch-A-Sketch. Or perhaps, the girl power that comes from writing in your Lisa Frank Diary. Calling all 90s kids — do you remember these popular things in the 90s?
And WHAT IS CHRISTMAS without a Lite Brite on your wish list, Amiright?
32 Iconic Toys and Popular Things in the 90s You’ll Definitely Remember
The 80s and 90s were some of the best times to be alive. Kids today will never understand.
“I think that period of time was sort of nostalgic,” Jennifer Aniston says of her 90s TV show, Friends, which ran for 10 seasons on NBC from 1994-2004.
“I think people have such an affection for it because even though it was only 12 years ago that it ended, or 13…there was something about a time where our faces weren’t stuffed into cell phones. We weren’t checking Facebook and Instagram. We were in a room together, in a coffee shop together. We were talking, having conversations. We have lost that.”
Long before cell phones and social media made their way onto the scene, 90s kids were living their best lives with some of the greatest FisherPrice creations ever manufactured, and gym classes that were all the rage.
Whether you were born in the 1990s or had the pleasure of living through it, here are 32 things only 90s kids will remember.
1. The original Koosh Ball
Forget fidget spinners. This sensory-soothing little sucker was the original stress reliever!
2. Scratch-N-Sniff Stickers
Otherwise known as the original emoji, these little guys were the ONLY way for cool kids to communicate back in the day. We covered notebooks, lockers, folders and graded papers with stickers of all kinds! And bonus points if like these, yours were scratch-n-sniff!
3. A Play Kitchen
I don’t know about you, but my childhood was filled with “playing house.” And every good four-year-old knows, you can’t be a mommy to 70 little baby dolls if you don’t have a kitchen to cook them food in! Bonus points if your play kitchen had an ice maker like this one!
4. The Big Wheel
Nothing says 90s kid like a decked-out Big Wheel. How else did you expect to get around the neighborhood and bounce from house to house?
5. ALL The Girly Games
Whether you were playing Girl Talk or Mall Maddness, there was no greater afternoon with your gal pals than setting up shop with one of these gems on your bedroom floor. We lived out our Mary Kate and Ashley Dreams, while talking to “Brad” from Mystery Date!
6. Mathlink Cubes
I mean, WHAT was math class without these glorious rainbow cubes? If you weren’t arranging them in a perfect rainbow, you were seeing how many you could connect in a straight line before it breaks!
7. Stacking Point Pencils
They either lasted forever, or you had a pencil with 8 dull tips. Whatever the case, these were bound to be found in every goodie bag and pencil case across America in the 90s.
8. Gushers
Did you even live in the 90s if you didn’t have Gushers packed in your lunch every day? High fructose corn syrup and ALL the dyes, 90s kids were living GOOD!