From foul combat snacks to forbidden cones and fruit-based sophistication, the most sought-after sugary snacks of his childhood still hold a special place in John Summers’ heart. Childhood is always summer in recollection, and so came with the hope of ice cream, of jandals slapping on dry pavement in the direction of the dairy. There … Read more
The latest in Sony’s stable of 90s remasters should come with a pair of rose-coloured glasses. Sam Brooks reviews the 2019 MediEvil remaster. In this generation of gaming, we’ve seen the glowed-up return of a few of our childhood avatars. The bandicoot spins back in, looking fresher than ever. The purple dragon flies back in, more … Read more
The actor Luke Perry, whose performance as Dylan McKay in the TV show Beverly Hills 90210 was an early ’90s cultural phenomenon, has died aged 52. Emily Writes pays tribute. Luke Perry, aka Dylan McKay, was my first love. There was no separating Luke from Dylan. He was Dylan. Wearing a white shirt and leather … Read more
With a new season of the much-loved drama Cold Feet beginning next week on TVNZ on Demand, Tara Ward takes a trip down memory lane to remind us all why it remains such an iconic show. 2003 was a shit year for television heroines. I spent the year in a chronic state of dehydration, first … Read more
Nothing that happens in Friday’s big celebrity cricket game will ever be as good as Paul Vautin’s catch in the 1993 Allan Border testimonial, argues Calum Henderson. This Friday afternoon at Hagley Park in Christchurch, a team of famous cricketers are playing a team of famous rugby players in a game of celebrity T20 that … Read more
Which was the best, loudest, most alternative volume of the ’90s alt-rock compilation series The Trip? Craig Major listens back to all nine editions and casts his verdict. In 1993 Sam Neill was running away from dinosaurs, Kurt Cobain was still breathing, and a compilation album released by Warner NZ thrust alternative music into the … Read more
For a brief moment in the late 20th century, New Zealand produced some of the dopest hand-painted clothing on Earth. Don Rowe talks to the founders of Kozmik Klothing. Most everyone in the 1980s dressed like shit. That’s just a fact. But for a brief moment in the late 80s, on Auckland’s North Shore, there … Read more
Twenty years on from the release of his debut album 2b S.Pacific, RNZ Music‘s Sam Wicks speaks to Che Fu about how getting kicked out of Supergroove lit the fire that helped him create his landmark album. In October 1998, BMG New Zealand released the debut solo project from Che-Fu (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Whakatere), an … Read more
Unisex bathrooms, weird homophobia and even weirder visual effects. Sam Rutledge revisits the simultaneously regressive and progressive Ally McBeal. “Men are like gum anyway – after you chew a while they lose their flavour.” Calista Flockhart’s titular Ally McBeal delivers this line in 1997 with all the guts of someone who has had absolutely enough right … Read more
Philip Matthews on the Alanis Morrissette of literature – yelping, abrasive 90s has-been Martin Amis. The 1990s come flooding back as you read The Rub of Time, a collection of essays, features and reviews by Martin Amis. It’s so 90s it should require a soundtrack by Alanis Morissette or the Cranberries. Was there ever a more 90s … Read more
One day last year Sam Brooks started re-watching The Nanny and didn’t stop. Six seasons later, this is what he learned. “Did The Nanny ever actually play in primetime in New Zealand?” This is something I often wondered as I made my way through all the show’s six seasons last year. My main memory of … Read more
What exactly happens at a ’90s nostalgia tour meet-and-greet? Daniel Smith, an usher in the VIP room at the recent I Love The ’90s tour in Auckland, reports from deep inside the sweaty belly of the beast. I was born in 1996. This gives me, among other things, the ability to remember the 90s – … Read more
The Spinoff and Spark proudly present Pod On The Couch, a weekly podcast exploring music and the people that make it. This episode: Henry Oliver talks to Jane Yee and Duncan Greive about their teenage Britpop obsession. Last week, music explainer site Pitchfork published a list of the ‘The 50 Best Britpop Albums‘. Having largely missed Britpop in … Read more
Looking back on 1990s supermarket chain Big Fresh, it seems scarcely believable. A food shopping Disneyland with live country music, a TV room for the kids and giant animatronic vegetables swaying in the rafters? Did that actually happen? But for 15 glorious years the Big Fresh supermarket chain really did exist. Kristin Hall met the … Read more
While battling a bout of bronchitis, Claire Adamson rediscovers the ’90s magic of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. In honour of its twentieth trip around the sun, I recently sat down (read: reclined on my bed with my laptop on my chest) to watch Space Jam, that much reminisced-about Michael Jordan vehicle from 1996. I had … Read more
For Rent Week, rapper/poet/writer/drummer Dominic Hoey (aka Tourettes) looks back in wonder at five shitty flats from his misspent youth. I’m of an age where, if I had my shit together in the ’90s, I could now conceivably own a home. Sometimes on the bus, I drift away in a neoliberal fantasy, where, instead wasting my youth reading … Read more
Was Squirt a weird collective cheese dream or did it actually happen? River Lin revisits a favourite childhood show, and takes a walk down memory lane with the key players. As a kid, I devoted most of my Saturday mornings to watching Squirt. It had the best cartoons. The penguin, Spike, was the height of … Read more
Pete Douglas revisits an original Dawson’s Creek drinking game he helped invent in the late 90’s to see how it stacks up today. I remember reading about Dawson’s Creek before it even made it to New Zealand screens back in 1999. The show was promised as a kind of Party of Five or Beverly Hills … Read more