Like the generations that came before them, '90s kids were always pestering their parents for a pet. And while you might not have ended up with the pony of your dreams, there's a good chance you had a Tamagotchi--the famous digital, handheld pets first released in the United States in 1997.
While they might not have been as fuzzy or friendly as a real pet, they did share one thing in common with our four-legged friends--they died if you didn't take care of them. Thankfully, unlike a real pet, reviving your Tamagotchi was a simple as pressing the reset button! Despite the numerous knock-offs that inevitably arose from this craze, nothing could beat the original Tamagotchi.
On the surface, the Bop-It seemed patently absurd. A digital voice would give commands to "bop", "pull", or "twist" the toy, and if you couldn't get it done before the timer went off, it was game over for you. It was truly a very simple and strange toy, but it sold like wildfire when it was released in 1996.
However, this toy wasn't one that faded with the '90s. Over the years, Hasbro has released numerous variations on the original toy, and in 2019, they even re-released the original Bop-It that '90s kids knew and loved. Why people love this silly thing so much is beyond me, but it doesn't look like it's going anywhere for a long time to come!
When it comes to Christmas toys in the 1990s, you won't find one that spawned more chaos than the Furby. These fuzzy robots could communicate with users and other Furbys via a fake language called "Furbish." However, if you played with them enough, over time, they would begin to "learn" some rudimentary English words.
While that was an interesting premise for a toy, the reaction to Furby was completely out of proportion. They became so in-demand during the 1998 Christmas season that they were in short supply, and people were willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a toy that normally retailed for $35. If you didn't fight a stranger in a toy store for a Furby, did you even really live through the '90s?
During the '90s, video games went from a niche form of entertainment for nerds to a full-blown social phenomenon. And the Nintendo 64 played a big role in that surge in popularity--unless you ask a PlayStation fan! This was Nintendo's second console release of the decade and one of the first from any company to offer fully 3D video games.
Looking back, the graphics for the Nintendo 64 look pretty pitiful by today's standards, but, at the time, this was a cutting-edge gaming experience. And any '90s kids who happened to have one probably wants to forget how many hours they wasted in front of the TV thanks to this icon of gaming technology.
The Beanie Baby craze of the 1990s proves that people will lose their minds over just about anything as long as it appears rare and in demand. While there's nothing wrong with dolls or stuffed animals (which have been around for more than a century at this point), the reaction to Beanie Babies was completely out of proportion for what they were.
While Beanie Babies might have annoyed parents everywhere in the '90s (there was no way you were gonna find the one your kid actually wanted), there was one company that owes a lot to this craze--eBay. At the peak of Beanie Baby mania, people were selling the dolls for hundreds of dollars on the site, and these toys made up about 10% of the company's total sales.
