Little Hiccups: The 90s: The Last Decade Before the Future

Want to feel old?

If you’re a similar age to me, a sure fire way to feel old is to see your teen and early adult years on display in a museum. Yep… I’m officially “my life is a museum exhibit” old!

But it’s all good. It’s nostalgia. It’s memories.

I’m talking about the fun exhibition “The 90s: The Last Decade Before the Future” currently on display at the History Colorado Center. It’s a celebration of a decade that doesn’t feel that long ago, but also feels a whole world away. A decade and a time long gone.

Just like the 90s, the exhibition is about to become a thing of the past, with only a few days left to visit. So grab your Discman and your Blockbuster membership card, throw on a pair of parachute pants, look up History Colorado Center in your street directory, and make your way there by this weekend to revisit the nostalgia of the 90s.

Let’s take a look at what you’ll find…

The 90s: The Last Decade Before the Future is a thoughtfully put together exhibition that features a wealth of memorabilia, historic items, interactive displays, audio, video, and lots of photos. You’ll find fashion, music, movies, pop culture, politics, sports, world events, technology, toys, and the products we used in our daily life. Now, as someone who did not grow up in the USA, I will point out that it is definitely a very American focused exhibition, so a lot of the sporting and political exhibits were unfamiliar to me, but the same would be true for an American visiting a similar exhibition in Australia. For the most part, the majority of the exhibition featured moments I remember - just not in the sporting section!

Upon entering the exhibition you’ll find a large screen sharing snippets of media from throughout the 90s. Music videos, news clips, iconic movie moments, and so much more greet visitors as they enter. From here the exhibition is divided into each year of the 90s, as well as areas dedicated to themes such as fashion, sports, and entertainment.

Each year features walls of photos and information about important events, and a handful of historic items on display. You’ll find Bill Clinton’s saxophone, a t-shirt and ticket from the first Lollapalooza festival, a piece of the Berlin Wall, an original South Park paper cutout, vintage magazines, sporting mementoes, political pamphlets and much more.

The technology section of the exhibition features a desk set up that was common in the 90s, with one of the colorful, transparent iMacs (which seemed so modern to me as I had a beige 1996 Apple Power PC), floppy discs, a landline phone, and boxes from various popular computer programs. A display case features various 90s items that we can now carry in our pocket thanks to smart phones. Remember how we were always told at school that we wouldn’t have a calculator in our pockets at all time? Ha! Portable phones throughout the decade are displayed starting with a big, boxy car phone through to a flip cell phone.

The fashion section of the exhibition features fun styles throughout the decade. Think grunge flannel, parachute tracksuits, Doc Martens with floral dresses, super baggy jeans, Coogi sweaters (which will never not make me think of Kath & Kim!), and looks straight from Clueless.

The movie section is particularly fun, with a mock Blockbuster store set up for interactive photo opportunities. The walls are lined with shelves of video tapes, just like a real video rental store, and costumes from Ghost, Addams Family, and Saving Private Ryan are on display.

Music makes a decade, and the 90s sure did have a lot of great music! Now, as an Aussie, I did notice that there was a distinct lack of BritPop and techno, (both of which were HUGE in Australia), but I was pleased to see a lot of albums on display that I loved in my younger years - and even now. The music part of the exhibition also features Melissa Etheridge’s guitar, vintage portable music players, concert tickets, outfits from the Backstreet Boys, Snoop Dogg, and Eminem, and an interactive game to choose the best song of the 90s. Whoever had been there before me chose well and gave the top spot to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. I approve!

Now, I’ll admit that I was pretty much lost in the sporting section of the exhibition. A combination of not being American nor being interested in sports meant that I knew basically nothing about the exhibits here, but there are some pretty interesting items on display including sporting jerseys, Super Bowl tickets, Olympic medals, and Wayne Gretzky’s ice hockey stick.

Want to get a little more hands on with 90s technology? The exhibition features a living room set up with a Nintendo 64 playing Mario Kart. I was by myself so I didn’t have anyone to play against, but as my kids will tell you, I’m terrible at any “3-dimensional” games anyway. And by that, I mean anything that doesn’t just go across the screen, up and down. Give me the old Super Mario Brothers on the original Nintendo any day! I also tried my hand at a Magic Eye book, but, just like in the 90s, I could not make any images appear. Could anyone ever get those things to work? This section also features popular toys including Tickle Me Elmo, Tamagotchi and Furby. I worked in a toy store when all three of these toys came out, and trust me, there was a LOT of chaos from parents trying to get their hands on each one!