By Caitlin Fletcher

I am proud to say I am a 90s child, like all of you. I was born in October 1994, right in the middle of the 90s. With the 90s came boy bands and, better yet, TV shows. I grew up watching some great TV: “All That,” “Keenan and Kel” and “Spongebob Squarepants.” However, some shows just take the cake for being the best TV shows of the 90s. So, with that being said here is my list of top ten 90s TV shows (in no specific order).

10. When I was making this list, there was one show I knew I could not leave out. These babies have been stranded in the forest and on an island. They’ve traveled through the streets of Paris in a giant dinosaur. They’ve also traveled into their friends’ stomach to retrieve a watermelon seed. That’s right, I’m talking about “The Rugrats.” I have to say my childhood would not have been the same had I never met Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil and yes, even Angelica. I’m proud to say that I have eight video cassettes at home with multiple episodes of this amazing show on each. I also have the first “Rugrats” movie. There is no doubt that this is one of my favorite, if not very favorite, shows of the 90s.

9. TJ, Gus, Mikey, Gretchen and Spinelli. If you’re not familiar with those names, then maybe you’ll recognize Ms. Finnster? No? If you don’t, then let me spark your memory. “Recess”gave me many ideas of what recess had the potential to be. Obviously, I was never able to flip myself over the swing set, I never had a playground monitor quite like Ms. Finnster and I never met anyone like those five kids that I wish had gone to my school, but a girl can still dream right?

8. Two words: football head. That’s right, “Hey Arnold” definitely made my list of greatest 90s TV shows. Every kid knew the sound of Helga’s voice calling “ARNOLD” whenever she was acting like she hated him (every kid who watched this show also knew Helga was actually in love with him). I remember Helga’s shrine to Arnold in her room, and to this day, I still get a little creeped out thinking about it, not gonna lie.

7. “Do you have it? Guts!” Nickelodeon game shows were some of my favorite things to watch, but by the time I was watching them, they were reruns. Did it even matter? No, because “Guts” and “Legends of the Hidden Temple” were some of my favorite childhood shows. “Guts” had those very random, very cool looking physical challenges that I could only dream of one day completing. “Legends of the Hidden Temple” featured kids running through a “temple” trying to make it to the right room while the remaining team tried to recover the specific artifact. However, it wasn’t always easy: there were temple guards hiding all over just waiting for a chance to pop out at whoever crossed their path. I’ve never seen another game show quite like those I saw in the 90s.

6. “In West Philadelphia, born and raised…” Any respectable 90s kid should be able to finish this song easily. “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” was a popular show for any kid who loved to watch Will messing with his cousin, Carlton or getting yelled at by his Uncle Phil. This was one of Will Smith’s first roles, and it is debatably one of the funniest shows of the 90s. So funny, in fact, that I can’t flip through TV channels on a Saturday without finding a rerun playing somewhere.

5. “Boy Meets World” is another show that needs to be mentioned if we’re talking about 90s TV shows. I’m not sure how I could’ve gotten through my childhood without knowing Cory, Shawn, Topanga and especially Mr. Feeny. Even though I loved the show, the first and second season were by far the best, and then the college years ended up being kind of a let down. But, this show still rocked my world. I loved everything about it, especially Cory’s ditsy older brother, Eric.

4. Don’t you wish that you could just point your finger and then whatever you want would be sitting right in front of you? I do. All the time. Especially when I’m watching reruns of “Sabrina the Teenage Witch.” That girl is living the life. She has some cool friends, awesome aunts and she’s a witch. However, she doesn’t always get what she wants: most of the spells she casts turn out terribly wrong, but we still love watching her go through it every step of the way. From the time she accidentally makes a tornado in her school to the time when she visits an amusement park in outer space, I’ve been watching and I loved every episode of it.

3. I’d like the think of this show as the best thing that ever happened to the Olsen twins. That’s right: “Full House.” I know all of you know this show. We grew up watching DJ, Stephanie and Michelle Tanner being raised by their dad, Danny, their “uncle,” Joey and their real uncle, Jesse. While I loved these main characters, no one on this show ever made me laugh quite as much as Kimmy Gibbler, the Tanner’s next door neighbor. She may have been a little eccentric, but she was always did things that were so weird, they ended up being funny. This show was so good that there are still a lot of channels that play it today.

2. A lot of people don’t know this, but “Sister, Sister” was in fact a show from the 90s. We all loved watching Tia, Tamara, Ray and Lisa navigate living together. The two twins, separated at birth, could not have been funnier and more different. Tia was more studious while Tamara was a little bit crazier. We watched as they grew up with their neighbor Roger. Overtime, Roger grew from the weird looking kid who lived next door, to the cute kid who looked very different from when the show began. This show made me laugh constantly, and would probably still make me laugh today if I ever saw it on TV.

1. I remember spending countless mornings before school sitting in front of my TV as I ate my breakfast trying to watch “Saved by the Bell” before I had to leave. This show was probably one of my favorites for a while. Zach Morris was cute and Screech was funny. Who am I kidding? I thought they were all funny, especially Lisa, although I’m not really sure why. I love watching Zach compete with Slater to win Kelly’s heart, I think at least some of us know how that turned out. That show, like “Boy Meets World,” was the best in its early years. Although, I like the college years, the junior high/high school years were always so much better.

As I flip through the channels on my TV today, I can’t find anything quite like these shows from the 90s. Sure, the occasional rerun is played, but there is nothing new that comes close to being as funny or as entertaining for me as the shows I watched in the 90s. All I have to say is thank God for Netflix, because without it I’d be missing those shows way too much.