90s TV Show Valentines for You and Yours

Valentine's Day Anecdote: When I was in 6th grade, one of my teachers had us make construction paper-crayon-safety scissor valentines. Everyone was supposed to make a valentine for one other person in the class. My friends paired up, but I guess there was an odd number of kids, because I didn't have a partner. No one seemed to notice or care. I spent the entire class period begrudgingly making a valentine, while hoping that all of my "friends" would drop dead and subsequently burn in the eternal fires of hell. I was also trying to stifle my tears, and was doing a good job of it, until everyone exchanged valentines. Naturally, I broke down. Everyone was standing in the hallway by this time, and a bunch of girls from my class came up to me, wanting to know what was wrong. I told them that no one made a valentine for me. After hearing this, some of them ran back into the classroom and jerry-rigged a crude valentine out of scraps of paper. In retrospect, I suppose this was sort of sweet. But, at the time, I thought it was total bullshit, and I threw that thing away. My teacher must have seen me crying because I ended up having to go to this group for emo, "at-risk" girls, led by the school counselor every week.


I've made these 90s TV show valentines for you to share with the people you care about, in the hopes that no one you love will have to go through what I went through all those years ago. 

Roseanne

Full House

My So-Called Life

Friends

Dawson's Creek

The Nanny

Martin

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Clarissa Explains It All

Boy Meets World

The three girls that middle school boys were into during the mid-90s AKA The three girls I hated during the mid-90s AKA The three girls I desperately wanted to be during the mid-90s

I preferred Topanga during the first season of Boy Meets World. You know, when she was super into metaphysics and crimped hair. (That shift from loony to normal at the start of the second season was never explained to my satisfaction). But it wasn't until the BMW gang started high school that Cory Matthews began to see her as fodder for his wet dreams/the kind of girl he could eventually marry, stifle, prevent from attending Yale, etc. 


What was so great about Topanga? Well, initially, I think it was that prodigious mass of hair on her head.

Because even though she had those pouty lips, that hair was kind of extraordinary. (I can only assume that--like Alec Baldwin--she was injecting steroids into her hair follicles while subsisting primarily on a diet of Mane 'n Tail.) But as the character aged, I think the main draw was her chest. Which was huge. She had big boobs.

During the first couple of seasons of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Ashley was just Will Smith's impressionable little cousin and kind of faded into the background. Sure, she was cute, and every once and a while Tevin Campbell would sing to her or whatever, but no one was really pining after to her.

But then she turned 15 or 16 and became this mega hot chick--10 times hotter than her sister Hilary, who I think was supposed to be the hot chick. I erroneously believed that I'd undergo a similar transformation when I entered high school.

 Even though, I always wanted to have hair like hers, the thing I was most jealous about, when it came to Ashley Banks, was that she--well Tatyana Ali--was dating Jonathan Brandis! I still remember how inconsolable everyone was when that news broke--I'd liken it to the day that JFK was shot. 

Since The Secret World of Alex Mack aired on Nickelodeon, Alex had to have a higher caliber, cable network-worthy kind of cuteness. And because of that, she's the mid-90s teen girl that men my age really seem to carry a torch for. She was a total tomboy with no boobs to speak of but still, supremely adorable.

In the first episode of the show, a top secret chemical (GC-161) was dumped all over her, giving her the ability to turn into a puddle--a power that was far more useful than you'd think--and even in liquid form, she was totally cute.

Any jealousy I might harbor is superseded by awe--she had the absolute best 90s wardrobe.

I wanted to be this girl when I was 12 and I still want to be this girl at 27.

Tatyana Ali photos [via]