Listen To Sassy: Life In The 90s

Who has tattoos? What snack does Iggy Pop most resemble? How seriously do we need to take Perry Farrell's 1990 First Amendment statement? What's wrong with Whit Stillman? Is there a minimum age for album reviewers? What's "Balt"?! We answer all these questions and so many more in the October 1990 Pop Culture episode! QUICK LINKS 🗒 Full episode notes can be found on this episode's page on our websi...

More so than usual, the Teen Life topics of the October 1990 issue are here to help you figure out your life. What might a wise older person tell you about trying to get your driver's license? What jobs are so weird you might actually want to do them? How do you heal from a parent's substance use issues? Then there's Amy, who writes an It Happened To Me about her internship at Mad magazine, not kn...

Shop like a model; dress like an elf!

There's a lot of pop culture in the September 1990 issue that will need revision sooner or later. Like: a report on the cancellation of 21 Jump Street, just weeks before its revival in syndication. And: making James Marshall One To Watch off the strength of one season of Twin Peaks, before he went off the grid. Or: an extensive feature on The Hothouse Flowers, perhaps to justify the expense of who...

The first thing you need to know about this episode is that there was an issue with one of the tracks. It doesn't matter who did what: the result is that Dave had to use a backup to the backup, which means this is going to be a more rough-and-ready version of the podcast than you're used to. We're sorry about that, but hey: it'll be all the more enjoyable when the next episode reaches you with its...

The two of us who grew up without MTV do our best on the August 1990 quiz, Rate Your MTV-ness! (That "best" is...bad.) Then it's on to your latest calls! What bedding treasures are you finding online? Who's out here defending Madonna's I'm Breathless? Which chain restaurants reign supreme? We thrill to the journeys you're taking us on in the August 1990 Slumber Party! QUICK LINKS 🗒 Full episode no...

It's nearly time to go back to school, and Sassy has your wardrobe inspiration. Retro nerd? Cute jock? Merchant marine? It's all possible if you run with Sassy's latest tips. There's also advice on doing your hair and makeup like you didn't try, making perfectly good underwear borderline unwearable, and ads, ads, ads. (Yes, Filippo-Totti is back, THANK GOD.) Turn down your Keith Sweat or MC Hammer...

Considering that Pam has not seen a single one of the five movies reviewed in the August 1990 Watch It, we find an awful lot to say about them. But that's not all! There's also dolphins, Butt-head, Goo, spack, Barbie, garbage, Sondheim, Michael Rank, Michael Rank, and Michael Rank -- and it's all stuck together with God's glue. If that's not Enuff? Z'Nuff! QUICK LINKS 🗒 Full episode notes can be f...

Time for a new issue! Catherine kicks things off with a dark reporting trip to several locations that were, until quite recently, in the Soviet Union. Kim shares the results from a poll of guys' and girls' views, though what we mostly remember is what we thought they looked like in their underwear. Karen walks you through each day of your month as the owner of a female reproductive system. The fic...

Skipping the June 1990 Slumber Party means we're doubling up on the quizzes this time, which is just as well since they're both about half as compelling as usual. Rate Your Sassy Staff IQ? Rate Your Prejudices? Is...everyone okay? Fortunately, everyone who's left us messages since the last time we heard from you is doing great: we're delighted to hear your stories of life in Phoenix during the rod...

The July 1990 issue has a lot of ideas about your look. Some are good, like the spread of 40s-inspired swimsuits. Some are weird, like the Making It suggestion that you cut off the collar and cuffs of a buttondown shirt and just tuck them, loose, into a pullover sweater, hoping for the best. Some are simply Not Done anymore, like getting white girl "beach braids" on your visit to the Caribbean. We...

For its July 1990 issue, Sassy COULD just give you five reviews each in Listen Up and Watch It, as usual. But no: they've gone above and beyond to save you from boredom by creating a special pop culture supplement you can tear out and take straight to the video store, record store, bookstore, and library to load up on all the movies, albums, and books Sassy thinks you need to check out. Are some o...

We're diving into a new issue and...finding horror, unfortunately. Catherine interviews a girl whose high school boyfriend murdered her parents. Help offers painful-sounding advice to a letter writer looking to turn out her inverted nipples. AND Kim, Karen, and Mike are staying in low-end hotels?! Okay, that last one was a joke; their road trip sounds pretty fun. And there's a lot to love in the i...

Summer is officially here, and that means learning how to stay beautiful in the water, and not use too much, but also splash your face 20 times when you wash it. It means spending time in the sun, and boiling a whole lettuce head to use the juice to soothe your skin if you burn it. It also means taking a perfectly good one-piece swimsuit, cutting it into two, tying it in knots, and hoping for the...

We're learning a lot both in the pop culture topics as covered in the June 1990 Sassy, and ALSO in our further research about them. A Parenthood TV show? The couple I Love You To Death was based on? Who Rachel Hunter would end up with after Kip Winger? How many more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies would follow the 1990 début? There's just so much to know! We also touch on Kate Pierson, Spanky...

CW: sexual assault. We're cracking open the June 1990 issue and kicking off with a discussion of its Teen Life topics! After racing as fast as possible through "Boys Who Raped," we lighten up with a look at some of Texas's most impressive teen cowgirls, and another Kim banger -- this time on what might make you a bad friend. Sandra Tyler achieves Elizabeth Mosierian heights with her fiction piece,...

The May 1990 Sassy quiz invites us to Rate [Our] Embarrassability, almost as though they don't know the kinds of things we have disclosed on this podcast. And then, we're taking your calls, including some of YOUR embarrassing disclosures! What got up a listener's child's nose, and how did it get out? What are your phones recommending you buy, perhaps based on your listening to us? HOW MANY of you...

We still have a little left to say about Johnny Depp -- he is our cover boy, after all -- but then we get into the fashion (etc.) of the May 1990 issue. The photos for a swimsuit story starring Lou Rawls's model daughter Louann all come out looking brown. Editorial on mixing prints gets mixed reviews. And the blue-green beauty story raises a lot more questions than it answers. We also cover Alice...

We've had a lot of different feelings about Johnny Depp, the May 1990 cover boy, over the course of our lives, and while we might want to distance ourselves from the people we were in May 1990, when he was about as hot and sexy as he would ever be...we can't; we have to talk about him -- not only because there's a feature profile on him, but because he's all over the rest of the magazine too! His...

It's time to crack open a brand-new (33-year-old) issue of Sassy! A lovely profile of Cara Dunne, a blind Harvard student, is chased by the horror show of Karen's report on volunteering at a vet's office. Kim has the brilliant brainstorm of soliciting stories of her colleagues' teen cruelty to their moms, and THEN reaching out to said moms for comment. Christina goes to Hawaii to interview some wo...

It's the April 1990 Slumber Party, which means we've gotten into our sleeping bags despite having had WAY too much Jolt Cola. After sharing our results in the Rate Your Movie Knowledge quiz, we're playing your 20+ calls, on subjects ranging from the sound of dot matrix printers, how Jason Priestley's cuteness defies pixelation, and what criteria you must meet to join Dave at The Olive Garden. All...

The April 1990 issue knows exactly what you need to wear. Six essential pieces, half of which are actually visible in the fashion story! Tattoo prints and embroidery! Ballet slippers with gold shoelaces for some reason! WIGS! All this plus ads for Rit dye and a demented t-shirt, intern testimonials and world-class letters, and much much more in our latest Fashion Etc. episode! QUICK LINKS 🗒 Full e...

Is Tremors actually a better movie than its marketing would have you believe? Will new Young Guns make the Young Guns sequel more compelling than the original? Who exactly is ruining the scene outside Grateful Dead shows? And why didn't Jason Priestley talk to Christina -- surely Sister Kate couldn't be keeping him that busy? We answer all these questions and tons more you literally never could ha...

The April 1990 issue may have fewer Teen Life features, but what they lack in number they make up for in discussion value. Mike counsels us on how not to talk to guys. A story on an anorexic girl basically leaves her out entirely. Christina is stunned to learn that dolphins...may not want to swim with humans? All this and more, from Gilda Marx to the family restaurant Dave is deprived from visitin...

The March 1990 quiz dares readers to "Rate Your Self-Centeredness," and we dropped everything to do a deep analysis on life's main characters: us! In fact, because the voicemailbox was a bit empty this time around -- maybe the heat wave fried your phones? -- that we were able to focus on our responses to the quiz for twice as long as we normally do! Then, we flipped over to your calls on topics in...