90’s
10.24.
Pillow Pal
Pillow Pals were a line of plush toys made by Ty, Inc. during the 1990s. The toys were given their name because they were soft like pillow, and were made with children in mind. Though many of them resembled certain Beanie Babies, those that did not share names with their Beanie Baby counterparts. Such Pillow Pals saw a demise in popularity in the late 1990s with the introduction of Beanie Buddies, which were also larger versions of various Beanie Babies. In January 1999, all Pillow Pals were redesigned, and their colors were changed. This line did not sell well, and was discontinued by Ty around the end of the year.
At the time of the final retirement, Ty donated its remaining stock of pillow pals to the Ronald McDonald House to be distributed to sick children.
No Comments10.24.
Sabrina, The Teenage Witch
Sabrina, the Teenage Witch is an American sitcom based on the Archie comic book series of the same name. The show premiered on September 27, 1996 to over 17 million viewers in its ‘TGIF’ line-up.
The show stars Melissa Joan Hart as Sabrina Spellman, an American teenage witch who on her 16th birthday discovers she has magical powers. She lives with her 500-year-old aunts, European witches Hilda (played by Caroline Rhea) and Zelda (played by Beth Broderick), and their magical talking cat Salem (voiced by Nick Bakay) in the fictional town of Westbridge, Massachusetts. Sabrina also has many love interests during the course of the series, most notably her high school boyfriend Harvey Kinkle (played by Nate Richert).
Its first four seasons aired on ABC from September 1996 to May 2000; the final three seasons ran on The WB Television Network from September 2000 to April 2003. Click here to watch the intros »
No Comments10.23.
Pokemon
Pokémon is a media franchise published and owned by Japanese video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second-most successful and lucrative video game-based media franchise in the world, behind only Nintendo’s own Mario franchise. Pokémon properties have since been merchandised into anime, manga, trading cards, toys, books, and other media. The franchise celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2006, and as of May 28, 2010, cumulative sales of the video games (including home console versions, such as the “Pikachu” Nintendo 64) have reached more than 200 million copies. In November 2005, 4Kids Entertainment, which had managed the non-game related licensing of Pokémon, announced that it had agreed not to renew the Pokémon representation agreement. Pokémon USA Inc. (now The Pokémon Company International), a subsidiary of Japan’s Pokémon Co., now oversees all Pokémon licensing outside of Asia.
The name Pokémon is the romanized contraction of the Japanese brand Pocket Monsters as such contractions are quite common in Japan. The term Pokémon, in addition to referring to the Pokémon franchise itself, also collectively refers to the 649 fictional species that have made appearances in Pokémon media as of the release of the fifth generation titles Pokémon Black 2 and White 2. “Pokémon” is identical in both the singular and plural, as is each individual species name; it is grammatically correct to say “one Pokémon” and “many Pokémon”, as well as “one Pikachu” and “many Pikachu”.
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