Aside from all of the pop culture moments, 1993 was the year I started to base my entire personality on being the middle child. With that, my baby brother also likes to brag that the year he was born served up the best movies and he’s far from wrong about that. In getting everything together to talk to Diandre Robinson, host of Mass-Debaters and a member of the I Did Not Make These Rankings Podcast Network, it was pretty obvious that when it came to cinema – 1993 left no crumbs.
On my personal list, I have over a dozen movies I wanted to list below but I narrowed it down because I couldn’t leave out TV and music, but I do want to shout out a couple of video store rentals that kept me entertained back in the day before we move on. First off, my favorite Michael J. Fox movie, ‘Life with Mikey’ where he plays a former child actor turned child-actor agent. Then there is ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ in which I later discovered my crush on Jed Clampett was actually a crush on the guy who played Ernest in all of those Ernest movies. Listen to more of my love of that TV show to movie remake on Writer’s Bagel Basket. Of course, there’s ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘Hocus Pocus,’ both of which still hold up beautifully, and a VHS I wore out for some reason, ‘My Boyfriend’s Back.’
Now that I’ve shined a little light on some honorable mentions, let’s get on with the show!
Frasier
Nothing was appealing about this show to me as a kid. I also had no idea what it was about. Why would I? Like Diandre said in this week’s episode, this show was a smart comedy. So perhaps as a kid – that’s not what I was in the market for. However, fast forward to today and it’s one of my absolute favorites.
We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story
A few months ago we popped on ‘Jurassic Park’ and you’d think after what, three decades, it’d be a little lackluster when it came to the graphics and whatnot. NOPE. It still held up and I still get goosebumps whenever I hear the score BUT ‘Jurassic Park’ always gets love. So I wanted to focus on another dinosaur movie released in 1993, ‘We’re Back.’ With John Goodman as the lead and Yeardley Smith (Lisa freaking Simpson) as one of the lead kids, I was in. It came out at a time when animation wasn’t just Disney and Minions. Oh, how blessed we were. Anyways, it’s got time travel, evil doings, a scary-ass circus, and dinosaurs. What more could I have asked for?
Counting Crows ‘August and Everything After’
If you don’t know, one of my favorite bands is Matchbox 20. I’m all about that adult contemporary life. Knowing that now, you won’t be surprised to see a Counting Crows album on my list. This album doesn’t even have my favorite Counting Crows song but it has “Round Here” and “Mr. Jones.” Both of which are absolute jams.
Son-in-Law
The amount of times I watched this a couple of summers after it was released is a bit high, but I was obsessed. I wanted nothing more than to go to college and have a similar experience. Spoiler, I didn’t but I did go to the college it was filmed at so…sort maybe just a little bit of the experience?
Late Night with Conan O’Brien
There was no way six-year-old me knew who Conan was. He wasn’t found until I was a bit older, and when I did finally watch, I was quickly enamored by his bits and the way he acted with his guests. A lot of my humor and what I love about interviewing came from staying up too late to watch ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien’ in high school.
Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit
This is the best sequel to have ever existed. Period. I also still dream of dressing like the students in the final performance. That was peak fashion.
Mariah Carey “Dreamlover”
It’s hard to say, but this may just be my favorite Mariah Carey song, or at least my top 5 of her #1s. There’s something so uplifting that it just takes me away…
Mrs. Doubtfire
Like ‘Jurassic Park,’ I thought…could this hold up? It does and I think you even appreciate it a little more as an adult. It’s not my favorite Robin Williams’ movie (that belongs to ‘Jack’) but whenever it was on back in the day, I stopped and watched.
The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Marvel and DC are fine and I have enjoyed plenty of Marvel and at least three things from DC, but when it comes to superheroes, I’ll always put the OG Power Rangers above all the rest. Other than cartoons and my Barbies, I think this show was the first pop culture obsession I had that felt like I was part of a fandom, and for that – forever grateful.
The Sandlot
Being that I was a fat kid, sports were not for me. Nor did I want to watch them but when you placed them at the center of a kids’ movie, I was all in. Whether it was hockey or karate, I was down for it but ‘The Sandlot,’ for me, takes the cake. It’s got all the great quotes, Benny “The Jet” was to die for, you got this great group of friends, an adventurous summer, and this sense of nostalgia for those moments in your life where life really did just revolve around a day out with friends.
Crushgasm 
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