‘That ‘90s Show’ Continues ‘That ‘70s Show’s Trend of Not Hitting for the People Who Lived Through It

To presumably help pacify anyone suddenly waking up from a 25-year coma, we've just gotten yet another sitcom reboot, That '90s Show, which combines our fondness for That '70s Show with our nostalgia for AOL jokes and Beverly Hills, 90210 reruns.

But for anyone who actually grew up in the 1990s, something about the show may seem… off – and we're not just talking about the janky Party City wigs some of the actors are forced to wear. 

For starters, the pilot's first big nostalgia-baiting '90s needle drop is Alanis Morissette's rage-filled anthem about (allegedly) pleasuring Dave Coulier in a theater: "You Oughta Know." Leia Forman's soon-to-be new best friend, Gwen, knows every single word by heart. Except the episode explicitly establishes that it's July 3, 1995, while Alanis' song wasn't released until July 6. And it didn't become a hit until weeks later.

Okay, granted, that's a pretty finicky detail – but later, after Leia and her friends have hotboxed the basement, she hallucinates that Red and Kitty have become Donkey Kong characters. But weirdly, they look way more advanced than any video game from '95; Donkey Kong titles were still being released for the Super Nintendo back then, and the N64 and its blocky 3D pleasures were still a whole year away.

But this is nothing new for the franchise, as the original That '70s Show (and probably That '80s Show too, but who the hell remembers) was full of random anachronisms. The series' period accuracy was a little like the diet version of a soda; close, but with a slightly weird taste. Much of That '70s Show probably rang false for adults who were around in the '70s but not for the teenagers watching the show in the late '90s and early 2000s.

This means that, now that the franchise is tackling the '90s, those of us who grew up watching That '70s Show get to be the "well, actually" adults poking holes at its imperfect depiction of the past. Everything's come full circle. Just like how Eric and Donna are "upstairs people" now:

So Zoomers, enjoy this franchise while you can because you're only 20 years away from That '10s Show, and you not being able to shake off inaccuracies about TikTok trends and Taylor Swift albums.

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