Throwbacks with Matt Leinart & Jerry Ferrara - The Battle of the Decades: Best of the ‘90s

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

Everybody loves the 90s and we know exactly why. For this episode Matt and Jerry kick off a new series by diving into the best of the 90s as they try to figure out which decade wins a battle of the decades. For each decade they’ll pick from a host of categories: Favorite Athlete, Best Team, Best Musician, Favorite TV Show, Best Movies and even their crush of the decade, plus much more. The guys throw it back to everything, what it was like being a kid in the 90s, how big it was to finally get caller ID and online gaming, which actors killed it that decade and finally they pick an MVP for the entire decade. Plus, this week they take a look back at the legendary 1996 NBA Draft and try to decide what was the best draft of the decade as well.   A big thank you to our sponsor:    BetMGM: Make It Legendary. Please gamble responsibly. Download the BetMGM App to get started.     03:10 What made the 90s special   04:30 Is the 1996 NBA Draft the best draft of the 90s?   06:30 The Raptors almost had Allen Iverson  08:12 Re-drafting the 1996 NBA Draft  10:27 Battle of the Decades: 1990s  11:05 Favorite Athlete of the 90s  13:54 Team of the 90s  17:29 Musician/Band of the 90s  22:05 Favorite TV Show of the 90s  25:10 Best Movies of the 90s  29:19 Best Actor of the 90s  32:00 Matt and Jerry's 1990s Crush   36:49 Top 90s Fashion Trends  39:25 Best 90s Tech Advancements   43:15 Best Video Game of the 90s  46:35 MVP of the 1990s  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I even told my wife, I said, I DM Tiffany Amber Thiessen. And I want to say this right now is I'd never expected a message back. Right. Shot your shot. I shot my shot and I got denied. So I would love to say this again. We would love to have Tiffany Amber Thiessen on this podcast. And by the way, if she ever comes on throwbacks,

I'm not so sure that I'll even make that episode because I probably would be too nervous. You don't see Maddie Ice get shook often, but that I think would definitely shake you to your very core. All right, welcome in, everybody. Throwbacks, Ferrar and Liner, our radio show that we're launching one of these days. Ferrara and Liner coming up. Do us a solid. Go over to the YouTube, all social platforms at Throwback Show. We got a really fun one for you today.

Oh, yes, we do. You know, in talking with Max Greenfield last week about the Knicks stuff, and it got me thinking about those 90s Knicks and all the stuff. And, you know, we're now more than halfway through the 20s. And I was starting to review how 2020's been going so far. Rough start for 2020, but I think we're coming out of it. But it got me thinking, and we started talking offline. Like, we should do a battle of the decades where we have some categories.

We go back and review each decade, 90s, 2000s, 2010s up till now. And we got some great categories for you. And Matt, did you have fun doing this exercise? Because if this was like a school project, I had a lot of fun doing this. Well, it's one of those things where you can, you know, off the top of your head, you can think about, oh, in the 90s, I was, you know, going into high school, man, I love this, this, this, this. But when you actually start to research and you're like, hey, what are something? And then you start to see the list of, oh, that was there. Oh, my God.

And then it opened up this whole Pandora's box of like, I remember when I used to buy these and I used to do this. So, like, dude, it was so much fun. I probably spent hours just like scrolling and deep diving on random that was in the next. 90s and 2000s, all that stuff. So what a fun little exercise. So, yeah, 90s this week. Then you look out for the early 2000s coming soon and then 2010s after that. So the categories we landed on for the 90s and so on.

Favorite athlete, these are our personal favorites. Favorite athlete, team, musician or band, song or video, TV show, movie, actor. Our favorite category, I think, was Crush. that's a huge one if you grew up in the 90s. Huge. Your on-screen crush. Lots of options there. Yeah.

Fashion trends, which when you review the 90s, it's going to be super interesting. Tech advancements and video games, which I think was a really, really cool thing. And then we kind of landed on our MVP of the decade. So that's coming up right after this. But just to set the mood, Matt, just some things when I was looking all these things up that stuck out.

I want to set the tone for the 90s. And for those of you who are, are younger listening to this, you might like this. And if those are our age, this will bring you back. But you could disappear for hours and your parents would be cool with it. There was no cameras, but yet the community kind of kept you safe.

You blocked your neighborhood, your family. You made mixed tapes for your crushes. You had to call her on the home phone and get past the parents in order to talk to her. You had to know how to talk to people. That was just no way around it, in person, one-on-one. Most video games

you played if you died, you had to start again. So you were just repeating. You had maybe two lives. Yeah. Sports arguments lasted for days on end because you didn't have the internet to get that information. You didn't really collect stuff.

You used everything you bought, like your toys, your cards, your uniforms, your jer. Everything you bought you just used. It wasn't a big collector thing. You bought things in person. You made meeting points and times to meet up with your friends. And when your parents went away, you tried your best to throw a party. and that's just the way the 90s were. God, it was so sweet.

So we have a salad appetizer for you before we get to the good stuff, the main course. When you look at the 90s, and we talk a lot of sports on this show, looking back at all the drafts of the 90s for all sports, what is the best draft for any sport of the 1990s? Of the 1990s.

Of the 1990s. I have a few honorable mentions, but I think there's one definitive. I want to do this because I think we could put this up against the early 2000s and 2010s. But we talked off air. I think we have a unanimous winner, right? I mean, 1996. 1996 NBA draft. The deepest.

I mean, I think you could argue the best because you can go back to the 80 draft with Jordan and then just the whole of, like the guys that came out of that, right? But when you look at the 1996 draft. 30 years ago on Friday, by the way, 30 years ago this draft happened. You know, you have obviously AI Marbury, Ray Allen, Kobe, obviously, Diochovich, Steve Nash. I mean, it's, and then some of the later, right, Ben Wallace was undrafted. Undrafted, but Hall of Famer. He's one of the five Hall of Famers from 1996.

Jermaine O'Neill. I mean, it's, it's. And the other notable names, D. Fish. Derek Fisher. D. Fish. It's got to be the greatest draft of all time. So.

How would you compare that to some of the other ones in the 90s? Who are some of yours? The only other things I could find that were comparable. The 93 Major League Baseball draft had like A-Rod and I think like Veritech. It wasn't very deep, but they had A-Rod. The 97 NBA draft had Tim Duncan, Chauncey Billups, T-Mack,

and like Stephen Jackson. It kind of ends there. The only other comparable draft to me was the 1998 NFL draft, which was Peyton Manning, Charles Woodson. Randy Moss. Like 18th overall, all of a sudden, which is insane. You think about it. Alan Faniga, Heinz Ward, who I think Heinz Ward is maybe one of my favorite football players

of the 90s, early 2000s. Fred Taylor, Trey Thomas. But fun facts about the 1996 NBA draft, okay? Also is the expansion year with the Raptors and the Gras. Grizzlies. And one of the rules of it, the Raptors actually won the 1996 lottery for the first overall pick, which was Alan Iverson. But because of the expansion rules, no expansion team was allowed to pick one overall.

So that's why they picked two and the Grizzlies picked Sharif Abdurheim III. I say all that to say. Who is a good player too? There's a world where the Raptors in three straight years had they kept that first overall pick would have went Iverson, T-Mack, the next. year and Vince Carter. That could have been their three picks in the row. Instead, they picked Marcus Camby,

which was still a very good pick. But let me throw this out there for you. Not as deep, but the 1992 NBA draft. Okay, let's hear it. Not terrible. Shack, number one. Yeah. Alonzo

Morning. Awesome. Guys, like, then you had a lot of, like, really good players for a long time. Jimmy Jackson. Yeah. L. I love Lafonso. Tom Googlyata was a good player for it. Clarence Weatherstone. Ory, Harold Minor.

Baby Jordan. La Trell Sprewell. Peeler. That's a really good draft. Doug Christie, PJ Brown, Corliss. It kind of tails off. But Christian Leitner,

but he obviously didn't do much in the draft. But that's not, I mean, the NBA, I mean, I guess every NBA draft, you could pretty much, you have a couple guys who ended up being great play. But I don't think anything compares to 1996. No. If I could ask you, and this question gets thrown around a lot,

if you could redraft the top five. And don't expansion, trade, nothing like that. You just redraft 96. Just how it was. You redraft 96 in the top five. Who, I mean, like Kobe, Ray Allen, Kobe one. Kobe one. I think you go Iverson 2.

That's pretty easy. For me, I probably go Nash three. Steve Nash, three. Ray Allen, four. And then five is where it's tough. Five's tough. Marbury, Pesius Stoyakovich was a freaking star. Yeah.

You have Jermaine O'Neill, who was really good for a long time. Camby, Shereef, Abdurah. Canby, yeah, I mean. I think you go Ben Wallace, if I'm being honest. Ben, he's a holly. But listen, if you're building a team, I mean, Ben Wallace, defense, he's, the best defensive player in the league for like five years. You go Ben Wallace over Antoine Walker.

To me, it's either Paysia or Ben Wallace at five. Yes. Ben Wallace or Pasia is five. Over Elgouskas? I love I'llgouskis, but yeah, I do. I do. I do put him over. I do put him over. You know what else was a fun, what if, I mean, you know, Kevin Garnett drafted the year before to the Timberwolves.

And then they had that trade on draft day. It was the bucks took Marbury. the wolves took Ray Allen and they swapped. Now, and Marbury and Garnett didn't quite work out. There was like dueling egos. Both wanted to be their team. Imagine if you slotted Ray Allen in there with Kevin Garnett, who went on to win a championship with them with the Celtics years later.

Todd Fuller. Now you're reaching, bro. I know your boy, Derek Fisher's in there, another championship pedigree. Don't sleep on Kerry Kittles. A couple of finals appearances with the New Jersey Nets. one of the first Nova players that we really talked about. Awesome draft. I think that's the winner.

1998 NFL draft second place. And we'll do this with each decade to start. Yeah. All right. Well, I think it's time. We gave you the categories. 1990s decade recap. Battle of Decades coming up on throwbacks next.

Battle of the decades. This episode, we start with the 90s. I'm going to reel off some categories and then we're going to dive in. Favorite athlete? Favorite team, musician or band, song, show, TV show, movie, actor, crush. That's a big category. That's going to maybe go viral. Fashion trends, the 90s, tech advancements, video games.

And then we might have a few after that. We might even discuss the MVP at a decade, but we're going to dive right in, Matt. You could pick one, and if you want to give out an honorable mention, your call. We're going to start with favorite athlete of the 1990. for you. So for me, this is easy, and you will be like, what the fuck? But it's not a Laker. It's not a Dodger.

It is Vince Coleman. All right. Explain. Vince Coleman. So Vince Coleman played for the Cardinals. I don't know why. I have no idea. But when I got into start collecting baseball cards, because I still collect them now,

Vince Coleman, for whatever reason, was my favorite. player to collect. Good player. Dude, he was a good player. He stole a lot of bases. Not my game. I was a pitcher. So I had, I shit you not. I think they're gone. I don't know where they're at and they're probably not worth much. But I had probably 60, not kidding you, 60 different Vince Coleman cards. I had autographs. I had everything. I had him in my book. He was the one player I collected growing up and he was like my favorite baseball player that evolved into Kobe's in the 90s, late 90s, obviously. my brother was Kirby Pucket, Ryan Sambor. It was

it was Vince Coleman so a little personal for me as my favorite athlete of the 90s. Super random. No, that's not, this is exactly what I want with this exercise.

I want random. I want personal. I could have went Kobe. I could have went like, I don't know. God, I couldn't want to be there. By the way, I have such fond memories

of Vince Coleman. For those of you out there, too, who are on the younger side, the coolest thing, I would always watch Yankee games, but every now and then I watch MET games just to see the National League because you didn't see the National League

before Interleague play. And Vince Coleman, I feel like, was always in the National League. So, yeah, Vince Coleman, good call. Vince Coleman. So I tried not to go Homer. Truly, I tried. I really did.

You always preface anything sports related. I try not to, but you do. Well, I'll give you, like, my Homer is Jeter. He just dominated the 90s. I remember I skipped, I cut school to watch his, first official at bat when he was a rookie. It was against the Indians at the time. And he had

he had a lead off home run. Like in his first at bat, like he had some at bats the year before but didn't qualify. But if I'm going off the menu Homer, like Ken Griffey Jr. Like by far, no doubt. The video game, the sneakers, the backward hat. The kid was my athlete of the 90s. He's, I also, I had Gretzky on there too because I got into hockey when I was like 10.11 and when the Kings went on the run. And they lost to the Canadians in the Stanley Cup. I think it was 94. I was like, die hard hockey, roller blades, played every day in the front yard. So I was going to go like a Luke Robitai or a Wayne Gretzky, but I got to stick with my boy, D.C. And MJ was my most hated. So, all right. Team of the 90s, Matt, for you. So this is also a

personal thing. And I wanted to think outside the box. I'm going to go with my Fountain Valley youth baseball pony all-star teams. Oh, damn. And this is why, because I'm thinking, like, again, like, who's my favorite team? The Kings, like, whatever. So I'm living in the moment right now with my six-year-old son, Kaysen, All-Star Summer Baseball. It is bringing me back.

Cole did it a little bit. It wasn't, it just, this just has a better, has a feel. My dad is getting older. He's there. It's like, it's just all, like, kind of a cool, nostalgic thing for me. It made me think of, and I always, always get excited talking about this because a little bit of pride. It's like, you know, because people think me as a football player. I was a baseball player first and foremost,

and I was a really good pitcher. I blew my arm out. When I was 9, 10, 11, and 12 in those years, we won the World Series at 9. 10, 10, I think we, I don't know if we went to the World Series or we weren't allowed to. 11 and 12, we went to the Bronco World Series in Monterey. At 11, we lost to Cyfair, Texas in the championship. We beat, we beat Seoul Korea. We beat Bayamon, Puerto Rico, never forget. And we got our ass whoop by Forrest Chalakis. And if he's watching this, he will know in the championship. The next year we went back.

Again, we lost a Chinese Taipei in a big-time winner's bracket game. And then we had beat Puerto Rico the first game. We lost in Taipei. We lost to Puerto Rico in the losers' bracket. So that one didn't get as far. I say all that because I'm living this moment again this summer with All-Star Baseball. And it's so amazing. So those were my favorite teams of the 90s,

Fountain Valley, Bronco baseball. I will say, Matt, you know, I coached my kids in basketball, you know how much I love basketball. We'd get lightly into flag football and sock, but by far, this is just my opinion, by far, the greatest kid sport, in my opinion, is baseball. It's because there's just room to breathe, you know.

It just is. And I looked out the other night, And I saw Jacob's grandparents in the, it's just, it's just the best on a perfect summer day. It's the best for the kids. The kids in the dugout, they're putting the eye black on. They got the big league chew gum. They like are learning how to slide. They all got their own bat, which is insane.

We share like two bats. Like I said this before when we did like the greatest game seven. Like there's just something about baseball because it's our past time. It's what we did growing up, whether you ended up playing or not. So, yeah, I want to shout out my old teams, man. We were, we were freaking nice, dude. So it was fun. I'm going to keep it real for mine.

You know, easily could pick the Yankees or the Chicago Bulls, which, of course, you got to say. But I'm going to really just keep it real. The team of the 90s that I remember was the Cowboys. Three Super Bowls in four years. You got Dion, Irvin, Aikman, and it just like rock star. They were a rock star team. and it's football guys, all right?

I know at the time baseball was America's game and all that, but like football was football. And those, they won three damn Super Bowls in four years. And it's hard to say, because that's the last time they were really, you know, in it. Cowboys, to me, were the team of the night. There's so many cowboy fans in New York, too, which was annoying. They're everywhere. They haven't done much since then.

No, and I want to give them flowers, but I have to. All right. musician, band, however you want to take this. And this is probably the most broad category. This one, this one was easy to me. When I think of this, my gut just goes immediately. I'm going to give an honorable mention, but the one is Blink 182. Blink 182.

I love that. I love Blink. Blink 182 is the soundtrack of my high school for me. When they played Coachella a couple years ago, they came back because they kind of disbanded. they came back. I was on like Instagram, TikTok for days just watching the live videos. I'm like going back in time, man. But man, they were just the soundtrack of my high school. And they let, they went into the 2000s as well. The honorable mention and just the first music, boys to men was huge for me. One of the first cassette tapes that we ever got, because my brother was older. So my brother got

the cassette tapes, I would kind of get the hand-me-downs. And then Snoop, you know, like, Snoop was like the West Coast. And I was a big hip-hop guy. And we're going to get into, for me, I'll get into hip-hop here a little bit later. But yeah, like Snoop being Long Beach, but Blink, man, blink, to this day, man, I still listen to him. One of the first concerts when I moved to L.A., my roommate was a big Blink fan. We went to a Blink Green Day concert. It was like one of the best concerts I've ever been to. As far as Boys to Men, Matt, several Boys to Men concerts. We even saw them, Bree and I like three years ago. I have sat in my room and played their music and cried over losing a girl while listening to Boys to Men on cassette several times. And every mixtape I ever

made for a girl always ended with a Boys to Men song. This is fast. Boys to Men, they're legendary, man. I have not seen them in person. I was like, I still, they still, I don't think they're all I've seen them several times. No, they're all together. I even think they brought Mike with the deep voice back. He was gone for a while. I think he's back now. But the next blink, I think they did in L.A.

They did a show to L.A.F.C. stadium last year. And I couldn't, I was buying tickets. I was like, I was asked my brother. I'm like, bro, do you want to go? Because it was me and him. I've never been, I mean, I would never go to a concert with my brother. And he's like, yeah, and I'm not working out. So they don't tour.

They're not doing much, man. But I'm hoping they come back for one more. So for me, and I think this is, regional where I was from but when Biggie came onto the scene it was just a rap and I tried to think of other artists that like I'm just but if I have to keep

this at the exercises your thing it was just Well Biggie and Tupac that whole yeah the unfortunate thing is like you know the 90s run didn't last as long as it should have because he got freaking murdered unfortunately but what he did in a short amount of time

in the 90s I mean that that was like the CD or cassette tape, you could not leave. When you started driving, it had to be in your car at all times. Got to give respect to the 90s runs. Brittany dominated the 90s. Whether you like her music or not, dominated, dominated.

I mean, full disclosure, she could be my MVP of the decade, but she's not. Okay. So we're not going to, no, no, she's not. She's not. Dominated the 90s. All right. We're going to move on to TV show. And again, it's interesting with the 90s for us Because we go like from, you know, I was 10 years old when it started

And I was 20 years old when we finished So my tastes definitely changed. But TV show, Matt, what you got? I mean, this is easy, man. Saved by the bell. Saved by the bell is the greatest TV show of all time. And I'm going to say this right here on throwbacks And because in a couple categories here, I'm going to say it again.

Actually, you know what? I'm going to wait until we get to our TV show crush because I know that's going to happen. I grew up with Save By the Bell. I grew up with TGIF, which is, you know, Family Matters, I mean, Full House. There's so many great shows. Saved by the Bell to me is still my favorite show of all time.

And when I got to Houston, the Houston Texans, we would get into the facility super early. Me, Dan Orlovsky, Matt Schott, the QBs, a couple other guys. And what was playing, and they would attest to this, what was always playing on our little TVs in the cafeteria, like 530 months for whatever reason, reason it was always saved by the bell was always on. It was just reruns. And it was like, this is incredible. This was like, this is 2010 and 2011. So, you know, it's, it's mine too, but

not, it's not the one I picked because it, for me, I was a little, again, I was a little bit older than you. It only went from like 90 to like 93 for me. And then it kind of became like a little kid show. Um, but I did sing a karaoke song one night at a, at a bar called Dimples in Burbank, was a karaoke bar back today. Me and Mr. Belding, Dennis Haskins, drunk, sang Italian restaurant by Billy Joel, which is a nine-minute song. We were up there for nine minutes. And I did one episode of NYPD Blue, and Mark Paul Gossler was the arresting officer of my character.

I got arrested on Mark Paul Gossler. By the way, I was incredible. Speaking of Dennis Haskins, I went to Dres in Vegas with Dennis Haskins one night. Hey, hey, hey, what is going on here? how we ended up there. But this was 20. Yeah, this was gosh, this was so long ago. I would love to like, I'm going to do that for Jacob, like maybe in another year or two.

Put an episode of Save by the Bell on and see if he's even remotely captivated. I do this all the time. No one gets it. I do the Zach Morris where if we're having another conversation, I don't want to talk about. I go timeout. You know, time out. No one ever gets it. I forgot he used to do that.

That's right. All right. Oh, man. I like that you did that because I didn't want that to go wasted. now you freed me up here okay I'm going off the menu this is a person this is your Vince Coleman this is my Vince Coleman pick

This is your favorite TV show To me this is the funniest sitcom I have ever watched I used to tape the episodes And watch them late at night Martin Martin I never got into Martin

Go back in the files man There's so much comedy there I could have picked Seinfeld I could have picked friends And all Martin is the funniest sitcom I've ever seen in my life and I stand by it. I just stand by it.

All right. Arguably the hardest category. Movies. I mean, I think you could just do decade competition with movies. 90s movies, again, if you're a movie fanatic out there.

It's peak. Yeah. It's peak movies. It's peak going to the movies to watch. Also, it's like every genre. You want a comedy? We got one waiting for you. You want some like dark indie drama?

We got fight club. got all these movies. We got everything waiting for you. So, all right, Matt. So I'm going to give one honorable mention first. Sure. Just because, so, Independence Day was one, when I was looking at this, I'm like, there's, there's better movies, I think, than Independence Day. But I just remember, like, I remember they said summer, I think summer in 96, I believe it came out. I remember like in January when promos and it was like, I can't, like, we were saving up to go see Independence Day in the movies probably on the 4th of July. I just remember it's one of the few movies where you're like,

I can't wait to watch that. That was honorable mention. This was very actually easy for me. It's dumb and dumber. Dumb and Dumber is my, it's just, dumb and dumber is my favorite movie of all time. Dumb and Dumberer, the second one, were awful. It was terrible.

The first one's legendary. But the first one and like, and this will go to my next category as well. But Dumb and Dumber to me is maybe the greatest, one of the greatest comedies of, all time, the greatest one-liners of all time to read it. I took an acting class in high school. Tell me you did a monologue from dumb and dumber. Actually, that's not true. I did a monologue from Ace Ventura, Jim Carrey. But I could just recite Dumb and Dumber to this day. And I could recite Ace Ventura, honestly, to this day, too. So I got to go Dumb and Dumber, man. So my quick story with

Dumb and Dumber, my friends and I, we, you know, the movies, Hey, youngens, that's what you did on a Friday. You either went to a movie or you went to Blockbuster. Really, that was like a lot of the things you did. And then you try to get beers and stuff, whatever. We all went a large group of us to go see Dumb and Dumber. I was with a young lady in our group. I'm not going to give her a name out.

I would wonder if she would even remember this. But we, let's just say we did not watch the movie, her and I. So, but everyone was laughing. I caught parts of it. Now, if you watch Dumb and Dumber, isolated parts. If you don't watch the whole thing, it's a fucking dumb movie. So I'm only seeing these parts of the movie and them getting back to whatever we were getting back to. I was the only one walking out.

I'm like, that movie's trash. The movie's horrible. They're like, what do you mean? We then go back and when it came out on VHS, that's how old we are. We watched it. And I said, oh my God, I'm so mad I made out with this girl the whole time because that's the best movie I've ever seen in my life. Shout out's dumb and dumber. Okay.

This one is hard for me. because so many of these movies mean something to me. But if I truly have to pick one that I probably watch the most and probably had like an impact and that I still quote today, it's swingers. It's Vince Vaughn, John Farbril. Maybe it's too because like late 90s, as when I started getting into acting and they were like actors in the movie.

A lot of entourage even too. Doug Ellen always says like was inspired by like the player and by like swingers. A lot of that vibe. So that's going to be my pick But I'm just going to rattle off I almost picked Titanic Sorry I'm sorry

The ship sinking at the time With some of the craziest shit That movie had a Titanic? Titanic was amazing It's amazing I mean it's a great movie It's four hours Four hours long

They had a pee break They actually gave you an intermission But I mean dude You got boys in the hood Scream Goodwill hunting Goodfellas Which really should be the number one

Casino Jerry McGuire Heat It's the 19th is incredible. Jerry McGuire. Sandlot. I almost put Sandlot. We've talked about Sandlot so much on here, but I was like,

they're just home alone. The 90s, I'm sorry. And I hope when we get to the 2000s, we feel the same way. Happy Gilmore was 90s, like the early San Luis stuff. It was peak movies,

dude. All right. Now we're going to move to actor, okay? And I think by the way I heard you just talk, I have a feeling I know where you're going to go. I'm just, I'll keep it quick.

It's just Jim Carrey for me. I love, comedy movies. Like in my top five movies of all time, I have like four freaking comedies. I've like old school wedding crashers and dumb and dumber three of my top five. But look at this run really quick. The Mask, 94, Dumb and Dumber. Truman Show was interesting. That was a different one where he remember he kind of branched out a little bit. It wasn't as, I think, liar, liar. Yep. Ace Ventura, Bruce Almighty. The mask should be in there. The mask. The mask. That was like. It's like a year run, by the way.

That's like, he did that all in like three years. From 94 to 97, he was, I mean, he's the peak comedic, probably actor, you know, of our time in that run. He's also doing, like, he's also doing a living color, too, I think before that, which is incredible. I agree. So, I just go, I just, for me, I love comedy. I think Jim Carrey, for me, was my favorite actor of that decade. He was must, he was box office, like you had to go see the Jim Carrey movie. honorable mention almost picked you mentioned independence day almost picked will smith because another

amazing run he goes bad boys independence day men in black right men and black however he could have locked it up he passed and it might have been scheduling whatever happened he i believe the legend hasn't had the offer for the matrix so if you would have told me and he passed or was a scheduling conflict and it ends up becoming kianna reese if you would have told me he went Oh, he passed on it for Wild Wild West. That's right, Eddie. He passed on it which was one of the few bombs he had back in the day. So if he would have went Independence Day, Men and Black, Bad Boys, Matrix.

Will Smith is great. I wanted to give it to him, but for that we can't. So I went a little more traditional, and this is the movies I watched the most of. I went Tom Hanks. I went Tom Hanks. He goes Philadelphia, Green Mile, saving Private Ryan, Toy Story. Forest Gun. Trump? Yes. So that is

just an unbelievable run. I go Tom Hanks there. I wanted to give it to Will. I could have given it to Will. I just, I don't know what the Matrix looks like with him. Keanu Reeves now is such. Yeah. He's Neo, right? That's an interesting one. Interesting.

And Cruz went, I mean, Cruz, not Cruz. Hanks went back to back Oscars. Philadelphia. Gump. Very, very, very. Tom Hanks. Cole just hit us with that as very, very rare, rarefied air. Maybe Jalen Brunson will do that as well. But now the category, we've all been waiting for our 90s crush. Okay.

And there is a lot to choose from. This is a childhood teenage crush. It's very innocent. So don't be we're not objectifying anybody. It's our crush of the 90s, Matt. I mean, you already know where I'm going. I think I do. I'm going and I'm going and I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to reach out to her via this segment right now.

Again? Again. I'm going with Kelly Kapowski. Yeah. I'm saved by the bell. Tiffany Amber Theson. Tiffany Amber Theson was our childhood, my childhood, as, that was show is what, 90, 93. Is that what you said?

Yeah, there was even some earlier ones that she was not in when it was Miss Bliss, but yes, then she became. Miss Bliss, that's right. She hopped on in the early 90s. I'm probably like 10 to 14, 13, 13, you know, like I was born in 83, but, you know, when I'm starting to watch that show probably when I'm in middle. school. Tiffany Ambrithyson, I'm pretty sure was a poster on my brother and I's wall. And I want to say this, I messaged her last year to come on, or earlier this year, to come on throwbacks season two. Because we wanted to do this whole kind of nostalgia throwback like 90 shows. I even told my wife, I said, I DM Tiffany Amber Theson. And I want to say this right now is I'd never

expected a message back. Right. Shot your shot. I shot my shot and I got denied. So I would love to say this again, because I know we're going to post this, we would love to have Tiffany Amber Thieson on this podcast just to talk about what my, in my opinion, the greatest TV show of all time. And she's still crushing and she's got her family and all these things. So that is my plea to get Kelly Kapowski on throwbacks. She was my all-time crush. I really am. I really am. Now I think about it. And by the way, if she ever comes on throwbacks, I'm not so sure that I'll even make that episode

because I probably would be too nervous. You don't see Maddie Ice get shook often, but that I think would definitely shake you to your very core. Look, for me as well, that was my mind for quite. I took the Zach Slater love triangle very seriously. I was so pro-team Zach when they were battling over Kelly's love. She broke my heart many a times in that show. When she took Slater to the sweetheart's dance,

because Zach was subliminally messaging girls to pick him. I took that very, very hard when they mess with my boy, Zach. But I say all that to say, my 90s crush, it's undeniable. You could even ask my mom, she would know. Jennifer Love Hewitt. Facts. She's there. Oh, yeah.

Show. I know what you. And then also, I not only crushed, but I also really liked her movies. I loved, I know what she did last summer. I loved Heartbreakers. I enjoyed her stuff. Heartbreak is a great movie. She was also in the...

God, what was the movie? Not 10 Things I Hate About You? Is it 10 Things I Hate About You? No, she's not in that. I know what you did last summer. Oh, the best movie, my favorite movie. Can't Hardly wait. Can't hardly wait.

That was it. That movie is phenomenal. Yes. A phenomenal. Another great 90s movie. Yeah. By the way, we'd love to get her on the show as well. And I didn't DM her.

I didn't have the courage to do that. I think we reached out through reps. And it wasn't like a no. It was like busy, but on the radar, probably not could happen. I also have a great Jennifer Love Hewitt story, which I've told once in the past,

and I'll have to dust it off. We should hear that. Yeah, we had dust it off. It's a long one, so we'll do a whole lot of show. Gosh, man. All right, guys, it's time for my BetMGM pick of the week. I gave you a nice winner with Team USA. The last time, you know,

I looked long and hard at Team USA. this week. I like the draw, obviously, plus 310. They didn't necessarily need the game. That's why I like the draw. They are better than Turkey. But I just don't like necessarily going with the team that doesn't have to win. I am instead going with the team that I think has to win, because I do think Belgium is going to win their game. And I think Egypt plus 145 versus Iran. And I know Iran needs the game too. I think that's going to be my pick of the week. Also, I saw team Egypt in person. I went to the friendly match with Egypt and Brazil at Brown Stadium, and I know it was a friendly. I liked what I saw from the team. And I just think that they could just handle their business by

winning. They win. They win the group. It's over. And that's the position I want to be in. So Egypt plus 145 to beat Iran. Let's see if I can go to and out. We got three or four left. Okay, fashion trends, which the 90s has a boatload of good and bad fashion trends. Where did, what did you come up with for this one? You know, this wasn't as big for me. I was trying to go back to be like, what did I wear in the 90s? What did I like? Like, for me, the big brand that I wore for like two or three years was Abercrombie and Fitch.

Sure. Yep. So I was a Nautica guy. Yeah, I actually had some Nautica too. going back, I'm like, dude, I was all over the place. But I had like, but I had a big Abercrombie and Fitch like just year run or two years run when I was like 16, 15, 16, 17, kind of early days of high school. So for me, that was sort of my deal.

Also, the backwards hat. I wore a backwards hat. I have, there's like random photos. I wore a backwards hat every day. And I wore, I'm looking, I wore it all the way down like almost to my eyebrows back in the day. I don't know if you did that, but like nowadays. like, I don't, I'll wear it kind of high. You know, it's like it's just a different deal.

The bill was like, you know, it's just a different. Buddy, that's my, that's my character, Turtle's uniform right? Yeah. I'm more recognizable. I'm the only actor who's more recognizable with a hat than without a hat. It's true. Normally actors don't wear hats to be like, oh, I'm cool, pull it down, no one will recognize. I put a hat on, everyone's like, Turtle!

Yeah, that was just kind of my trend. I know there are bigger trends like universally, but that was kind of, Kind of my... Well, I think you missed out on a big one because of your West Coast roots and maybe your age, but West Coast roots, you didn't really get a lot of cold days.

But let me tell you, man, on the East Coast, those starter jackets, boy. Oh, they were. And I told the starter jacket with my mom that she said up, put it on layaway, all that stuff.

Like that, it just was... Well, I still think one of the... I think the Raiders... The L.A. King's Starter Jacket is one of the most all-time because, like, Ice Cube, you know, like, it was... And also, this is kind of...

fashion, but it's not, but it was more of school. But your Jan Sport backpack was also something you had to have to have a Jan Sport. You just had to. So starter jacket with a Jan Sport and the Sony Discman, I'm ready to roll. And a Jor-Dash wallet. Bro, I had a Jor-Dash wallet, dude. I love that thing. I'm so happy we had fun with that one because I was worried about the fashion.

Do you see? God, damn. Now I'm thinking, yeah, man. But I was a big Abercrombie, which now I look back. I'm like, yeah, you know. I didn't really have the body to pull off Abercrombie. Neither did I. I just rocked it.

All right. I think we're going to do two more and then maybe give out an MVP. Okay, tech advancements. Now, this is something where the 90s may struggle as we get to the 2000s and 2010s in later episodes. But there's some cool stuff that we have to dig. Yeah, I think it's more like I don't think we'd ever go back to it. No. But when you're in the moment.

What was it? Yeah, I mean, there's two things. I think the, obviously, like the AOL and some messenger was a massive thing in my life. But it was huge. I'll probably just give a few here. The cordless telephone was, I believe,

came out in the 90s. Remember that? Because we had one phone on the kitchen and that cord was 50. Wrapped that shit around you. Yeah, I would go from the kitchen all the way, wrap around like to the bathroom because we had a small house to just talk by myself. So whenever, when we got the cordless telephone,

we were like, oh, we're rich. made it, man. We got the coolest phone. Two things, though, that I, that was, that was, the pager was huge. So that's one. That was like the biggest one for me. With like one, four, three and all the shit, you would, you would page. We had codes, everybody. You made up a language. I miss you. Used to be like one, three. How about this, bro? How about this? Three-way calling.

Remember three-way calling, dude? I had the same reaction when I was, I was like, God, 90s. And I'm like, three-way, I, hey, hold real quick. Let me dial in and we'd have three. When you talk with your boys on three-way calling, dude, or maybe like what we would do, like me and my buddy would, like, bring on the girl that we liked. And it was like, or like one of us liked her and it'd be like, help you out, you know? Yes, you coach through it.

They coached through it. So the phone stuff is outstanding because three-way call, also caller ID drop. That was revolutionary because you used to have the star six-nine people to like call them back. I know. Or star six-seven was to hide your number, I think, right, or something. And I don't know if anyone was, anyone under the age of 40 is listening to this right now. But if you are, my family, because my mom just wasn't having it, she would not pay for, like, call waiting, like to flip over. She just wouldn't.

She would always say, if they really want to talk to you, they'll call back when they get the busy signal, right? So me and my brother would talk to our friends for hours. So one time my mom was out somewhere and I was on the phone. and what you had to do if you were getting a busy signal and my mom really had to talk to us she called the operator and made the operator do an emergency

breaking on the phone line I'm on the phone probably with a girl and you hear the operator call we have an emergency breaking call from Marianne Ferrar I was like what the fuck was that and I hugged out and she's like you don't get off this point she just ripped me a new one about how long

I was on the phone for so a lot of crazy shit in the 90s folks, just to remember. But for me, beepers were one of them, but the coolest thing, and I guess it's considered a tech advancement, disposable cameras. Oh, yeah. Because at

that time, you either owned a camera or you didn't. So the minute you were able, and I worked at a pharmacy, and we had a photo lab, so I would always get like one a week. Me and my friends are convinced we created the selfie. Bro, we have pictures with disposable cameras where we're like this,

clicking it, and you hope you got it. And I would just get them to, I have thousands of pictures of my teenage years from disposable cameras. And I know. They still make a comeback, man. People still use them. It's so, it's, oh, it's like a vintagey thing now, you know? It's like, wow, look at us. And look, I certainly prefer having like a super high quality camera on me at all times.

But that was something that was in my Jansport was the disposable camera. So good. That's a good one. All right. Maybe my favorite category. overall. We're going to wrap up with video game of the 90s. This is like

movies to me, man. It's almost impossible to give a favorite. Because the tech advancements could have also been this. The gaming 64-bit stuff started to get really advanced in the 90s. So, God, dude, I have a bunch, dude. I think that

the one, there's two that stick out for me. I would say my number one is NBA Jam. He's heating us. up. Yeah, I mean, so NBA Jam, I believe, that was on 64, right? Yeah. Or no, Sega.

I think it had them on all platforms. Yeah, it was, God, dude, I don't know, man. It just like, you would like, I think in the Lakers, it was freaking Vladay Divock and Nick Van Exel. Like, it wasn't, that was before the Kobe era. Yeah, and that one, you were going to be like, it was Jordan Pippen, it was Malone, Stockton, Chris Mullen and Tim Hardaway were the Warriors. That was the best team. And the Sonics were good.

Kemp and Peyton were really good. So that's one. And then a couple just lifelong Super Mario Kart to me. I honestly would say like maybe it's the greatest game ever made in my opinion because still to this day, it's like... Still played on the Switch with Jacob. It's Switch. It's Dave and Bus. It's everywhere and people love it.

Street Fighter and then Tony Hawk skateboarding was one that just in the 90s, I was like, that was our shit. So I could have went to like, you know, like Ken Griffey baseball. Yeah, don't give it away because I'm coming around the corner. But I'll say, I'll say NBA Jam and Super Mario Kart of the 90s are the MVP of that. So for me, my number one, I'll save the number one for a second. But the honorable mentions, what a year for sports games. Like you mentioned NBA Jam and congr, but also we had, what a decade I mean, we had NHL 94, Madden 94. NHL 94's.

So those are my honorable, but golden eye. was my number one. And maybe some a little older than you two. No, I play golden eye. Right. But man, Golden Eye,

I think we're only here at this point with gaming because of Golden Eye, for sure. Yeah, because it was like the first shooter. First one, just, and they need to bring it back

and revamp it and drop it on us. I think that would be huge. Resident Evil's cool, but I will say, I'm going to give a shout out too, because this kind of goes with tech advancement. The first ever online game I ever played

was a game called Duke Nukem 3D. I think it was like 1997. I didn't have a modem at my house, but across the street, my cousins, they had all the cool stuff. So I used to go over there late at night, and me and my boy from down the street,

Eric, we would try to like sink in because then when you go one-on-one against each other. And dude, it would be like an hour. You're hoping to even get one game. And usually you didn't. But the few times you linked up and you both dropped into the game. It was a holy shit moment.

that would be my holy shit of the 90s moment was me playing my boy from down the street in a game of Duke, Newcomb while like typing shit to each other. Duke Nukem I remember. Mind blown. And then my aunt would always pick up the phone

and I get kicked out of the game. But yeah, man, so many great video games. The 90s. I think the 90s are going to be tough to be. 90s. So let's go to the MVP. MVP of the night of the decade.

I have two. And I'm going to, I do think the MVP of the 90s. is gaming. I think it was the evolution of the video game. And you, because you had, like you said, like really every genre, it was like, you know, you had obviously the original Tendo system was like, you go Atari's probably like 70s. No, with the PlayStation. But it just goes Sega Genesis. It goes Super Nintendo. It goes Nintendo 64. PlayStation. Like, it was just that run of like, like, holy, you would save your money and

you would ask for Christmas every year was the next. video game console, at least we did. And we didn't have a lot of money growing up. So, like, my parents saved, kind of like with your mom in the starter jacket, man. Like, it was just like you would save a couple hundred bucks to buy that for us. Gaming to me, video games was peak 90s and really set the tone for what we get to do today. But I will all say this. And this is just, this is just 90s, bro.

The MVP of the 90s. And I don't, I know you grew up in New York. It's a little different. But I grew up in Santa Ana. It wasn't a great neighborhood, but we lived on the street during the day and during the night. And the peak 90s MVP moments are going outside, knocking on your neighbor's door. Hey, we're going to go play hockey. We're playing street football in 30 minutes.

We'll meet you outside. And I was like, do I get goosebumps thinking about it? Because it's like, we don't really have that anymore. So we go outside. And in football, it was, all right, the end zones, light pole to light pole. Hey, remember you go? game off like just the peak 90s and then my mom would come out a dinner you know kind of like dinner's ready boys be inside you know all that kind of stuff all right mom we'll be right back

it was playing tag it was playing tag outside so the sun went down it was playing it was riding your bike around the block and all that stuff it was hanging out outside with the ice cream man would come by like so to me that's what to some degree our kids get it a little bit but like that was just peaked because there were no phones. There were nothing. It was just us being kids playing in the front yard saying goodbye. Hey, we'll see tomorrow after school, right? Like there was no

way to communicate other than, you know, going around, knock it on doors. We're setting a meeting spot. Yeah, I'd be here at six and maybe you get there. Oh, that didn't show up. I was doing this research for that. I'm like, fucking the MVP of the 90s is just being outside with your boys, dude.

You know, go ahead. I agree. And I think that's why we love the sandlot so much. though the sandlot was the 60s, right? But the best moment of the sandlot is when Benny runs to Small's house on 4th of July, knocks on the door. I was like, come on, night game. Fourth of July. And they just he grabs his glove, Mom, going out, and he runs.

All his friends are there. And the fucking fireworks are lighting up the field. And they were just, I still think about those moments because that was all pre-phones and stuff like that. And we'll get into that stuff as we get into the other decades. But I agree with you. Two real quick. We used to play, because Kaysen and the kids, they're playing pickle.

I don't know if the boys are playing pickle, but like we're full baseball mode and pickle just like we used to wet the grass on our front lawn. And looking back, I'm like, our front lawn was like 15 by 10. It was tiny. But we would go glove and glove were the bases and it was a tennis ball bare hand. And we would play pickle dude on the wet grass. Hours, dude. Yeah.

Tear up the grass. My dad would hate it, but he was like, he loved it though. The 90s. Your MVP. Look, mine, we discussed it as we went through. It's movies. And I really don't think the early 2000s and 2010s are really going to be able to compete. Go again, go take a look.

Just go Google or chatty, whatever you use, 90s movies. Get a list going. If you're looking for something to do in the summer at night in the house, just start banging out the 90s movies. It's what made me, I think, want to become an actor, ultimately, because those movies I was raised on, I was like, I want to be a part of that. I don't know how, but I want to be a part of that because I just love that. I love the stories.

So, um, movies for me. Because there's too many people to choose them. You could choose Brittany. You could choose Michael Jordan, Derek Jeter. It has to be a thing. I like what we did there. We picked like a thing. Fuck.

I wish we could go back. I think the two, I think 2000s will be fun too. It's a different era for us because you're working. I was in college. Like, it's a totally different era. but the 90s was sort of the last, kind of our last era of innocence, man.

Like, like, even high school, but like, you're still, it was just pre all of the shit that we do now, you know? Don't give your answer yet, but I'm adding a category for the 2000s, the early 2000s, because we were all getting up drinking age. What, the things you drank. Oh, yeah. That's the category.

Don't give it away. But just 2000s, the things you drank. And we're going to have fun with that one because I got some weird shit that I'm going to buzz out. Shout out. I can't wait for people to listen and kind of give their thoughts because shout out to the 90s, dude. Yeah, give us your thoughts and then start preview in 2000s, 2010. So next week, we'll try. We'll get you the early 2000s.

And here we go. Off to the summer.