No one who lived through the nineties (1991 baby here, how do you do?) seems ready to let the fashion trends, TV shows, or music die. People are still bumping Third Eye Blind with all the windows down, 20-somethings are binging all 200-plus episodes of Friends, and JNCO jeans are perilously close to making a comeback. What can we say? It was an amazing decade and you can yank our memories of snap bracelets and Legends of the Hidden Temple out of our cold, dead hands.
In the interest of reliving those lost glory days, we ventured to what may be the greatest #ThrowbackThursday installation of all time. Nickelodeon, for one day only, brought back the Aggro Crag from Nickelodeon GUTS for the millennials of New York to conquer — because they are a benevolent network who gives the people what they want. You remember the GUTS Crag right? It was that massive (or seemingly massive) mountain of crazy angles filled with flashing lights and fog. While it wasn’t quite the on-set experience every former 12-year old dreamt of back in the day – a conspicuously small amount of strobe lights were in use – it was still a pretty epic encounter with a styrofoam mountain, one which most of us had given up hope of ever summiting.
The heavenly gates of turquoise and purple were lined with fans and friends — watching the brave few take on the Crag. Just sitting and watching the competitors do their best to avoid slipping, missing an activator, or getting hit by the fake boulders was pretty entertaining on its own. Even with most competitors at least a decade older than they would have been on the original game show, people still had plenty of trouble reaching the top.
The Crag itself was almost pushed out of the limelight by all of the other ’90s stuff buzzing in the vicinity. Like any true Nickelodeon gameshow event, it came with a heavy dose of product placement. Mountain Dew was splashed everywhere in the most overbearing way (It’s Dew York City!); in fact, the entire purpose of climbing the Crag was to decide which of the Baja Blast or Pitch Black flavors would remain in stores. The ’90s do not mess around with normal soda flavors, no sir.
On top of that, hosts right out of tween game show central casting were narrating the entire process and their maxed out cheesiness and enthusiasm put us all right back in the mindset of a hyped up kid in their backyard pretending a boulder was the greatest challenge of their life. It wasn’t exactly having Mike O’Malley and Moira Mo Quirk back in action, but this pair was a fine Tab Clear to the original duo’s Crystal Pepsi. For ambiance, there were Nickelodeon TV show themes blaring through the speakers on a loop. Rugrats, Salute Your Shorts, and Rocco’s Modern Life all made the playlist, feeding the pure pre-millennium mindset. It was like being waterboarded by the ’90s.
There were a few “celebrities” on hand, even if they weren’t people that were famous in the ’90s. It’s fitting that reality stars like Camila, Jenna, CT, and Johnny Bananas were the special guests for the afternoon — seeing as that foursome is more or less what ’90s kids who watched too many hours of GUTS and Double Dare could be expected to grow into. It’s not like normal people just have the idea to make a backpack out of somebody. That killer gameshow instinct is most certainly honed in front of the television.
https://twitter.com/MTVBananas/status/743587720958705664
So many 12-year olds once imagined themselves taking part in an event like this and dominating the styrofoam mound in a matter of seconds. And from the looks of things yesterday in downtown New York City, grown adults don’t take the Aggro Crag any less seriously than they would have a decade ago.
