MTV sends millennials back in time with new show ‘90’s House’
The castaways of “Gilligan’s Island” had “no phone, no lights, no motor car,” as the theme-song lyrics put it. And for the castaways in California for MTV’s “90’s House,” airing at 11 p.m. Tuesdays, the retro abode in which they live has no smartphone, no LED lights and no electric car. Also no laptops, no internet … and no Spanx.
“When we got to the house, we had no idea they were gonna take away our clothing!” laughs Sha’Monique Wynter, 24, of Brentwood, N.Y., one of 12 millennial housemates competing in 1990s-themed challenges, presented by hosts Lance Bass and Christina Milian, and trying not to get evicted on the way to a $90,000 grand prize. “Down to our undergarments we dressed like the ’90s!”
“More like the early ’90s,” amends Will Wagner, 27, born in Lindenhurst, N.Y., and raised mainly in Bellmore, where he still lives. The internet only began reaching critical mass in the mid-1990s, changing everything, but before then, as he notes, things were still basically “CD players and boomboxes and cassettes. We had a big shelf of VHS tapes.”
Clearly, for them, living in “90’s House” was dope … the bomb … all that and a bag of chips.
“Being in ’90’s House’ was super fun,” says Wynter. “I like CD players. I have lots of CDs — my Britney Spears, my Pink, my Spice Girls, my TLC. I don’t know why we stopped having CDs.”
Wagner not only loves the 1990s, he makes his living from them, as proprietor of the vintage-apparel store Deepcover in Manhattan. It counts comedian Aziz Ansari, actor Jaden Smith and singer Joe Jonas among its clientele.
Did the other contestants resent Wagner for his ’90s expertise? “There was a little bit of that,” he says, “because for me going into this house I’m like, ‘I do this every day!’ But,” he adds, “everyone in the house is great. I love every single person. Living in the house with everybody, whatever else it was, you get a bond with these people because you’re all in it together.”
Indeed, agree Wagner and Wynter, the ’90s will be sticking around for a few years.
“Everything from that era, everyone wants again,” Wagner says. “They’re bringing everything back: NES Classic with 30 Nintendo games. French Toast Crunch. Crystal Pepsi. People my age, we remember these things, we want them,” he says.