Glossy Time Capsules #26
Entertainment Weekly
October 1, 1999
Price: $2.99
Ah, Entertainment Weekly. This was one of my go-to sources for entertainment news in the late 90s. At one point I was even a subscriber. I'm not sure if I was one when I procured this particular issue, or if I purchased it solely because of Buffy, but no matter. Because of Buffy I saved it, and now I have it to present to you...
I swear, not every page is Buffy-related!
You know what we should talk about? We should talk about 1999.
1999 was an interesting year. We were simultaneously humming Prince's 1999 ("party like it's...") and dreading the moment when the clocks changed from 12/31/99 to 1/1/1900. Yes, they just wouldn't flip over to 2000 like they were supposed to, we were told. The second the hour struck midnight, we'd all be forced back into corsets and petticoats, because the year 1900 IT WOULD BE.
Okay, just kidding. Actually, all the computers were supposed to implode and destroy civilization as we knew it. This exciting phenomenon was called Y2K (why-too-KAY.)
What actually happened on New Years' was that the year 2000 came in smoothly... though later in the year George W. Bush was elected, so that kind of soured things.
Meanwhile, the internet looked... a little different back then.
Ask.com had a butler named Jeeves....
He is no more.
And back then, before Match or eHarmony, you could attempt to find a mate via a site called SocialNet...
Fun fact: If you try going to Socialnet.com now, you 'll get redirected to ChristianMingle.com!
And before Netflix, Hulu, or Prime, we had... well, video stores...
Reel.com and Hollywood Video... may you rest in peace.
On TV, we had Freaks and Geeks and Time Of Your Life. They both lasted a single season. One is typically more fondly remembered than the other....
Hurricane Floyd killed a bunch of people and canceled some Backstreet Boys concerts, but thank goodness it didn't destroy the set of Dawson's Creek!
This terrible, horrible idea (#5) was casually presented...
Celebrities had babies, broke up... the usual...
Harrison Ford was in a movie I don't recall existing....
It has a 15% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and no, I'm not going to go check it out.
Someone didn't like The Sixth Sense....
Blue Streak was the #1 movie of the week...
Jason Robards and Sean Connery were the men now (dog)...
David E. Kelley had a bunch of shows on the air...
But all of them got beat in the ratings by four (4!) reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond...
Ted Danson was masquerading as a doctor...
ER was the #1 hospital drama on TV, but Chicago Hope really, really tried....
Meanwhile, in books...
It's so strange to think that in 1999, there were only 3 Harry Potter books!
In music, Eve ruled the pop charts...
Brendan Fraser was (even then) beloved...
Sandra Bullock movies did well on the video rental market...
You could also rent this...
Heck yeah. I remember that movie.
Of course, we can't forget the REAL reason to buy this issue...
BUFFY!!!
There was even an episode guide!
Could you buy neat things from the back of magazines in 1999?
OF COURSE YOU COULD!!
I'm not saying they were things most of us would want, but... they WERE there....
Minivans with built-in VCRs... oh, the future was here.
Beloved 1999. Such a simpler time...
May we never forget what it was like to party like it was you.
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