You’ll hear a lot of people from our generation speak longingy of the ‘90s. They look back on the years of frosted tips, pastel shorts, and Backstreet Boys as if they were the golden years of human civilization. We are the generation that grew up too fast. Our childhood was cut short with extraordinary leaps in technology, our age of innocence destroyed with war and terrorism. As a result, we are a generation of nostalgia. We look back on our childhood and fondly remember the days when everything seemed so much simpler, before we traded our gameboy for iPads and our Pokemon cards for AP textbooks.

Perhaps the strongest trends that continue to desperately hold on to mainstream attention are the iconic television shows from the era. I remember ‘90s sitcoms being among my favorite shows well into my teenage years, and they continue to stand firmly in that number one spot. Those sitcoms were the kind of shows that relied more on witty one liners and clever dialogue than cheap jokes and unwarranted laugh tracks.

I can think of very few people who have lived through the ‘90s, at any age, and not seen at least one episode of “Full House.”  It was the kind of show that I could watch with my mom and we would both be able to find the humor in the show, though I will be the first to admit that several of the pop culture references flew straight over my head. “Full House” functioned on feel-good family values, and nothing bad ever happened that couldn’t be fixed with a heart to heart between daughter and father or Uncle or live-in pseudo- Uncle comedian. To this day I still turn on Nick at Nite to re-watch what I believe to be one of the best sitcoms to come out of the ‘90s.

More recently, I have discovered one of my favorite shows of all time- “Friends.” I wasn’t able to watch the show until about last year, but I am so glad I finally got around to it. “Friends” was and still is iconic. It was huge while it was still running, and practically everybody watched it. Within good reason too. I have never seen a show that can make me laugh out loud as often as “Friends,” and that includes multiple re-watches of the show. It is so easy to fall in love with every single character, and the dialogue, and the different plots. I’d go so far as to say that it is almost impossible to watch “Friends” and not fall in love with it.

There are so many other great ‘90s sitcoms, from “Boy Meets World” to “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” to “The Nanny” to “Home Improvement.” All of which are great in their own way. I’d go so far as to say that the ‘90s sitcom is one of the best genre of shows to ever hit TV.  They’re funny, a little bit corny, and filled to the brim with the decade that we have all grown to love and miss.