What a blast from the past this week, as the Buffalo Bills finally become the AFC East Champions since 1995.
After a drought of Patriots dominance, it was a seasonal performance worthy of dressing Bill Belichick in a dildo costume and body slamming him into 12 collapsible tables into a vat of wing sauce.
The city of Buffalo is on fire, and it’s not just the chemical spills.
Oh what a time it was since the Bills were able to pull off such a feat, in fact you would have to take a time machine back to 1995 when the world was a simpler place.
Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, and a feisty Bruce Smith brought us a Buffalo dynasty like no other. When Buffalo wings had yet to conquer the world, obesity was ‘okay’, and table throws were still in their infancy.
Anyone who was alive in the wondrous mid-time of the 90s’ remember a time without smartphones, influencers, emojis’ and status updates. People LIVED back then.
The 1995 Bills represented a working man’s NFL approach to the big business boar of Jimmy Jones and his deep pocketed Cowboys.
Sure, the 1995 Bills were one of many squads to be swept 4 times in the SuperBowl and the team & franchise fell apart/asleep in the Wilson era to follow…but…1995!!
Among some of the other things alive in 95 include:
Did OJ do it?
That was the burning question in 1995, as we wondered if they would acquire if it didn’t fit. Why would a successful former NFL player with a mild drug habit and fiery temper murder his ex-wife and her new boyfriend? Even Russian president famously asked Bill Clinton immediately upon landing in America in 1995 ‘Do you think OJ did it’?. We all wanted to know. Luckily, his peers deemed him innocent, even if another court ordered that he pay her family everything he had. We went on to stage an unsuccessful robbery of his former memorabilia, spend some time in prison, and now the world relishes in his half-cocked-up social media rants. The Juice might still have a little squeeze left in him even if his victims don’t.
TV
‘Member scheduled TV? ‘Member? ‘Must see TV’ was part of our weekly lexicon as Seinfeld got us saying ‘I’m out’, we all wanted to bang a ‘Friend’, and a Super Bowl ad cost a meagre $1.15 million. Now it’s all apps, crap and streaming. Meh.
George Foreman Grill
Some people might know George Foreman as that loveable old man with 100 kids named after him, but before that, he sold sandwich makers to old people over the TV. He was also a boxer, but he made more money off of sandwiches. The grill became a staple at college dorms, bedrooms for bacon mornings and with poorly skilled cooks who used it to ruin a perfectly good steak.
Wedding Gere
He’s straight guys. No, really. In 1995 Gere married Cindy Crawford after they took out a full page ad the previous year to declare that they were both ‘heterosexual’. A bold move even today and was possibly the only way to dispel rampant Richard rumours about his nasty habits. Some of the more colourful theories include him shoving live gerbils up his rectum, drinking a gallon of Rod Stewart’s warm man juice, hosting an orgy inside his rectum. His rectal activities played a large part in many of these topics, hence his need to marry a supermodel and take out an ad. Of course, everyone saw through it. Gerbil sales are still motioned to this day.
Super Computer
If you wanted to get on the net or do some spreadsheets, you needed a PC, which was the compute at the time. The hot model of 1995 was a slick IBM with a 486ghz processor, about as fast as a cracked iPhone in a bag of rice these days. One of these bad boys wasn’t cheap, costing you a cool $1800 to power up your windows 95. If you wanted to find one of these PCs these days you could check the dump, a hipster cafe, or a school for unfortunate children.
The Internet is a Waste
Newsweek magazine hit everyone hard in 1995 when they declared that the internet will never be anything more than a place to send business data. It was too unsafe to ever do anything like read the news, but tickets, or God forbid do banking. You heard it world, get away from the internet, Newsweek says it’s just a fad.
Read it here
https://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306
Loser Love
Trying to prove the haters wrong, was a little company that just wanted to show some love. Match.com launched in 1995 hoping to take a bite out of the lucrative ‘Video Dating’ market. Looking at the 1995 version of the site gives you the impression that it’s what pedophile hunters would set up to ensnare some loser, but hey, look what happened.
Music
The 1990s had the best music bar none in 100 years. It’s a fact, ask anyone. 1995 was led by the ‘Common People’ who didn’t have to ‘Think Twice before they belted their ‘Earth Song’, singing ‘This is how we do it’. They climbed the ‘Wonderwall’ looking for ‘Cotton Eyed Joe’ chasing ‘Waterfalls’ near the ‘Country House’ trying not to ‘Scream’ at the ‘Scatman’ or the ‘Shy Guy, but with a little ‘Boom Boom Boom’ & ‘Heaven for Everyone in ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’.
Sports
In other sports, real dynasty’s were either coming to an end, or nearing their beginning.
San Franciso 49ers were the 1995 Super Bowl champs, as Steve Young and Jerry Rice pummelled the hapless San Diego Chargers.
Atlanta Braves won the World Series beating the poor Cleveland Indians. You could say their name back then.
1990s sports was a more nostalgic time for broadcasting. Digital cable was only starting to penetrate the plugs of America, so big networks and big personalities led the NFL slate.
Pat Somerall, John Madden, Jimmy the Greek and Al Michaels all brought with them a certain flair and panache to the pundit booth. Sadly with Jimmy it was racism, and it was a mighty slap of justice when the old bigot was put to roost.
Congrats to the Buffalo Bills on becoming AFC East Champions once again. They have the team to go all the way this year, let’s just see how far that way goes.
OJ did it by the way.