30 Years Later, the Culture of April 1994 is Downright Alien

All the consoles nobody wanted with a side of alcoholism.

Nostalgia is an article series that discusses select video game, film, and music releases/events of a given time period. Today, we head thirty years into the past to see what April 1994 provided to the American cultural landscape.

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THE NES WAS STILL GETTING GAMES

And it looked like this!

In April 1994, the 16-bit console generation was deeply entrenched. The SNES had been on the market for over two years and the Genesis over four years, with both consoles selling tens of millions worldwide. Despite their heavy market share, however, the NES refused to go quietly into that outdated night. Like the Wii or the PS2, the NES sold so many consoles that it still made good financial sense for publishers to release games for the 8-bit console. The NES didn’t see any releases in April 1994 (so I am cheating a bit already), but March 1994 saw three games released – Mega Man 6, Mickey’s Adventures in Numberland, and Zoda’s Revenge: Star Tropics II – two of which were pretty great. Try to guess which ones!

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SO MANY SYSTEMS

The expensive outcasts*

By April 1994, you couldn’t walk down the street without tripping over a video game console that nobody wanted.

The Genesis and the Super Nintendo were the most popular with the kids, by far, but you also had overpriced yuppie novelties like the CD-i, 3DO, and the Pioneer LaserActive. The Atari Jaguar said it was 64-bits, and technically it was, but not in the ways that really counted. The Sega CD was a cool, but expensive Genesis add-on that your older brother could totally afford, and you begged him to buy one, but he was saving his money for something stupid, like a car. The NEO GEO demanded your respect, but failed to respect your wallet, with games regularly selling for $200 each. And the TurboDuo repackaged the TurboGrafx-16 and TurboGrafx-CD into one sleek, expensive unit that nobody bought.

Handhelds also took up much needed plastic reserves. The Game Boy, the Game Gear, and the Lynx all competed with each other for screen-blurring dominance. And as mentioned before, the NES was still shuffling around with its walker, begging people to pay attention to it.

By my count, that’s ten consoles and three handhelds, and there could be more I’m forgetting. Not even the roaring 90s economy could support such indulgence.

*images courtesy of The Video Game Console Library, Reddit user njkauto, and Wikipedia

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THE HIGHEST-GROSSING FILM OF APRIL 1994 IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS

Ok, so your mom might remember this film, but unless you’re a Blockbuster buff who memorized every title and cover you saw, there’s a good chance this one has slipped your mind in the last thirty years.

I’ll give you a hint. It stars Andy Garcia and Meg Ryan and its title is based on a song. If this were a Jeopardy question, I’d say it’d be worth $1600. It’s moderately difficult, but once I say the name, you might remember.

Give up? Of course you don’t, this isn’t a game show, I’m showing you the answer right now. It’s…

When a Man Loves a Woman, a harrowing drama about a family ravaged by alcoholism. Despite the film’s intense premise, it made $50 million at the domestic box office (about $100 million in 2024 money), the most of any film released in April 1994. I’ve never seen the film, but it got a good critical reception. It sounds well-made, if not sad and depressing. We could handle sad and depressing in the no-bad-days of April 1994, but we get more than enough of that now. Moving on!

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THE OFFSPRING COME ALIVE

On April 11^th 1994, The Offspring released their third album, Smash. Thanks to evergreen singles, “Come Out and Play” and “Self-Esteem,” the album would become an incredible success, with six million copies sold in the US, and eleven million copies sold worldwide. Smash was far and away the biggest album Epitaph Records ever released; prior to Smash’s release, the independent label had never even received a gold record.

Eighth grade all day, every day.

The Offspring were not even an up-and-coming band. According to lead singer Dexter Holland, their previous record, 1992’s Ignition, had only sold 15,000 copies by the time Smash released in 1994. And while The Offspring toured relentlessly to promote Ignition, it was consumers’ embrace of Smash that eventually propelled Ignition to gold status in 1996.

Like Green Day’s Dookie around the same time, Smash sounds made for a mainstream audience. The songs are catchy and hook-laden, and Dexter Holland’s flinty, detached voice was very distinct, even for the anything-goes, early 90s musical landscape. “Come Out and Play” was so successful, in fact, that four years later The Offspring would recycle the main riff for “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy).” That song would soundtrack many an awkward middle-school prom and make The Offspring even richer.

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That’s it for this first issue of “Nostalgia.” Do you remember April 1994? I know I didn’t touch on some important events, like Kurt Cobain’s untimely death on April 8th and the release of Super Metroid on April 18th, but I wanted to cover some topics that you might not have been familiar with. Please share your memories in the comments below. Until next time!