3 1988 Cult TV Shows That ’90s Kids Actually Got Obsessed With
While there were a lot of great cult TV shows released throughout the ’80s, 1988 in particular was home to the premieres of a few stone-cold classics from sitcoms to cartoons. The ’80s had no shortage of great kids’ shows, many of which have since been revisited by nostalgic filmmakers. 2026’s underrated Masters of the Universe reboot recaptured the appeal of the original campy cartoon, while She-Ra’s reboot was an equally successful attempt to update one of the most quintessentially ’80s shows ever.
Although the ’90s gave viewers cult classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the late ’80s were also home to a surprising number of shows that had an outsized influence on the pop culture tastes of ’90s kids. From Mystery Science Theater 3000 to Roseanne, these shows were ones that every ’90s kid can remember and ones that shaped the way future shows would handle everything from cartoon horror to comedic takes on family life.
A Pup Named Scooby-Doo
Debuting in 1988, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo was the eighth Scooby-Doo show and the first to reimagine the original show’s heroes as younger versions of themselves. Lasting our season , the ABC show produced a mere 27 episodes during its three-year run. Despite this brief tenure, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo remains one of the most unexpectedly influential cartoons of the ’80s. Co-creator Tom Ruegger left the show to create Tiny Toon Adventures before moving on to work on Animaniacs, Freakazoid!, and Histeria!. This string of anarchic, absurd cartoons influenced later hits like Gravity Falls and even The Simpsons, while the self-aware sense of humour that A Pup Named Scooby-Doo injected into the franchise’s DNA endured throughout its many re-imaginings in the decades since. From the beloved live-action movies of the 2000s to HBO Max’s widely reviled Velma, the franchise wouldn’t be the same without A Pup Named Scooby-Doo’s influence.
Roseanne
From Married… With Children to The Fresh Prince of Bel Air to Home Improvement, there are plenty of legendary ’90s family sitcoms. However, Roseanne still managed to break the mould when the show debuted in October 1998. While later family sitcoms like American Dad would up the absurdity and become outright surreal, Roseanne instead surprised viewers by offering an unusually candid, unapologetically frank depiction of working-class life in middle America. Centring on Roseanne Barr’s titular matriarch Roseanne Conner, the show followed her and her blue-collar family’s attempts to make ends meet as they encountered real-life issues like unemployment, disability, poverty, depression, and addiction. All of this might sound painfully dark, but the true reason the show was such a huge hit is that, like the later sitcoms it inspired (such as Malcolm in the Middle), the series managed to make these topics not just relatable, but funny.
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Of all the shows mentioned here, the sci-fi comedy cult sensation Mystery Science Theater 3000 undoubtedly has both the weirdest history and the strangest premise. The series follows a janitor trapped on a satellite with a group of robots who is forced to view the worst movies ever made as part of a bizarre experiment, but this framing device is really just an excuse for the hosts to affectionately mock terrible movies while making impressively obscure pop culture references. Released years before sci-fi TV became a mainstream phenomenon, Mystery Science Theater 3000 was a word-of-mouth sensation for years, repeatedly moving from local to national broadcast, then to syndication, then to Netflix, and finally to an online platform of its own. Throughout this messy history, Mystery Science Theater 3000 has consistently remained a cult favourite thanks to the show’s warped sense of humour and its evident love for so-called “Bad movies.”
