Ah, the nineties. It was a simpler time, when young hearts were wooed not by Simon Cowell protégés, but by the impossibly white grins and adorable floppy hair of young American television stars.
Here are Her.ie’s pick for the top 5 teen TV crushes of the nineties, and a look at where you’ll find them now.
Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Saved By The Bell)
Oh how badly we wanted to attend Bayside High School in our youth! From the tail end of the 80’s through to 1994 we watched as Gosselaar’s character Zack Morris schemed his way through school. While Zack was pursuing Kelly Kapowski and getting into scrapes with frenemy A.C. Slater, we were sitting at home dreaming of the day we’d get on to that Bayside Tigers Cheerleading Squad and capture Zack’s heart for our own. He hasn’t left our screens since, and is certainly the most successful of the SBTB cast. Currently starring in legal comedy Franklin & Bash, and still very cute.
Jonathan Taylor Thomas (Home Improvement)
Sitcom ‘Home Improvement’ might be remembered by many for Tim Allen’s starring role, but for us girls there was only one star. From 1991 to 1998 Jonathan Taylor Thomas played middle-child Randy Taylor, and melted our young hearts with his cheeky attitude and perfectly floppy-hair (it was a thing). Trivia side note – during his run on Home improvement he also voiced young Simba in Disney classic The Lion King. Could he be any cuter? His last time on-screen was back in 2005, in a guest appearance on Veronica Mars.
Luke Perry (Beverly Hills 90210)
For many of us gals, Luke Perry was our first experience of falling for a bad boy. From the beginning of the nineties all the way up to 2000 the impossibly glossy cast of 90210 kept us captivated, but none more so than rebel Dylan Mc Kay. Throughout his multiple romances, criminal activity and spiral into drink and drug abuse we told ourselves he was just misunderstood, and we loved him anyway. Nowadays 45 year old Perry, (yes, 45!), is still working hard in low-profile projects, with no less than five movies currently in various stages of production.
Jared Leto (My So-Called Life)
Claire Danes is currently winning plaudits all over the shop for her star turn in Homeland, but we’ve been big fans of hers ever since 1994, when we watched My So-Called Life and felt like someone finally got it – being a teen was hard! We’d have done anything for the chance to lock lips her crush Jordan Catalano, brought to life by Jared Leto. A rocker, a rebel, and a romantic at heart – he was serious dreamboat material. Many years later Leto still floats our boat as front man for his band 30 Seconds To Mars.
Joshua Jackson (Dawson’s Creek)
From 1998 through to 2003 we paid a weekly visit to the fictional town of Capeside and the cast of Dawson’s Creek. The show that brought us Katie Holmes pre-Tom, Michelle Williams pre-Marilyn, Joshua Jackson to feast our eyes on and… James Van Der Beek. (They can’t all be wins.) We learned at least five new words a week through the frankly ridiculous dialogue, and slowly fell in love with Dawson’s BFF Pacey, perfectly played by Jackson. Nowadays we still feel a flutter when we spot him on screen; he’s currently starring in the fifth season of TV drama Fringe.
