Technically speaking, Blossom hit the airwaves in July of 1990, but that’s only because NBC aired the pilot as a special. FOX had a competing Mayim Bialik series that aired thereafter, and when it fizzled, she was available for NBC to pick up Blossom, retool it, and premiere it on January 3, 1991. That’s when Mayim, her dancing, her bangs, and her hats became a 1990s pop-culture touchstone. I was 13 and a half when Blossom premiered, and it will not surprise you to know that I both did not like this show and also watched a fair bit of it. We had just moved back to the States and I was LOVING getting to watch all the new American shows — the sheer quantity of them was a bajillion times more than what was available at the time in the UK. I liked making fun of her over-the-top style (also probably not a shock, given what I do for a living now), which felt so Extra to me even then, although I look back now and think it’s so very, very emblematic of the era. I also can sing the theme song by memory:
Watching the Season 1 credits (seasons 2 and beyond are also included above), honestly, Blossom was 31 years ahead of her time. She’s basically doing homemade TikTok. If she were a kid now, she’d be dancing the shit out of it on an episode of Ellen and then probably being a red-carpet correspondent for her at the Grammys. Fun fact: The original theme song was Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative,” and that’s one of the things that was reworked — in addition to the premise and the casting of her parents, and some character names; Joey Lawrence, for example, was called Donny at first. Now, the word “opinionation” lives, as they say, rent-free in my head. This is definitely one of those moments where you imagine going back in time and telling someone that Blossom Russo would one day host Jeopardy! and that her brother Joey would have shorn off his hair multiple times voluntarily, and how hard that person would blink uncomprehendingly at you as they tried to imagine what on Earth happened.
