Armed with a can of neon-green paint and a fistfull of exclamation points, these corporations unleashed a wave of new and exciting products into the lives of the average American. I will now present you, my readers, with the most extreme of these products.
7. RC Cars!!!
Remember when remote-controlled cars were a simple hobby or a chance for a lonely kid to discover engineering? FORGET THAT, GRAMPS!
The Firestorm, the Inferno, The Hurricane, and the T-Rex are here to burn your house down and eat your livestock!
RC Cars don't resemble anything you would see on the road: some have giants wheels, some have mechanical teeth, and some are just a handgun with wheels attached to it. The days of the tinny-sounding, whiny engines are long-gone. They have been replaced by the much more extreme sounding Turbo V-8.
These Extreme RC Cars don't simply race around a track, no sir. They spend most of their time smashing into shit. but they stopped making them when that kid burned his little brother's face off. How X-treme is that?! Up next from RC: The Suicide Bomber, The Colonoscopy, and The Holocaust.
Level of X-Tremeness: You know those water-tornadoes you can make my connecting two soda bottles? Well pretty much like 12 of those, all connected.
6. Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic, the original badboy of the Sega Genesis is known for his in-your-face attitude, gravity-defying speed, and love of gold rings. These are all very x-treme attributes. He is all about blowing up robots and foiling the plans of an overweight doctor. He goes balls to the wall 24/7, motherfucker. He will dash right into your spine, and doesn't give a fuck.
As of late, the X-tremeness of the Sonic franchise has been somewhat diluted. (I mean chili dogs, really? Last time I checked, Sonic got by on an all-pussy diet. ) However, despire all of this, Sonic does retain his same sense of X-treme. Like remember when you land on the biplane at the end of Sonic 2? Sick.
Level of Extremeness: A busload of electric guitarists jumping an alligator-filled Grand Canyon.
5. Corn Nuts!!
What is more badass than a roasted corn snack? Nothing apparantly, according to Corn Nuts. The makers of this snack convinced America that the unpopped corn kernals left over from the Orville Redenbacher plant were in fact extreme nuggets of nacho-cheese snackerifficness. To show you how badass and x-treme their product was, the company had a gang of mutant cobs of corn essentially goading you into eating them, lest they sexually assault a loved-one. Looking at a bag, one imagines an angry cob bending you over a desk and whipping you with his horrifying husks, or else helping other cobs beat you into membership in an all-corn street gang.
Did the strategy work? Hell yes! You can hardly go anywhere in the rural South these days without seeing someone crunching into a handful of Corn Nuts, gladly sacrificing their few remaining teeth for the exhilarating flavor of Corn Gone Wrong.
Level of Extremeness: Tony Hawk coming to your 8th birthday party.
4. The X-Games!!
How can it get more x-treme than having "X" right in the name???
When you sit down to watch some X-games coverage, don't be surprised if you find yourself literally blown to the back of the room as an electric guitar wails to a fourteen-year-old snowboarder grinding pipes. The X-games are like your cool older cousin. Instead of doing homework, he smokes weed and sneaks into R-rated movies.
3. Right-Guard X-treme
For the place on your body you thought would never be X-treme enough to challenge your taint: Right Guard X-treme! Coat your underarms with this pine-scented gel and even your most X-treme friends will be ashamed of their own, dull, workaday armpits.
Deoderant was a latecomer to the land of X-treme marketing, only getting really hardcore after 2000. Seeing as how antiperspirant gels and being X-treme are such a good match, one has to wonder how this didn't happen sooner. Really, it's a no-brainer: after skateboarding off of the world's biggest ramp or pulling an 1180 on your BMX, what does a truly X-treme person need more than the assurance that his deoderant is kicking the shit out of stink molecules, as portrayed by sexy roller derby babes?
Furthermore, They had celebrity endorsements from Method Man, Red Man, and king of X-treme Bam Margera, who you know has to stink something fierce. As the '90s mantra goes,"if it's X-treme enough for a skateboarder who named himself after Barney Rubble's son and routinely beats his fat father on national television, it's X-treme enough for me."
Level of X-Tremeness: A helicopter battle raging around the surface of the moon.
2. Ultra-Violent Video Games!!
From Killer Instinct to Mortal Kombat to Duke Nukem to Tomb Raider, the '90s saw a major upswing in the badassness of video games. For example, compare the above with a list of games from the '80s: Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man Jr., Pac-Maphrodite, Fuckin' Gay-ass Grandpa Pac-Man, and Q-Bert. I rest my case. While those yellow sons of bitches were gobbling fruit and running from multi-colored ghosts named Blinky and Inky, the Duke was shooting space-pigs and ogling pixilated stripper boobs. No, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't have to. It's X-treme.
For the first time, the X-treme movement gave gamers the chance to vent their frustration at parents who wouldn't allow them to skip school to go to a Metal Mulisha BMX show by ripping out each others' spines. And, also, raiding tombs.
Level of X-Tremeness: An army of Mexican Wrestlers personally delivering you several items from Taco Bell while you watch "Three Ninjas"
1. Mountain Dew!!
Mountain Dew is the only drink so hardcore, you can't even drink it. Go ahead, try. I guarantee you'll spit it right out. That's how X-treme it is. Careful you don't spit it onto anything important though; that shit will burn through plexiglass.
Few recall that incredible as these soft drinks are, however, Mountain Dew and its whole family of X-treme sodas-Livewire, Baja Blast, MDX, and Tiger's Blood-are all just pale imitations of the king of X-treme sodas: SURGE Cola. Yes, all caps: SURGE. SURGE was the apotheosis of all that is X-treme, and its sole heir is that delightful extract we call the Dew. The ritual known as "Doing the Dew," usually observed either by base jumping while on fire or skydiving backwards (that's being hoisted into a plane at high velocity), is the X-treme aficionado's small way of remembering SURGE, and all it and Mountain Dew have done for us.
Level of Extremeness: Eh, pretty high I'd say.
Peace Love and Understanding
