What to Drink, According to Your Favorite ‘90s Cartoon
As adults, nothing quite compares to the unmitigated joy we experienced as kids watching Saturday morning cartoons. It’s impossible to recapture that innocent joy of waking up, pouring a bowlful of cereal and criss-cross-applesauce-ing down directly in front of the TV. So you might as well settle for a not-so-innocent alternative: Making yourself an adult beverage and flipping on the same old toons.
Since 2010, the Spoons, Toons & Booze series has been doing just that: screening classic cartoons to an audience of cocktail-sipping, cereal-munching, grown-ass New Yorkers. Showrunners Michael Austin and Nell Casey (who run a number of events from their company SecretFormula) incorporate old commercials, cartoon trivia, debate competitions and drinking contests into their productions, but you can easily recreate the experience at home this (and every) Saturday morning.
While Austin and Casey cull about 100 cartoons from the full history of animation, we at Supercall believe the heyday of Saturday morning toons was in the ‘90s, when Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and The WB ruled. The only trick is deciding what to sip on while we rot our brains out in front of the TV. So we asked the Spoons, Toons & Booze duo to help us out. Here, what to drink while you watch your favorite ‘90s cartoon, according to two boozy toon experts. We’ll leave the choice of cereal up to you.
Hey Arnold!: Rusty Nail
Austin: I’m always surprised by how much they play smooth jazz in Hey Arnold! The intro, the outro. What kids do they think are watching this who love smooth jazz? Arnold hangs out with a bunch of old people all the time. He’s kind of an old man himself. So we were thinking of something an old man would drink, and Casey came up with a Rusty Nail, which is a really great old man cocktail. Grandpa or somebody is drinking that.
Doug: Screwdriver
Casey: Who is Doug? He’s a sweet little kid, very earnest, tries to resolve conflict, but he’s kind of boring and basic. You like Doug, but you’re also like, “You’re a little bit lame dude.” He’s like someone just starting to drink, so we came up with a Screwdriver. If you went into a bar and just turned 21, you might order a Screwdriver. It’s orange juice. It’s vodka. It’s sweet and comforting, like a green sweater vested kid you just want to hug.
Austin: Doug definitely doesn’t drink Coke. Doug drinks juice…with a little vodka in it.
Johnny Bravo: Long Island Iced Tea
Austin: Johnny Bravo is kind of a douche, kind of a bro. He’s a Long Island Iced Tea. It’s tacky, over the top, way too much. He’s clearly overcompensating for something and so is anyone who orders that drink. They’re going to smell like Axe body spray, and Johnny definitely smells that way. You roll your eyes at him all the time because he’s just so slimy.
Animaniacs: Hurricane
Casey: The Animaniacs are just so extra. There’s all this energy and insanity. They’re a Hurricane. It’s complicated, aggressively alcoholic. It’s this swirling intense thing that is just out of control.
Dexter’s Laboratory: Sonic Screwdriver
Austin: There’s a drink called the Sonic Screwdriver that’s Dr. Who inspired. It’s a Screwdriver with the addition of blue curaçao, which turns green when combined with orange juice, and it looks future-y and high tech. And Dexter loves superheros, and he’s clearly a sci-fi geek. Dexter probably likes Dr. Who.
Beavis and Butt-Head: Sex on the Beach
Casey: They’re degenerate pervert idiots. What would these two dumb-dumbs go into a bar and order and think it was the funniest thing ever? *Beavis voice* “Huh huh. Can I get a, huh huh, Sex on the Beach? Huh huh huh.” I just imagine these guys seeing chicks and thinking the Sex on the Beach cocktail will get them laid.
Daria: Salt-Rimmed Margarita
Austin: Daria is sour and salty, so she gets a salty Marg, with an actual salt rim. If you can get past her salty exterior, she’s actually kind of sweet and nice on the inside.
The Powerpuff Girls: Eggnog
Casey: The Powerpuff Girls are sugar, spice and everything nice, so you should drink Eggnog. It’s really sweet with some spice from nutmeg and cinnamon. This drink tastes like sugar, but oh my god, it will get you drunk if you drink too many of them.
Rocko’s Modern Life: Brown Cow
Austin: There’s a drink called the Brown Cow. Rocko’s best friend is a cow named Heifer. The drink is just Kahlúa, milk and ice cream, garnished with nutmeg. We like imagining Rocko sitting in bed drinking a big glass of that instead of just milk. It’s just a good image.
Ren and Stimpy: Swedish Seed
Casey: We are not big fans of this show. It’s disturbing. It’s a disgusting show. People watch this and have a super visceral reaction to a close-up of a gross pimple or something. What’s a gross thing that some people like, like an acquired taste? Well there’s Malort, the Chicago spirit that some people love, and everybody else is like, “Why do you like this thing? You’re a horrifying person.” Just like Ren and Stimpy is horrifying. So there’s this cocktail called the Swedish Seed, that’s made with Malort, Art in the Age Root Liqueur, egg white, honey, lemon juice and Angostura.
Austin: Also Ren has a Swedish cousin in one episode, and seed just sounds dirty and gross. So the Swedish Seed is an appropriate name.
CatDog: Jack and Coke
Austin: CatDog is a pairing of two different characters together, like a Jack and Coke. The Jack is really intense like the cat, and the Coke is sweet like the dog.
SpongeBob SquarePants: Piña Colada
Casey: SpongeBob lives in a pineapple under the sea. What do you drink at the beach that has pineapple? You drink a Piña Colada. It’s tacky and sweet and in your face. It’s a lot of treacly flavors, and SpongeBob’s unending positivity can be kind of grating. If you have too much of it, it gives you a headache.
Pinky and the Brain: Neat Scotch
Austin: What is a drink you would drink while mulling taking over the world? Obviously just a glass of scotch.
Ed, Edd and Eddy: Tequila Shots
Austin: It’s basically TheThree Stooges so any kind of three-step shot drink works, like the salt, tequila and lime in a tequila shot.
Aaahh!!! Real Monsters: Corpse Reviver
Casey: They’re monsters. They’re creepy. But they’re also trying to do right by one another and the world. So something that sounds really gross but is actually really delicious, like a Corpse Reviver. It sounds really creepy crawly, but then you drink it and find it’s actually really good.
Pokémon: Sake Bomb
Austin: You get the shot of sake and you throw it in your glass like a Poké Ball. You should probably throw the sake in the beer and yell, “Pikachu, I choose you.”
Rocket Power: Scorpion Bowl
Austin: There’s a lot of Hawaiian stuff in Rocket Power. There’s also a lot of extreme sports, and the characters work together as a team a lot. We wanted something extreme, something tropical and something you could do together with friends, so it’s a Scorpion Bowl. Also, when you’re done with it, you could take your fingerboard and skate the bowl.
The Simpsons: Flaming Dr. Pepper
Casey: A Flaming Dr. Pepper is kind of like a riff on Flaming Moe. Pretty straightforward.
King of the Hill: Boilermaker
Austin: Drink a working man’s drink like a Boilermaker. You drop the shot of whiskey in the glass of beer, preferably Lone Star beer. It’s not the Alamo beer they drink in the show, but that’s not real, and Lone Star is.
Rugrats: Buttery Nipple
Casey: We’re just going to lean into the weird with a Buttery Nipple because they’re babies. Ya get it?
Austin: It’s Baileys and butterscotch schnapps. It’s delicious.
Arthur: Water
Austin: Arthur is a frickin’ educational TV show about aardvark children. Just drink a glass of water, you drunk. Today’s lesson is brought to you by the letter H, which stands for hydration.
South Park: Red Headed Slut
Casey: These are degenerate little children.
Austin: They call a lot of people sluts.
Casey: So we were thinking a Red Headed Slut would be a good option.
Home Movies: French Connection
Austin: Any cocktail named for a movie would do.
Family Guy: Clam Pint
Casey: There’s something called a Clam Pint made with beer and Clamato, kind of like a Michelada, to combine all the clam stuff in Quahog and all the beer they drink. Or you could do a Bloody Caesar.
Futurama: Midori Sour
Austin: The Slurm episode of Futurama is the best, so we were thinking of something that resembled Slurm. A bright green drink like a Midori Sour fits pretty well.
Batman: The Animated Series: Black Velvet
Casey: It’s Guinness and Champagne. There are two sides to the cocktail and two sides to the man. You have the gritty, street-level aspect, protecting the common man, which would be like your Guinness. And then you have the elite playboy billionaire who might drink Champagne at a party.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Bloody Mary
Austin: A Bloody Mary is just like pizza in a glass, and the turtles love pizza. Especially because some Bloody Marys these days have cheese in them and are garnished with burgers and crazy stuff.
Spider-Man: Tequila Slammer
Casey: You need a drink that will get you lightheaded, kind of like you’ve been swinging from building to building on a web. There’s a drink called the Tequila Slammer that involves shaking up carbonated soda and chugging it, which makes you feel really lightheaded.
DuckTales: Goldschläger
Casey: Just put your face in gold.
Austin: Goldschläger in a bathtub and then you jump into it, like how Scrooge McDuck jumps into his gold coins.