Looking back, it's hard to see how we as a nation were quite so obsessed during the 90s with the bulbous pink, spotty monster who answered to the rather formal sounding title Mr Blobby. The mischievous character, who communicated using only his own name, first appeared in 1992 on the hit BBC show Noel's House Party, where he pranked unwitting celebrities. His destructive antics made him perhaps a bigger star than the show's host, Noel Edmonds, and he was soon everywhere. He even made it onto Danish TV, though it turned out Scandinavian viewers are more discerning and his stint there was short-lived. At the peak of his popularity, Mr Blobby beat Take That to the 1993 Christmas number one spot with his self-titled novelty single. Did you know that the man inside the suit was a classically trained Shakespearean actor from Bradford, called Barry Killerby, who reportedly called the role 'exhausting and demanding'?placeholder image
Looking back, it's hard to see how we as a nation were quite so obsessed during the 90s with the bulbous pink, spotty monster who answered to the rather formal sounding title Mr Blobby. The mischievous character, who communicated using only his own name, first appeared in 1992 on the hit BBC show Noel's House Party, where he pranked unwitting celebrities. His destructive antics made him perhaps a bigger star than the show's host, Noel Edmonds, and he was soon everywhere. He even made it onto Danish TV, though it turned out Scandinavian viewers are more discerning and his stint there was short-lived. At the peak of his popularity, Mr Blobby beat Take That to the 1993 Christmas number one spot with his self-titled novelty single. Did you know that the man inside the suit was a classically trained Shakespearean actor from Bradford, called Barry Killerby, who reportedly called the role 'exhausting and demanding'? | Getty Images

Nine things we found hilarious in the 90s and noughties, but weren't as funny as they seemed at the time

Robert Cumber
By Robert Cumber

Property and retro writer

Published 28th Jun 2025, 11:30 BST
Updated 28th Jun 2025, 11:30 BST

The 90s and noughties were undoubtedly a funny time.

They gave us three of the funniest sitcoms ever made, in Friends, Frasier and The Office, after all.

But there was a lot about them which really wasn’t all that funny, however hilarious it might have seemed to us at the time.

Below are some of the most irritating characters, pranks and jokes we somehow fell for back then and briefly thought were side-splitting, only to realise our error.

It turns out the 90s and noughties have a lot to answer for.

How many of these do you remember, and is there anything else you can think of which seemed hilarious at the time but less so in retrospect?

Do you have retro pictures or nostalgic memories to share with us? Send them online via YourWorld at www.yourworld.net/submit. It's free to use and, once checked, your story or picture will appear on our website and, space allowing, in our newspapers.

It's not the humour on the hit 90s show Ally McBeal we're questioning here, but the Dancing Baby meme which was everywhere in 1996. The clip of an animated baby dancing the cha-cha was one of the first viral internet videos, spreading like wildfire after initially being posted on a CompuServe forum. The dancing baby even made it onto the comedy drama Ally McBeal, in which the title character, played by Calista Flockhart, sees it during a hallucination.

5. That dancing baby meme

It's not the humour on the hit 90s show Ally McBeal we're questioning here, but the Dancing Baby meme which was everywhere in 1996. The clip of an animated baby dancing the cha-cha was one of the first viral internet videos, spreading like wildfire after initially being posted on a CompuServe forum. The dancing baby even made it onto the comedy drama Ally McBeal, in which the title character, played by Calista Flockhart, sees it during a hallucination. | Getty Images Photo: Frank Micelotta

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It's one of the most famous lines in movie history, from the classic 1992 legal drama A Few Good Men, written by Aaron Sorkin and starring Tom Cruise, Demi Moore and Jack Nicholson, pictured. But people thought they were being much funnier than they actually were by telling their friends, work colleagues or anyone they could get to listen 'you can't handle the truth'. Quite what Colonel Nathan Jessup, who utters those memorable words in the film, would have made of it all is anyone's guess.

6. Telling people 'you can't handle the truth'

It's one of the most famous lines in movie history, from the classic 1992 legal drama A Few Good Men, written by Aaron Sorkin and starring Tom Cruise, Demi Moore and Jack Nicholson, pictured. But people thought they were being much funnier than they actually were by telling their friends, work colleagues or anyone they could get to listen 'you can't handle the truth'. Quite what Colonel Nathan Jessup, who utters those memorable words in the film, would have made of it all is anyone's guess. | Getty Images Photo: Liaison

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OK, so this was around well before the 90s, but it was still a staple of schoolyard humour before smartphones rendered it obsolete. Who didn't get a laugh out of spelling the word 'BOOBIES' upside down on their calculator at school, and who, looking back, doesn't feel at least a little ashamed of their younger self?

7. Spelling BOOBIES on your calculator

OK, so this was around well before the 90s, but it was still a staple of schoolyard humour before smartphones rendered it obsolete. Who didn't get a laugh out of spelling the word 'BOOBIES' upside down on their calculator at school, and who, looking back, doesn't feel at least a little ashamed of their younger self? | Getty Images Photo: M. Fresco/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive

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Right Said Fred were famously too sexy for their shirts, as they told us in their 1991 hit song, and for almost everything else you'd care to mention. It was funny when they sang it but less funny when every man and his dog started uttering the phrase, thinking they were the funniest person, or dog, alive.

8. Telling people 'I'm too sexy' for all manner of things

Right Said Fred were famously too sexy for their shirts, as they told us in their 1991 hit song, and for almost everything else you'd care to mention. It was funny when they sang it but less funny when every man and his dog started uttering the phrase, thinking they were the funniest person, or dog, alive. | Getty Images Photo: Tobi Corney/Avalon

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