Today is the beginning of a new year and a new decade.

The nation and the world says goodbye to the 1980s and looks to the 90s.

Kawabanga.

I'm Josh Levine. And for the next season of Slate's podcast one year

we're slipping on some incredibly baggy pants and taking you back to 1990. Funny, it's the 90s, remember?

Microchips, microwaves, faxes, airphones.

It was a year of possibility

when an 8-year-old could get left home alone

and fend off a team of burglars all by himself.

You guys give up, or you're thirsty for more.

And a teenager, born and raised in West Philadelphia, could become a prince of Bel Air.

Whoa, whoa, Uncle Phil, can you take a stroll into the 90s, please?

In this season of one year, we'll bring you 1990s weirdest, wildest, and most captivating stories.

Like what the downfall of the Soviet Union had to do with Pizza Hut.

I'm not sure that you should be coming over because we got tanks parked outside

our restaurant. You'll hear about the single dad who fought back against big tobacco,

all while hiding behind a secret identity. I'm looking around like people were at the bus stop looking at us

and I was like oh my God and here comes a police car. In Cincinnati an art exhibit

became a battleground over the First Amendment.

I remember one of my board members said, so what's this?

And I said, well it's called fisting and she said, oh fisting,

what's that all about?

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