Now, if you're going to fall for a fad that'll only be on your shelf at home, that's fine. It's okay to be stupid as long as people don't know about it. Unfortunately, moronic fads spread into the clothing industry, in the hopes that we'd all think we looked cool dressed like clowns.

With that, I present to your four fads that I've personally succumbed to in my younger, far more impressionable years. The very memory of this shit embarasses me...

Reebok Pumps: Actually, I never fell for this one. I wouldn't even dream to pretend I was into sports. But many of my poor, misguided classmates did. Reebok Pumps - the idea was simple. You'd push the stupid button on the sneaker, and your shoes would fill with air or tighten or something. I honestly don't recall the exact purpose...I really doubt there was one. If the point was to make the shoes more fastened to your feet...I'm pretty sure there was already an invention made for that...I think they called it shoelaces. In any event, if you wanted your feet to look gaudy as Hell but didn't want the extra weight of snowboots, Reebok Pumps were the way to go.

I remember kids coming into school ad being heraled like the second coming of Christ if they had a new pair of these 'beauties'. The power of marketing, I guess. They were awful looking. Especially on kids who weighed like 70 pounds, since the shoes were so huge and blocky, they looked like they got feet transplants from some giant mutant sci-fi villain.

Luckily, this fad wore off, and people stopped trying to be cool by giving their feet gimmicks.

Snap Bracelets: When I was in elementary school, these things were absolutely huge. So huge, that the teacher eventually banned them. The deal was that you could 'snap' these things on your wrist. Like magic! Unfortunately, the thing that made them snap was made of metal, and once the cheap nylon exterior wore down, nearly every kid in the neighborhood had scratches all over their arms.

Add that on top of the fact that the style choices made by the snap bracelet companies, and you really had a winner. Honestly, have you ever seen a more blatant disregard of color coordination? I know when I get dressed up, the only thing that would complete the outfit is a green and brown metal snap bracelet. And sometimes you'd get ones like the ruler pictured above. Finally, you could wear a ruler!

I've worn some pretty stupid things in my day. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle watches...Spiderman sunglasses...but this really took the cake as far as accessories went. Putting one of these on was the equivalent of carrying around an 'I'm an idiot' sign. But hey, we were young.

Skidz Pants: The picture above is of McDonalds shorts, but all you need to know is that Skidz pants were actually far worse than these. Skidz were baggy clown pants with some of the most putrid designs in history. And everybody wore them. My entire school looked like a circus convention.

It amazes me to think that something like this could get as big as it did. These pants were undeniably ugly and ridiculous, yet everyone went crazy for them. There were even cheaply made knock-offs all over department stores that were like a clown's parachute pants. Terrible.

Hypercolor Shirts: Now these were fun. Shirts that would, in theory, change color if you touched them. In reality, you had to pull the shirt to your mouth and breathe on it really hard to inspire any kind of change.

So what we had here was an ugly t-shirt that would cause strange kids to run up to and start breathing on you. Flu epidemics were common during the Hypercolor era.

I'm not the only person who thinks these fads sucked. Take a look...

Batman: Read that paper, O'Hara.

Chief O'Hara: But I like snap bracelets, Batman.

Batman: Read it, or it's the dehydrator for you!

Chief O'Hara: Fine, fine. "I do not like snap bracelets. They are bad and no one should wear them".

Mr. Drummond: Arnold, if I ever catch you trying to wear Reebok Pumps again, I'll cut your feet off. Now go upstairs and try to break 4'.

Joker: I'm holding this special heat wave gun to illustrate exactly what it takes to make a stupid Hypercolor shirt change color.

Donald: If I wore pants, they wouldn't be Skidz. Rest assured of that, sucka.

But those are the fads of a generation past. They'll be others. Let's just hope today's youth is a little smarter than we were.

Gallery of the day - Jessica Biel - Click here.

- Matt
matt@x-entertainment.com