Yes, we know Kid 90 was not a Hallmark Channel movie. If it was, the Soleil Moon Frye documentary would have has a completely different ending. But since there wasn’t a new Hallmark movie, Megan and Wendy decided to recap and review Kid 90 currently streaming on Hulu. Email the show at meganandwendy@gmail.com.

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Kid 90 is a 2021 documentary written and produced by actress Soleil Moon Frye. During the 1990s, Frye documented her life with a hand held video camera. The doc has been applauded for being “candid” and “extremely well done” but also criticized as being “boring” and “another poor little rich kid story.”

Frye’s documentary explores some dark threads but never really closes the loop on any specific topic other than answering her question about remembering the memories accurately.

The documentary features talking-head interviews with Brian Austin Green, Stephen Dorff, Mark Paul Gosselaar and a few others. There are also dozens of cameos of other well-known actors whom were captured on Frye’s personal videos from the 90s.

For this 90s baby, the doc stirred up some fond memories about my own teenage years. It definitely was a different time – a little more free range, full of mistakes and digitally disconnected. I had hoped for a joyful walk down memory lane but Frye’s portrayal of her experience has left me wondering if my peers were also that messed up.

Kid 90 had a lot of potential but instead of drilling down into subjects like the sexualization of young girls in Hollywood, body image, how rejection affects teens, the entertainment industry not being appropriate for child actors, mental health, privileged kids with too many freedoms, suicide, and the excessive access to drugs and underaged drinking were treated as drive-by conversations. Instead, the focus was on unpacking Soleil Moon Frye’s home movies without any lesson learned.

Soleil Moon Frye starred in Punky Brewster which was a family television show that aired four season from 1984 – 1988. The show has recently been rebooted and is about Punky as a single mom. The original series as well as the new reboot streams on Peacock.

Soleil dipped her toe in the mommy blogger community several years ago with a now defunct blog called Moonfrye. She also wrote a parenting book called Happy Chaos in 2011. She is a mom of four and recently divorced after 22 years of marriage to ex Jason Goldberg.

We had a good laugh about pagers and early 90s cellular phones during our recap and review of Kid 90. What do you remember from the era? Man, thank God no one was videotaping us to scrutinize thirty years later.

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