Why do millions of people love watching Rob Anderson tear apart their favorite '90s movies?

“I took a gummy, and I watched it and I was precise confused,” comedian Rob Anderson excitedly recounted successful a video astir the ‘80s Canadian kids’ movie “The Peanut Butter Solution,” successful which a lad puts a spreadable solution connected his bald head, grows luscious locks, is kidnapped, past forced to turn his hairsbreadth for paintbrushes. “So I watched it again without a gummy and it made adjacent less sense. I was much baffled.”

It’s a weird premise to beryllium sure, but that Anderson is baffled by immoderate millennial media is some charming and portion of the fun.

The New York-based comedian has been posting recaps and take-downs of tv shows and films from the ’80s, ’90s and aboriginal 2000s — with a fewer Hallmark and Netflix Christmas movies thrown successful for bully measure, on with the occasional bizarre plan amusement — since 2023, and has developed a important pursuing connected societal media. Nothing is sacred: “The Princess Diaries” and “Coyote Ugly” are dissected for verisimilitude; “Big” and “Never Been Kissed” checked for their statutory-adjacent plotlines; “Saved by the Bell” is posited arsenic classist; “Annie” is reconsidered arsenic thing but a kid’s musical.

“They’re each movies that I person watched before,” Anderson, 38, says of his dozens of comedic recaps. “That’s the existent enjoyment: You’re watching it simultaneously from what you retrieve arsenic a kid, and past besides arsenic a grown big going, Oh my God, this makes nary sense.”

Anderson is present for the melodrama, the peculiar lessons and the climaxes that autumn flat. “There’s thing truthful large astir a large infinitesimal that is expected to beryllium tremendous for this idiosyncratic who is truthful palmy astatine singing oregon dancing oregon immoderate they’re doing. At the clip [of release], we’re like, This is great. And past watching it back, you’re like, Wait, what?”

Rob Anderson has been posting recaps and take-downs of tv shows and films from the ’80s, ’90s and aboriginal 2000s since 2023.

(Max Bronner)

And portion this dressing-down of beloved works mightiness look similar different bummer successful a satellite of doomscrolling, @heartthrobanderson is thing but. “It’s not acidic oregon negative. I genuinely emotion doing this,” helium says. “That comes done successful the videos.”

The impervious whitethorn beryllium successful Anderson’s millions of followers connected TikTok and Instagram, which see ’90s queens specified arsenic Rose McGowan, Busy Philipps and members of the formed of “7th Heaven,” arsenic good arsenic Rihanna. He’s bringing his societal level to the signifier with “Are You Afraid of the ’90s?” — a 90-minute, one-man musical/stand-up that melds his recaps with archetypal songs and theatrics. The circuit arrives astatine the Belasco connected March 7.

Marketing, societal and ‘Gay Science’

Although he’s made his people online, Anderson studied theatre successful assemblage and did sketch improv successful Chicago earlier moving to New York. Anderson’s TikToks for edifice reviewer the Infatuation (where helium was caput of marketing) went viral — “It was fundamentally conscionable my property and my humor, and past attaching food” — and helium soon began making his ain drama videos. He was signed to an bureau conscionable earlier the pandemic.

Anderson went viral again for his “Gay Science” series, which took a satirical and graph-heavy attack to queer stereotypes and behavior. Across 50 episodes, Anderson unpacked everything from wherefore cheery men similar iced java to whether bottoms would past the apocalypse (the reply is yes).

The bid became a bestselling book, expanding Anderson’s illustration arsenic an incisive commentator with biting wit but precise small malice.

Breaking done with ‘7th Heaven’

Anderson grew up watching and rewatching movies — sometimes aggregate times successful a enactment — but contiguous is the “type of idiosyncratic that can’t bash the aforesaid happening for excessively long.” After exploring each of the cheery subject helium could imagine, Anderson recovered a caller calling successful revisiting tv from his youth. Enter the moralizing household play “7th Heaven.”

“[Recapping] ‘7th Heaven’ truly was my stepping chromatic into uncovering this voice. I tin instrumentality nostalgic things that radical love, oregon don’t love, and bring them backmost up successful a mode that roasts them lightly,” helium says. “It’s my hyper-critical Virgo mind: Instead of being the downer astatine a enactment that points retired each the things that suck and wherefore we should leave, I’m inactive pointing them out, but successful a mode that makes america privation to stay.”

Regardless of whether you grew up with the show, galore episodes of “7th Heaven” person plotlines worthy revisiting, if lone for their insanity and taste obsolescence. Just spot Anderson’s thoughts connected plotlines astir Black allyship, the clip the youngest Camden kid became xenophobic, the dangers of hickeys, and a precise peculiar MLK Day occurrence wherever a achromatic feline becomes a unfortunate of racism. Members of the formed person seen Anderson’s reels, and Beverley Mitchell (Lucy) adjacent collaborated with Anderson connected a video wherever her quality goes to therapy.

As he’s expanded his recaps into different tv and movie series, Anderson has recovered fans successful the actors themselves. “It’s roasting thing they did, and they inactive admit the position of it all.”

Rob Anderson connected signifier for his one-man amusement “Are You Afraid of the ‘90s?”

(Varun Mummadi)

The nostalgia king

Anderson’s niche of nostalgiacore is uniquely millennial: His procreation tin look successful the rearview sooner than ever earlier and grew up with an unthinkable magnitude of targeted media that’s ripe for dissection.

“The crushed wherefore I started revisiting these things is the aforesaid crushed wherefore radical bask what I’m saying astir them. It’s a locomotion backward into a clip that was pleasant. … Nostalgia is simply a existent almighty drug,” helium says.

Anderson typically watches astatine slightest 2 films oregon shows a day, though helium told People that helium tin ticker up to 10 hours of media daily. He has lists of shows and films from puerility to revisit, and regularly scans his DMs — helium gets 50 to 100 a time — for suggestions. Shows of the era, Anderson finds, often tackled hard subjects successful the worst mode possible, but “they truly meant well.”

“There were truthful galore sitcoms being aired astatine 1 time, and they were each trying to beryllium the happening that radical talked about,” Anderson says, adding that today’s media scenery is much fragmented. “We watched them due to the fact that that was what we had, and truthful it brings america each together.”

In “Are You Afraid of the ’90s?” — which is segmented into themes astir alcoholism and cause addiction, teenage pregnancy, racism, LGBTQ, property gaps and powerfulness dynamics — Anderson reviews an occurrence of the beloved “Boy Meets World” wherever Cory and his champion person Shawn portion intoxicant for the archetypal time.

“Twenty-four hours later, Shawn is simply a full-blown alcoholic. He gets kicked retired of schoolhouse for being drunk. They person an involution that they staged for him each successful 1 day,” Anderson recalls. “When you’re a kid, you conscionable benignant of presume that’s however it works.”

Anderson volition wrapper his circuit and promotion of a drama peculiar successful the outpouring but says helium doesn’t deliberation much than a twelvemonth oregon 2 into the future. The stage, social, and commentary opportunities are each possibilities rooted successful Anderson’s quality to hone his dependable and perspective.

“It’s truly eye-opening to beryllium myself wholly and person radical admit it,” helium notes. “I’ve created characters and sketches. To spot my thoughts connected things beryllium the happening that radical emotion astir [has] been really, truly exciting.”