Entertainment events in the 1990s

Music

1990 – MCA acquires Geffen Records; Milli Vanilli revealed to have lip-synched all of their songs and that the vocals are not theirs

1991 – Deaths of Freddie Mercury and Eric Carr; Releases of Nirvana's Nevermind, Pearl Jam's Ten and Michael Jackson's Dangerous

1992 – Mariah Carey performs at MTV Unplugged; John Frusciante leaves the Red Hot Chili Peppers

1993 – Prince announces that he would be changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol as a protest against his record label Warner Bros. Records; Nirvana performs at MTV Unplugged

1994 – Death of Kurt Cobain; Madonna says the f-word fourteen times during her appearance on Late Show with David Letterman, causing a lot of controversy

1995 – Deaths of Selena and Jerry Garcia; Releases of No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom, Garbage's self titled debut, Michael Jackson's History, Oasis' (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and Queen's Made in Heaven

1996 – Death of Tupac Shakur; Release of Spice Girls' Spice, Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt and Weezer's Pinkerton

1997 – Death of The Notorious B.I.G.; Release of Backstreet Boys' Backstreet's Back and NSYNC's self titled debut

1998 – Geri Halliwell leaves Spice Girls; Releases of Madonna's Ray of Light, Kiss' Psycho Circus, Cher's Believe, Korn's Follow the Leader and Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals

1999 – Releases of Britney Spears' ...Baby One More Time, Christina Aguilera's self titled debut, Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile, Ayumi Hamasaki's A Song for ××, Utada Hikaru's First Love and Will Smith's Willennium

Film

1990 – Death of Greta Garbo; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles becomes the highest grossing independent film

1991 – Sony rebrands Columbia Tristar as Sony Pictures; Terminator 2: Judgement Day impress fans and critics with its groundbreaking CGI effects

1992 – Releases of Wayne's World, Aladdin, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Basic Instinct, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Sister Act, The Bodyguard, Batman Returns and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York; Ellen Ripley killed off in the climax of Alien 3

1993 – Disney acquires Miramax; Jurassic Park becomes the first film to gross $900 million worldwide, ending E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial's eleven-year reign as the highest grossing film of all time

1994 – Founding of Dreamworks; The Lion King becomes the highest grossing traditional animated film

1995 – Toy Story redefines the animation film industry with the rise of CGI animated films; James Bond returns after a six-year hiatus with the release of GoldenEye, which serves as Pierce Brosnan's debut as the British spy

1996 – Founding of Nickelodeon Movies with the release of Harriet the Spy; Release of Independence Day, which kickstarts Will Smith's film career after starring in the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

1997 – Titanic becomes first film to gross $1 billion and ends Jurassic Park's four-year reign as highest grossing film of all time; Founding of Lionsgate

1998 – Saving Private Ryan becomes Dreamworks' breakthrough film; Titanic wins eleven awards at the Oscars

1999 – Star Wars returns after a 16-year break with the release of Episode I: The Phantom Menace; Releases of The Sixth Sense, The Matrix, Tarzan, The Mummy, American Beauty, Toy Story 2, The World Is Not Enough, The Iron Giant and Notting Hill

TV

1990 – Launch of Fox Kids; Star Trek: The Next Generation season three ends with Riker ordering fire at the Borg after they capture Captain Picard and assimilate him into Locutus of Borg

1991 – Nickelodeon introduces their animation slate called Nicktoons, starting with the premieres of Doug, Rugrats and The Ren & Stimpy Show; BBC Television gets a new look with Two being rebranded back as BBC2 along with BBC1 getting a new logo

1992 – Jay Leno begins his tenure as the host of The Tonight Show; Launch of Cartoon Network, UK Gold and Portugal's first private television network SIC, ending the monopoly of Portuguese television held by RTP

1993 – ITV franchise changes: Thames Television is replaced by Carlton Television for the London weekday region, Television South is replaced by Meridian Television for the South and South East of England region, Television South West is replaced by Westcountry Television for the South West England region and TV-am is replaced by GMTV for the breakfast slot; Power Rangers begins its run on Fox Kids as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

1994 – Launches of TCM, FX and Sky Travel; Star Trek: The Next Generation concludes its seven-year run

1995 – Launches of The WB and UPN; Cartoon Network introduces What a Cartoon!, which proves to be a massive success and launches the careers of many prominent animators such as Butch Hartman, Craig McCracken, Genndy Tartakovsky, and Seth MacFarlane.

1996 – Friends' Super Bowl episode becomes the highest-rated Super Bowl lead-out program of all time; Launch of Fox Kids UK

1997 – 2.5 billion people watch the funeral of Princess Diana worldwide; Ellen DeGeneres comes out as a lesbian on The Oprah Winfrey Show on the same day her sitcom Ellen airs the groundbreaking episode "The Puppy Episode", in which her character Ellen Morgan also comes out as a lesbian

1998 – Introduction of Sky Digital and On Digital, paving the way for digital television in the United Kingdom; Pokémon returns after a four-month hiatus, following the "Electric Soldier Porygon" incident that caused 685 viewers to suffer seizures as a result.

1999 – Debut of WWF Smackdown on UPN; TNT UK is rebranded as TCM UK

Video games

1990 – Launch of Sega Genesis / Mega Drive in Europe; Founding of Eidos
1991 – Launches of Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega CD in Japan; Release of Sonic the Hedgehog
1992 – Releases of Super Mario Kart and Mortal Kombat; Mediagenic is rebranded back as Activision
1993 – Launches of 3DO, Atari Jaguar and Sega CD / Mega-CD outside Japan; Releases of Virtua Fighter and EA Sports' FIFA
1994 – Launches of Sega 32X, Sega Saturn and PlayStation in Japan; Silicon & Synapse is rebranded as Blizzard Entertainment
1995 – Launch of Sega Saturn and PlayStation outside Japan; First E3 expo held
1996 – Launch of Nintendo 64, which becomes the last console to support cartridges until 2017; Releases of Resident Evil and Pocket Monsters Red and Green, which starts the long running Pokémon franchise
1997 – Death of Gunpei Yokoi; Duke Nukem Forever begins production, which will continue for 14 years
1998 – Launch of Sega Dreamcast in Japan; Founding of Rockstar
1999 – Launch of Sega Dreamcast outside Japan; Releases of Super Smash Bros. and Sonic Adventure outside Japan