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Dream of the '90s

Portlandia2011Season 1Episode 1
Portlandia
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.

The setup

An LA slacker back from a trip north insists that Portland is a place where the '90s never ended, then sings his case through the city's streets.

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Community rating

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The premise

Here’s the bit.

Walking her dog in Los Angeles, Melanie runs into her friend Jason, who has just returned from a revelatory trip. He asks whether she remembers the '90s, with its piercings, tribal tattoos, earnest songs about saving the planet and endless garage bands, and claims that one city still lives that way: Portland, Oregon. As the two keep walking and trading examples of aimless, under-employed living, the sketch cuts to Jason performing a sincere music-video anthem along Portland's riverfront and streets, gathering a growing parade of tattooed rockers, clowns, tall-bike riders, a suited choir and a marching band. Melanie warms to the idea of a parallel world untouched by the following decade, and the video ends with her arriving in Portland to join him, where Jason teases her for still looking a bit too much like San Francisco.

The funny people

Meet the cast. 2

Say it with us

Highly quotable.

Portland is a city where young people go to retire.

It's like Gore won. The Bush administration never happened.

You're also a little San Francisco right now.

Behind the scenes

The people who made it.

A little extra

Notes from the archive.

Before Portlandia premiered on IFC on January 21, 2011, this music video had already spread online as a viral clip, and press previews of the series quoted its line about Portland being where young people go to retire.

ScriptEnglish · 47 turns

Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.

  1. 00:02

    Melanie

    Good boy All right, honey.

  2. 00:06

    Melanie

    Oh, hey Jason. What's going on? I know you're back in LA.

  3. 00:09

    Jason

    Yeah. Yeah Had a pretty amazing trip. I mean it was Unreal

  4. 00:13

    Melanie

    really I can't wait to hear about it.

  5. 00:15

    Jason

    No, I have like a lot to tell you

  6. 00:21

    Melanie

    What is it?

  7. 00:23

    Jason

    Do you remember the 90s?

  8. 00:25

    Melanie

    Yeah

  9. 00:26

    Jason

    You know people were talking about Getting piercings and getting tribal tattoos.

  10. 00:31

    Melanie

    Yeah,

  11. 00:32

    Jason

    people are singing about saving the planet and forming bands

  12. 00:37

    Jason

    There's a place where that idea still exists as a reality, and I've been there.

  13. 00:42

    Melanie

    Where is it?

  14. 00:43

    Jason

    Portland.

  15. 00:44

    Melanie

    Oregon?

  16. 00:46

    Jason

    Yeah.

  17. 01:02

    Jason

    Remember when people were content to be unambitious, sleep till 11, just hang out with their friends? I mean they had no occupations whatsoever, maybe working a couple of hours a week at a coffee shop.

  18. 01:13

    Melanie

    Right? I thought that died out a long time ago.

  19. 01:15

    Jason

    Not in Portland. Portland is a city where young people go to retire.

  20. 01:19

    Jason

    Dream of the 90s is the life, Portland classes. Yay!

  21. 01:26

    Jason

    Remember in the 90s when they encouraged you to be weird? It was just an amazing time where people would go to see something like the Jim Rose Sideshow Circus and watch someone hang something from their penis. You could grow up to want to be a clown. People went to clown school.

  22. 01:39

    Melanie

    I gave up clowning years ago.

  23. 01:40

    Jason

    In Portland, you don't have to.

  24. 01:42

    Jason

    The dream of the 90s is alive in Portland.

  25. 01:46

    Jason

    The You'll be in heaven

  26. 01:50

    Jason

    The dream of the 90s is alive in Portland. The dream is alive.

  27. 01:57

    Melanie

    So from what I can surmise from what you're positing, it's like Portland's almost an alternative universe. It's like Gore 1. The Bush administration never happened.

  28. 02:05

    Jason

    Exactly.

  29. 02:06

    Melanie

    In Portland, it's almost like cars don't exist, right?

  30. 02:08

    Jason

    Yes.

  31. 02:08

    Melanie

    People ride bikes or double-decker bikes. They ride unicycles. They ride the tram. Bam, they ride skateboards.

  32. 02:13

    Jason

    Yes.

  33. 02:14

    Jason

    The dream of the 90s is alive in Portland.

  34. 02:18

    Jason

    On flannels that still look fine.

  35. 02:22

    Jason

    The dream of the 90s is alive The dream of the 90s is alive in Portland. in Portland.

  36. 02:35

    Jason

    In Portland, you can go to like a record store and sell your CDs.

  37. 02:38

    Jason

    Turn that dirty clown frown right upside down.

  38. 02:43

    Melanie

    In Portland, you can put a bird on something and just call it art.

  39. 02:46

    Jason

    The dream of the 90s is alive in Portland.

  40. 02:49

    Jason

    The dream of the 90s is alive in Portland.

  41. 02:57

    Jason

    Yeah, you're a little late.

  42. 02:58

    Melanie

    Sorry.

  43. 02:59

    Jason

    You're also a little San Francisco right now, if you know what I mean. Try that. Try that.

  44. 03:04

    Melanie

    Sorry.

  45. 03:05

    Jason

    Much better. Welcome to Portland.

  46. 03:07

    Melanie

    Thank you.

  47. 03:08

    The dream of the 90s is alive in Portland, Portland, Portland, Portland, Portland.

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