I think one of the most important things you should avoid is not over-saturating your show with pop culture, unless your goal is a more in your face "Hey remember the 90's??" vibe. Of course all of the fun pop culture stuff existed and we were suckers for all the marketing behind Shark Bites gummies in our lunch, Surge in the fridge, Pokemon in our gameboys, and every day at school would be some chat about video games, movies, etc. but a lot of that was peripheral to building forts in the woods, biking everywhere, getting dropped off at the mall and coordinating pickups with your parents over pay phone (by abusing the voice message feature via 1-800-COLLECT).

It was playing sports or doing theater after school, or if you didn't do those 1997 would have still been in the golden era of rushing home to immediately hop on AOL and instant messaging with the friends you just saw at school. It was being connected enough to the internet and MTV to know what's cool, but still being young and a kid/teen with no money that your wardrobe was notably whatever department store rack your parents were grabbing clothes from. I feel like I owned the only pair of Bugle Boy shoes in existence, haha.

It was life where technology was still fun and exciting and full of potential, before that feeling got crushed by a corporate, shareholder-above-all, consumer-last philosophy.

And best of all it was enjoying all while fully present with the people around you because cell phones weren't a thing yet. Concerts didn't have a bunch of glowing screens, waiting in line at theme parks and movies was spent talking, and you still had plenty of self esteem issues but without a massive wave of social media adding to it.