1998 throwback Thursday lands on a year that felt safe and new at the exact same time. The Discman was still in your bag. Blockbuster still had a line on Friday night. Gas was 50 cents a litre. And Google went from being called BackRub to Google and quietly started changing everything before anyone noticed.

What does it feel like to look back at a year where you were living in one world and the next one was already being built behind you? The Truman Show came out that year and people laughed at the idea that someone might be living in a constructed simulation without knowing it. That joke has gotten considerably less funny since. Jean Chrétien and Bill Clinton swapped hockey jerseys and actually seemed to enjoy themselves. That part also feels further away than 1998.

Pokemon had 151 characters when it arrived in Canada that year. It has 1025 now. Titanic was still filling theatres. Construction started on the International Space Station. It was a very full year for a year nobody saw coming.

Topics: 1998 throwback Thursday, Pokemon Canada 1998, Blockbuster nostalgia, analog to digital transition, 1998 pop culture

Originally aired on2026-04-16