Does anyone remember going to the grocery store with Mama in your younger years and rushing for the Capri Sun, and (most importantly) the Teen Bop magazine that provided you with all of the yummy screen shots of Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic and Romeo and Juliet?

I do.

In fact, I remember making my babysitter look through the entire magazine with me every time she came over so I could talk about how I was going to meet Leo one day, and we were going to get married.  My babysitter did not have to worry about playing Barbie-and-Ken-take-Miami with me.  All they had to worry about was my heart self-combusting with love and excitement in the presence of a shiny photo of Leo.  I hope my mother payed her overtime.

Therefore, in ode to Leonardo’s birthday week,  we are going to talk about our biggest celeb crushes of our teenage years.  After all, these are the first guys that made us want to learn to french kiss.

[Click ANY photo to launch the gallery]

Jesse James explains why he’s such an ass he cheated.

What ever happened to JTT?

Courtney Love drags Kate Moss into the crazy.

Katherine Heigl tries to seem more lovable.

They’ll let anyone become a professor, eh?

Oh no, Miss USA, don’t do it!

Sigh. Those were the good old days.

But now there is good news for me and my fellow Babysitter’s fans. Scholastic has decided to give the books a re-vamp and bring them into the 21st century.  I haven’t heard better news since I found out Taylor Lautner was gaining 20 pounds of muscle for the Twilight saga films! I could not have special ordered better news.

Will there be a new girl at the BSC in charge of maintaining their website?
Will the girls get in trouble for Facebooking on the job?

Just thinking about it makes me giddy. Actually, thinking about the 90s at all makes me wanna do a little dance in my stirrup pants. Well, if I still had them. The 90s were a pretty fantastic decade full of pretty rad stuff (like the word “rad”), and if we’re bringing back the BSC, maybe we should consider bringing back a few other key things.

Skip-It: No wonder I could eat four Toaster Strudels every morning when I was ten.  Besides my killer metabolism, Skip-It skipped my way into some well defined calves at a young age. Calves I’d do just about anything (besides calf raises) to have back now. Perhaps this time around they could have adult sizes? Lord knows I’ve tried stuffing my foot into that teeny, tiny ring unsuccessfully too many times.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas: His dreamy fave and frosted tips were plastered all over my walls/notebooks/Trapper Keeper/locker/you name it. His mere presence on the set of Home Improvement had me jumping out of my beanbag chair. And then…he vanished. Come back to me, JTT. Come back now.

Beanie Babies: Mostly so I can recoup my losses from the 100 that I somehow still have piled in my closet.

Clarissa Explains It All: Clarissa taught me all I needed know about my first pimple and how to climb into a second floor bedroom window.  Come to find out, I still seek advice on these subjects, except it is usually climbing out of a second floor window (hello walk of shame/two-minute getaway).  Plus, neighbor Sam is probably looking pretty, pretty good right about now and with Gossip Girl and Glee on hiatus, we could use a little something to fill our DVRs.

MC Hammer Pants: Oh wait. We already got those back. And it wasn’t pretty.

Our elementary school days were filled with lazy after-school sessions of TV surfing; all those wholesome family shows chock full of life lessons, physical comedy and a happy ending. We were addicted to the Full House family and all the hilarious mishaps of Tim the Tool Man Taylor. We couldn’t wait to see who Joey Potter chose each week on Dawson’s Creek and, though we’d never admit it, we even tuned in to see what crazy villain the Power Rangers took down every Saturday.

We were innocent little children soaking up the entertainment.

But we’re not so innocent anymore. Now we’re hormone raging college girls and, looking back, our favorite childhood shows were overflowing with serious male hotness. Hotness that we’d like to go back in time and get naughty with… if we had a DeLorean.

If I had these sort of inappropriate thoughts back in the day, my mother never would have let me watch Family Matters alone in my room.

Ryder Strong on Boy Meets World

He is the quintessential bad boy. Rocky childhood, from the “other side of the tracks,” rebelling all through school. How can we resist? We love his unpredictable antics and how he cleaned up his act and made his way to college. We’d throw a couple spitballs at Feeney to land a spot right under him in after school detention.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas on Home Improvement

That raspy voice, the almost too-perfect-to-be-true dreamboat face of his, the long rugged (almost mullet-y) blonde hair, and that freakin’ smile that melts us into a puddle in front of the TV set. If I knew then what I know now, I’d totally have shacked up with this one in his scary basement bedroom.

Stephan (Steve Urkels smokin’ alter ego on Family Matters)

We’re not going to lie – when Urkel stepped into that machine and came out Stephan we might have wet ourselves a little. It was pee pee back then, but I can’t say the same thing for now.

Steve on Full House

He was so dopey, we were embarrassed for him. But as long as he keeps his mouth shut, I’m all for that voluminous, wavy hair and strong chin. When we watch the big break up scene now (yeah, we watch the reruns every day), we are screaming for him to rebound right into our wide-open legs arms.

Pacey from Dawson’s Creek

No matter how hard he tried, things never seemed to go his way; we feel for Pacey and would like to console him by gifting him our bodies. The caring, sensitive guy, masked under a tough, sarcastic exterior gets us every time. Joey’s a wet noodle, Pacey; your perfect woman is right over here.

Tommy Oliver, aka The Green Ranger

He looked damn good in that green spandex and he would kick ass for his woman anytime. Those broad shoulders, the slicked back pony tail…I’d like to do a little Mighty Morphing with him. Go Go Power Rangers!

5. Mike Lookinland

Bobby, Bobby, Bobby—you were so freaking adorable on “The Brady Bunch,” so WTF happened? Your big bro Peter marries America’s Next Top Model and this is how you carry on the family tradition? Sure you didn’t get “a lot” of camera time during the show, but it was because you were so cute that the producers had no idea what kind of shenanigans to throw you into; they didn’t want to risk a single frown line on your perfect little punum.

4. Devon Sawa

I’m not sure if I’ve ever wanted to be anyone more than Christina Ricci in “Casper” for that smooch she shared with you after you, you know, became human again. That is, until I watched “Wild America”– your movie with still-adorable JTT– then I really wanted to be any animal. Cut to 13 years later, and you might as well be another brother in the total train wreck that is the Carter family—bloated, bleached and busted. You’ve let us all down.

3. Scott Baio

To know the truly happy days Joanie must have experienced whilst being wooed by a young Scott Baio! I mean, your tight little body, those luscious locks, that sweet “underdog” persona. But a few decades later, you totally turned “guido” on our asses and got a f*cking reality show on Vh1 to determine whether or not you could handle your girlfriend’s pregnancy. Class act.

2. Corey Haim

WHOA. Dude. Just, wow. So you gave into Hollywood’s pressure to party, but not to keep up your appearances? I guess that’s a form of self-respect…but it’s the kind that makes me want to wash my eyes after seeing it. Please, give in a little more next time? The other Corey is still reasonably f*ckable— take a page out of his book. I’m sure he’ll let you borrow it. He’s your bro, right? You guys have your own show again—back on top!…just…hopefully with some flattering lighting.

1. Charlie Brown

I get what you’re trying to do, Charlie, I do. And it was cute in 1950, but it’s been over fifty years, man! Peanuts has been a syndicated cartoon since 2000, so we can still see how it went down towards the end: you really let yourself go—nothing more than a chubby, balding, middle-aged man full of neuroses and insecurities. Maybe you should try something new, like growing a second hair or finally hiring a therapist that you so desperately need.Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Who do you think has fallen off of the “hot heartthrob” wagon the hardest?

I was just rewatching an episode of Veronica Mars (which, if you don’t know, is my favorite show) that featured the fine acting stylings of one Jonathan Taylor Thomas, or JTT to those in the know. Needless to say, he hasn’t aged well. He’s not quite a Fred Savage but he is by no means a Jerry O’ Connell.In his episode of VM, he is sporting this strange post-apocalyptic lost in the cement jungle half-mullet that really sort of traumatized me.

This sad encounter made me want to remember a happier time in the mid-nineties when JTT was all dimples and dreams and, of course, my heart’s most fervent desire.

Let’s start in 1994 when I watched the Lion King about 25 times not because I really loved it, but just to hear JTT’s angel voice as Young Simba. No, he didn’t actually sing the songs, but he didn’t have to, because every word was, in itself, like a song.1995 may have been the best year of my life so far because that was the year that Jonathan released both Man of the House and Tom and Huck .

Of the two, Tom and Huck is by far my favorite, but let me just say that Jonathan is NOT attractive in this movie. He is going through what appears to be a girl‘s awkward stage (this did not afflict Brad Renfro, but he had his own problems). But I am no fair-weather lover and so, even before I fully understood the implications of the wet t-shirt, I watched and rewatched the scene in Tom and Huck where JTT, as Tom, emerges from a creek with his white shirt clinging to the bulging outlines of his baby fat. I think that maybe that is the moment that I discovered sex.

I didn’t own Man of the House but it came on every other day on HBO, so I didn’t really have to. JTT is marginally better looking in this movie, but something about it just didn’t do it for me as much as Tom and Huck did. Maybe, on some unconscious level, I understood that there was something fundamentally creepy about grown men and little boys dressed up like Indians in the woods? But, at the end of the day, any movie that features JTT in a montage set to “Gonna Make you Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” by C&C Music Factory is alright in my book.

I’m going to skip The Adventures of Pinocchio because he is only in the movie at the end and is a f*cking wooden marionette up until then which is, in itself, also inherently creepy.

JTT’s best movie by far is 1998’s Wild America. Just when I get turned off by a scary puppet version of JTT, he reels me back in, fresh from the ravaging affects of puberty. Not only was he looking FINE (if a little underdeveloped for a 16 year old), he was flanked by the still hot Devon Sawa and the broodingly handsome Scott Bairstow (who has had some legal issues in the last couple of years).After Wild America, showbiz was not too kind to our friend Mr. Taylor Thomas. He had a lot of television appearances after Home Improvement ended including a super awkward turn as a bad guy on Smallville (JTT? A Bad Guy? Not buying it). The last real gig that the IMDB lists for Jonathan Taylor Thomas was a role in the short film Tilt-a-Whirl in 2005. He had the coveted role of “Customer #3” alongside world wide superstar Justin Guarini.

He may be dead in the hearts and minds of moviegoers, studio heads, and all the fans who used to love him but not to me. Never to me. Especially when I watch that episode of Veronica Mars.

If you still need a refresher course on JTT, here is my favorite JTT tribute video on Youtube