My Girlhood Girl Crushes

The Opposites Attract music video was the first I’d ever seen, and I watched hoping that one day I would grow up to be as carefree-cool as Ms. Abdul. (And I practiced often by dancing and singing along to my cassette tape of Cold-Hearted Snake.) Still crush-worthy? Yes: After a long-running stint as the cheerleading American Idol judge, Paula is doing a new show for CBS called Got To Dance.

While I know now that this gal's decision to give up her voice for a pair of legs in order to snag some prince guy she’d never actually met is not exactly role-model behavior, when I was younger I yearned to be under the sea with this little mermaid. (And I dutifully practiced my underwater somersaults in the pool for preparation.) Still crush-worthy? For sure. Whenever I need a pick-me-up, I pop in my remastered DVD of The Little Mermaid.

My admiration for this tough heroine from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons balanced out my awe for the aforementioned man-chasing princess, and I’m pretty sure my affinity for journalism came from watching her reporting the Channel 6 news. Still crush-worthy? Not sure: In the latest installment of TMNT, April's yellow jumpsuit was swapped for Samurai-esque gear (left), which was cool, but she also started dating Donatello, which is kinda weird.

I was that kid who often brought books to the dinner table, and this long-running series satiated my love for reading. Naturally, I also desired to be a member of the BSC myself: From Claudia’s wacky (but amazing) outfits, to Kristy’s toughness, I wanted to choose bits and pieces of these heroines and weave them into who I was. Still crush-worthy? Yes: Best friendship never goes out of style. Plus, series’ author Ann M. Martin wrote a BSC pre-quel that hits stores in April.

Confession: When this Spice Girl chopped her hair into a sassy short cut, I followed suit, entering high school not-so-poshly since, in addition to my lobbed-off locks, I also had bad skin and braces. Not my best beauty moment, but, hey, my desire to be exactly like Victoria overruled reason. Still crush-worthy? Of course! A hot husband, three adorable boys and chic clothing lines later, she’s still so Posh.

There was a time when people actually watched MTV’s TRL; a time when boy bands and pop tarts reigned; a time when all was right in the music world, at least in my teenage opinion. Britney was clearly the queen of this era and oh how I longed to be her. Still crush-worthy? Okay, so there was a little hiccup involving head-shaving and umbrella-wielding, but after attending a concert on her last world tour, I was enthralled with Brit's ability to put on one helluva show.

When this actress began her stint as the title character on Felicity, entering her freshman year of college, I had just started my freshman year of high school. For four years, my mom and I would tune in to each episode, and my best friend and I would weigh Ben v. Noel at school the next day with the intensity of today’s Edward v. Jacob debates. (Team Ben 4eva!) Still crush-worthy? Most definitely. Keri will star alongside Will Arnett in Running Wilde on Fox this fall.