11/15 - What Was the 1st Rap Album to Reach #1?
Plus trivia on Home Alone 2, Milli Vanilli, The Bodyguard, and more
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
November 15th, 2024 • Issue 230
Be Kind, Rewind
What happened on this day in the ‘80s and ‘90s — plus lots of bonus trivia
November 15th
1980 - Kenny Rogers’s single Lady hit number one, and Devo’s Whip It peaked at number 14.
1986 - The Beastie Boys released their debut album, License to Ill.
The Beastie Boys’ License to Ill was the first rap album to hit number one on the Billboard charts.
License to Ill reached number one in March 1987, making it the first rap album to reach the top of the Billboard 200.
No rap album hit number one in 1988. Every year since, at least one rap album has made it to the top of the chart.
(The second rap album was Tone Loc’s Loc-ed After Dark in 1989.)
1990 - Milli Vanilli admitted to lip syncing all their songs.
1991 - Cape Fear hit theaters.
1993 - A 72-year-old man broke the world record for consecutive free throws made at 2,750.
1993 - Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and Christina Aguilera joined the Mickey Mouse Club.
1994 - TLC’s album CrazySexyCool was released.
1994 - Soul for Real’s single Candy Rain was released.
1995 - The series finale aired of Mr. Bean.
1996 - Space Jam and The English Patient hit theaters.
2001 - The Xbox went on sale in North America.
November 16th
1990 - Home Alone hit theaters.
1990 - Rocky V hit theaters.
1993 - Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart, and Sting released their single All for Love.
1993 - Domino’s single Ghetto Jam was released.
1994 - Major League Soccer announced it would debut in 1996.
1996 - The SNL skit “Delicious Dish” debuted.
1996 - Jingle All the Way hit theaters.
Sinbad was not the original casting choice for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s toy-hunting rival in Jingle All the Way.
The initial plan was to have Joe Pesci serve as Arnold’s foil.
But ultimately the producers went in a different direction — largely because Sinbad was a better height matchup with Arnold.
1999 - Dr. Dre’s album The Chronic 2001 was released.
2001 - The first Harry Potter movie hit theaters.
2002 - The first case of SARS was discovered.
November 17th
1984 - Wham!’s single Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go hit number one.
1989 - The Little Mermaid and Harlem Nights hit theaters.
1990 - Deee-Lite’s one hit, Groove Is in the Heart, peaked at number four.
1992 - The Bodyguard soundtrack was released.
The Bodyguard soundtrack is the best-selling movie soundtrack of all time.
The Bodyguard soundtrack, powered by six Whitney Houston songs, has sold more than 50 million copies.
The number two soundtrack is Saturday Night Fever, powered by the Bee Gees, at about 40 million copies.
1992 - Dateline NBC aired footage of a GM truck blowing up in a crash test, but it was later found they rigged the test.
1995 - The American President hit theaters.
1995 - GoldenEye hit theaters.
1995 - The Olsen Twins’ movie It Takes Two hit theaters.
1996 - The Rodney Dangerfield episode of The Simpsons premiered.
1997 - The All Saints single Never Ever was released.
1998 - Three, count ‘em three, soundtracks were released for the movie The Prince of Egypt.
1998 - Whitney Houston’s single My Love Is Your Love was released.
November 18th
1983 - A Christmas Story hit theaters.
1985 - Joe Theismann’s leg was gruesomely broken during a game.
1985 - Voltron aired its series finale.
1988 - The Land Before Time hit theaters.
1990 - C&C Music Factory’s single Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) was released.
1991 - U2’s album Achtung Baby was released.
1992 - “The Contest” episode of Seinfeld was released.
The word “masturbation” is never used in Seinfeld’s “The Contest.”
Instead, the show uses pretty much every clever euphemism it can, including the most famous: “Master of your domain.”
The episode’s script, written by Larry David, won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series.
1992 - The Malcolm X film hit theaters.
1993 - The WWF’s Vince McMahon was charged with steroid distribution.
1993 - Eddie Vedder was arrested for public drunkenness.
1994 - The Miracle on 34th Street remake hit theaters.
1995 - The Rolling Stones became the first major musical act to livestream a concert on the internet.
1997 - The Titanic soundtrack was released.
1998 - The Powerpuff Girls premiered.
2000 - Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas were married.
2000 - Destiny’s Child’s single Independent Women hit number one.
2001 - The Nintendo GameCube was released in North America.
November 19th
1980 - CBS banned the infamous Brooke Shields Calvin Klein jeans ad.
1988 - Bon Jovi’s single Bad Medicine hit number one.
1989 - The U.S. secured its first World Cup berth since 1950.
1990 - The Divinyls single I Touch Myself was released.
1990 - Milli Vanilli’s Grammy Award for Best New Artist was stripped in the wake of their lip syncing revelation.
Milli Vanilli remains the only artist ever to have a Grammy revoked.
There have been some Grammy nominations revoked. (For instance, Miley Cyrus’s The Climb was nominated for Best Song Written for a Soundtrack, but the nomination was pulled after it turned out the song was written and shopped around to artists before Hannah Montana: The Movie.)
However, only Milli Vanilli won a Grammy and had it later taken away.
1992 - The Simpsons episode “Mr. Plow” premiered.
1992 - Dr. Dre’s single Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang was released.
1993 - Addams Family Values hit theaters.
1995 - No Doubt’s single Spiderwebs was released.
1996 - Prince’s three-CD album Emancipation was released.
1999 - Toy Story 2 and The World Is Not Enough hit theaters.
1999 - The first person won the full $1 million on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
November 20th
1982 - “The Play” — one of the most memorable moments in college football history — took place.
1982 - Drew Barrymore hosted Saturday Night Live at age seven.
1983 - The apocalyptic TV movie The Day After aired on ABC and was watched by 100 million people.
1984 - SETI was founded.
1985 - Windows 1.0 shipped.
1986 - The one billionth Little Golden Book was printed (it was a copy of The Poky Little Puppy).
1987 - Teen Wolf Too hit theaters.
1990 - LL Cool J’s single Around the Way Girl was released.
1992 - Home Alone 2: Lost in New York hit theaters.
The Home Alone 2-inspired Talkboy toy recorder was not a hit during the 1992 holiday season — but was a hit for the 1993 holidays.
In Home Alone 2, Kevin uses a voice recorder and voice changer called the Talkboy.
Anticipating that kids would want it, the Home Alone team licensed it to Tiger Electronics, who had it in stores alongside the debut of Home Alone 2 — and just in time for the 1992 holiday season.
Only… it wasn’t a bit hit. There were several problems, the biggest being that the real toy version did not have a voice-changing feature. Another problem: The packaging told people “Try me”… so lots of people recorded vulgar things on the Talkboys in stores.
Tiger made a newer, better version of the Talkboy the next year (called the Deluxe Talkboy) that included voice changing — and didn’t allow for people to record messages on it in the stores.
But a full year out from Home Alone 2, no one expected much in terms of sales. So Tiger only manufactured as many as the retail chains ordered.
However, Home Alone 2 came out on video in July 1993, which re-ignited the interest.
And kids actually wanted the Deluxe Talkboy — badly. Tiger said it underestimated demand by 300% to 400%.
So while hundreds of thousands of Talkboys sold for the 1993 holiday season, there could’ve been millions.
1998 - Enemy of the State and A Bug’s Life hit theaters.
2001 - Josh Groban’s self-titled debut album was released.
November 21st
1980 - Dallas answered, “Who shot J.R.?”
1981 - Olivia Newton-John’s single Physical hit number one.
1982 - The NFL returned after a 57-day strike.
1983 - The Thriller video premiered in movie theaters.
1986 - An American Tail hit theaters.
1987 - The finale of She-Ra aired.
1987 - Billy Idol’s single Mony Mony hit number one.
1989 - Smoking was banned on U.S. domestic flights.
1990 - Three Men and a Little Lady hit theaters.
1991 - The Flamin’ Moe’s episode of The Simpsons premiered.
1992 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was released, changing video game release cycles permanently.
1995 - Coolio’s album Gangsta’s Paradise was released.
The line in Gangsta’s Paradise where Coolio says “I’m 23 now but will I live to see 24?” isn’t true — he was 30 at the time of recording.
Coolio was born in August 1963, and recorded Gangsta’s Paradise in early 1994, when he was 30.
He says it’s because the song was from the perspective of a narrator (or a younger version of himself).
1995 - The Beatles Anthology 1, featuring the new single Free As a Bird, was released.
1995 - Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong was arrested for dropping his pants at a concert.
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
The National Toy Hall of Fame has elected three new toys in for this year, and all three are ‘80s toys: My Little Pony, Transformers, and Phase 10.
Finn Wolfhard of Stranger Things has been hired to write a reboot of the 1999 teen horror comedy Idle Things.
This year’s nominees for the Songwriters Hall of Fame include Eminem, Janet Jackson, Alanis Morissette, NWA, Sheryl Crow, George Clinton, Steve Winwood, and Bryan Adams.
Ben Stiller reprised his nursing home orderly character for Happy Gilmore 2. And Eminem reportedly filmed a cameo for the movie as well.
Josh Brolin shared this anecdote from The Goonies set — and a valuable lesson he got early in his career. Brolin was sharing the analysis he’d done of his character, Brandon, with Steven Spielberg. Brolin told Spielberg, “the tunnels represent the inside of his mother’s womb, and he’s trying to cut that umbilical cord.” And Spielberg’s response was, “Yeah, just act. Just say what’s on the page.”
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Have a great week!
-Sam