11/17 - What NFL QB was Mistakenly Named People's Sexiest Man?
Plus trivia on Teen Wolf, Back to the Future Part II, Scrooged, and more
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
November 17th, 2023 • Issue 178
This week in the ‘80s and ‘90s
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.
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.
The American President is one of the rare PG-13 movies with three uses of the f-word.
Usually PG-13 movies are limited to one usage or else they get bumped up to R. The American President gets away with three fs (all used in a non-sexual context).
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.
Singer Martha Wash was replaced by a model in the Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) video — and it wasn’t the first time that happened to her.
Martha Wash, from The Weather Girls (above, left), was the singer on Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) — but in the music video, a model named Zelma Davis (above, right) lip-synced the female parts.
That wasn’t the first time Wash was kept out of a video. The group Black Box had wash on three songs and used a model in the videos for all three.
Wash sued both Black Box and C+C Music Factory and received a settlement that included a solo record deal.
1991 - U2’s album Achtung Baby was released.
1992 - The Contest episode of Seinfeld was released.
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 was stripped in the wake of their lip syncing revelation.
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.
1995 - The Baltimore Stallions became the first and only U.S. team to win the Canadian Football League’s Grey Cup.
There were a total of seven U.S.-based Canadian Football League teams between 1993 and 1995.
The CFL’s ambitious plan to expand into the U.S. was short-lived. But over the three-year endeavor, there were teams in seven cities: Sacramento, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Shreveport, San Antonio, Birmingham, and Memphis.
Baltimore’s championship was the only non-Canadian city to ever win the CFL’s top prize.
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.
A third Teen Wolf movie — starring Alyssa Milano — was in development until Teen Wolf Too flopped.
Alyssa Milano was going to star as another teen wolf related to Michael J. Fox and Jason Bateman’s characters. But Teen Wolf Too’s poor performance (terrible reviews, $7.9 million box office) killed the project.
1990 - LL Cool J’s single Around the Way Girl was released.
1992 - Home Alone 2: Lost in New York hit theaters.
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.
The writer of An American Tail was previously a doll designer — so he was hired to create the Chucky doll for Child’s Play.
Before David Kirschner became a screenwriter, he was a doll designer. So when Child’s Play went into development in the late ‘80s, a doll designer/screenwriter was a natural fit to come on as a producer and create the homicidal main character.
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.
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.
November 22nd
1986 - Mike Tyson became the youngest heavyweight boxing champ ever, a record he still holds today.
1986 - The Human League’s single Human hit number one.
1989 - Back to the Future Part II hit theaters.
A stuntwoman was nearly killed during the hoverboard chase scene in Back to the Future Part II — and that take made the final cut of the movie.
Cheryl Wheeler-Duncan was injured and nearly killed when she fell almost 30 feet as the hoverboard chase scene went wrong.
And then — the take where she was hurt made it into the final cut of the movie. (She sued over that.)
Cheryl managed to recover after multiple surgeries and get back into stunt work.
She died in 2020 after she and her husband tried to ambush her ex-husband after a fight over their child’s trust fund. Her ex-husband shot and killed both Cheryl and her current husband.
1990 - Freddie Mercury issued a statement confirming he had AIDS.
1991 - The Addams Family and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West both hit theaters.
1991 - TLC’s single Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg was released.
1995 - Toy Story and Casino both hit theaters.
1996 - Jingle All the Way hit theaters.
1997 - INXS’s Michael Hutchence died of suicide.
2000 - Unbreakable hit theaters.
November 23rd
1983 - Terms of Endearment hit theaters.
1984 - Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie threw a famous Hail Mary to beat Miami.
1988 - Scrooged hit theaters.
Scrooged was Bill Murray’s first movie after a four-year hiatus — which he took because he was upset his dramatic movie debut flopped.
Even though Bill Murray movies are a staple of the ‘80s, there was a long stretch without them.
His passion project was a drama called The Razor’s Edge. He agreed to star in Ghostbusters just to get it financed. He co-wrote and starred in The Razor’s Edge, but it was a critical and commercial failure when it came out in October of 1984.
So he took a hiatus from acting (outside of a cameo in Little Shop of Horrors). Scrooged was his return to films.
1990 - MTV banned Madonna’s video for Justify My Love.
1991 - Michigan’s Desmond Howard struck a Heisman pose when scoring a touchdown.
1991 - Michael Bolton’s single When a Man Loves a Woman hit number one.
1993 - The Food Network debuted.
1993 - Snoop Doggy Dogg’s debut album Doggystyle was released.
1993 - The Atari Jaguar was released.
1996 - Merril Bainbridge’s one hit Mouth peaked at number four and Cake’s The Distance peaked at 35.
1997 - Matchbox 20’s single 3 AM was released.
1998 - Will Smith’s single Miami was released.
1998 - Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman announced they were annulling their marriage after just over a week.
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
The National Toy Hall of Fame announced its 2023 inductees: Cabbage Patch Kids, baseball cards, Nerf, and the Fisher-Price Corn Popper.
Jordan Peele’s production company is rebooting the 1991 horror film The People Under the Stairs.
After Jerry Seinfeld teased a Seinfeld reunion last month, Jason Alexander says “no one called me.” He also says he talked with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michael Richards and neither of them knew anything about it either.
The Fall Guy movie reboot is now scheduled to come to theaters at the start of the summer movie season: May 3, 2024.
The troubled live-action Masters of the Universe movie reboot may find a new home with Amazon MGM Studios.
Tim Allen says he and the old Home Improvement cast “keep talking” about a spinoff.
There’s going to be a Good Burger car in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Recommendations of the week
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved
Engadget put together a quality list of the best retro gaming gifts for the holidays. I do really like the look of NES-inspired keyboard.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you forgot
The Chuck E. Cheese location in Northridge, Calif., is going to become the only location in the U.S. with an animatronic band.
All the other locations have gotten rid of the band (or will get rid of it) to make room for things like “a new state-of-the-art interactive dance floor, a giant video wall and screens, the most popular kid-focused arcade games, and new trampolines zones.”
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you never knew existed
Here’s a story I’d never heard before of how Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Elvis Grbac was accidentally named one of People’s Sexiest Men Alive in 1998 — when it was actually supposed to be his teammate, Rich Gannon.
Have a great week!
-Sam