2/2 - What Music Legend Produced Carmen Electra's Only Album?
Plus trivia on Street Fighter, No Scrubs, Spud Webb, Karma Chameleon, and more
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
February 2nd, 2024 • Issue 189
This week in the ‘80s and ‘90s
February 2nd
1980 - The FBI released the details of its ABSCAM corruption sting.
1985 - O.J. Simpson married Nicole Brown.
1985 - Foreigner’s I Want to Know What Love Is hit number one.
1992 - Elton John and George Michael’s Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me hit number one.
1996 - Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan played against each other in the NBA for the first time since their respective returns from retirement.
1996 - Black Sheep hit theaters.
1998 - President Clinton introduced the country’s first balanced budget in 30 years.
1999 - Blackstreet’s single Take Me There was released.
1999 - TLC’s single No Scrubs was released.
No Pigeons, the “male response” song to No Scrubs, had the same producer as No Scrubs.
Kevin “She’kspere” Briggs was the producer on both TLC’s No Scrubs and the subsequent male rebuttal song by Sporty Thievz called No Pigeons.
Plus, because No Pigeons uses the same instrumental track as No Scrubs, the No Scrubs songwriters are also credited as songwriters on No Pigeons.
(Based on the video, Sporty Thievz might also owe Puff Daddy and Ma$e some credit for ripping off their visual style, too.)
1999 - Hugo Chavez took office in Venezuela, and immediately began planning how to alter Georgia voting machines 21 years later from beyond the grave.
2000 - The Oxygen Network debuted.
February 3rd
1979 - Y.M.C.A. by the Village People peaked at number two.
1986 - Pixar spun off from Lucasfilm to become an independent company.
1990 - Darryl Strawberry entered rehab.
1993 - Reds owner Marge Schott was suspended by Major League Baseball for racist comments.
1993 - Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey hit theaters.
Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey was a remake of the 1963 movie The Incredible Journey — with the huge difference being that the animals could now talk.
The Incredible Journey was based on the novel of the same name, about two dogs and a cat. The animals did not talk (or have an inner monologue); the movie just had a narrator.
For the 1993 remake, Disney made the choice to have us be able to hear the animals talk. Michael J. Fox, Sally Field, and Don Ameche voiced the trio.
1993 - The trial of the LAPD officers who beat Rodney King began.
1995 - Boys on the Side and the Jerky Boys movie hit theaters.
1996 - Joan Osbourne’s only hit, One of Us, peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100.
1997 - Az Yet’s cover of Hard to Say I’m Sorry was released.
1998 - Usher’s single Nice and Slow was released.
2001 - The XFL debuted.
2001 - Shaggy’s single It Wasn’t Me hit number one.
February 4th
1980 - Studio 54 held its grand closing party on its final night in business.
1983 - Karen Carpenter died as a result of anorexia.
1984 - Culture Club’s single Karma Chameleon hit number one.
Culture Club was accused of plagiarism of a song with the line “come-a, come-a, come-a, come-a.”
The 1959 song Handy Man by Jimmy Jones had the line “come-a, come-a, come-a, come-a,” which Jones felt was too similar to Karma Chameleon’s “karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon.”
According to Culture Club’s Boy George, “I might have heard it once, but it certainly wasn’t something I sat down and said, ‘Yeah, I want to copy this.’ We gave him ten pence and an apple.”
1989 - Sheriff’s single When I’m With You hit number one.
1991 - Pete Rose was banned for life from the Baseball Hall of Fame for gambling on games.
1994 - Alex Trebek became the first game show host with three simultaneous shows on TV in Jeopardy!, Classic Concentration, and To Tell the Truth.
1997 - A jury found O.J. Simpson liable in the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
1998 - Belgian writer Noel Godin hit Bill Gates in the face with a pie.
2000 - The Sims was released on PC.
2000 - Scream 3 hit theaters.
February 5th
1983 - Africa by Toto hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
1986 - Prince’s single Kiss was released.
Prince wrote Kiss for someone else… then decided to keep it for himself when he heard how good it sounded.
Prince originally wrote Kiss for the group Mazarati, which was created by Prince’s bass player Brown Mark and signed to Prince’s Paisley Park record label.
But when Prince heard what his producers did with the demo he’d put together, he decided to reclaim the song and record it himself.
1988 - Andre the Giant defeated Hulk Hogan on a WWF special on NBC.
1993 - Larry Bird retired and Magic Johnson surprised him by wearing a Celtics t-shirt.
1994 - The cartoon Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? premiered on FOX.
2001 - Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman announced their separation.
2001 - Kelly Ripa was announced as Regis Philbin’s new co-host.
February 6th
1982 - Centerfold by the J. Geils Band hit number one.
1985 - Perrier released its first new product in 123 years, water with a twist of fruit.
1988 - Michael Jordan defeated Dominique Wilkens in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest.
1988 - Tiffany’s single Could’ve Been hit number one.
1991 - Street Fighter II hit arcades.
Street Fighter II is the third-highest grossing arcade game of all time.
Even though Street Fighter II came a full decade after the golden age of arcade games, it still managed to out-draw almost every game of that era.
Street Fighter II had an estimated gross revenue (not adjusted for inflation) of $5.31 billion. That ranks third all-time behind Pac-Man and Space Invaders.
1991 - Black Box’s single Strike It Up was released.
1993 - Arthur Ashe passed away.
1995 - Tupac was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison.
1995 - Montell Jordan’s single This Is How We Do It was released.
1998 - The ill-advised movie Blues Brothers 2000 was released.
1998 - Mary Kay LeTourneau was sentenced to seven years in prison.
1998 - Washington National Airport was renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport.
February 7th
1981 - Kool & the Gang’s Celebration hit number one.
1984 - Astronaut Bruce McCandless made the first untethered space walk.
1987 - Michael Jordan won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest jumping from the free throw line.
1987 - Madonna’s Open Your Heart hit number one and Ron & DC Crew’s Ronnie’s Rap peaked at number 93.
1988 - Mike Tyson and Robin Givens got married.
1988 - America’s Most Wanted premiered.
1989 - 2 Live Crew’s album As Nasty As They Wanna Be was released.
1993 - Carmen Electra’s self-titled debut album was released.
Carmen Electra’s one and only album was produced and mostly written by Prince.
Prince signed a young Tara Patrick, who was a dancer at the time, to his record label with plans to turn her into a hip-hop star.
She began officially going by the name Carmen Electra during the production of the album.
The album was not critically or commercially successful, so Carmen Electra never made a follow-up. She found success a few years later as a model.
1993 - Shaquille O’Neal broke a basket on a dunk during an NBA game.
1994 - Michael Jordan signed with the Chicago White Sox.
1994 - Howard Stern talked a caller out of committing suicide.
1995 - Shania Twain’s album The Woman in Me was released.
1995 - Sophie B. Hawkins’s single As I Lay Me Down was released.
1997 - Surge soda went on sale.
1998 - Steve Jobs’ NeXT merged with Apple.
1998 - Beautician and the Beast hit theaters.
2000 - Rapper Big Pun passed away.
February 8th
1984 - The Winter Olympics kicked off in Sarajevo.
1985 - The Dukes of Hazzard aired its series finale.
1985 - Witness hit theaters.
1986 - 5-foot-7 Spud Webb won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest.
The nickname “Spud” came from Spud Webb’s parents when he was a newborn — and they thought the shape of his head resembled Sputnik.
His real name is Anthony… but his parents called him Spud, short for Sputnik, from birth.
1991 - L.A. Story and The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter hit theaters.
1992 - Cedric Ceballos won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest by dunking with a (maybe see-through) blindfold.
1992 - Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
1992 - The Winter Olympics opened in France.
1994 - The series finale aired of Saved by the Bell: The College Years after just one short season.
1997 - Kobe Bryant won the NBA Slam Dunk contest.
1998 - The first Olympic women’s hockey game was played between Finland and Sweden.
2002 - The Winter Olympics began in Salt Lake City.
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
The official title to the Beetlejuice sequel is… Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 2024 A.D. It’s coming to theaters on September 6th.
The trailer is out for the newest Ghostbusters movie, and Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Bill Murray, and Slimer are all featured. (No Rick Moranis.) Also a bunch of other people like Paul Rudd and at least one Stranger Things kid.
Jason Kelce says he’s trying to reboot the 1997 video game Backyard Baseball along with its 1999 cousin Backyard Football.
Catherine O’Hara was cast on Saturday Night Live in the early ‘80s, but quit after one week and never filmed an episode. She just clarified the reason: She took the job thinking her Canadian sketch comedy show SCTV was going to be canceled, but when it was picked up, she went back to it.
Tom Selleck says during his time guest-starring on Friends, Matthew Perry “was the most talented” of the group and Tom would often go to Matthew to help him deliver his lines in the best way possible.
Recommendations of the week
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved
Rolling Stone ranked the 150 greatest science fiction movies of all time. Though the ‘80s and ‘90s don’t dominate the list like they normally do with movie rankings like these, there are still plenty of them throughout,
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you forgot
Here are 11 bands that split up just as they found success. And literally all 11 are from the ‘80s and ‘90s.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you never knew existed
In 1986, Sega released a computer called the Sega AI. It’s been largely forgotten and there’s not much about it online. The machine was powerful, yet aimed at kids. It boasted artificial intelligence, though it’s not clear how Sega used (or planned to use) that ability. Here’s a complete resource devoted to this footnote in computing and video game history.
Have a great week!
-Sam