2/21 - What Madonna Song Was Her Secret Audition for Evita?
Plus trivia on the Miracle on Ice, The Legend of Zelda, and more
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
February 21st, 2025 • Issue 244
Be Kind, Rewind
What happened on this day in the ‘80s and ‘90s — plus lots of bonus trivia
February 21st
1981 - Charles Rocket dropped an f-bomb on Saturday Night Live and Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood debuted.
1986 - The Legend of Zelda was released in Japan.
The Legend of Zelda was the first game with a built-in battery for saving games.
Zelda was the first game that didn’t use a password system for game saving and, instead, had an internal battery in the game cartridge to save players’ progress.
1986 - Pitcher Rollie Fingers made his choice between retirement and shaving his signature mustache.
1992 - Kristi Yamaguchi won the gold medal in figure skating.
1995 - TLC’s single Red Light Special and Joan Osbourne’s single One of Us were released.
1997 - Wheel of Fortune switched to its all-digital letter board.
2003 - Old School hit theaters.
February 22nd
1980 - The Miracle on Ice happened at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.
Thirteen of the 20 players on the U.S. Olympic team, and the coach, were from Minnesota.
The Miracle on Ice was mostly Minnesota taking down Russia.
Coach Herb Brooks and 13 of the players on the team were native Minnesotans.
(Four other players were from Massachusetts. Two were from Michigan, and one was from Wisconsin.)
1987 - Andy Warhol passed away.
1990 - Milli Vanilli won the Grammy for Best New Artist.
1991 - Adventures of the Gummi Bears aired its series finale.
1997 - Scientists in Scotland announced they’d cloned a sheep, which they named Dolly.
1997 - The Spice Girls single Wannabe hit number one.
February 23rd
1980 - Queen’s single Crazy Little Thing Called Love hit number one.
Crazy Little Thing Called Love was Queen’s first number one hit in the U.S.
Despite their worldwide success through the 1970s, Queen didn’t have a number one hit in the U.S. until 1980.
They also had a second number one that year with Another One Bites the Dust.
And… that was it.
After Wayne’s World, Bohemian Rhapsody got close — it peaked at number two — but no other Queen song ever reached the top spot.
1983 - Herschel Walker signed a contract with the New Jersey Generals of the USFL.
1985 - The show Gimme a Break aired live, the first sitcom to do so since the ‘50s.
1985 - Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight threw a chair during an argument with a referee.
1988 - A 13-year-old Lauryn Hill was booed during her performance on It’s Showtime at the Apollo.
1990 - En Vogue’s single Hold On was released.
1990 - Buster Douglas replaced Mike Tyson as the referee for Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage’s WWF championship match on NBC.
1991 - Whitney Houston’s single All the Man That I Need hit number one.
1991 - Operation: Desert Storm began.
1993 - The Cranberries’ single Linger was released.
1993 - Naughty By Nature’s album 19 Naughty III was released.
1993 - Gary Coleman won a $1.3 million lawsuit against his parents.
1996 - Rumble in the Bronx hit theaters.
1997 - NBC aired Schindler’s List uncensored.
1999 - Eminem’s major label debut album, The Slim Shady LP, was released, as was TLC’s FanMail.
2002 - Ja Rule and Ashanti’s single Always on Time hit number one.
February 24th
1980 - Harper Valley P.T.A. premiered on NBC.
1981 - Charles and Diana announced their engagement.
1982 - The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Larry Flynt.
1990 - The Mission: Impossible reboot series aired its series finale.
Mission: Impossible was rebooted during a writers’ strike because they could just reuse old scripts almost verbatim.
ABC was looking for a new series during the 1988 Hollywood writers’ strike, and went to their vault to find recyclable material.
They realized Mission: Impossible would work because they could use the scripts from the original series, tweaked without writers to modernize them.
(After the strike ended, they did go with original scripts for the rest of the rebooted series.)
1992 - Kurt Cobain married Courtney Love.
1993 - Ice Cube’s single It Was a Good Day was released.
1994 - One of the top Simpsons episodes ever, “Deep Space Homer”, premiered.
1996 - The Late Shift TV movie (about the Leno/Letterman Tonight Show battle) premiered.
1997 - The FDA approved the morning after pill.
1998 - Fastball’s single The Way was released.
1999 - Juvenile’s single Back That Azz Up was released.
1999 - Lauryn Hill won five Grammys for her album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
2001 - Joe’s hit Stutter, featuring Mystikal, hit number one.
February 25th
1984 - Van Halen’s single Jump hit number one.
1987 - The Supreme Court upheld affirmative action.
1992 - TLC’s debut album, Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip, was released.
1995 - Madonna’s single Take a Bow hit number one.
Madonna picked a Spanish theme for the Take a Bow music video because she wanted to use it as a de facto audition for Evita.
Even though Madonna wrote the song about a tragic actor, she decided to feature a tragic matador in the music video and film in Spain.
Why? She wanted to use it as her “audition” for Eva Peron in the movie Evita, and figured a retro Spanish motif would better serve that goal.
She did, of course, get the role.
1997 - Monica’s single For You I Will was released.
2000 - Reindeer Games and Wonder Boys hit theaters.
February 26th
1983 - Musical Youth’s one hit, Pass the Dutchie, peaked at number 10.
Pass the Dutchie was the first song by a Black artist to get heavy rotation on MTV.
Musical Youth were the first Black artists to get a music video into MTV’s main rotation.
Though a few weeks later, Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean video would get into even heavier rotation.
1983 - Michael Jackson’s album Thriller hit number one, where it would stay for 37 weeks.
1987 - The first Beatles CDs were released.
1988 - Hairspray hit theaters.
1988 - George Michael’s song Father Figure hit number one.
1991 - LL Cool J’s single Mama Said Knock You Out was released.
1993 - Falling Down hit theaters.
1993 - The World Trade Center was bombed.
1995 - Selena performed her final concert before she was murdered.
1997 - Booty Call hit theaters.
2002 - Alanis Morissette’s album Under Rug Swept was released.
February 27th
1980 - Gloria Gaynor won the one and only Grammy ever for Best Disco Recording for I Will Survive.
1984 - The Michael Jackson Pepsi commercial where he caught on fire aired, with the flames edited out.
1987 - The series finale aired of The Love Boat.
1987 - The NCAA canceled SMU’s entire football season.
SMU is the only football program ever to receive the NCAA “death penalty.”
Southern Methodist University’s football program received the death penalty for paying players. The NCAA canceled their 1987 season, then the university sat out the following year by choice since they couldn’t field a team.
There were quite a few long-term effects, including SMU’s program struggling for decades — they didn’t make a bowl game again until 2009 — and their entire conference dissolving.
1988 - Patrick Swayze’s single She’s Like the Wind peaked at number three.
1990 - Milli Vanilli claimed they were more talented than all the top artists of all time.
1990 - Wilson Phillips’ single Hold On was released.
1990 - Janet Jackson’s iconic Rhythm Nation World Tour kicked off.
1991 - Roxette’s single Joyride was released.
1992 - 16-year-old Tiger Woods played in a PGA event.
1995 - Nicki French’s cover of Total Eclipse of the Heart was released.
1996 - Four singles were released: Quad City DJs’ C’mon N Ride It, Alanis Morissette’s Ironic, Dishwalla’s Counting Blue Cars, and Busta Rhymes’s Woo Hah.
1996 - Pokemon debuted with the release of two Game Boy games in Japan.
1997 - Divorce was finally legalized in Ireland.
1998 - Tupac’s single Do For Love was released.
1998 - Apple discontinued the Newton handheld.
2003 - Mr. Rogers passed away.
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
There have been rumors about this in the past, but now it’s official: There’s a Goonies sequel coming. Steven Spielberg and Chris Columbus are producing.
Real trivia OGs already knew this, but ABC’s TGIF had a viral moment this week because it stood for “Thank Goodness It’s Funny” and not “Thank God It’s Friday.”
Ozzy Osbourne will not be performing a full set with Black Sabbath at his farewell show, just “bits and pieces with them.”
Get Your Book-It Stickers Here
Recommended articles about ‘80s and ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, and never knew existed
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Have a great week!
-Sam