5/31 - What '90s R&B Hit Was Inspired by Jerry Springer?
Plus trivia on Big, Harrison Ford, Metallica, Liquid Television, and more.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
May 31st, 2024 • Issue 206
Be Kind, Rewind
What happened on this day in the ‘80s and ‘90s — plus lots of bonus trivia
May 31st
1983 - The Philadelphia 76ers swept the L.A. Lakers to win the NBA Championship.
1985 - Fletch hit theaters.
1991 - Sega’s Zero Wing, the game featuring the future meme All Your Base, was released in Europe for the debut of its poorly-translated cut scene.
1992 - Night Court aired its series finale.
1994 - The Beastie Boys album Ill Communication was released.
1995 - Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson’s single Scream was released.
1996 - Eddie hit theaters.
All of the Madison Square Garden filming for Eddie took place at Charlotte Coliseum, home of the Charlotte Hornets.
And in the climactic game of the series, where the big bad Charlotte Hornets are playing the lovable underdog New York Knicks, the extras who were in attendance in Charlotte were told they had to cheer for the Knicks.
1998 - The series finale aired of The Larry Sanders Show.
1999 - VH1’s Behind the Music became a nightly show.
2000 - Survivor premiered on CBS.
June 1st
1980 - CNN launched as the first all-news network.
1984 - Star Trek III: The Search for Spock hit theaters.
President Ronald Reagan held a private screening of Star Trek III for some friends — then panned it.
The president hosted some friends, including his chief of staff and at least one senator, to watch a special screening of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
In his diaries of his presidency, Reagan wrote about the movie: “It wasn’t too good.”
1988 - The first edition of the video game (then called) John Madden Football was released.
1990 - Total Recall hit theaters.
1991 - Comedy Central launched, replacing the Comedy Network.
1993 - Sting’s single Fields of Gold was released.
1994 - The Reggie Miller flashed a choke sign in a playoff win against the New York Knicks.
1994 - The FX network launched as Fox’s first foray into cable TV.
1996 - MLB debuted on Fox.
1998 - The first episode of MTV’s Challenge aired.
1999 - Napster launched.
1999 - Jennifer Lopez’s album On the 6 was released.
1999 - Fastball’s single Out of My Head was released.
1999 - Dido’s debut album, No Angel, was released in the U.S.
2001 - Moulin Rouge hit theaters.
June 2nd
1981 - Barbara Walters asked Katharine Hepburn what type of tree she would be.
1985 - RJ Reynolds and Nabisco proposed their merger.
1987 - Ken Griffey Jr. was the number one pick in the MLB Draft.
1989 - No Holds Barred and Dead Poets Society hit theaters.
1990 - Partners in Kryme’s one hit, Turtle Power, peaked at number 13.
1991 - Liquid Television premiered on MTV.
Liquid Television was never re-released after its run, mostly due to music licensing restrictions.
Liquid Television, which launched Beavis and Butthead and Aeon Flux among others, was never released on physical or digital media after it wrapped up in 1995.
The reason: The episodes made heavy use of licensed music, so getting the rights in order to release the episodes in full is basically impossible.
(You can watch them on the Internet Archive, though.)
1992 - Wilson Phillips’ album Shadows & Light was released.
1998 - Nicole’s single Make It Hot was released.
1999 - The series finale aired of Star Trek: Deep Space 9.
1999 - Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets was released in the U.S.
2000 - Big Momma’s House hit theaters.
2001 - Christina Aguilera and co.’s Lady Marmalade hit number one.
2002 - The Wire premiered on HBO.
2002 - The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Sacramento Kings in one of the all-time great (and only slightly rigged) playoff series.
June 3rd
1980 - Darryl Strawberry was the top pick in the MLB Draft.
1983 - WarGames hit theaters.
1985 - Larry King Live premiered on CNN.
1988 - Big hit theaters.
The Zoltar fortune telling machine in Big was modeled after a real fortune telling arcade machine with an almost identical name.
Zoltar was modeled after Zoltan, a fortune telling coin-op machine from the 1960s.
1988 - Funny Farm both hit theaters.
1989 - The Tiananmen Square Massacre began.
1989 - Michael Damian’s single Rock On hit number one.
1992 - Bill Clinton played the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show.
1992 - Michael Jordan shrugged after hitting a three-pointer against the Portland Trail Blazers in the NBA Finals.
1994 - Renaissance Man hit theaters.
1995 - Bryan Adams’ single Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman? hit number one.
1996 - Zenith introduced the first HDTV in the U.S..
2000 - Alice DeeJay’s one hit, Better Off Alone, peaked at number 25.
2001 - Six Feet Under premiered.
June 4th
1982 - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Poltergeist hit theaters.
1984 - Bruce Springsteen’s album Born in the U.S.A. was released.
1984 - Sheila E.’s album The Glamorous Life was released.
1992 - The USPS announced the “young Elvis” stamp won a nationwide vote.
1993 - Life with Mikey hit theaters.
1996 - Keith Sweat’s single Twisted and 2pac’s single (featuring K-Ci and JoJo) How Do U Want It were released.
1996 - Jewel’s debut single, Who Will Save Your Soul?, was released.
1996 - Metallica’s album Load was released.
Metallica had to shorten one of the songs on Load so the album would fit into the maximum time available on a CD: 78 minutes, 59 seconds.
CDs could only hold 78:59 of music before they’d start skipping during playing.
Load came out almost a minute too long, so Metallica wound up chopping the time off the final song on the album, The Outlaw Torn. (The song still came in at 9:49, even after that edit.)
2000 - Kobe Bryant threw a famous alley-oop to Shaquille O’Neal to win the NBA Western Conference Finals.
2002 - Avril Lavigne’s debut album Let Go was released.
June 5th
1977 - The Apple II went on sale.
1981 - The CDC reported on a “rare pneumonia” which were the first recognized cases of AIDS.
1985 - Ferris Bueller skipped school.
1987 - Harry and the Hendersons and The Untouchables both hit theaters.
1989 - An unknown man stood in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square.
1989 - The SkyDome in Toronto hosted its first Blue Jays game.
1990 - New Kids on the Block’s album Step by Step was released.
1991 - Michael Jordan switched hands on a layup in the NBA Finals for one of his most iconic moments.
1992 - Patriot Games hit theaters.
Harrison Ford is the only actor to play Jack Ryan in two films.
There have been five movies and one TV series about Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan character.
Harrison Ford took over the role from Alec Baldwin (who was the first Jack Ryan, in 1990’s The Hunt for Red October). Ford also played the role in 1994, in Clear and Present Danger.
After that, it went to Ben Affleck in 2002’s The Sum of All Fears and Chris Pine in 2014’s Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. John Krasinski has played Jack Ryan in all four seasons of the Amazon Prime series.
1992 - Class Act hit theaters.
1995 - Shaggy’s single Boombastic was released.
1995 - Singled Out premiered on MTV.
1998 - The Truman Show hit theaters.
1998 - A Perfect Murder and Mulan hit theaters.
1999 - Reese Witherspoon married her Cruel Intentions co-star Ryan Philippe.
June 6th
1983 - Reading Rainbow premiered on PBS.
1984 - The first playable version of Tetris was finished in the USSR.
1984 - Kevin McHale of the Boston Celtics nearly decapitated Kurt Rambis of the L.A. Lakers with a clothesline during a game.
1987 - Kim Wilde’s single You Keep Me Hangin’ On hit number one.
1990 - A judge in Florida rules 2 Live Crew’s album As Nasty As They Wanna Be was obscene and therefore illegal to sell.
1991 - NBC announced Jay Leno, not David Letterman, would be taking over The Tonight Show.
1995 - Notorious B.I.G.'s single One More Chance was released.
1997 - Con Air hit theaters.
1997 - Farrah Fawcett had an infamous interview on Late Night with David Letterman.
1998 - Brandy and Monica’s single The Boy Is Mine hit number one.
Brandy got the idea for The Boy Is Mine while watching The Jerry Springer Show.
Brandy says she was watching Jerry Springer — which was infamously a massive cultural phenomenon at the time — and got the idea to do a song about a love triangle.
“I’m a big fan of Jerry Springer’s,” she said, “And girls fight over guys every day, and they battle with each other. They try to kill each other over guys.”
She co-wrote the song with several top songwriters after that, tried recording it solo, then realized it worked better as a duet. Her label recruited Monica to join her. (In a self-fulfilling prophecy, Brandy and Monica did wind up feuding and actually disliking each other during the process.)
1998 - Sex and the City debuted on HBO.
2000 - The Anaheim Angels debuted the Rally Monkey, which would feature prominently in their run to the World Series championship a few years later.
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
The house from Home Alone is up for sale. It’s located in Winnetka, Ill., it’s 9,126 square feet, and it’s listed at $5.25 million. At some point it got a soulless interior remodel, but on the plus side it now has an indoor basketball court.
Nicholas Galitzine, the star of the romantic comedy The Idea of You, has been cast as He-Man in the Masters of the Universe live-action reboot.
One of the kids from Mrs. Doubtfire, Lisa Jakub, says Robin Williams was “one of the first people who ever really spoke to me super honestly about mental health” and helped her realize “I’m not a freak, I don’t have to hide this about myself.”
ICQ, the messaging app that was popular in the ‘90s and apparently still existed, will shut down on June 26th.
Get Your Book-It Stickers Here
Recommended articles about ‘80s and ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, and never knew existed
Check out this list of the 10 most rewatchable 1980s sitcoms. Or, in the case of a few of them, shows you’ve definitely never watched a first time — nor possibly even heard of.
Did R.E.M.’s album Out of Time define the ‘90s? Here’s one Rolling Stone writer’s take on how that 1991 album “presaged the entire decade to come.”
In 1992, Nintendo released a CD in Japan only with remixes of the music from Super Nintendo games. Here’s the credits theme from Super Mario World from that album.
Have a great week!
-Sam