6/16: What Disney cartoon barely got a G rating?
Plus trivia on Cypress Hill, early MTV commercials, and more
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
June 16th, 2023 • Issue 156
This week in the ‘80s and ‘90s
June 16th
1978 - Jimmy Buffett’s Cheeseburger in Paradise topped out at #32 on the Billboard charts.
1978 - Grease hit theaters.
1989 - Ghostbusters II hit theaters.
1990 - Roxette’s single It Must Have Been Love hit number one.
1990 - MC Hammer’s U Can’t Touch This peaked at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100.
1995 - Batman Forever, with Val Kilmer taking over for Michael Keaton as the titular superhero, hit theaters.
1995 - Disney’s Pocahontas, a word I am still never able to properly spell on the first try, was released.
Every scene in Pocahontas was rewritten at least 35 times.
According to Susannah Grant, one of the three writers on Pocahontas, the team was writing to a specific story outline — and they’d write each scene over and over and over until it was “perfect.”
1996 - The Chicago Bulls defeated the Seattle Supersonics in the NBA Finals to win their fourth title (it was Michael Jordan’s first season back from his baseball-playing version of a European backpacking gap year).
1997 - Will Smith’s Men in Black rap tie-in to the movie was released, as was The Verve’s single Bitter Sweet Symphony.
1998 - Real World season seven, in Seattle, premiered.
1999 - Disney’s Tarzan hit theaters.
1999 - A court ruled digital music players were legal, opening up the door for legalized mp3s.
1999 - Al Gore announced his candidacy for president; he’d go on to win the election but not become president.
June 17th
1983 - Superman III hit theaters.
1988 - The Great Outdoors hit theaters and introduced steak eating contests to the masses.
1989 - New Kids on the Block’s single I’ll Be Loving You (Forever) hit number one.
1991 - South Africa abolished apartheid.
1991 - The body of president Zachary Taylor was exhumed to test for arsenic poisoning but none was found.
Zachary Taylor was the first president to be exhumed for a pathological exam.
Other presidents had been exhumed for other reasons; often to move their remains to different burial sites. For example, Ulysses S. Grant was moved from a temporary tomb to Grant’s Tomb. But Taylor was the first (and only) president to be exhumed out of suspicion he might have been poisoned.
Why was there suspicion he was poisoned? He likely would’ve delayed or maybe even prevented the Civil War. Even though he was a Southerner, he was against the expansion of slavery and he supported bringing New Mexico and California into the country as free states. Just after his death in 1850, Congress passed several measures that accelerated the growing divide between North and South — which Taylor would’ve vetoed if he were still president.
1992 - The Phoenix Suns pulled off one of the biggest blockbuster trades in NBA history, acquiring Charles Barkley.
1994 - DirecTV service went live as the world’s first satellite cable provider.
1995 - All-4-One’s single I Can Love You Like That was released and it makes me very suspicious.
1997 - Third Eye Blind’s single Semi-Charmed Life was released as was K-Ci and JoJo’s album Love Always.
1997 - The NHL announced it would be moving to Nashville, Atlanta, Minneapolis, and Columbus.
1999 - Adam Sandler’s movie Big Daddy hit theaters.
June 18th
1991 - Bryan Adams’s single (Everything I Do) I Do It for You, from the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves soundtrack, was released.
Bryan Adams’s (Everything I Do) I Do It for You is the best performing single on the British pop charts… ever.
(Everything I Do) I Do It for You was quite successful in the U.S., having a seven-week run at number one on the Billboard charts. But that doesn’t compare to its run on the U.K. charts, where it spent 16 straight weeks at number one. Which is the longest run of any song — ever.
1993 - Last Action Hero hit theaters.
1996 - Beck’s album Odelay was released.
1998 - Disney bought a 43 percent stake in the search engine Infoseek.
1999 - Run Lola Run was released.
June 19th
1981 - Superman II hit theaters.
A commercial for Superman II was the second ad ever aired on MTV.
During the first ad break on MTV’s debut on August 1st, 1981, the network aired a commercial for a three-ring binder called The Bulk… then an ad for Superman II.
1987 - Roxanne hit theaters.
1988 - Michael Jackson performed in divided Berlin.
1991 - Pablo Escobar surrendered to police.
1992 - Barney & Friends premiered.
1992 - Batman Returns hit theaters.
1998 - Mulan hit theaters.
2000 - The L.A. Lakers won the NBA Championship over the Indiana Pacers.
June 20th
1975 - Jaws hit theaters.
1980 - The controversial movie Blue Lagoon was released, as was The Blues Brothers.
1986 - Karate Kid 2 hit theaters.
1987 - Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam’s single Head to Toe hit number one.
1988 - The video game Bionic Commando was released.
The Nintendo game Bionic Commando is called Hitler’s Resurrection: Top Secret in Japan — but all the Nazi references were changed in English-language versions.
Nintendo edited all the Nazi references out of Bionic Commando for the western versions of the game.
In Germany and elsewhere, it would’ve been illegal to include those references; and it would’ve been in poor taste in the U.S. and, well, everywhere.
So Hitler was changed to be named “Master D” — although his appearance wasn’t changed, nor was his gruesome death scene in the game. The Nazis were renamed the “Badds.” And swastikas were replaced with eagles.
Oh, and for some reason, a line of dialogue where a bad guy says “Smelly guy, get out of here” in Japanese becomes “Get the heck out of here, you nerd!” in the English version. Though I don’t think that’s related to the whole Nazi situation, and more of the classic Japanese-to-English translation oddities of ‘80s video games.
1988 - Bobby Brown’s album Don’t Be Cruel, featuring five top 10 singles, was released.
1988 - Price Is Right model Janice Pennington was knocked out by a TV camera.
1989 - The B-52’s single Love Shack was released.
1989 - Prince’s soundtrack to Batman was released.
1992 - Mariah Carey’s single I’ll Be There was released.
1993 - The Chicago Bulls won their third consecutive title, defeating the Phoenix Suns.
1994 - O.J. Simpson plead innocent.
1997 - Batman and Robin hit theaters, as did My Best Friend’s Wedding.
June 21st
1985 - Cocoon hit theaters.
1985 - Chef Boyardee passed away.
1986 - Bo Jackson officially became a two-sport pro athlete when he signed with the Kansas City Royals.
1988 - The L.A. Lakers defeated the Detroit Pistons to win the NBA championship.
1990 - Jon Bon Jovi had his only solo #1 bit with Blaze of Glory.
1990 - The finale of the first season of Seinfeld aired.
1991 - The Rocketeer hit theaters.
1996 - Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame hit theaters.
Disney was able to get The Hunchback of Notre Dame a surprising G rating by lowering the volume of Frollo sniffing Esmeralda’s hair.
Disney managed to get a G rating for the edgier Hunchback largely thanks to the studio’s reputation.
But one change they did have to make to the movie to satisfy the MPAA was lowering the volume of Frollo suggestively sniffing Esmeralda’s hair. That was enough get the board to grant them the G.
1997 - The WNBA debuted as the New York Liberty defeated the L.A. Sparks.
1997 - Bob Carlisle’s one hit, Butterfly Kisses, peaked at #10.
2001 - Tough Enough premiered on MTV.
2002 - Lilo & Stitch, Minority Report, and most important, Juwanna Mann all hit theaters.
June 22nd
1981 - John McEnroe gave his famous “You cannot be serious” rant.
1984 - The Karate Kid hit theaters.
1985 - Bryan Adams’ single Heaven hit number one.
1986 - Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” led Argentina past England in the World Cup.
1988 - Who Framed Roger Rabbit? hit theaters.
1990 - Florida banned thong bikinis.
1990 - Adam Sandler joined the cast of Saturday Night Live.
1993 - Cypress Hill’s single Insane in the Brain was released.
“Insane in the brain” was early ‘90s L.A. gang talk.
According to Sen Dog from Cypress Hill, they ran with the gangs in L.A., and when they’d say they were “crazy insane, got no brain,” it meant you were ready to prove that and back it up.
1994 - The Houston Rockets won the NBA Championship over the New York Knicks.
1994 - The U.S. upset Colombia for its first World Cup win since 1950.
1996 - The video game Quake was released.
1999 - K-Ci and JoJo’s album It’s Real and Christina Aguilera’s single Genie in a Bottle were released.
2001 - The Fast and the Furious hit theaters.
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
sorry, news is off this week
Recommendations of the week
sorry, recommendations are off this week
Have a great week!
-Sam
Great post! I so enjoy the walk down memory lane. One point though: I’m no GWBush fan at all, but it’s not accurate to state Al Gore was “elected president.” It’s YOUR content on a free platform of course, but it kind of jarred me out of my reverie to see that in and amongst all the light-hearted pop culture nuggets. Differences aside - I love reading these posts. Super nostalgic! It must take a good bit of time to compile all of this. Great work!