6/30 - What NBC sitcom cast originally had a 5th member?
Plus Fall Out Boy's new We Didn't Start the Fire left out the biggest news event of all
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
June 30th, 2023 • Issue 158
This week in the ‘80s and ‘90s
June 30th
1971 - Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory hit theaters.
1986 - Steve Winwood’s single Back in the High Life was released.
1986 - Madonna’s album True Blue was released.
1987 - Canada unveiled the loonie.
1989 - Karate Kid III hit theaters.
1989 - Do the Right Thing hit theaters.
Barack and Michelle Obama saw Do the Right Thing on their first date.
Michelle says, “He was trying to show me his sophisticated side by selecting an independent filmmaker” instead of going with a blockbuster like Batman. They also went to the Art Institute of Chicago as part of their date.
1990 - New Kids on the Block’s single Step by Step hit number one.
1992 - Boyz II Men’s single End of the Road was released.
1993 - Chris Webber was the #1 pick in the NBA Draft by Orlando (then traded to Golden State).
1993 - The Firm hit theaters.
1995 - Apollo 13 hit theaters.
1995 - The series finale aired of Love Connection.
1997 - There was a leap second added to the calendar.
1997 - Lil Kim’s single Not Tonight was released.
1998 - NSYNC’s single Tearin’ Up My Heart was released.
1998 - The Sega Channel, the first attempt at an on-demand video game service, shut down.
1999 - South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut hit theaters.
1999 - Wild Wild West hit theaters.
1999 - Elton Brand was the top pick in the NBA Draft, by the Chicago Bulls.
July 1st
1979 - The Sony Walkman debuted.
1980 - O Canada became the Canadian national anthem.
Though O Canada was the de facto Canadian national anthem since 1936, it took decades to make things official.
The French lyrics for O Canada were composed in 1880 and English lyrics were created in 1908 (then eventually adapted to the lyrics used today in 1926).
The song became the de factor national anthem in 1936, when King Edward VIII used it during the dedication of a Canadian memorial.
Canada began attempting to pick a formal national anthem in 1964, with O Canada as the clear choice. They purchased the rights to the song in 1970 and, after decades of parliamentary debate, finally locked in the song as the national anthem in 1980.
1985 - A&E separated from Nickelodeon as Nick at Nite began.
1987 - Kid Icarus was released for the NES.
1988 - The first issue of Nintendo Power magazine was released.
1989 - Baseball Stars was released for the NES.
1989 - Milli Vanilli’s single Baby Don’t Forget My Number hit number one.
1991 - Heavy D’s single Now That We Found Love was released.
1991 - Clarence Thomas was nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court.
1991 - Court TV (now TruTV) premiered on cable.
1991 - Michael Landon passed away.
1992 - A League of Their Own hit theaters.
1992 - Boomerang hit theaters.
1994 - Little Big League hit theaters.
1994 - Martin Page’s single In the House of Stone and Light was released.
1995 - The State aired its series finale.
1997 - Radiohead’s album OK Computer was released in the U.S.
1998 - Armageddon hit theaters.
1998 - Puff Daddy’s single Come with Me was released.
1998 - The NBA lockout began.
July 2nd
1979 - The Susan B. Anthony dollar was released.
1980 - Airplane! hit theaters.
1982 - A guy strapped balloons to his lawn chair and flew for an hour.
1988 - Steffi Graf won at Wimbledon, breaking Martina Navratilova’s six-year streak.
1988 - Michael Jackson became the first artist with five number one singles from the same album when Dirty Diana hit number one.
1991 - Boyz n the Hood hit theaters.
John Singleton and Laurence Fishburne met on the set of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse — and Singleton promised Fishburne he’d write a movie one day with Fishburne in it.
Laurence Fishburne played Cowboy Curtis on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. John Singleton was a 19-year-old security guard on the set. Singleton told Fishburne one day he’d write a movie and put Fishburne in it — and that came true with Boyz n the Hood about a half a decade later.
1991 - Axl Rose started a riot when he jumped off stage at a concert in St. Louis to attack a fan.
1993 - Pauly Shore's Son-in-Law hit theaters.
1995 - Bill Gates was named the richest person in the world for the first time.
1997 - Men in Black hit theaters.
1998 - OpenTable was founded.
1998 - Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets was released in the U.K.
2001 - The original version of Napster officially shut down.
July 3rd
1982 - Don’t You Want Me by the Human League hit number one.
1985 - Back to the Future hit theaters.
1987 - Adventures in Babysitting hit theaters.
1989 - The New Kids on the Block single Hangin’ Tough was released.
1991 - Terminator 2: Judgment Day hit theaters.
1996 - Independence Day hit theaters.
The U.S. military initially planned to provide lots of costumes, props, and support to Independence Day — until they found out about all the Area 51 references.
At first, the military planned to work with the filmmakers (likely seeing Independence Day as a Top Gun-esque opportunity for some great recruitment-boosting publicity).
Then they found out how much the movie talked about the secrets of Area 51.
They asked if they movie could remove those references, and director Roland Emmerich and writer Dean Devlin said no. So… the military pulled its support.
1999 - Whitney Houston's single My Love Is Your Love was released.
1999 - Infamous video game star Billy Mitchell achieved the first perfect score ever on Pac-Man.
2001 - Real World: Back to New York premiered.
2001 - The '90s NBA expansion team the Vancouver Grizzlies moved to Memphis.
July 4th
1982 - Ozzy Osbourne married his manager, Sharon Arden.
1984 - Two very different but memorable movies, Big Trouble in Little China and The Great Mouse Detective, hit theaters.
1985 - Mr. T played the drums for the Beach Boys in concert.
1992 - Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
1993 - Pete Sampras won Wimbledon for the first time.
1995 - Deep Blue Something's single Breakfast at Tiffany's was released.
Deep Blue Something’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s was inspired by a different Audrey Hepburn movie.
Toby Pipes of Deep Blue Something says the lyrics of his group’s only hit were actually inspired by the Audrey Hepburn movie Roman Holiday.
However, Breakfast at Tiffany’s was more iconic and sounded more poetic, so they went with that for the title and the reference instead.
1996 - Hotmail debuted.
2000 - Destiny Child’s single Jumpin’ Jumpin’ was released.
2001 - Takeru Kobayashi won his first hot dog eating contest.
July 5th
1989 - Seinfeld premiered on NBC.
1989 - Weekend at Bernie’s was released.
1990 - Blossom premiered on NBC.
There was an official Blossom fashion collection (briefly) sold in department stores nationwide.
Blossom’s fashion style of hat-wearing young hippie combat boot grandma chic (did I describe that right?) was meticulously curated by the show’s wardrobe department. The team would spend hours in trendy boutiques on Melrose Avenue in L.A. looking for clothes and a large team of experts weighed in on all of Blossom’s looks.
By 1993, as the show had grown in popularity, those looks became their own fashion line — with shirts, pants, vests, suspenders, jackets, purses, and, of course, hats hitting department stores around the country in time for back-to-school shopping.
1991 - The Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins were officially approved as MLB expansion teams.
1993 - Bjork’s self-titled debut album was released.
1994 - Hootie & the Blowfish's album Cracked Rear View was released.
1994 - Warren G’s single This DJ was released.
1994 - Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.
1996 - The movie Phenomenon was released.
1996 - Eric Clapton’s single Change the World was released.
1996 - Dolly the Sheep was born.
July 6th
1985 - Phil Collins’s single Sussudio hit number one.
Phil Collins has admitted Sussudio sounds just like Prince’s 1999 — and that he was listening to 1999 as he was working on it.
Though 1985’s Sussudio and Prince’s 1982 song 1999 are in different keys, they otherwise sound remarkably close to one another.
And Phil Collins hasn’t denied it. He’s even admitted he listened to 1999 quite a bit while he was on tour with Genesis and writing Sussudio.
1990 - Die Hard 2 and Jetsons: The Movie hit theaters.
1991 - Marc Cohn's only hit, Walking in Memphis, peaked at number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.
1994 - Forrest Gump hit theaters.
1995 - Alanis Morissette’s single You Oughta Know was released.
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
Fall Out Boy wrote, recorded, and released a new version of We Didn’t Start the Fire with events of the past 34 years (1989 to now). But not in chronological order. And they left out Covid. On purpose. Because it “felt like a little on the nose.” They made a lot of choices with this.
In honor of the 30th anniversary of Sleepless in Seattle, there are events in both Seattle and New York City starting this weekend.
I Wanna Rock: The ‘80s Metal Dream is a three-part docuseries coming out on Paramount+ on July 18th.
The Magnum P.I. reboot has been canceled again. CBS canceled it last year after its fourth season, NBC picked it up, and has now canceled it after its fifth.
A Honey, I Shrunk the Kids reboot with Josh Gad on Disney+ sounds like it’s dead.
Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On saw a huge boost in streams after the Titanic-bound OceanGate submersible tragedy.
Ben Savage has “ghosted” the rest of the Boy Meets World cast for the past three years.
Dan Akyroyd says he “probably wouldn’t choose to do a blackface part” now like he did in Trading Places.
Recommendations of the week
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved
With the final Indiana Jones movie coming out today, here’s an interesting analysis of the sometimes loved, sometimes hated Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: It’s two movies mashed into one.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you forgot
Capcom just released some scans of the hand-drawn design documents from Mega Man’s first-ever video game. You can see the graph paper sketches that would eventually form quite a bit of the 1987 franchise debut.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you never knew existed
Will & Grace was originally supposed to have a fifth main character?
Have a great week!
-Sam