6/7 - What '90s Album Had Every Song Recorded in 1 or 2 Takes?
Plus trivia about Trading Places, Sean Connery, Austin Powers, and more
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
June 7th, 2024 • Issue 207
Be Kind, Rewind
What happened on this day in the ‘80s and ‘90s — plus lots of bonus trivia
June 7th
1975 - Sony introduced Betamax.
1982 - Graceland opened to the public.
1985 - The Goonies hit theaters.
1986 - Madonna’s single Live to Tell hit number one.
1989 - The time hit 1:23:45 on 6/7/89.
1991 - City Slickers, Jungle Fever, and Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead all hit theaters.
1996 - The Rock hit theaters (the Sean Connery/Nic Cage movie, not the wrestler).
Sean Connery asked to have a cabin built on Alcatraz so he wouldn’t have to take the ferry every day.
Sean Connery apparently really didn’t want to have to take a ferry back into San Francisco during all the time The Rock filmed on Alcatraz.
He asked if he could have a cabin built on the island, but the National Park Service wouldn’t allow it. He asked if he could anchor his 100-foot yacht off Alcatraz, but the Coast Guard wouldn’t allow that.
So apparently, he wound up spending a decent number of nights sleeping in his on-set trailer.
His demands were worth it, though, when Michael Bay needed more money to finish the movie and Connery effortlessly berated Disney into giving them as much of a budget as they needed.
Some Disney execs came to the set to reprimand Bay for being two days behind schedule… Connery went into the meeting… and according to Bay:
“I announce that Mr. Connery would like to visit and say hi. Sean comes in, sits down across from the open-mouthed executives. In classic Sean Connery style, he belts out in his Scottish brogue: ‘This boy is doing a good job, and you’re living in your Disney f****** ivory tower and we need more f****** money!’ Without missing a beat, they responded. ‘Ok. How much?'“
1997 - Mark Morrison’s one hit, Return of the Mack, peaked at number two on the Billboard charts and The Verve Pipe’s one hit, The Freshmen, peaked at number five.
June 8th
1979 - The New Orleans Jazz moved to Utah and inexplicably kept the name “Jazz”.
1982 - The L.A. Lakers defeated the Philadelphia 76ers to win the NBA Championship.
1983 - Trading Places hit theaters.
Director John Landis wanted to cast Don Ameche as one of the Duke brothers in the movie… but thought he was dead.
Don Ameche hadn’t made a movie in 13 years before Trading Places. (It was the 1970 movie Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came.)
So when Landis was talking to the studio about casting Ameche… no one was sure if he was alive or dead.
Eventually he turned out to be alive, took the role — and had a career resurgence that led to a Best Supporting Actor Oscar win two years later for Cocoon.
1984 - Ghostbusters and Gremlins both hit theaters.
1985 - Tears for Fears’ single Everybody Wants to Rule the World hit number one.
1990 - A record store owner in Florida was arrested for selling 2 Live Crew’s album to an undercover cop.
1990 - The series finale of It’s Garry Shandling’s Show aired on FOX.
1991 - Washington, D.C., hosted the Gulf War victory parade.
1993 - RuPaul’s debut album was released.
1998 - Charlton Heston became president of the NRA.
1999 - 98 Degrees’ single The Hardest Thing and the Goo Goo Dolls’ single Black Balloon were both released.
June 9th
1980 - Richard Pryor was burned in a freebasing accident.
1981 - Donkey Kong hit arcades.
1984 - Cyndi Lauper’s single Time After Time hit number one.
1985 - The L.A. Lakers defeated the Boston Celtics to win the NBA Finals.
1987 - Magic Johnson hit a sky hook to lift the L.A. Lakers over the Boston Celtics in Game 4 of the NBA Finals.
1989 - Prince’s single Batdance was released.
1993 - The NHL’s Minnesota North Stars left the hockey hotbed of Minnesota to relocate to Dallas.
The Minnesota North Stars almost relocated to Los Angeles before winding up in Dallas.
The North Stars’ owner, Norman Green, was going to move the team to Orange Country, Calif., as the Los Angeles Stars.
But Disney was already in the process of negotiating to create a NHL team based around their Mighty Ducks movies.
So the NHL told Green he’d have to pick another city… whatever city he wanted. He chose Dallas.
1993 - Heidi Fleiss was arrested.
1994 - TLC’s Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes set fire to her boyfriend, NFL star Andre Rison’s, house.
1997 - Married… With Children aired its series finale on FOX.
1998 - Pras’s solo single Ghetto Superstar was released.
1999 - Mets manager Bobby Valentine was ejected from a game and came back in a disguise.
2000 - Gone in 60 Seconds hit theaters.
June 10th
1978 - John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John’s single You’re the One That I Want hit number one.
1983 - Octopussy hit theaters.
Roger Moore agreed to play James Bond in Octopussy because a rival production company was also making a James Bond movie and bringing Sean Connery out of retirement.
Virtually all of the James Bond movies have been produced by Eon Productions. However, the rights to a few other Bond stories were already floating around.
Roger Moore was considering leaving the James Bond role, but Eon convinced him to stay on for Octopussy — because another production company was also making a James Bond movie at the time. And they’d talked Moore’s predecessor, Sean Connery, out of Bond retirement to play the lead.
Both Eon and Moore felt like he needed to stick with the franchise to compete with a Bond movie starring Connery.
Octopussy would perform better at the box office than the Connery-led Bond movie, Never Say Never Again, which came out later in the year.
1989 - Bette Midler’s single Wind Beneath My Wings hit number one.
1989 - Tales from the Crypt premiered on HBO.
1990 - The Damn Yankees single High Enough was released.
1991 - Twin Peaks aired its series finale.
1991 - Miami and Denver were announced as the new cities for MLB franchises.
1994 - Speed hit theaters.
1994 - City Slickers II: The Search for Curly’s Gold hit theaters.
1996 - The Rosie O’Donnell Show premiered.
1997 - The Backstreet Boys single Quit Playing Games (with My Heart) was released.
June 11th
1979 - John Wayne died from cancer.
1981 - The first MLB players strike began.
1982 - E.T. hit theaters.
1982 - Grease 2 hit theaters.
1983 - Naked Eyes’ one hit, Always Something There to Remind Me, peaked at number eight.
1986 - Ferris Bueller’s Day Off hit theaters.
1990 - Nolan Ryan pitched his sixth no-hitter.
1991 - Microsoft released MS-DOS 5.0.
1991 - Natalie Cole’s album Unforgettable… with Love was released.
1993 - Jurassic Park hit theaters.
1993 - What's Love Got to Do With It hit theaters.
1994 - Hulk Hogan signed with WCW on live TV.
1997 - Michael Jordan won the “flu game” against the Utah Jazz in the NBA Finals.
1998 - Amazon.com branched out from just selling books to also selling CDs.
1999 - Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me hit theaters.
Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me was nominated for an Oscar.
The movie was nominated for Best Makeup at the 72nd Academy Awards. (That was the same ceremony when South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut was nominated for Best Song and The Matrix actually won some awards, so that was an hipper year than usual for the Oscars.)
Austin Powers 2 lost to Topsy-Turvy.
2001 - Fear Factor premiered.
2002 - American Idol debuted on FOX.
June 12th
1981 - Raiders of the Lost Ark hit theaters.
1984 - The Boston Celtics defeated the L.A. Lakers to win the NBA Championship.
1987 - Ronald Reagan gave his “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” speech.
1987 - Predator hit theaters.
1989 - Hulk Hogan’s movie No Holds Barred hit theaters.
1989 - Dead Poets Society hit theaters.
1990 - Final Fantasy debuted on NES.
1991 - The Chicago Bulls defeated the L.A. Lakers as Michael Jordan won his first title.
1993 - Robin S.’s one hit, Show Me Love, peaked at number five.
1993 - Green Jelly’s one hit, Three Little Pigs, peaked at number 17.
The hit version of Three Little Pigs came after the song was pulled and re-released — due to a threat from Kraft.
Green Jelly’s original name was Green Jello. And when they released Three Little Pigs in 1992, they used that band name.
Kraft, which owned Jell-O, found out about it and threatened to sue the band for trademark infringement. So they pulled Three Little Pigs and re-released it with their new band name.
It became a hit after that.
1994 - O.J. Simpson (allegedly, but, well, you know) murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
1995 - The Bridges of Madison County hit theaters.
1997 - The U.S. Treasury unveiled a new $50 bill.
1998 - Can’t Hardly Wait hit theaters.
1998 - Dirty Work hit theaters.
1998 - The Geraldo Rivera Show ended after 11 seasons.
1999 - Courteney Cox married David Arquette.
1999 - Jennifer Lopez’s single If You Had My Love hit number one.
1999 - The Style Network debuted.
2000 - Big Momma’s House hit theaters.
June 13th
1986 - Rodney Dangerfield’s movie Back to School triple lindy’d into theaters.
1987 - Atlantic Starr’s single Always hit number one.
1988 - Paula Abdul’s album Forever Your Girl, featuring four #1 singles, was released.
1988 - George Harrison’s This Is Love was released.
1989 - The Detroit Pistons defeated the L.A. Lakers to win their first NBA Championship.
1991 - The National all-sports daily newspaper stopped publishing.
1993 - Hulk Hogan wrestled his last match for WWF before jumping to WCW, losing to Yokozuna at King of the Ring.
1994 - Exxon was found liable for the Exxon Valdez crash.
1995 - Bjork’s album Post was released.
1995 - Alanis Morissette’s breakthrough album Jagged Little Pill was released.
Alanis recorded every track on Jagged Little Pill in one or two takes.
She said she didn’t want to record the vocals over and over because using the first few takes was the “shortest distance from the personal to the universal.”
1997 - Disney’s Hercules hit theaters.
1997 - Speed 2: Cruise Control hit theaters.
1997 - The Chicago Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz to win the NBA Championship.
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
Amazon Prime is doing yet another reboot of American Gladiators.
The Full House house is back on the market in San Francisco for $6.5 million. Inexplicably the listing agent doesn’t have a photo of the front of the house, doesn’t mention Full House, and only showcases the interior photos that look about as different from Full House as you could imagine.
Cyndi Lauper announced her farewell tour is happening this fall. It starts on October 18th.
Michael Keaton says all the Beetlejuice merchandise was “off-putting.”
According to Michael Richards, the reason Lawrence Tierney was not asked back to Seinfeld for his role as Elaine’s father was because he stole one of the knives from Jerry’s kitchen.
In Daniel Stern’s new memoirs, he writes that his Home Alone co-star Macaulay Culkin had a lot of “adult pressure” leading to a “very different” childhood than other kids — “he didn’t know how to play tag or throw the ball around.”
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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Check out this history of the non-white boy bands that paved the way for New Kids on the Block.
The beauty is in the impracticality: Someone figured out how you can play entire movies on your vintage Atari 2600.
Have a great week!
-Sam
Nice to round out the week with a double-dose of Connery. I've always been mystified by the existence of "Never Say Never Again"--or at least by Connery's starring in a remake of a movie ("Thunderball") in which he himself had previously starred. But I guess it was a nice paycheck and the end result, by some estimations, was superior to "Octopussy." (I haven't rewatched either in decades, so I don't have a read on either one).