8/11 - What '90s Movie Twist Was Spoiled If You Spoke Turkish?
Plus Ghostbusters, Milli Vanilli, Fu-Schickens, and the 2 weirdest years in music
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
August 11th, 2023 • Issue 164
This week in the ‘80s and ‘90s
August 11th
1984 - Ray Parker Jr.’s Ghostbusters theme hit number one.
The voices shouting “Ghostbusters” in the Ghostbusters theme are Ray Parker Jr.’s girlfriend and her friends.
Parker didn’t want to sing the word “Ghostbusters” himself because he really didn’t consider himself a singer. So when he needed a singer, who was he gonna call?
Turns out he went with his girlfriend and her friends and they handled singing “Ghostbusters” — even though it’s more shouted than sung.
1987 - Clara “Where’s the Beef” Peller passed away.
1991 - Doug, Rugrats, and The Ren & Stimpy Show all premiered on Nickelodeon.
1992 - The Mall of America opened in Minnesota.
1993 - Super Mario All-Stars for Super Nintendo was released in North America.
1995 - Dangerous Minds hit theaters.
1997 - The View premiered.
1998 - Sixpence None the Richer’s single Kiss Me was released.
August 12th
1981 - IBM’s first PC, the 5150 Personal Computer, went on sale.
1988 - Young Guns hit theaters.
1988 - Mac and Me hit theaters.
1989 - Richard Marx’s single Right Here Waiting hit number one.
1990 - The T-rex skeleton called “Sue” was discovered in South Dakota.
1991 - Metallica’s Black Album was released.
1994 - Major League Baseball’s strike began.
1994 - Cotton Eye Joe by Rednex was released.
1994 - Woodstock ‘94 kicked off.
Several performers from the original Woodstock performed at the 1994 revival.
The now-forgotten 25th anniversary revival of Woodstock featured a (perhaps) surprising number of original Woodstock performers including Crosby, Stills, & Nash; Santana; The Band; Joe Cocker; John Sebastian; Country Joe McDonald; and some members of Sweetwater, Jefferson Airplane, and Grateful Dead.
1994 - FOX aired its first NFL broadcast.
1997 - Usher’s single You Make Me Wanna was released.
1997 - Puff Daddy’s single Been Around the World was released.
1997 - The Backstreet Boys’ debut album was (finally) released in the U.S.
August 13th
1981 - The series finale aired of The Waltons on CBS.
1982 - Fast Times at Ridgemont High hit theaters.
1993 - Street Fighter II was released for Super Nintendo.
1993 - Searching for Bobby Fischer hit theaters.
Bobby Fischer was not paid for being named in the title of Searching for Bobby Fischer.
Fischer was already in his downward mental spiral by that point in time, avoiding the U.S. warrant for his arrest. But he did complain the movie was an “invasion of his privacy” and “a monumental swindle.”
1999 - Bowfinger hit theaters.
1999 - Detroit Rock City hit theaters.
August 14th
1987 - Can’t Buy Me Love hit theaters.
1993 - 95 South’s one hit, Whoot, There It Is, peaked at #11.
1993 - 4 Non Blondes’ one hit, What’s Up, peaked at #14.
1993 - Fu-Schnickens’ one hit, What’s Up Doc, peaked at #39.
Fu-Schnickens couldn’t get clearance to use a sample of Bugs Bunny saying “what’s up, doc” — so they had Shaquille O’Neal perform the line instead.
The original version of the song used a clip from Looney Tunes of Bugs saying his catchphrase. But Warner Bros. wouldn’t give them clearance to use the sample, so they shelved the track.
Then Fu-Schnickens heard a then-rookie Shaq say he was a huge fan of the group. So they brought him in to do the line instead (even though it wasn’t his catchphrase or related to him in any way). He also performed a new verse for the song.
The move got the desired publicity for the track and led to the only top 40 hit ever for Fu-Schnickens.
1994 - Inside the Actors’ Studio premiered on Bravo.
1995 - Nintendo’s Virtual Boy went on sale in North America.
1995 - The first female cadet enrolled at The Citadel.
1998 - How Stella Got Her Groove Back hit theaters.
1998 - Air Bud: Golden Receiver hit theaters.
2000 - The Weakest Link premiered on NBC.
2000 - Dora the Explorer premiered on Nick Jr.
August 15th
1975 - The Rocky Horror Picture Show premiered in movie theaters for the first time.
1979 - Apocalypse Now was released.
1981 - Joey Scarbury’s one hit, the theme song to The Greatest American Hero, peaked at #2 on the Billboard charts.
1981 - Diana Ross and Lionel Richie’s duet Endless Love hit number one.
1987 - Metroid was released for NES.
Samus Aran from Metroid received the Guinness World Record for being the first “playable human female character” in a video game… then had it taken away.
The big surprise in Metroid was the main character turned out to be female when she took off her helmet.
And in 2013, the Guinness Book of World Records recognized Samus as the “first playable human female character in a mainstream video game.”
Even with all those caveats to the record… they still didn’t get it right. It turned out the character Toby “Kissy” Masuyo in the arcade game Baraduke (known in the U.S. as Alien Sector) predated Samus by one year.
So Guinness revised its record to give the award to her.
1991 - Aaron Neville’s Everybody Plays the Fool was released.
1992 - The Larry Sanders Show premiered.
1992 - Are You Afraid of the Dark? premiered as part of Nickelodeon’s new SNICK Saturday night programming.
1995 - Los Del Rio’s Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix) was released.
1998 - Big Pun’s Still Not a Player peaked at #24 on the Billboard charts.
1998 - The Bondi Blue iMac went on sale.
August 16th
1984 - John Z. DeLorean was acquitted on cocaine charges.
1985 - Madonna and Sean Penn got married.
1986 - Madonna’s single Papa Don’t Preach hit number one, as did her album True Blue.
1986 - Bon Jovi’s album Slippery When Wet was released.
1995 - The Usual Suspects hit theaters.
The name Keyser Soze is a spoiler… if you speak Turkish.
In the tradition of Darth Vader (with “Vader” meaning “father” in German), the mysterious villain of The Usual Suspects also had a name with a foreign language spoiler.
“Keyser” came from screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie’s psychiatrist, Keyser Sume; McQuarrie says he loved that name for a bad guy.
But “Soze” came from a Turkish phrase, “soze bogmak” which is an idiom for someone who talks to much.
And since The Usual Suspects features a character whose first name is “Verbal” who talks and talks and talks… a Turkish viewer might’ve been able to figure out who Verbal really was.
1996 - Tin Cup hit theaters.
1996 - The Fan hit theaters.
2000 - Lifehouse’s single Hanging by a Moment was released.
August 17th
1979 - Life of Brian was released in theaters.
1983 - Prince’s song Delirious was released.
1986 - Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen played his first concert since losing an arm.
1989 - James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow got married.
1992 - Woody Allen admitted to his affair with Soon-Yi.
1994 - David Caruso quit NYPD Blue to begin his movie career with Jade.
1995 - Yo! MTV Raps aired its series finale.
1996 - Ross Perot was announced as the Reform Party’s first-ever presidential candidate.
1996 - Dishwalla’s one hit, Counting Blue Cars, peaked at #15.
1997 - VH1’s Behind the Music premiered.
Behind the Music was inspired by two VH1 executives’ obsessive search for Milli Vanilli.
According to Gay Rosenthal, who co-created Behind the Music, the show came about when she was at lunch with VH1’s executive vice president, Jeff Gaspin, and they started wondering whatever happened to Milli Vanilli.
Rosenthal went on an obsessive hunt and found it nearly impossible to track down the duo — who were now completely off the grid. She finally tracked down their old manager who put her in touch with Milli Vanilli and, over the course of a few months, she built up trust with the guys to let her create a documentary about their story.
That documentary was so riveting that VH1 decided to make a whole series of similar investigations. So Behind the Music premiered in 1997… with its Milli Vanilli debut episode.
1999 - Brian McKnight’s single Back at One was released.
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
Ryan Gosling’s song from Barbie, called I’m Just Ken, debuted at #87 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week. That makes him the 15th member of the Mickey Mouse Club cast to have a song land on the top 100. Some of the notable ones are Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez from NSYNC, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera.
New Kids on the Block recently helped a woman get a life-saving kidney transplant.
Van Halen is finally admitting the Sammy Hagar era happened with a re-release box set coming out in October.
DJ Casper, creator of the Cha-Cha Slide (which first debuted in 1998), passed away this week at age 58 from cancer.
Recommendations of the week
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved
Were 1989 and 1990 the “two weirdest years in music”? Dave Holmes makes the case in Esquire.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you forgot
Paul Reubens is mostly remembered for being Pee-Wee Herman… but he had other roles before and after. Movieweb put together a list of Paul Reubens’ 10 best roles outside of Pee-Wee, most of which were in the ‘80s and ‘90s.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you never knew existed
Check out 15 pieces of Apple history that hit the auction block. Some for less money than you’d think, some for way, way more.
Have a great week!
-Sam