8/18 - The 1st Song Played on an iPod Was a '90s Song (You'd Never Guess)
Plus every '80s and '90s reboot that lasted 2+ seasons
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
August 18th, 2023 • Issue 165
This week in the ‘80s and ‘90s
August 18th
1981 - Herschel Walker took out an insurance policy on himself while at the University of Georgia.
1989 - Uncle Buck hit theaters.
1992 - Larry Bird announced his retirement.
Larry Bird retired due to a back injury — caused by redoing his mother’s driveway.
Larry Bird retired after 13 seasons in the NBA due to a debilitating back injury — one that wasn’t the result of his basketball career.
Bird’s injury occurred in 1985 when he decided to redo his mother’s driveway in his hometown of French Link, Ind.
He had lingering issues from that point on, ones that even surgery couldn’t fix. They finally became too much and he retired after the 1991-92 NBA season.
1994 - Ini Kamoze’s single Here Comes the Hotstepper was released.
1995 - Mortal Kombat the movie hit theaters... with a PG-13 rating.
1995 - The Baby-Sitters Club movie hit theaters.
1998 - Aerosmith’s single I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing was released.
2001 - Alicia Keys’ single Fallin’ hit number one.
August 19th
1983 - Mr. Mom hit theaters.
1993 - Mattel acquired Fisher-Price to become the largest toy company in the U.S.
1993 - Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger got married.
1997 - Sarah McLachlan’s single Building a Mystery was released.
Sarah McLachlan’s Building a Mystery was the first song ever publicly played on an iPod.
During Steve Jobs’s presentation to unveil the new Apple iPod to the media on October 23rd, 2001, he pressed play on his device.
And out of the 215 songs he had stored on his iPod, the one that played was Building a Mystery. The next song he played was Could You Be Loved by Bob Marley.
1997 - Boyz II Men’s final number one hit, 4 Seasons of Loneliness, was released.
1997 - Fleetwood Mac’s reunion album The Dance was released.
August 20th
1989 - Saved by the Bell premiered on NBC.
1989 - The Menendez brothers killed their parents.
1992 - SWV’s Right Here/Human Nature was released.
1996 - Ginuwine’s single Pony was released.
1997 - The South Park episode “Weight Gain 4000” aired on Comedy Central.
The South Park pilot and first video were animated using construction paper.
The original South Park video (called The Spirit of Christmas) as well as the pilot episode of the series (“Cartman Gets an Anal Probe”) were both animated entirely out of construction paper.
“Weight Gain 4000” was the second episode produced, though it aired as the third episode of the season. And it was the first episode where all the animation was done with computers, not paper.
However, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone chose animation software called Alias because it best allowed them to keep the rough, paper-like look.
August 21st
1987 - Dirty Dancing hit theaters.
1990 - Prince’s soundtrack to Graffiti Bridge was released.
1990 - Ratt’s album Detonator was released.
1992 - The Ruby Ridge standoff ended tragically.
1993 - I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers peaked at number three on the Billboard charts.
1993 - Slam by Onyx peaked at number four on the Billboard charts.
Onyx made Slam as the final song on their album — when Jam Master Jay (of Run-DMC) and their record label told them they needed a radio-friendly hit.
Onyx thought they were done creating their album Bacdafucup — but their label, Def Jam’s RAL, and their mentor, Jam Master Jay, told them they needed a more radio-friendly track.
They wrote and produced Slam in a week.
And they achieved their mission with the song — as it became a huge radio hit.
1994 - John Denver was charged with drunk driving after crashing his Porsche into a tree.
1996 - Netscape 3.0 was released.
1998 - Dead Man on Campus hit theaters.
1998 - Blade hit theaters.
August 22nd
1986 - Stand By Me hit theaters.
1987 - Madonna’s single Who’s That Girl hit number one.
Madonna made Who’s That Girl for a movie soundtrack — and had the movie’s title changed to Who’s That Girl to match.
Madonna was starring in a movie called Slammer and created a song for the soundtrack — the song she titled Who’s That Girl.
And after she picked that title for the song, she thought it would be better for the movie too… and she successfully got the title of the film changed to Who’s That Girl.
1992 - Tom Cochrane’s Life is a Highway peaked at number six on the Billboard charts.
1997 - GI Jane hit theaters.
1998 - Harvey Danger’s one hit, Flagpole Sitta, peaked at number 38.
1998 - Jay Z’s single Can I Get A... was released.
August 23rd
1985 - Teen Wolf hit theaters.
1985 - Better Off Dead hit theaters.
1990 - Ferris Bueller the TV show premiered.
1991 - The Super Nintendo went on sale in North America.
There were only five games available for Super Nintendo when it launched (and one of them came with it).
Super Nintendo launched in North America with only a five-game library: Super Mario World (which was bundled with the system)… SimCity… and three flying-based games in F-Zero, Pilotwings, and Gradius III.
But even with that limited launch lineup and even though its rival, Sega Genesis, had a two-year head start, Super Nintendo still wound up outselling the Genesis over the course of their battle by 1.5 million units.
1994 - Jeff Buckley’s album Grace was released.
1996 - The Price Is Right aired its 25th anniversary special.
1998 - That ‘70s Show premiered on FOX.
1999 - Blogger launched.
1999 - Destiny’s Child’s single Bug a Boo was released.
2000 - The season finale that cemented reality TV as the new force to be reckoned with, the finale of season one of Survivor, aired on CBS.
August 24th
1979 - The Facts of Life premiered.
1981 - Mark David Chapman was sentenced to 20 to life for killing John Lennon.
1985 - Huey Lewis and the News’ The Power of Love hit number one.
1989 - Pete Rose was banned from baseball.
1990 - The Witches hit theaters.
1995 - Windows 95 was released.
The U.S. Department of Defense still had computers running Windows 95 in the year 2017.
It takes a long time for the government to update its systems. As of 2017, there were computers in the Pentagon still running Windows 95 — which was allowed “if they’re not connected to the internet.”
In 2018, the DoD began a process to finally update the operating systems across all its computers.
1996 - Donna Lewis’s one hit, I Love You Always Forever, peaked at number two.
1999 - Christina Aguilera’s self-titled debut album was released.
1999 - LFO’s debut album was released.
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
Here are 30 shows (mostly from the ‘80s and ‘90s) whose reboots lasted 2+ seasons.
After the success of the new Super Mario Bros. movie, the original (and infinitely less popular) 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie is getting a 4k re-release — in Japan.
Anthony Michael Hall says he got busted trying to sneak onto the set of Vacation to see Beverly D’Angelo’s nude shower scene.
Full House cast beef: Jodie Sweetin is upset her movie Craft Me a Romance was sold to the Great American Family network — where Candace Cameron Bure is the chief creative officer. Candace says her goal at GAF is to “keep traditional marriage at the core”; Jodie says she’ll donate any money she makes from her film to “LGBTQ+ organizations.”
David Byrne says he was “a little tyrant” in Talking Heads.
Basic Instinct is getting a comic book series.
Melvin “Magoo” Barcliff, who was part of the ‘90s rap duo with Timbaland and had the hit Up Jumps da Boogie with Missy Elliott and Aaliyah, passed away this week at age 50.
Recommendations of the week
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved
Here’s The A.V. Club’s list of the 25 best high school movies of all time. The list is chronological and more than 50% of the entries are from the ‘80s and ‘90s. Plus Bring It On from 2000, but that’s really a ‘90s movie in spirit.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you forgot
Rolling Stone put together a compilation of the 50 worst decisions in TV history. A ton of these are from the ‘80s and ‘90s, many of which are distant memories but made me say, “Yeah, that’s a good point.”
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you never knew existed
In 1985, Ralston released a Nerds cereal — yes, based on the candy. And the cereal box, much like a box of Nerds, was split down the middle into two different flavors. Here’s its TV ad.
Have a great week!
-Sam