8/9 - What '90s Hit Was the 1st Song Taylor Swift Learned to Play?
Plus trivia on Arli$$, Van Damme, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and more
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
August 9th, 2024 • Issue 216
Be Kind, Rewind
What happened on this day in the ‘80s and ‘90s — plus lots of bonus trivia
August 9th
1985 - Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure hit theaters.
1985 - Real Genius hit theaters.
1988 - Wayne Gretzky was unthinkably traded to the Los Angeles Kings.
1991 - Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Double Impact hit theaters.
Jean-Claude Van Damme angrily threw a papaya at a producer’s head during the filming of Double Impact.
Van Damme was fiercely defensive of Double Impact — by playing two characters, it was the movie that he was using to show off his acting ability.
So when he found out one of the producers was trying to reduce the budget, to move funding to the movie Stone Cold starring football player Brian Bosworth, Van Damme threw a papaya at the producer.
“Thank God he ducked,” Van Damme said in an interview in 2019.
1994 - Notorious B.I.G.’s single Juicy was released.
1995 - Jerry Garcia passed away.
1996 - Jack hit theaters.
1996 - Escape from L.A. hit theaters.
1997 - ESPN’s only hit song (frankly, it’s weird they even have one hit song), ESPN Presents the Jock Jam, peaked at #31 on the Billboard charts.
August 10th
1980 - Michael Jackson’s album Off the Wall was released.
1984 - Cloak and Dagger hit theaters.
1985 - Michael Jackson bought the Beatles’ songs, outbidding Paul McCartney.
1993 - Billy Joel’s final studio album, River of Dreams, was released.
1993 - Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice.
1996 - Arli$$ premiered on HBO.
The idea for Arli$$ came from Donald Trump’s book The Art of the Deal — because the creators read it and realized it was “100% bulls—-.”
Robert Wuhl, who created and starred in Arli$$, says after he read the book, he told his producing partner, “This is total, 100% bulls—- … he’s telling you what happened, but I want to see what really happened. We can use this, as Arliss the sports agent telling you what happens, then we prove he’s full of s—- and show what really happened.”
And no, this isn’t just modern revisionism where everyone says they always knew Trump was a con man. In the intro to Arli$$, the title sequence shows the character’s book, called The Art of the Sports SuperAgent.
August 11th
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.
Kiss Me was the first song Taylor Swift learned to play on guitar.
A good indication of just how popular Kiss Me was in 1998 — Taylor Swift says it was the first song she ever learned to play on guitar, at age 9.
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.
1994 - FOX aired its first NFL broadcast.
1997 - Usher’s single You Make Me Wanna was released.
You Make Me Wanna set a record for the most weeks by a song on the Billboard Hot R&B Singles chart.
Usher’s song was on the R&B singles chart for 71 weeks, which set a new record.
It’s since been broken by four other songs (Sure Thing by Miguel, Be Without You by Mary J. Blige, God in Me by Mary Mary, and On the Ocean by K’Jon).
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.
The real person who inspired the character of Mark Ratner went on to become the author of the biggest computer … For Dummies books.
The “nerdy” character from Fast Times, Mark Ratner, was based on a real-life guy named Andy Rathbone. Cameron Crowe, who wrote Fast Times, met Rathbone during his research process at Clairemont High School in San Diego.
Rathbone went on to become a writer at computer magazines, then was tapped to write some of the first For Dummies books. He wrote the bestseller Windows for Dummies in 1992 — the top-selling computer book in history — along with at least 50 others.
1993 - Street Fighter II was released for Super Nintendo.
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.
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.
The age difference between Angela Bassett and Taye Diggs is smaller than the age difference between their characters.
In How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Stella is 40 and Winston is 20. (In the book, Stella is 42.)
Angela Bassett was, in fact, 40 in 1998 when she portrayed Stella.
Taye Diggs, however, was 27 — only 13 years younger than her.
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.
Endless Love was originally written as an instrumental piece.
Lionel Richie wrote the song to score the 1981 Brooke Shields movie Endless Love.
But after he finished, the movie’s director, Franco Zeffirelli, thought it might be better with lyrics. And he came up with the idea of having Diana Ross sing a duet with Richie.
1987 - Metroid was released for NES.
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.
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
Netflix is working on a reboot of A Different World.
Brooke Shields is auctioning off the Calvin Klein jeans she wore in her infamous 1980 ad.
The Porsche from Risky Business is also going up for auction.
The Guinness Book of World Records says Wesley Snipes broke a record by appearing as Blade in Deadpool & Wolverine: Longest career as a live-action Marvel character. With the original Blade coming out in 1998, Snipes has been the character for 25 years, 240 days. Had Snipes not been in the movie, that record would’ve gone to Hugh Jackman; Jackman first played Wolverine in 2000.
The producer of the upcoming sequel to 1998’s Practical Magic says the movie will “honor” the original.
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Have a great week!
-Sam