9/1: What '90s TV Character Almost Died... But Instead Got a Huge Spinoff?
Plus the 30 best SNL characters and 15 best things about retro gaming
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
September 1st, 2023 • Issue 167
This week in the ‘80s and ‘90s
September 1st
1984 - Tina Turner’s single What’s Love Got to Do with It hit number one.
1985 - The remains of the Titanic were discovered.
1987 - Stadium Events, the rarest of all the games for the original Nintendo Entertainment System, was released.
1988 - Hudson’s Adventure Island was released for NES.
1990 - Luther Vandross’s single Here and Now was released
1990 - Stevie B.’s single Because I Love You (The Postman Song) was released.
Because I Love You (The Postman Song) was originally about receiving a letter from God.
Stevie B.’s friend and the songwriter on the track, Warren Allen Brooks, says he originally wrote the song in the mid-’80s as if “it was God talking to me, telling me that he loved me.”
Meanwhile, Stevie B. was a high-energy Latin dance jam creator who saw the market winds blowing toward ballads — so if he was going to go commercial, he was going to go full commercial. That meant turning the song into a standard non-spiritual, romantic relationship.
And it became a number one hit.
1991 - E! News premiered.
1994 - The Head premiered on MTV.
1994 - The Independent Film Channel debuted.
1997 - The Disney Channel went from a paid channel to part of regular cable.
1998 - Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone was released in the U.S.
1999 - Outside Providence hit theaters.
September 2nd
1989 - Paula Abdul’s Cold Hearted hit number one on the Billboard charts.
1990 - Parker Lewis Can’t Lose premiered on FOX.
Parker Lewis Can’t Lose was one of the first TV shows ever to develop a real internet following.
Parker Lewis Can’t Lose fans had an email list called “The Flamingo Digest” — which helped the show grow in popularity and last for three seasons. Some of the Flamingo Digest participants even got invitations to the set during the series.
1991 - Garth Brooks’s album Ropin’ the Wind was released.
1995 - Michael Jackson’s single You Are Not Alone hit number one.
1995 - The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame officially opened to the public in Cleveland.
1998 - David Bowie launched his ISP, Bowienet.
September 3rd
1983 - The Eurythmics’ single Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) hit number one.
1991 - Naughty By Nature’s debut album was released.
1992 - A TV show called Australia’s Naughtiest Home Videos was canceled just over a half hour into its premiere.
1993 - InfoGear trademarked a product called the iPhone.
InfoGear iPhones kept coming out through 2006.
InfoGear’s first iPhone was an office desk phone with a touchscreen.
Though it never became a real household name, they also made an iPhone 2. And when Cisco acquired InfoGear in 2000, they launched a cell phone called the iPhone in 2006.
And yes, they sued Apple after its iPhone came out.
1999 - Mario Lemieux became the first pro athlete to buy a team he once played for when his group took over ownership of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
September 4th
1991 - The asterisk next to Roger Maris’s home run record was dropped.
1993 - Jim Abbott, the MLB pitcher who was born without a right hand, threw a no-hitter.
1994 - The NFL saw its first two-point conversion.
1994 - Season six of The Simpsons began with the episode “Bart of Darkness.”
1995 - Xena: Warrior Princess debuted.
The Xena character was initially supposed to die after a three-episode arc on the syndicated Hercules show.
Lucy Lawless’s Xena appeared for three episodes on Hercules — and was going to die at the end.
But the Hercules producers were trying to come up with a spin-off at the time, and they liked Xena. They liked her so much they decided to keep her alive and create a series around her.
By the time Xena ended, it was drawing better ratings than Hercules.
1995 - WCW Monday Nitro premiered on TNT.
1998 - Google was incorporated.
1998 - Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? aired for the first time ever, in the U.K.
1999 - Enrique Iglesias’s single Bailamos hit number one.
2002 - Kelly Clarkson won the first season of American Idol.
September 5th
1976 - The Muppet Show premiered.
1983 - Sports Illustrated became the first full-color magazine.
1987 - American Bandstand aired for the last time on ABC after 30 years (it went on two more years in syndication).
1988 - The children’s game show Fun House premiered.
1989 - Deborah Norville became the anchor of the Today Show.
1989 - Chris Evert retired from tennis.
1991 - MC Hammer’s single 2 Legit 2 Quit was released.
The MC Hammer single of 2 Legit 2 Quit is textually stylized different than its parent album, Too Legit to Quit.
Though the title of the single and album are the same, MC Hammer (or someone up the record company chain) decided to stylize their titles in different homophonic ways.
The album uses the spelled-out words of Too and To; the single uses the numerical 2 for both.
1997 - Mother Teresa passed away at age 87.
1998 - Aerosmith’s single I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing hit number one.
2001 - The Amazing Race premiered on CBS.
September 6th
1980 - Benny Mardones’s one hit, Into the Night, peaked at number 11.
1986 - Bananarama’s single Venus hit number one.
1991 - The city of Leningrad’s name reverted to St. Petersburg.
1994 - Brandy’s debut single I Wanna Be Down was released.
1994 - 4PM’s single Sukiyaki was released.
4PM’s version of Sukiyaki made them the third different artist to ride the song to a top 10 hit.
Sukiyaki first came out in 1961 by Kyu Sakamoto and became a number one song in the U.S. in 1963 — despite being entirely in Japanese.
An R&B group called A Taste of Honey covered the song in 1981 — but wrote fully English lyrics inspired by the translated Japanese. Their version made it to number three on the Billboard Hot 100.
Then, in 1994, 4PM released their version using the English lyrics from A Taste of Honey. And 4PM’s take on the song would make it up to number eight on the Billboard Hot 100.
(Also: Both Slick Rick’s La Di Da Di and Snoop Dogg’s Lodi Dodi include some of the lyrics from the song, but neither was a charting hit.)
1995 - Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played.
1996 - Bulletproof hit theaters.
1997 - Princess Diana’s funeral was held.
September 7th
1981 - The People’s Court premiered.
1984 - The American Express platinum card debuted.
1985 - Small Wonder premiered.
1985 - John Parr’s single St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion) hit number one.
1985 - Star Wars: Ewoks and Star Wars: Droids premiered on ABC.
1986 - The NFL overturned its first play ever using instant replay.
When the NFL instituted instant replay in 1986, it was used just three plays into the first game of the season.
On the third play of the game between the Chicago Bears and Cleveland Browns, Cleveland recovered Chicago’s bad snap in the endzone — or did they?
The instant replay officials decided Cleveland had possession before going out of bounds, and the Browns got a touchdown.
This would mark the final time in NFL history a borderline call would go to the Browns.
(Don’t fact check that sentence, just trust me on that.)
1987 - Geraldo premiered.
1987 - Keith Sweat’s single I Want Her was released.
1993 - Mark Whitten of the St. Louis Cardinals had the best statistical game ever with four home runs and 12 RBIs.
1993 - The short-lived Chevy Chase Show debuted on FOX.
1996 - Tupac Shakur was shot and killed.
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
Aqua, the group behind Barbie Girl, is capitalizing on Barbie mania by announcing a 20-date U.S. tour this fall.
Disney+’s Doogie Howser, M.D. reboot, Doogie Kamealoha, M.D., has been canceled after two seasons.
A suggestion from Keanu Reeves helped save the script for Speed, when Keanu noted the SWAT members he spent time with for research were exceedingly polite and business-oriented — not “hot shots” like the typical action heroes of the era.
Julia Sweeney says Hillary Clinton wrote a letter to Saturday Night Live in 1993 because she disliked Sweeney’s impression of then-13-year-old Chelsea Clinton.
If you want an autograph from the lead singer of Third Eye Blind, you have to be able to name a song off their third album.
Atari is making a sequel to Pong — where the balls escape into different worlds.
A McDonald’s in Brooklyn brought back the chain’s 1982 look this week as a promotion for Loki. In the photos, the menu board has an ‘80s look… but that $7.39 Egg McMuffin is a pure 2023 price.
Recommendations of the week
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved
Den of Geek wrote up the 15 best things about retro gaming and they make some really good points.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you forgot
A website ranked the top 30 recurring Saturday Night Live characters and virtually all of them are from the ‘80s and ‘90s (or a little earlier).
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you never knew existed
Presented without any further comment needed.
Have a great week!
-Sam