April 15: All That, Nas, Pitfall, Roseanne
Plus the woman who cheated to win the Boston Marathon
The Retro
by 11 Points
Modern perspectives on ‘80s and ‘90s nostalgia
April 15th, 2022 • Issue 95
This week in ‘80s & ‘90s history
April 15th
25 years ago, on April 15th, 1997 - Jackie Robinson’s number 42 was retired across baseball.
Jackie Robinson was the first player from one of the major U.S. sports whose number was retired league-wide. (Wayne Gretzky was the second, and as of now last, in 2000.)
But even when MLB retired 42 on this day 25 years ago, they did make an exception: Players who already had the #42 jersey number could keep it.
One guy kept it a very long time.
Mariano Rivera, then in his third season on the New York Yankees, was number 42 — he says he didn’t pick the number, it was just randomly assigned to him when he was called up to the majors.
And then Rivera kept on playing… for another 16 years.
He retired at the end of the 2013 season as the last player to wear 42 as their regular jersey number.
Also on April 15th: Flashdance hit theaters (1983)… Tokyo Disneyland opened (1983)… Sprockets debuted on Saturday Night Live (1989)… Fine Young Cannibals’ song She Drives Me Crazy hit number one (1989)… In Living Color premiered on FOX (1990)… Space Ghost premiered (1994)… the World Trade Organization was established (1994)… Montell Jordan’s single This Is How We Do It hit number one (1995)… No Doubt’s single Don’t Speak was released (1996)… Hanson’s single Mmmbop was released (1997)… Joey Ramone passed away (2001)
April 16th
28 years ago, on April 16th, 1994 - All That premiered on Nickelodeon.
All That was Nickelodeon’s second swing at a “for kids by kids (but really by adults)” sketch comedy show. The first was You Can’t Do That on Television, which was a staple of Nickelodeon in the ‘80s (and most enduringly introduced the network’s signature concept of sliming).
But YCDTOTV had two strikes against it. One, it was actually a Canadian show, meaning Nickelodeon has neither full ownership nor full control. And two, its popularity declined around 1990 as many popular cast members aged and the producers couldn’t Logan’s Run them out of there fast enough.
So Nickelodeon took its second stab at sketch comedy on this day in 1994, bringing in a diverse cast — a unique TV concept at the time — and aiming to be SNL Jr.
The plan worked. All That was an instant hit, then a long-standing hit. Its first run went until 2000, then its relaunch from 2002 to 2005. It launched multiple stars into successful careers, and even followed the SNL template with its own spinoff movie.
All That has seen two reboots; the aforementioned relaunch and a 2019 reboot which seems to be a pandemic casualty. But All That will be back in some form at some point. This one always comes back.
Also on April 16th: Benny and Joon hit theaters (1993)… Culture Beat’s single Mr. Vain was released (1993)… Crash Test Dummies’ one hit, Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm, peaked at number four on the Billboard charts (1994)… 12 Gauge’s one hit, Dunkie Butt, peaked at number 28 (1994)… Wayne Gretzky announced his retirement (1999)… Love & Basketball hit theaters (2000)
April 17th
41 years ago, on April 17th, 1981 - The Ringo Starr movie vehicle Caveman hit theaters.
There are plenty of listicles about the worst casting decisions in movie history. Often, those poor decisions happen because a famous person wants a role, despite being a square peg of a fit. Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher. Kevin Costner as Robin Hood. Russell Crowe at least a few different times.
Not one of these lists includes Ringo Starr in Caveman. The lists should — it’s just that no one saw nor remembers Caveman, so no one includes it on those lists.
(I watched it for the first time this week. It was streaming free on Tubi, to give you an idea of where it lands on the marketability scale.)
Caveman is a classic “who greenlit this?” movie. It’s a slapstick comedy, set in prehistoric times (where cavepeople and poorly animated dinosaurs coexist), that features no real dialogue. The cast speak in about a 30-word cave language.
Most of the comedy, therefore, is physical.
Ringo Starr is a lot of things, but a physical comedian talented enough to carry a dialogue-free movie isn’t one of them. He’s not a bad actor, not at all. He’s just not Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, or Rowan Atkinson. He’s not even a Bronson Pinchot, though he looks weirdly similar to Bronson Pinchot in this movie.
And a movie this cheesy and this weirdly ambitious needed someone at that level of physical comedy mastery.
In fact, it’s unclear what Ringo was exactly thought he was accomplishing with this role. In one scene, the group of cave folk break out into a spontaneous song and dance with instruments — and other people play the drums. Ringo just blankly smiles and nods along to the music.
Caveman was not much of a commercial success nor was it a critical success. In fact, its main legacy is probably that it’s where Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach met — they were married in 1981 and are still married today.
I believe this movie marked the end of members of the surviving Beatles getting leading roles in films. I’m not saying that happened because of Caveman… but this wasn’t a resume booster.
Also on April 17th: Bill Murray filled in for Harry Carey with the Chicago Cubs (1987)… the Menendez brothers were sentenced to life in prison (1996)… The Vengaboys one hit, We Like to Party, peaked at number 26 on the Billboard charts (1999)
April 18th
28 years ago, on April 18th, 1994 - Roseanne and Tom Arnold got divorced.
The Roseanne Barr-Tom Arnold marriage was a high-profile one, as it came at the height of Roseanne’s stardom — plus it was widespread pre-internet gossip fodder since it was toxic from day one on.
Reading postmortems on the relationship today, it seems like there was a lot of mutual toxicity. When Roseanne and Tom got together, they kicked everyone else out of Roseanne’s life — her family, her management, her ex-husband. Tom’s full-time job became running her career while trying to launch his own. The two teased each other, often publicly, and often in ways that seemed to come more from a place of cruel viciousness than a place of loving banter.
Their marriage lasted four years and ended with very serious allegations back and forth — and they’ve essentially never reconciled to this day.
While there have been brief moments that seemed like they’d buried the hatchet (Tom appeared at Roseanne’s Comedy Central Roast in 2012 and spoke affectionately toward Roseanne), they’ve largely continued to take shots at each other in interviews.
In recent years, they even took public, opposite sides in politics — with Roseanne going all in on Donald Trump and Q-Anon and Tom Arnold making a documentary series to try to hunt down damaging video footage of Trump.
Also on April 18th: The Disney Channel premiered as a cable network (1983)… Tulane University ended its basketball program over corruption (1985)… Aretha Franklin and George Michael’s duet I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me) hit number one (1987)… Great White’s album Twice Shy was released (1989)… Adam Sandler’s Opera Man character debuted on Saturday Night Live (1992)… Joe Montana announced his retirement from the NFL (1995)… Marcy Playground’s one hit, Sex and Candy, peaked at number eight (1998)… Peyton Manning was the top pick in the NFL Draft (1998)… Jesse Camp won MTV’s Wanna Be a VJ contest (1998)… Silk Stalkings aired its series finale (1999)
April 19th
28 years ago, on April 19th, 1994 - Nas’s debut album Illmatic was released.
Illmatic, which came out on this day in 1994, is one of those hip-hop albums that’s part of every round-up of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time and featured raw, authentic content and groundbreaking lyrical rhymes.
As a result, it was an instant critical success that was heralded as the beginning of a new evolution of hip-hop. (Which it was, helping the genre grow to find both its voice and its potential.)
But Illmatic was not a runaway commercial success. Even now, after all the hype and all these years, the album is only at about two million sales in the U.S. — there are plenty of albums that have done that in a week.
In fact, it’s not even Nas’s bestselling album — that distinction goes to his second album, It Was Written. Which also happens to be his most commercial-sounding album, with smooth production and less bold lyrical content than Illmatic.
Nas is still going today — his 15th studio album came out in December. And he continues to receive solid critical acclaim and not-quite-top-level popularity — as the multiple generations of rappers he once influenced are now his peers and competitors.
Also on April 19th: Blondie’s single Call Me hit number one (1980)… Sally Ride was named the first female astronaut (1982)… Prince’s single Kiss hit number one (1986)… the first Simpsons short appeared on the Tracey Ullman Show (1987)… Wings premiered on NBC (1990)… Evander Holyfield defeated George Foreman to retain the boxing heavyweight title (1991)… David Koresh and 75 of his Branch Davidian followers died after a federal raid of their compound in Waco, Texas (1993)… the Oklahoma City bombing occurred (1995)… Celtic Pride hit theaters (1996)… Lou Bega’s single Mambo No. 5 was released (1999)… the character Timmy debuted on South Park (2000)
April 20th
40 years ago, on April 20th, 1982 - Pitfall! was released for Atari 2600.
Pitfall! may not be the signature Atari game, but it may’ve had the most influence of any Atari game.
Other top Atari titles like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Frogger, and Asteroids shared one commonality: The action took place on one screen. Yes, the screen slightly changed as the game progressed and the enemies became more difficult (often borderline impossible), but the action all took place on one screen.
Pitfall! was not a one-screen game. In Pitfall!, you moved left to right across the screen. And when you got to the end of the screen, the game scrolled and took you to a new screen.
The new screen wasn’t that different than the prior screen, but it still felt like a player was progressing through an adventure.
Side-scrolling games were a challenging endeavor for the limited computing power of Atari.
But by the time Nintendo rolled around a few years later, side-scrolling became the standard — with Super Mario Bros. and co. taking the torch from Pitfall! and never looking back.
Also on April 20th: Michael Jordan scored a record 63 points in a playoff loss to Boston (1986)… Rocket Ismael signed with Toronto in the CFL for $26 million (1991)… Wilson Phillips’ single You’re in Love hit number one (1991)… Benny Hill passed away (1992)… Metallica’s single Nothing Else Matters was released (1992)… the Freddie Mercury memorial concert was held in London (1992)… Aerosmith’s album Get a Grip was released, as was Shania Twain’s self-titled debut album (1993)… Janet Jackson’s single That’s the Way Love Goes was released (1993)… the Chicago Bulls won a record 72 regular season games, and unlike when Golden State won 72 years later, Chicago would go on to win the title (1996)… during a demo of Windows 98, the operating system crashed when Bill Gates plugged in a scanner (1998)… the Columbine High School shooting occurred in Colorado (1999)… Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles and Freddy Got Fingered hit theaters (2001)
April 21st
42 years ago, on April 21st, 1980 - Rosie Ruiz cheated to win the Boston Marathon.
On this day in 1980, Rosie Ruiz won the Boston Marathon with the fastest female time in history — and the third-fastest female time in the history of all marathons.
And that seemed strange, as Ruiz wasn’t particularly tired at the end and she didn’t appear to have any course knowledge or the training regimen of an Olympic-level runner. Plus, her time was almost a half-hour faster than her time in the New York City Marathon six months earlier.
So the investigation began. And it turned out Ruiz cheated and skipped virtually all the Boston course by hiding in the crowd near the finish line — plus she’d also cheated in the NYC Marathon by taking the subway.
Ruiz’s Boston Marathon time and victory were disqualified by the end of the week, though she argued for the next four decades that she’d actually run the race. Ruiz died of cancer at age 66 in 2019.
Although it’s perhaps not the greatest legacy, Ruiz undeniably has a legacy for cheating in sports. She’s always up there with the Chicago Black Sox, Lance Armstrong, Tim Donaghy, Spygate, Tonya Harding, Mike Tyson’s ear biting, and most recently the Houston Astros.
And with the modern, sophisticated marathon timing systems and runner tracking, it’s doubtful anyone will pull off a stunt like Ruiz ever again.
Also on April 21st: Weird Al Yankovic made his national TV debut on the Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder (1981)… Footloose unseated Thriller as the top album in the U.S. after 37 weeks (1984)… Phil Collins’s single Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) hit number one (1984)… Geraldo opened Al Capone’s vault on live TV and found nothing (1986)… the Nintendo Game Boy was released in Japan, along with Super Mario Land (1989)… Field of Dreams and Pet Sematary hit theaters (1989)… George W. Bush became CEO of the Texas Rangers baseball team (1989)… Sinead O’Connor’s one hit, Nothing Compares 2 U, hit number one (1990)… the Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue special was simulcast on all major networks (1990)… Walker Texas Ranger premiered on CBS (1993)… Herman’s Head aired its series finale (1994)… While You Were Sleeping and the Basketball Diaries both hit theaters (1995)
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
The Library of Congress announced the 25 new inductees to its National Recording Registry this week. They include Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’, Bonnie Raitt’s album Nick of Time, A Tribe Called Quest’s album The Low End Theory, Wu-Tang Clan’s album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), and Ricky Martin’s Livin’ La Vida Loca.
A staple of the ‘80s, there are now just three Kmarts left in the U.S.
One of the few popular TV series that isn’t available on any streaming service is Moonlighting. The creator says it’s because of music rights issues.
Mark Wahlberg says he keeps his famous prosthetic from Boogie Nights locked in a safe.
Spike Lee is selling 3,945 NFTs of original frames from She’s Gotta Have It.
The Scorpions have changed the lyrics to the song Winds of Change to stop romanticizing Russia, changing “Follow the Moskva down to Gorky Park” to “Now listen to my heart, it says Ukraine.”
A new supergroup called 3rd Secret featuring members of Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam released their debut album this week.
Gilbert Gottfried passed away this week at age 67.
Throwbacks and recommendations
Here’s a mini-documentary on “The Day the Simpsons Was Born” — the episode that “first embodied the show at its peak.” He reveals the episode at the 11-minute mark.
Check out a frighteningly real deep fake of Jerry Seinfeld inserted into Pulp Fiction.
A long-rumored video has finally surfaced of Jay-Z’s set at the Hot 97 Summer Jam in 2001 when he brings out Michael Jackson at the end of his set for a surprise cameo.
Thanks for reading!
-Sam