The Retro
by 11 Points
Modern perspectives on ‘80s and ‘90s nostalgia
January 15, 2021 • Issue 30
This week in nostalgic history
January 15th
22 years ago, on January 15th, 1999 - Varsity Blues hit theaters.
I love Varsity Blues, even though I’m not sure if Varsity Blues is a good movie. On one hand, it’s a wildly entertaining ‘90s teen movie that makes full use of its R-rating and seamlessly mixes comedy, drama, sports, Americana, angst, and the coming of age. On the other hand, it’s like a tabloid shlocky Friday Night Lights with some of the most cringeworthy dialogue this side of the Mississippi and a bad guy who feels more like a good guy the further away from high school age you get.
I’m not sure which of those is accurate, and I lack all impartiality upon which to judge. Also, Billy Bob, Lance’s dad, and definitely Coach Kilmer would’ve been part of storming the U.S. Capitol. Tweeder’s a maybe.
Also on January 15th: Hill Street Blues premiered on NBC (1981)… Men at Work’s single Down Under hit number one (1983)… President Reagan signed legislation to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday… Jimmy the Greek made infamous racist comments (1988)… Big John Studd won the WWF’s second Royal Rumble (1989)… Mega Man 4 was released (1992)… Snoop Doggy Dogg’s single Gin and Juice was released (1994)… Dennis Rodman kicked a cameraman (1997)…
January 16th
30 years ago, on January 16th, 1991 - Operation: Desert Storm began.
I have pretty clear memories of when the U.S. went to war in 1991 — although my memory is me at a friend’s house after school and realizing we wouldn’t be able to watch Tiny Toon Adventures because the networks were all showing news all day long. As a kid, I also couldn’t understand any of the nuance of the war — our basic understanding was that Saddam Hussein was bad, Kuwait needed help, and eventually that we “won.” In retrospect, there’s a lengthy debate about just how much of a “win” it really was. The U.S. got out fast, so Hussein remained in power, the Middle East continued to destablize, and the circuitious path eventually led to the second Iraq War — one that wasn’t anywhere close to the get in-get out-declare victory situation of the first.
Also on January 16th: Paul and Linda McCartney were arrested in Barbados for cannabis (1984)… Playboy announced the end of stapling centerfolds (1985)… Depeche Mode’s single Enjoy the Silence was released (1990)… Hercules and Star Trek: Voyager both premiered (1995)… Half Baked hit theaters (1998)
January 17th
29 years ago, on January 17th, 1992 - A method to cheat to win ToppsGold baseball cards was revealed on Prodigy.
This one will probably require more exposition than the normal entry in this newsletter, but it hit so close to home I really wanted to talk about it.
When the Topps 1992 baseball card line was released, it introduced an irresistible Wonka-esque gimmick: Some packs would contain a rare ToppsGold card — essentially a regular card with gold foil embossed on the player’s name and team. And these gold cards were more valuable than normal cards. This gimmick came during the early ‘90s peak of trading cards’ popularity, so kids and collectors instantly coveted these gold cards.
But finding a gold card in a pack wasn’t the only way to get your hands on one. Topps also included a scratch-off ticket in every package. Each ticket had nine scratch-off circles, corresponding to the baseball positions. If you scratched off three that matched, you could mail it in to Topps and receive a gold card in exchange.
But in early 1992, some random guy figured out a zero day exploit: If you held a bright light under the scratch-off card, you could see through the silver coating just enough to spot the winning circles. And this random guy posted his findings on the early online internet service called Prodigy.
I didn’t have Prodigy (I was on Usenet and various BBSes at the time, sure, but we weren’t a fancy Prodigy or CompuServe household), nor did most other people — but the word spread like crazy. I have vivid memories of holding up the scratch-off cards over a bright lamp in my room and feeling a rush of joy when the vulnerability proved true and I could see the correct spots to scratch.
Topps scrambled to adjust course. While they honored all the winning scratchers, they sent the winners modified (and, ultimately, less valuable) gold cards with the word “Winner” embossed in gold. They also adjusted the scratchers for their next round of printing so they were no longer see-through.
I love this story not just because I was totally swept up in the whole thing contemporaneously, but because it was such an early precursor to the unrelenting power of the internet. No longer was any contest or spoiler or stick-it-to-the-man trick safe or secure. If this trick could spread so rapidly on Prodigy in 1992, no trick stood a chance once the internet expanded.
Also on January 17th: The Supreme Court ruled it was legal to use your VCR to record TV shows (1984)… Iron Eagle hit theaters (1986)… “The Fumble” cost the Cleveland Browns a trip to the Super Bowl (1988)… a 6.7-magnitude earthquake hit Northridge, California (1994)… Beverly Hills Ninja hit theaters (1997)… Savage Garden’s single Truly, Madly, Deeply hit number one (1998)… Matt Drudge broke the Clinton-Lewinsky story (1998)… Gary Anderson’s missed field goal cost the Minnesota Vikings a trip to the Super Bowl (1999)
January 18th
25 years ago, on January 18th, 1996 - The Major League Baseball owners approved interleague play.
Major League Baseball had a problem in the early ‘90s. The sport was rapidly losing some of its previously entrenched market share to the red hot NBA (not to mention the stalwarts of pro and college football). Then there was a public relations disaster of an MLB strike in 1994 that took down the season as well as the World Series. So the owners finally played their ultimate “in case of emergency, break glass” card: They stopped keeping the American and National Leagues separate.
I’m not sure if interleague play helped reinvigorate interest in baseball; some might say its popularity was never going to hit prior levels as younger generations gravitated toward other sports. If anything, the big sluggers with giant juiced up heads socking dingers a few years later did more to reinvigorate MLB’s popularity than interleague play. But interleague play arrived — and once the toothpaste was out of that tube, there was no going back.
So today, baseball still does interleague play — and still largely with the same schedules it used 25 years ago. It’s not really considered a special thing anymore — by this point, every team has played every other team plenty — although it is perpetually fun to see American League pitchers having to bat in National League parks. Oh, and also to hear the names of the players on the Arizona Diamondbacks for the first time in your life.
Also on January 18th: Dionne Warwick’s single That’s What Friends Are For hit number one (1986)… Degrassi Junior High premiered (1987)… Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Berry was arrested in a sting for smoking crack (1990)… Eastern Airlines went out of business after 62 years (1991)… Amy Grant’s single Baby, Baby was released (1991)… Martin Luther King Jr. Day became official in all 50 states (1993)… Yahoo.com was registered (1995)… Lisa Marie Presley filed for divorce from Michael Jackson (1996)… Ally McBeal beat Seinfeld to win the Golden Globe for Best TV Comedy (1998)
January 19th
22 years ago, on January 19th, 1999 - The first BlackBerry was released.
The first BlackBerry was not a phone, but rather a two-way pager; a device category that was the short-lived precursor to text messaging. BlackBerry’s two-way pager wasn’t the first to market — Motorola was also in the two-way pager game — but it was BlackBerry’s entry into the corporate mobile communications world. BlackBerry targeted the professional crowd, as its device could receive email from a Microsoft Exchange Server — which made it really valuable to a section of early adopting enterprise clients. Just one year later, BlackBerry released the first smartphone and the company grew exponentially.
But like so many products that can claim to be first to market, BlackBerry couldn’t survive the bigger smartphone explosion that began in earnest with the iPhone in 2007. The public really enjoyed apps and games, having a phone that was also an iPod, and a big colorful screen — and quickly adjusted to typing on a phone without physical keys. BlackBerry couldn’t keep up. They tried to launch touchscreen phones, but they bombed. They retreated back to keyboard phones, which also bombed. The industry was moving fast, and BlackBerry was left in its dust.
That being said, BlackBerry is still a well-known brand name that, once upon a time, was very powerful — so we haven’t seen the last of BlackBerry. The brand has been sold and resold multiple times over the past decade, and once of these days, we’ll surely see yet another rebooted BlackBerry hit the market.
Also on January 19th: A minor league hockey player was traded for a bus (1983)… Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? peaked at number 13 (1985)… Ronald Reagan pardoned George Steinbrenner for making illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon (1989)… Tremors hit theaters (1990)… Sgt. Slaughter won the WWF title in a shocking upset at the Royal Rumble (1991)… Snow’s album 12 Inches of Snow was released (1993)… Fleetwood Mac reunited to play at Bill Clinton’s inauguration (1993)… FOX expanded its prime-time lineup to seven days a week (1993)… From Dusk Till Dawn hit theaters (1996)… the WWF’s Times Square restaurant opened (2000)
January 20th
29 years ago, on January 20th, 1992 - Ice Cube (probably) had a good day.
Ice Cube’s classic track It Was a Good Day came out in February of 1993. And it led to some speculation as to whether it was inspired by one actual day, or whether it was just kind of a fictitious amalgamation of things that would be part of Ice Cube’s idealized day.
While the correct answer is the latter (confirmed by O’Shea himself), it’s much more entertaining to believe in the former.
In 2012, a blogger did a deeper dive into all of the events Ice Cube describes in It Was a Good Day to see if he could pinpoint Ice Cube’s Good Day. And his conclusion was… if it were any day, it was January 20th, 1992.
On that day: Yo! MTV Raps aired… the L.A. Lakers beat the Seattle Supersonics… there was no smog in Los Angeles… beepers were available (that meant the date had to be post-1990)… and Ice Cube was not filming a movie, so could’ve been hanging out at home in L.A.
And while there was no confirmation on whether the Goodyear Blimp really flashed a customized message that night or Ice Cube did or did not have to use his AK, January 20th, 1992 was the only date that could’ve qualified as the Good Day.
Also on January 20th: 52 American hostages were released in Iran 20 minutes after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration (1981)… Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat (1982)… the San Francisco 49ers defeated the Miami Dolphins in the Super Bowl (1985)… Digital Underground’s single The Humpty Dance was released (1990)… Michael Bolton’s single How Am I Supposed to Live Without You hit number one (1990)… Roseanne Barr married Tom Arnold (1990)… the Scorpions’ single Winds of Change was released (1991)… The Heights’ single How Do You Talk to an Angel was released (1992)… the series finale aired of G.I. Joe (1992)… Aubrey Hepburn passed away (1993)… FOX debuted the glowing hockey puck in its NHL coverage (1996)… Dawson’s Creek premiered on the WB (1998)
January 21st
31 years ago, on January 21st, 1990 - MTV Unplugged premiered.
MTV aired a pilot for its stripped down, acoustic showcase called Unplugged in 1989, then began the series officially on this day. The legend goes that the series was inspired by Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora’s acoustic set at the 1989 VMAs. The reality goes that the series was already in development and Bon Jovi doing a pared down version of Wanted Dead or Alive was a happy coincidence.
The first episode of MTV Unplugged from 1990 is an unusual mix of acts (I say unusual because none of the names felt like debut-worthy headliners to me): Squeeze, Syd Straw, and Elliot Easton. The first season would go on to feature some bigger names, including Aerosmith, Elton John, and more.
The series stands out from basically everything else on MTV, however, because it did something unique: Rather than simply being a network that played hits, MTV was now creating hits.
Eric Clapton’s Unplugged album in 1992 sold 26 million copies and is the bestselling live album ever. Several other Unplugged albums went platinum as well. Mariah Carey’s Unplugged cover of the Jackson 5’s I’ll Be There was a number one single. Nirvana’s iconic performance on Unplugged was one of their final ones before Kurt Cobain’s death, and the album from that show won a Grammy.
Unplugged remains one of the most prestigious shows MTV ever produced, and some specials occasionally still air today, in between their more standard fare of skateboarder-hosted Ow My Balls! spinoffs and 45-year-old professional reality show contestants jousting on The Challenge.
Also on January 21st: The DeLorean DMC-12 went into production (1981)… Bon Jovi’s debut album as released (1984)… John McEnroe was ejected from the Australian Open for throwing his racket (1990)… Lorena Bobbitt was found not guilty by reason of insanity (1994)
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news.
Fisher-Price has created new toys to teach today’s kids about retro gadgets including cassettes, the Game Boy, and the boombox.
The creator of House of Cards is developing a TV series based on the board game Risk.
Now that everyone’s frantically working to scrub all references to Donald Trump from the world, someone proposed digitally replacing Trump in Home Alone 2 with 40-year-old Macaulay Culkin — and Culkin tweeted “Sold.”
On a semi-related note, there are rumors of a feud in the Backstreet Boys as Brian Littrell has gone full Trump/Parler/QAnon and Kevin Richardson tweeted (or, more accurately, subtweeted) an article called “I Lost a Best Friend to QAnon” from Cosmopolitan.
Kevin Smith says he’s finished the script for Clerks 3. He humbly declared it’s a “funny f***ing script.”
The lead has been cast for the Doogie Howser reboot at Disney+. It’s a former Disney Channel star.
Dennis Rodman’s daughter, Trinity Rodman, was drafted number two overall in the National Women’s Soccer League draft.
This week in famous TV cars: David Hasselhoff is auctioning off his personal K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider… the A-Team van is up for auction… and Wilmer Valderrama says he purchased the station wagon from That ‘70s Show.
The Super Nintendo World theme park in Japan has been delayed again because of the pandemic.
The Sopranos prequel film has been delayed again, now to September of this year. It was originally set for September of last year.
Sad news: Dustin Diamond, best known as Screech from Saved by the Bell, has been diagnosed with stage four cancer and is receiving chemo.
More sad news: Jessica Campbell, who played Tammy Metzler in Election, passed away at age 38.
Throwbacks and recommendations
A well-done parody trailer shows what would happen if Seinfeld were a horror movie.
Mental Floss’s 11 ( 😐) hit songs musicians have refused to play are virtually all from the time scope of this newsletter.
Ernie Hudson says they filmed a scene for Ghostbusters where Dan Aykroyd has sexual relations with a ghost. It, obviously, didn’t make the final cut.
Thanks for reading!
-Sam