Jan 6: The Sopranos, NCAA tournament
Plus the best singers, guilty pleasure movies, and a Journey arcade game
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
January 6th, 2023 • Issue 133
This week in the ‘80s and ‘90s
January 6th
1973 - Schoolhouse Rock premiered.
1975 - Wheel of Fortune premiered on NBC’s daytime schedule with Chuck Woolery and Susan Stafford as the hosts.
1983 - The Red Hot Chili Peppers were formed.
1992 - The FDA called for a moratorium on the use of silicone breast implant.
1995 - Houseguest hit theaters.
2000 - Mac OS X was released.
2003 - Joe Millionaire premiered on FOX.
January 7th
1980 - The U.S. government gave Chrysler a bailout.
1993 - AT&T introduced the first video telephone.
1994 - Cabin Boy hit theaters.
1994 - Tonya Harding won the U.S. figure skating championships one day after her goons took out Nancy Kerrigan.
1995 - One-hit dick day on the Billboard charts: 20 Fingers’ Short Dick Man peaked at #14 and Deadeye Dick’s New Age Girl peaked at #27.
1997 - Puff Daddy’s single Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down was released.
1997 - The Spice Girls’ debut single Wannabe was released in the U.S.
1999 - President Clinton went on trial before the Senate.
2002 - The Apple iBook was released.
2004 - The Apprentice premiered on NBC, starting a nuclear launch sequence that may still take down the entire country and/or planet.
January 8th
39 years ago, on January 8th, 1984, the NCAA announced its postseason tournament would feature 64 teams.
The NCAA men’s basketball tournament started with eight teams in 1939 and would grow little by little until 1984, at which point it seemed to max out. (Though that wouldn’t stay the case for long.)
The field grew to 16 teams in 1951, to 32 in 1972, 40 in 1979, 48 in 1980, then 64 on this day in 1984.
The NCAA put up heavy resistance to expansion because… well, who ever knows with the NCAA? There was the most resistance for the 16-team to 32-team jump.
Then the TV money started pouring in. And soon, the NCAA found the more it could put important games on TV, the more money it would draw.
In the early ‘70s, college basketball was growing in popularity so networks began increasing their bids on rights to air the tournament. And the NCAA was more than happy to shelve tradition or whatever it was claiming as resistance to expanding the field.
More teams in the tournament meant more games which meant more money. But beyond that: With more teams, the field could include plenty of name-brand schools that didn’t win their conference championships.
Though 64 teams felt like a cap, the NCAA (and its broadcast partners, now paying billions of dollars for the rights) have found a way to squeeze in a few more games. The field grew to 68 teams in 2011 to feature four “play-in games” a few days before the round of 64 begins. And just this week, reports surfaced the NCAA is considering bump that up to NINETY.
The giant tournament format works great for basketball, with upset potential in every game. Even though only one 16-seed has ever upset a 1-seed in the men’s tournament (UMBC over Virginia in 2018), and the lowest seed to ever win the championship was an 8-seed (Villanova in 1985), there’s enough plausible doubt in nearly every game to make the tournament live up to the “madness” moniker. The madness has been even madder in recent years with changes in college basketball — fewer top players sticking around for multiple years, NIL deals keeping top players from clustering at a handful of schools, and the you-don’t-have-to-sit-out-a-year-anymore transfer portal creating constant roster flux.
And now, we’ll find out if the expanding tournament concept will work for college football. As with basketball, there was finally too much TV money on the table for the NCAA to drag its feet on an expanded tournament any longer.
College football grew to a four-team playoff in 2014. And next year, it will expand to 12 teams. 64 seems out of the question. But then again… they once thought the same thing about basketball.
1988 - Super Contra and Metal Gear were both released for NES.
1990 - Sinead O’Connor’s single Nothing Compares 2 U was released.
1992 - Eric Clapton’s single Tears in Heaven was released.
1992 - President H.W. Bush threw up on the prime minister of Japan during a dinner in Tokyo.
1993 - The first Leprechaun movie hit theaters, despite it being neither anytime near St. Patrick’s Day nor Halloween.
1998 - WCW Thunder premiered.
2000 - The Music City Miracle occurred in the NFL as the Tennessee Titans defeated the Buffalo Bills.
January 9th
1984 - TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes premiered.
1984 - Wendy’s “Where’s the beef?” commercial aired for the first time.
1984 - Van Halen’s album 1984 was released.
1988 - Whitney Houston’s single So Emotional hit number one.
1989 - The Pat Sajak Show premiered.
1989 - Inside Edition premiered.
1991 - Pete Rose was officially banned from the Baseball Hall of Fame for gambling… and remains so to this day, even as baseball stadiums have now begun adding sportsbooks.
1994 - Richard Marx’s single Now and Forever was released.
1996 - 3rd Rock from the Sun premiered.
1997 - Antiques Roadshow premiered.
1999 - Ghetto Cowboy, the one hit by Mo Thugs, peaked at number 15.
2000 - Malcolm in the Middle premiered.
2001 - Apple introduced iTunes as a music player and audio file organizer.
January 10th
24 years ago, on January 10th, 1999, The Sopranos premiered on HBO.
The Sopranos debuted on this day in 1999 as a re-imagining of the mafia genre (the idea for the series started as “mob boss goes to therapy”).
And while that is undeniably a part of the show’s legacy, it didn’t just reboot the mafia genre. It laid out a blueprint for prestige TV that, well, has been followed by virtually every single mega-successful prestige drama since.
The blueprint: Complex, anti-hero main character who you have to remind yourself not to root for. Humanized, largely through a ton of exploration of their relationship with their family. Dark, often uncomfortable themes. Complex, intricate, season-long (or multi-season) storytelling with character-driven movement. Movie-level production quality. Guzzling awards.
The Sopranos laid out that blueprint so well that everyone else had to follow. Mad Men followed. The Shield followed. Breaking Bad followed. House of Cards followed. Even though Game of Thrones was an entirely different genre, it followed. Succession followed.
And they’ll keep following, because the expectations are now in place. This is what we want and demand from a certain type of TV, the equivalent of Oscar-bait films.
And until another show figures out a better template, this is what we’ll get.
1983 - Fraggle Rock premiered.
1990 - Time Warner was formed.
1991 - Gloria Estefan’s single Coming Out of the Dark was released.
1992 - The Hand That Rocks the Cradle his theaters.
1995 - The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder premiered.
January 11th
1980 - The Pretenders’ self-titled debut album was released.
1987 - John Elway orchestrated “The Drive” in the NFL playoffs against a team I can’t recall right now.
1995 - The WB Network premiered.
January 12th
1980 - Sugarhill Gang’s one hit, Rapper’s Delight, peaked at number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100.
1981 - Dynasty premiered.
1991 - The Chicago Superfans debuted on Saturday Night Live.
1995 - The O.J. trial began.
1996 - Dunston Checks In, Bio-Dome, and Don’t Be a Menace [etc.] all hit theaters and the theaters said “no mas.”
1997 - King of the Hill premiered on FOX.
1998 - The Price Is Right featured the game SuperBall for the final time.
1999 - Britney Spears’ debut album Baby One More Time was released.
2000 - Next Friday hit theaters.
2001 - Save the Last Dance hit theaters.
2001 - The National Geographic Channel premiered.
5 ‘80s and ‘90s trivia facts
In Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s original Good Will Hunting script, the main character was a math genius who helped a friend outsmart the government.
The script obviously went through quite a few changes before the final product.
Chris Kirkpatrick was rejected after his audition for the Backstreet Boys.
So… he went on to help found NSYNC.
There were more than 3,000 one-hour photo shops in the U.S. in 1998.
Now it’s down to less than 200.
The climactic Footloose dance scene only came after re-shoots.
The movie didn’t have the budget originally to shoot the big dance. But test audiences were so upset not to get it that the studio spent an extra $200,000 to shoot the dance… and did it just six weeks before the movie opened.
The first commercial CD was Billy Joel’s 52nd Street.
It went on sale in Japan in October 1982.
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
Hulu has released the first images from the History of the World Part I revival sketch series, History of the World Part II. The series stars Nick Kroll, Wanda Sykes, and Ike Barinholtz and comes out this spring.
Sarah Michelle Gellar put a definitive end to any rumors of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot (or, at least, her being involved in one). “We wrapped that up… the metaphors of Buffy were the horrors of adolescence. I think I look young, but I am not an adolescent.”
Brendan Fraser says he’s “not opposed” to making a new Mummy sequel.
Vinyl albums had their biggest sales week since 1991 from December 16th to 22nd. Americans purchased 2.232 million vinyl albums, accounting for 57% of all album sales (including digital).
A 28-year-old software engineer at Zulily in Seattle was arrested last week for trying to pull off the penny-skimming tech scam from Office Space.
Recommendations of the week
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved
Rolling Stone released its list of the 200 greatest singers of all time this week, many of whom are from the time period this newsletter covers. However… the main reason people are talking about the list is because they left off Celine Dion. (Seemingly by accident, considering some of the people who made the cut.)
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you forgot
Check out the top 20 guilty pleasure movies from Entertainment Weekly. Some from the scope of this newsletter include Showgirls, Overboard, Point Break, and Con Air — plus plenty of others you likely haven’t thought about in years.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you never knew existed
It turns out Journey had their own arcade game in 1983. It features each of the Journey members in a space ship dodging obstacles to find their respective instruments. The machine also played different Journey songs, spotlighting Separate Ways.
Have a great week!
-Sam