Oct 7: Boogie Nights, Brad Pitt, Salt-N-Pepa
Plus a new Garbage Pail Kids video game and the Mario movie trailer
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
October 7th, 2022 • Issue 120
This week in the ‘80s and ‘90s
October 7th
1982 - Cats premiered on Broadway.
1988 - Punchline hit theaters.
1989 - American Bandstand’s series finale aired.
1989 - Janet Jackson’s single Miss You Much hit number one.
1992 - The bubble boy episode of Seinfeld aired.
1993 - Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1994 - The Saved by the Bell special with Zack and Kelly’s wedding in Las Vegas aired.
1996 - The FOX News channel debuted.
1997 - Eagle Eye Cherry’s single Save Tonight was released.
1998 - Charmed premiered.
2000 - Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon became anchors of SNL’s Weekend Update.
2001 - Barry Bonds continued to extend his new record with his 73rd homer. That record would not be broken until this year, when Aaron Judge hit 11 fewer home runs to claim it.
October 8th
25 years ago, on October 8th, 1997, Seven Years in Tibet hit theaters.
Seven Years in Tibet was Brad Pitt’s first attempt at figuring out whether or not he was the kind of movie star who was also a credible enough actor to create Oscar bait.
By 1997 Pitt was an A-list celebrity. Could he now parlay that into a career of dancing back and forth between blockbusters and prestige films (the Tom Hanks model)? Or was he more destined for the Tom Cruise total nonstop action model?
Seven Years in Tibet gave him his answer.
While the film was built in a lab to appeal to Oscar voters — I mean, it had a John Williams score played by Yo Yo Ma — the movie never picked up any steam during awards season.
It didn’t help that two controversies popped up just before the movie came out in this day in 1997. One, China was mad about it, their perfunctory response whenever a movie features an adjacent country. They banned Pitt from their country for life (many years later they’d lift that).
And two, the Austrian explorer who Brad Pitt portrayed in Seven Years in Tibet publicly revealed in June 1997 he had been a full-on Nazi.
Seven Years in Tibet received no Oscar nominations. The Golden Globes, who are usually happy to toss nominations to huge stars for any role just to get them to show up, didn’t even nominate Pitt.
And as a result, Pitt seemed to ascertain that the alternating blockbuster/prestige model wasn’t for him. Instead, he forged a different path: Some headline blockbusters, but lots of quirky roles in mainstream movies.
He wouldn’t get his first Best Actor nomination until 2009 for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. He got a second in 2012 for Moneyball. And he won his first acting Oscar in 2020: Best Supporting Actor in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
1986 - The Color of Money hit theaters.
1988 - Empty Nest premiered.
1988 - Def Leppard’s single Love Bites hit number one.
1992 - The video game Mortal Kombat was released.
1993 - Demolition Man and Mr. Nanny hit theaters.
1993 - Ted Danson appeared in blackface at a Friars Club roast of Whoopi Goldberg.
1993 - Howard Stern’s book Private Parts was released.
1996 - Matchbox 20’s single Long Day was released.
1999 - Superstar and Boys Don’t Cry both hit theaters.
2001 - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security was established.
October 9th
1981 - An unknown Prince opened for the Rolling Stones in Los Angeles.
1986 - The FOX network debuted with The Late Show with Joan Rivers.
1986 - Phantom of the Opera premiered for the first time.
1992 - Under Siege hit theaters.
1999 - Mariah Carey’s single Heartbreaker hit number one.
October 10th
25 years ago, on October 10th, 1997, Boogie Nights premiered.
The legend around Boogie Nights paints the movie as an out-of-nowhere indie film that transcended its shock value premise to become a highly-respected classic. While the latter part of that is true, the former is more of a myth.
Boogie Nights benefited by coming near the end of the ‘90s, when “super indies” were at their peak — and attracting buzz, top-level talent, and serious budgets with relative ease.
Paul Thomas Anderson was the perfect director to capitalize on that craze and Boogie Nights was the perfect script. Edgy, flashy yet character driven, gritty, shockingly funny, with a weird and quirky young writer and director who had one cool independent film already on his resume.
So despite Showgirls flopping two years earlier (to create some skepticism in Hollywood about adult industry-themed movies), pretty much every Hollywood name of significance at the time took a meeting to be in the movie.
Many of them signed on, which is how an independent film got itself one of the strongest ensemble casts ever assembled at that point in time.
While the film didn’t make a ton of money, it did garner a ton of critical and fan acclaim. It received tons of award nominations, became a cult classic, and turned Mark Wahlberg and Paul Thomas Anderson into dudes who could now write their own tickets.
And beyond all that, it validated the viability of the edgy super indie with a mega ensemble cast — a practice which still continues today.
1980 - Pac-Man hit arcades.
1983 - Adam, the TV movie about the kidnapping of Adam Walsh, premiered on NBC.
1987 - Whitesnake’s single Here I Go Again hit number one.
1987 - Bruce Springsteen’s album Tunnel of Love was released.
1992 - House of Pain’s one hit Jump Around peaked at number three.
October 11th
1975 - Saturday Night Live premiered.
1980 - The Dallas Mavericks played their first game.
1983 - Lionel Richie’s album Can’t Slow Down was released.
1983 - The final hand crank phones in the U.S. went inoperational.
1984 - The first woman walked in space.
1984 - Mario Lemieux made his NHL debut.
1986 - Janet Jackson’s single When I Think of You hit number one.
1990 - Surface’s single The First Time was released.
1990 - The highest-rated Simpsons episode in the show’s history, Bart Gets an F, aired on FOX.
1991 - Little Man Tate hit theaters.
1991 - Jimmy Swaggert was caught with a prostitute.
1992 - Deion Sanders played for the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta Braves on the same day.
1992 - The U.S. had its first three-way presidential debate.
1993 - Animaniacs featured Wakko’s America, a song with all 50 state capitals.
1997 - Elton John’s Candle in the Wind ‘97 hit number one.
2001 - Polaroid filed for bankruptcy.
October 12th
29 years ago, on October 12th, 1993, Salt-N-Pepa’s album Very Necessary was released.
Very Necessary was Salt-N-Pepa’s most critically and commercially successful album — but its legacy extends far beyond acclaim or sales.
This album was a direct counterpoint to the rising wave of jovial misogyny in hip-hop. Salt-N-Pepa was the most prominent (and arguably only famous, unless you count TLC) female hip-hop group of the time — and here, they were celebrating their own power and sexuality on their own terms.
There was Whatta Man, a laundry list of uncompromising romantic qualifications. Shoop, a song flipping the male gaze on its head. And None of Your Business, a bold-for-the-time treatise pushing back on the double standard oft used to judge women’s sex lives.
The album would also be the group’s last major success — it’s like they got it all out there as their Ph.D. thesis and then had nowhere left to go.
But in Very Necessary you see Salt-N-Pepa opening the door for far more explicit and even more unapologetic sexually-empowered female hip-hop, from Lil Kim shortly after through today’s artists like Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion.
1979 - The NBA saw the debuts of Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and the three-point line.
1979 - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was published.
1985 - Ready for the World’s single Oh Sheila hit number one.
1987 - George Harrison’s single Got My Mind Set on You was released, the final solo number one hit by a Beatle.
1988 - Steve Jobs’s NeXT computer debuted.
1988 - Poison’s single Every Rose Has Its Thorn was released.
1989 - Herschel Walker was traded for 11 players. There’s no word on how many children he had with any of them.
1991 - Mariah Carey’s single Emotions hit number one.
1992 - Bret “Hitman” Hart won the WWF Heavyweight Championship for the first time.
1997 - John Denver was killed in a plane crash.
1999 - The six billionth person on Earth was born.
1999 - Wilt Chamberlain passed away.
October 13th
1984 - Stevie Wonder’s single I Just Called to Say I Love You hit number one.
1989 - Look Who’s Talking and The Fabulous Baker Boys both his theaters.
1990 - George Michael’s single Praying for Time hit number one.
1991 - Jennifer Lopez debuted as a Fly Girl on In Living Color.
1992 - Boyz II Men’s single In the Still of the Night was released.
1995 - Demi Moore’s movie The Scarlet Letter hit theaters.
1997 - The Spice Girls single Spice Up Your Life was released.
1999 - Puff Daddy’s single Satisfy You was released.
2000 - The Ladies Man hit theaters.
2001 - Derek Jeter made a famous flip throw to get the New York Yankees an unlikely out in a playoff game against the Oakland A’s.
5 ‘80s and ‘90s trivia facts
The most-played music video in MTV history is Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer.
The video also won a record nine MTV Video Music Awards in 1987.
John Hughes didn’t want to shoot the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off baseball scene at Wrigley Field.
His first choice was Comiskey Park, because he was a White Sox fan. But the movie’s shooting schedule didn’t line up with any White Sox games, so they wound up using the far more iconic ballpark of Wrigley Field.
The NFL most valuable player in 1982 was a kicker.
Mark Moseley of Washington won the MVP award. He was 20-for-21 on field goals which is… fine. Must’ve been a down year.
The first (or, at least, one of the very first) items sold on eBay after its launch in 1995 was a broken laser pointer.
The buyer paid $14.83 and told the seller he was “a collector of broken laser pointers.”
A Christmas Story is based off a series of short stories that were first published in Playboy.
Those stories by Jean Shepherd would form his book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash. That book was the basis of the film.
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
The trailer for The Super Mario Bros. Movie came out yesterday. Chris Pratt’s accent-less Mario is getting a lot of negative attention; Jack Black’s Bowser is getting positive attention. There was also some internet consternation over the movie poster, which features a nearly butt-less Mario.
I thought this already was official, but Paramount+ has ordered the Frasier revival to series.
Snoop Dogg says he’s working with Dr. Dre on a sequel to his 1993 debut album Doggystyle. And the album will be called Missionary.
A Starship Troopers reboot is rumored to be in development.
Neither Nic Cage nor director Mike Figgis were ever paid for Leaving Las Vegas.
A mother in Texas went viral for her warning about Hocus Pocus 2 — that it might be casting a spell through the TV screen to “unleash hell on your kids and in your home.”
Right Said Fred say Beyonce sampled I’m Too Sexy on her latest album without permission.
Adam Sandler gave an off-the-cuff pitch for a sequel to Happy Gilmore during a podcast appearance.
Prince’s estate wouldn’t let the new Sinead O’Connor documentary use the song Nothing Compares 2 U.
Sony and Michael Jackson’s estate are creating a documentary about the making of the album Thriller.
The Hellraiser reboot is out today on Hulu.
A big name from the ‘80s stand-up comedy wave, Judy Tenuta, passed away from cancer on Thursday at age 72.
Recommendations of the week
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved
The Garbage Pail Kids comeback march continues. There’s a new retro-style Garbage Pail Kids video game coming out on October 25th. It’s called Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum. It will be available on all the modern platforms… and they’re releasing a special NES cartridge version as well.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you forgot
Relive the tale from 1991, how Steven Seagal came to be known as the worst guest host in Saturday Night Live history.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you never knew existed
The most popular pinball machine in history is… the 1992 machine inspired by The Addams Family movie? Here’s a Wired article on how that particular pinball machine became the top-selling machine of all time.
Have a great week!
-Sam
Like the new format