Holy Crap! Look at that! It’s the actual score to The Goonies without all of the pop songs that were in the only version I had, growing up. Still, $46 is a bit much. When Napster first came out, I was all over downloading every bit of Dave Grusin’s soundtrack I could.
The Goonies is a HUGE part of my pop culture obsessed childhood. So were orchestral soundtracks. I was a John Williams junkie and Alan Silvestri, Michael Kamen, James Horner, Jerry Goldsmith all adorned my geek CD case.
I bought the DVD version back around 2000 and it was pretty sweet. Of course, that was back when DVD menu animation was a big deal. But the DVD had a great set of extras that I’m hoping are all on the Blu-Ray. I want the picture in picture commentary with the cast reunion. I want the dual Cyndi Lauper music videos (Part 1 and 2). And I want the deleted scenes.
I’ve been putting off on posting my take on what I would accept if they ever did a sequel. I’m kind of hoping they won’t. Dan Aykroyd finally gave up the ghost on GB3 since Bill Murray said no to the script. Hollywood is still looking to release a Top Gun sequel [headdesk] Let it go, folks.
So, I may just have to pick this up... or... I'll just save the playlist from YouTube.
In the last 50 years, the sexual revolution has exploded in our faces. Thanks to the loosening of morals and the tightening of material around certain areas, young boys have launched into puberty at various instances because of pop culture.
Back when I was a kid in the 80s, stolen HBO and the mere hint of female flesh in a music video were enough to blast our hormones into orbit like the Apollo rocket in the MTV commercial. In the 90s, who could forget “Jiggle TV”?
With that in mind, I give you the 10 best puberty kickoff moments of the last 50 years. Granted, some of the items on this list weren’t exactly for the eyes of those in the demographic, however, just like the Internet today, there was access to the material in those days. All that was needed was access to HBO and a night away from the parents. Sleepovers provided the ability to do these things.
Warning: This post contains juvenile humor.
10.2. Britney Spears – VMA awards barely there body stocking – 2000 Tie for tenth place. If Britney's first act was appearing as a Catholic School Girl In Trouble in her video for "Hit Me Baby", her second act was the blood pumping strip tease during the 2000 VMAs.
10.1. Katy Perry – Whip Cream Bra Cannon in “California Gurls” music video – 2010 Tie for tenth place. She ruined Candy Land for Kindergartners but straightened out a few candy canes for some up and coming teen boys in 2010. Katy Perry turned her boobs into whip cream and firework cannons after kissing a girl. If sex sells, she was cornering the market with ample amounts of tease.
9. Catherine Bach –Daisy Duke wearing Daisy from Dukes of Hazzard – 1979
They weren't called Bo Dukes, after all. Many a boy jumped a bridge and yelled 'Yee Haaaa' after seeing Catherine Bach in the too short shorts on Friday nights at the end of the 70s.
8. Kelly LeBrock – first entrance from Weird Science – 1985
"What would you little maniacs like to do first?" asked Lisa in the John Hughes classic. Um, shower with you of course.
7. Tawny Kitaen – Ghost riding the hood of a car in the “Here I Go Again” music video – 1987
Never before did preteen boys want to be a car hood than when Tawny slithered and writhed in time to the re-release of Whitesnake's most famous hit.
6. Pamela Anderson – Slo-Mo runs from Baywatch – 1992
I remember the Baywatch before Boobwatch. Back when Parker Stevenson was on and it was the original pilot entitled, "Panic At Malibu Pier". But nobody liked it, so it got retooled with a former Tool Time girl running in slow motion towards 'supposedly' drowning males. She got the swimmers swimming for those boys just discovering the floatation devices in the early 90s.
5. Farrah Fawcett – Famous Poster – 1976
One of the most famous pin up posters to push the envelope with perky.... um yeah. Sadly we lost Farrah to cancer. But we'll always have this on our ceiling, above our bed, as a shrine to the 70s.
4. Raquel Welch – Fur Bikini from One Million Years B.C. – 1967
Fur Bikini and dinosaurs. Two things that go hand in hand, right? And.... how about a cat fight between two beautiful cave girls. Can you say Pubertosaurus Rex? It's no wonder Andy Dufresne used her to cover his jail break.
3. Ursula Andress – Dr. No Bikini beach entrance – 1962
The original Bond girl who came strolling out of the surf in the white bikini and some wonderful conch shells! She made James' martini shake as 60s era preteens stirred in their seats upon seeing the Swiss Miss, dubbed by go to Bond voice over actress Nikki van der Zyl.
2. Carrie Fisher – Princess Leia in a Gold Bikini from Return of the Jedi – 1983
We all wanted to use the force or at least swing our lightsabers after seeing the demure but sassy Leia Organa forced into servitude and a gold metal bikini on Jabba's barge in the final chapter of the original Star Wars trilogy. It's almost too Freudian to imagine her fighting with the almost phallic looking Jabba the Hutt on the deck. And to that end, she choked the Hutt while fanboys nearly choked their chicken. Ross Gellar approves.
1. Phoebe Cates – Pool exit scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High – 1982
It had to be Linda Barret. It just had to be, right? One of my earliest memories of my parents stealing HBO was a grainy, "chh chh chh chh" sounding Phoebe Cates, strolling out of the pool in this scene from the 80s classic. Looking back, it seems so odd to glorify movies that portrayed high school teenage characters taking their clothes off on screen. Another would be Caroline Mulford in Sixteen Candles. But you have to remember that Cates was 19 when she did the bikini burst and Haviland Morris was 25 when she hit the tympani bounce note in the school shower from the John Hughes movie. Still, as far as puberty inducing moments, this takes the taco. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need some alone time with side one of Led Zeppelin IV.
Sorry, I couldn't post the real clip. I do try to keep this PG-13, at most.
Honorable Mention: Marilyn Monroe – “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” – 1962
Now, what list of sex symbols and sultriness would be
complete without the original, one and only, Marilyn Monroe? So, she
gets an honorable mention for providing enough of a provocative
performance to the POTUS. Fully clothed, she still gave boys a Cuban
Missile Crisis in their pants.
Recently, VH1 Classic ran the first hour of MTV’s original broadcast for the 30th anniversary. Funny. Don’t you think MTV would want to celebrate their own milestone by rebroadcasting their first on air moments? Oh, that’s right. That would involve MTV actually playing music videos which they have said they don’t do anymore.
In fact, they even changed the logo, albeit they simply cropped the words MUSIC TELEVISION with the aid of something as simple as MS Paint. And how does last year’s decision bode for having the VMAs? Sort of like tits on a bull to show a Video Music Award show on a station that no longer shows music videos.
But this is nothing new, MTV… er, TV has been reduced to scripted reality shows for the last fifteen years. Such a far fall from television that used to premiere groundbreaking shows like 120 Minutes, Head Banger’s Ball, Unplugged, Liquid Television, and the self deprecating Beavis and Butthead which made fun of the same videos MTV played, and some it didn’t. In fact, MTV created its own demise with the debut of The Real World. How could we have known that one of the biggest trail blazers would be consumed by its own flame?
So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that MTV’s biggest competitor in terms of playing videos should get the spoils of playing its progenitor’s old home movies. After all, both networks are owned by Viacom.
Now, I was a wee Mongo, only six years old, when MTV first aired on August 1st, 1981. I never saw it. We didn’t have cable or that many channels in those days, except for stealing HBO. It wasn’t until MTV came to Armstrong Cable (South Western PA) that I got to watch and by then, MTV was huge. So, it was kind of like seeing it for the first time when it re-aired this past August 1st.
My initial thoughts were “What a waste of 10 minutes?” The first thing you see is the build up to the launch of Space Shuttle Columbia, which goes on forever. Finally, the shuttle launches and the screen transitions to the launch of Apollo 11, ending with Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon and the flag, emblazoned with the original MTV logo pronouncing that Rock and Roll television has arrived.
What a missed opportunity, in my opinion. For anyone not knowing what was to come, they might have switched off the television, thinking this was a joke or just a rebroadcast of the shuttle launch from four months earlier. In fact, I was thinking this was such a shame because it was the first hour of such a landmark event, and fifteen minutes of it was wasted on actual footage of a space launch from mission control and the launch pad. I DVR’ed the show because I had to be at work in less than six hours. I wasn’t about to stay up and watch what was possibly the first three hours because I didn’t know it was perhaps part one of three.
But there it was, the first breath ever in this world. From there, The Buggles and Pat Benatar carved the path for the fresh new faces of VJs to come on and take us by the hand into a brave new world. Mark Goodman, the first VJ we see, introduces himself along with Nina Blackwood, the late J.J. Jackson, Alan Hunter, and Martha Quinn, who still looks 21, today, ensuring us that this new experiment will change the world. And it did.
Sadly, we see this broadcast, on a sister station at a time when most kids don’t know that MTV actually play videos. Before YouTube or OnDemand, there was actually a network that played 24 hours of music videos. It’s like watching the early days of Elvis or Michael Jackson when all people today really see is them at their death, a shadow of what they used to be like in their prime. It’s almost a sad joke or a lie. It’s Toto pulling back the curtain to see that the Wizard is merely a humbug.
And, truthfully, do we really have music today that needs videos? The real pioneers and trailblazers are hard to find in the sea of crap. Maybe the 80s were like that as well. For every Peter Gabriel, Herbie Hancock, Madonna and Michael Jackson moments of genius, there were plenty of Gerardo, Right Said Fred and yes Michael Jackson moments to drown them out.
Today is my sixth anniversary. My wife and I were married in 2004 and she's managed to put up with me for six years. That should get her some kind of medal, to be sure. So, as a schmaltzy token of my love, I offer this post as a mix tape of sorts. Here are a few music videos of our "songs." Love ya, baby.
I know I’m a dork. OK. Let there be no preconceived notions that I think I’m the coolest thing since locker answering machines. Remember those? I actually used that little gem of an invention as a pivotal piece of a plot twist in a story I wrote in Junior High. Further proof of my dorktitude. But still, I come here bringing nothing to the table in terms of coolness. So, it goes that there is still damning evidence of my days of dorkdom somewhere in my house. My wife will say it’s very easy to find by just looking at me and some of the shirts I wear, self made mind you. And as I write this, I can see the shaking of her head and can hear the voice coming from a place of both two parts pity and one part love proclaiming, “You are such a dork.” The evidence, at least one that we can call Exhibit A, is a video tape. A VHS-C tape smaller than an iPhone but thicker than a digital camera exists with me acting like the biggest nerd this side of Adams College.
It was 1993 and I was a freshman at Coastal Carolina University. It was my one and only semester at Myrtle Beach University and I was a bit homesick. Well, that’s what I told myself, anyway. I didn’t know a lot of people there and those I did know had way better things to do than to entertain the likes of me 24/7. Needless to say, I spent a lot of nights bored out of my skull. This was a full decade before Facebook and the best distraction I could hope for was a few hours of SimCity Classic. I didn’t even have email or the Internet to waste time on in those days. What I did have was a girlfriend 600 miles away and no cell phone or long distance. Sometimes, I had to decide on clean laundry or a phone call when it came to quarters.
I also had a video camera and wanted to do something both innovative and sentimental for her. A friend of my brother’s had asked me to film him and my brother rocking out to White Snake. Both his and my brother’s girlfriend were sisters so that’s where the connection lie. Oh, it was "Deeper the Love", in case you were wondering. A few of you might be thinking it was "Here I Go Again", but that would be silly, right? Ok, it was all silly because it was lip synched in the end. Anyways. I took the master video and mixed it with the song, matching up a specific movement in the video with the tape that was playing in the background so that I could match it in the editing. That’s where my idea came from, except I took it to a whole new level of dorkiness. I wasn’t going to just film myself singing a song. I was going to film myself singing three parts of a song and then mix them all together. My choice of song? "All For Love" by Bryan Adams, Sting, and Rod Stewart. Oh, don’t roll your eyes at me. It was cool… wasn’t it? The Three Musketeers had just come out and I snapped up the soundtrack and hatched a plan. I would film all three vocals in different locations, run them all through my editing box that I had with music synced up to the action and then just flip between each video, recording my final masterpiece. It could not fail!
Oh yes, it could.
I don’t know which was more sad, the fact that I actually did this or that I was able to get someone to film it for me. Probably both. The poor girl. She was such a trooper and didn’t once tell me I was nuts, though I’m sure she thought it. I mean there I was on a cool November Sunday wandering around campus with a boom box and a video camera. At the back of CCU’s campus was the Wall Building. It was fairly new and they were still doing construction on it. What was finished was this sweet bridge from the main part of campus over to the Wall Building. It had benches and pillars and lights and the back of Wall was a pretty nice backdrop.
We set up and hoped that people wouldn’t see us. Somewhere, in the back of my head, I knew how dorky this was. I think I blew like ten takes and a good two hours of this poor girl’s time. A jogger even ruined one of my takes and he was probably like, [heavy breathing] "dork" [heavy breathing]. After all was said and done, I had one third of the puzzle, my Citizen Kane. LOL. All I had to do was record Sting and Rod Stewart’s part.
When I transferred home for the Spring semester I found myself with a few options for filming but limited on crew. I highly doubted that I would have found anyone else willing to indulge my dorkiness. I headed down to the river via an old rail line that had been renovated into part of the bike trail. It had some great landscaping and was rather quiet in the Winter months. At one end of the trail was a bridge. I’ve heard it called West Jaw Bridge, West Draw Bridge, West Yaw Bridge and a ton of other names, but it’s a trestle bridge that kids in my neighborhood used to jump off of into the river for fun. I planned on using all of that area to do the second part in and then for Sting, I was going to use the castle turret at East Park for the final part.
Unfortunately, I got bored or ended up never having enough time or mental capacity to pull off the entire feat. Considering that the first third was filmed on the move and the second two thirds would be a stationary camera position made me feel like it wasn’t worth it since it would never look the way it should. And yes, once again, as I type that I realize how much of a dork I am for wanting scrap such a silly project because it just wouldn’t look right. In all seriousness, had this thing ever seen the light of day it would have been ridiculous. I would have probably made Uwe Boll look like Martin Scorsese.
Sometimes I’m glad that further proof of my ridiculous youth are kept hidden but it’s goofiness like this that makes me feel compelled to share. Yes, we can all grow and learn from this. Parents, don’t let your kids try and impress the ones they love with a boombox or a video camera. It will all end in tears, I just know it.
