Setting the Stage 5: Oooh, I Wanna’ Take Ya’…
1988. The Beach Boys' “Kokomo”, now fully wormed into your ear whether you clicked on the video or not, charts. The video was filmed on location at Walt Disney World’s fabulous new Grand Floridian Resort. Some consider it the last gasp of Baby Boomer pop culture.
Music in general is entering into a period of transition. Bobby McFerrin tells everyone “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” in a song so seemingly saccharine that many miss its not-so-subtle irony. Poison releases its epic Monster Rock Ballad “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”. Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible” and its army of ‘80s Babe Clones eat up MTV. And Milli Vanilli becomes famous for their music, and then infamous for the lip-synching scandal that follows.
But one song, a song which reaches #8 in the charts, will transcend time and space and
become a legend in ways no one at the time could ever have predicted.
Movies are about to change as well, but The Eighties still reign on the Silver Screen. In our timeline
Cocktail once again let Tom Cruise be Tom Cruise at his Tom Cruisiest,
Coming to America made Eddie Murphy into a king, and
Die Hard made Bruce Willis into an A-list star.
Big,
Beetlejuice, and
Good Morning Vietnam we will get to soon enough.
The Cosby Show and its spinoff
A Different World dominate US TV, but
Cheers,
The Golden Girls,
Growing Pains,
Who's the Boss?,
Night Court,
Murder She Wrote, and
Alf are hot on their trail.
Who could be more wholesome than America’s Dad?
It is the last year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, an extremely popular two terms somewhat marred at the end when the events of the Iran Contra Affair become public. Even so, Saint Ronnie will be the yardstick by which every Republican politician going forward will measure him- or herself. In another world even with the Iran Contra scandal looming, George H. W. Bush, Reagan’s Vice President, would ride his wide coattails to a narrow victory in November over Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts. The Democrats would lick their wounds and plot revenge for 1992.
The Summer Olympics are hosted in Seoul, South Korea, in acknowledgement of how far the so recently dirt-poor nation had come, the newest of the Asian Tigers. India will see the ten-day siege of the Golden Temple, one of many bloody clashes with the Sikh minority that year. The Soviet Army withdraws from Afghanistan after years of costly and senseless war, just as the Greeks, Persians, Mongols, Indians, and British had before them, a costly mistake no nation will ever be so naïve as to repeat, surely[1]. This will be one of many huge changes coming to the Soviet Union under its new premier, Mikhail Gorbachev.
Goodnight, Sweet Prince. And Flights of Angels Sing Thee to Thy Rest
And Sony, meanwhile, tacitly admits defeat in a different war when they start to manufacture and sell VHS video cassettes in addition to their competing Betamax format, which they will continue to manufacture until 2016.
Yes, you read that right. 2016.
[1] And stop calling me “Shirley.”
en.wikipedia.org
Also who in Hollywood could have helped Eddie Murphy to write and direct Harlem Nights?
