49 Fun Facts About 80s and 90s

Under which name was Sony's portable cassette player first sold in the United States instead of Walkman?

In the United States the player launched in 1980 as the Sound-about; overseas sales teams disliked the Japanese-English coinage, so it was the Stowaway in Britain and the Freestyle in Sweden before Walkman won everywhere.

Who scored the go-ahead goal with exactly 10:00 left in the 1980 Miracle on Ice game?

Captain Mike Eruzione's shot from the slot made it 4-3 with exactly 10:00 left in the third period, the Americans' first lead of the game; two days later they beat Finland 4-2 for the gold medal.

Which subject did Challenger's Christa McAuliffe teach at Concord High School?

Christa McAuliffe taught social studies at Concord High School in New Hampshire; picked from more than 11,000 applicants, she had planned two lessons from orbit, including a tour of the shuttle.

On 9 November 1989, what did Günter Schabowski answer when asked when new travel rules would take effect?

Schabowski answered 'immediately, without delay' (sofort, unverzüglich); he had missed the meeting where the rules were drafted and improvised, and crowds were at the Berlin Wall crossings that same night.

Whose 'new ideas' did Mondale attack with a fast-food catchphrase in a 1984 primary debate?

Mondale asked Gary Hart 'Where's the beef?', borrowing Wendy's 1984 'Fluffy Bun' ad in which Clara Peller inspects a huge bun with a tiny patty; the jab stuck to Hart's 'new ideas' campaign.

Trivial Pursuit, the board game craze of the mid-1980s, was invented in 1979 in which city?

Chris Haney, a Montreal Gazette photo editor, and Scott Abbott, a Canadian Press sports editor, devised Trivial Pursuit in Montreal on 15 December 1979 over a game of Scrabble whose pieces were missing.

The falling-blocks game bundled with the Game Boy in 1989 was written in which country?

Tetris was written in the Soviet Union: Alexey Pajitnov built it in 1984 on an Elektronika 60 at the Academy of Sciences computing centre in Moscow, while employed on speech-recognition work.

Whose onstage remark at Live Aid inspired the first Farm Aid concert in September 1985?

Bob Dylan said from the Live Aid stage that a million or two of the money could pay off farm mortgages; Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Neil Young then staged Farm Aid in Champaign, Illinois, on 22 September 1985.

Which actor spent weeks filming as Marty McFly before Michael J. Fox replaced him?

Eric Stoltz shot for about five weeks before Zemeckis and Spielberg replaced him; he was told on 10 January 1985, and much of the film was reshot with Michael J. Fox working nights around Family Ties.

In November 1987 someone in a Max Headroom mask hijacked the signals of two TV stations in which city?

Chicago's WGN-TV and then WTTW were interrupted on the night of 22 November 1987; the WTTW intrusion ran about 90 seconds during a Doctor Who episode and the culprit was never charged.

Before they were toys or a cartoon, the Care Bears were painted in 1981 for what product?

Elena Kucharik painted them in 1981 for American Greetings' greeting cards; the same company had launched Strawberry Shortcake, and Kenner's Care Bears toys followed in 1983.

The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, the first commercial handheld cell phone, sold in 1984 at what price?

The DynaTAC 8000X listed at $3,995 when it went on sale in 1984; the 790-gram 'brick' gave about 30 minutes of talk time after a charge of roughly 10 hours.

In which Texas city was 18-month-old 'Baby Jessica' McClure rescued from a well in October 1987?

Jessica McClure fell into the well in Midland, Texas, on 14 October 1987; rescuers took about 58 hours to free her from the 8-inch casing, where she was wedged about 22 feet down.

How did Phil Collins play both the London and Philadelphia halves of Live Aid in 1985?

Noel Edmonds flew him by helicopter from Wembley to Heathrow, then a British Airways Concorde got him to New York and another helicopter to JFK Stadium.

Which producer talked Run-DMC into remaking Aerosmith's 'Walk This Way' in 1986?

Rick Rubin, co-founder of Def Jam, pushed the reluctant group into it and produced the track; it reached No. 4 on the Hot 100, higher than Aerosmith's original, which had peaked at No. 10 in 1977.

Teddy Ruxpin, one of the best-selling toys of 1985 and 1986, told stories using what hidden in his back?

A cassette deck in his back played the story tape, with a second audio track driving his mouth and eyes in sync; maker Worlds of Wonder later also launched Lazer Tag.

The 1985 Garbage Pail Kids sticker cards, spoofing the Cabbage Patch Kids, were created by which cartoonist?

Art Spiegelman conceived them with Mark Newgarden while a consultant at Topps, where he had worked on Wacky Packages; his graphic novel Maus won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992.

Swatch, the plastic Swiss watch brand launched in 1983, is a contraction of which phrase?

Nicolas Hayek said the name meant 'second watch', a cheap spare or fashion accessory rather than a lifetime timepiece; the first collection of twelve models launched in Zürich on 1 March 1983.

Which of these is one of the four official Chicken McNugget shapes?

The boot is one of the four shapes: the bell, the boot, the ball and the bone (also called the bow-tie), standardised so that every nugget cooks in the same time.

For how long did participants in Hands Across America hold hands on 25 May 1986?

Some 5 million people held hands for 15 minutes from 3:00 pm Eastern on 25 May 1986, in a line from New York to Long Beach, California, raising money for hunger and homelessness.

Michael Jackson first performed the moonwalk on TV at a 1983 anniversary special for which record label?

The show was Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever, taped 25 March 1983 and aired on NBC on 16 May; he mimed to 'Billie Jean', the only non-Motown song performed that night.

Which reef did the Exxon Valdez strike in Prince William Sound in March 1989?

The tanker struck Bligh Reef on 24 March 1989, spilling around 10.8 million US gallons of crude; the reef is named after William Bligh of Bounty fame, who had sailed with Cook as sailing master.

The Simpsons began in 1987 as short cartoons on which Fox sketch-comedy series?

The shorts ran on The Tracey Ullman Show: 48 of them over three seasons, starting with 'Good Night' on 19 April 1987, before the family got its own series in December 1989.

Which Nintendo engineer led the team that designed the Game Boy, released in 1989?

Gunpei Yokoi's Research & Development 1 team designed the Game Boy; Yokoi also created the Game & Watch line, and the handheld's screen showed four shades of grey-green. With Game Boy Color it sold nearly 119 million units.

By roughly how many points per game did the 1992 Dream Team beat its opponents at the Barcelona Olympics?

The Dream Team won its eight games by an average of 43.8 points, roughly 44; Charles Barkley led the team at 18 points a game, and its closest game was the 117-85 final against Croatia.

Elwood Edwards, the voice of AOL's 'You've got mail', was paid how much in 1989 to record it?

Edwards was paid $200: his wife Karen worked at Quantum Computer Services, AOL's forerunner, and overheard Steve Case say he wanted a human voice on the service, so Edwards taped the lines on a cassette deck at home.

Where did Massachusetts programmer David Eddy coin the abbreviation 'Y2K' in June 1995?

Eddy typed it in an email on 12 June 1995; rivals such as CDC (Century Date Change) and FADL (Faulty Date Logic) were circulating, and he said Y2K just came off his fingertips.

Which IBM computer first beat a reigning world chess champion in a match in May 1997?

Deep Blue won the New York rematch 3.5-2.5 on 11 May 1997; Garry Kasparov had beaten the machine 4-2 in Philadelphia the year before.

The Channel Tunnel was officially opened in May 1994 by Queen Elizabeth II and which French president?

François Mitterrand and the Queen opened the tunnel on 6 May 1994, in Calais and then Folkestone, a year later than planned; its 37.9 km undersea section was the longest of any tunnel at opening.

What did Michael Jordan bat in 1994 for the Birmingham Barons, the White Sox Double-A affiliate?

Jordan batted .202 in 127 games for the Barons, with three home runs, 51 RBIs and 30 stolen bases; the following March he announced his NBA return with a two-word statement, 'I'm back.'

The 1994 baseball strike wiped out the World Series for the first time since which year?

The Series had last been skipped in 1904, when the New York Giants refused to meet Boston's American League champions; the 1994 stoppage began on 12 August and ran 232 days, the longest in the game's history at the time.

Which Japanese company released the first Tamagotchi in November 1996?

Bandai released the Tamagotchi in Japan on 23 November 1996; Bandai's Aki Maita created it with Akihiro Yokoi of the toy design firm WiZ, and some 40 million had sold by 1998.

The Blair Witch Project grossed about $248 million on an official production budget of roughly how much?

The official budget was about $60,000 against a $248 million gross; marketing listed the three actors as missing on posters and even on IMDb, and post-production and promotion pushed the true cost to several hundred thousand dollars.

On the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind, what is the swimming baby reaching for?

The baby, Spencer Elden, swims toward a dollar bill on a fishhook; Kurt Cobain got the idea from a TV programme on water births, and in January 1992 the album knocked Michael Jackson's Dangerous from No. 1 on Billboard.

Space Jam (1996) grew out of Super Bowl ads pairing Michael Jordan with Bugs Bunny for which brand?

Nike's 'Hare Jordan' and 'Aerospace Jordan' Super Bowl spots ran in 1992 and 1993; in the film the Nerdlucks steal talent from Barkley, Ewing, Bogues, Larry Johnson and Shawn Bradley.

The 1999 Nokia 3210, which sold 160 million units, was the first mass-market phone without what?

The 3210 was the first mass-market phone with no protruding antenna, its aerial built into the case; it also came with three games preinstalled: Snake, Memory and Rotation.

Crystal Pepsi's 1993 Super Bowl commercial was set to which Van Halen song?

The Super Bowl XXVII spot ran to Van Halen's 'Right Now', from the 1991 album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge; the clear, caffeine-free cola took about 1% of the US soft-drink market in 1993 and was pulled in 1994.

What animal was Sydney, the mascot of Dunkaroos snacks launched in 1990?

Sydney was a kangaroo in a hat, vest and tie who spoke with an Australian accent; the snack left US shelves in 2012 and returned through 7-Eleven in 2020.

Which network cancelled Baywatch after its first season, before it became a global hit?

NBC cancelled it after the 1989-90 season; David Hasselhoff helped revive it for first-run syndication in 1991, and it went on to claim a weekly audience of over 1.1 billion viewers.

The 1990 ABC series Twin Peaks was built around the investigation into the murder of which character?

Homecoming queen Laura Palmer is found wrapped in plastic in the pilot; David Lynch and Mark Frost set the town 'five miles south of the Canadian border' and sent FBI agent Dale Cooper to investigate.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers built its monster fights from footage of a TV series from which country?

Saban recut Japan's Super Sentai shows from Toei, starting with Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, and shot new scenes of the Angel Grove teens around the Japanese fight footage.

POGs took their name from a Hawaiian juice of passion fruit, orange and which third fruit?

POG stood for passion fruit, orange and guava, a Maui juice whose bottle caps became the game pieces; teacher Blossom Galbiso revived the game in her Oahu fifth-grade class in 1991.

Super Soaker inventor Lonnie Johnson was an engineer at which organisation?

Johnson worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; in 1982 a nozzle he was testing at home for a water-based heat pump shot a jet across his bathroom, and the toy first sold in 1990 as the Power Drencher.

Which act had its 1990 Grammy for Best New Artist revoked?

Milli Vanilli lost the award after producer Frank Farian admitted on 14 November 1990 that Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan had not sung on the records; the Recording Academy took it back five days later.

On Saturday Night Live in October 1992, Sinéad O'Connor tore up a photograph of whom?

She tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II on 3 October 1992 after reworking Bob Marley's 'War' into a protest about child abuse, telling viewers to 'fight the real enemy'; Joe Pesci, Sinatra and Madonna all criticised her.

Who carried Kerri Strug to the podium after her injured-ankle vault at the 1996 Olympics?

Coach Béla Károlyi carried her to the podium; Strug had landed short on her first vault and hurt the ankle, then stuck the second landing on one foot. The squad became known as the Magnificent Seven.

At what odds was Buster Douglas listed when he knocked out Mike Tyson in Tokyo in 1990?

The Mirage in Las Vegas listed Douglas at 42-1 on 11 February 1990; he floored the champion in the tenth round, the first knockdown of Tyson's professional career.

The Bayside Boys remix of 'Macarena' spent how many weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1996?

It held number one for 14 weeks from August to November 1996; Los del Río had recorded the original for their 1993 album A mí me gusta, and the Miami producers added an English-language section.

In which city was Nancy Kerrigan attacked at the 1994 US Figure Skating Championships?

Shane Stant struck her right thigh with a baton in a corridor at Detroit's Cobo Arena on 6 January 1994; the plot was hatched by Jeff Gillooly, ex-husband of rival Tonya Harding.