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There are some TV shows and films which somehow manage to seep into the public consciousness, whether you ever watched them or not. Â A good example of this is Fame, a film (and later TV show) that was about the staff and pupils at New York City High School for the Performing Arts, and which was around for most of the 1980′s.
Now, I fit firmly into the “didn’t watch” group, yet somehow I still remember a fair bit about the show. Â OK, I probably saw the odd bit of an episode here and there, but I never actually purposely watched it, so how come it sticks in my mind so well?
I think there are many reasons, most of which come from the TV series rather than the film, but I’ll start with the biggest reason, the theme music. Â The title track, called simply Fame, was originally sung by Irene Cara for the film, and later by Erica Gimpel, Â for the TV series. Â Gimpel played the part of Coco Hernandez in the TV show. Â This song was a highly bouncy and energetic song with the chorus proclaiming “Fame! Â I want to live for ever, I want to learn how to fly!“, words which will no doubt be familiar to many as the track performed well in the charts at the time.
OK, I know it was released in 1977, but with two thirds of the original Star Wars trilogy coming out in the 1980′s I think it’s only fair to include the first film on this site. Of course, back then the film was simple known as Star Wars, only officially becoming “Star Wars Episode IV – A New Hope” when the more recent trilogy was made. To me, I think it will always be simply Star Wars though.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a special book for me as it is the first non-childrens book I ever read. Â I remember finding a copy in the school library at primary school (which still amazes me today) and lapped it up. Â The image accompanying this post is the front cover of that book, although if you buy it today it’s completely different artwork.
Dirty Dancing is a 1987 romance film charting the coming of age of a New York teenager named Frances Houseman, nicknamed Baby, during the 1960s. Â Baby (played by Jennifer Grey) is a 17 year old middle class Jewish girl who goes on holiday with her family to a mountain resort.
Mention The Karate Kid to anyone of a certain age and chances are they’ll start to fondly reminisce about doing Crane Kicks in the school playground and start reciting the “Wax on, wax off, left a-circle, right a-circle” sequence of the film, that’s how much impact this film made on the impressionable young minds of the 1980′s.
Crocodile Dundee was a box office smash when it was released in 1986, taking the entire world by storm with the tale of Australian Outback bushman brought to New York to experience city life. It was originally created as an attempt to make an Australian film that would be popular in the US, and was made with less than $10 million dollars, a tiny budget in film terms. It went on to be the highest grossing film of that year!
Mention the words Police Academy and most people will generally flinch, remembering just how awful the films were. True, the franchise was done to death, with each successive film shedding long term cast members whilst basically retelling the same story and using the same jokes time after time. The first of the movies was released in 1984, and it went on to spawn no less than six sequels, one a year until 1989, and a further one in 1994.
Michael J. Fox may have become a household name thanks to 
