If I could turn back time—exactly 36 years—it would be 1989!

This episode was inspired by the 1989 monster hit by Cher. Yes, that Cher, who was 43 years old and leaving nothing to the imagination!

As I’ve done in the past, we’re going to dig into the music charts and major box office hits, along with a few newsworthy events from the last year of the '80s.The music charts featured a mix of hair metal ballads and classic rock bands enjoying a late-career resurgence, with alternative and pop also well represented. This was an era when New Kids on the Block, Chicago, Rick Astley, and Poison were all played back-to-back on the radio. Back then, radio was pretty great.

The big movies boasted massive hits from directors like Spielberg, Burton, Donner, and Zemeckis. The stars were names like Ford, Keaton, Gibson, and Fox—big movies with big budgets. But non-action films also drew huge audiences, like Parenthood and Dead Poets Society. This was the era when Robin Williams was earning numerous Academy Award nominations.

Plus, it’s crazy to think that this was the year the Berlin Wall fell and the Tiananmen Square protests—and subsequent massacre—took place.

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