Recent Memories

Season 1. Episode 4: 1983 Person of the Year: Laurence Turaud. No one had a more dominant 1983 than 31-year-old Lawrence Tureaud.  Coming off of his signature performance in Rocky III, Mr. T took the world by storm: a hit television show (“A Team”); a major motion picture directed by a young Joel Schumacher (“D.C. Cab”); and a featured role in the most important party of the year. Mr. T's image could be found everywhere, including on Chia Pets and air fresheners. There is no doubt that he crushed 1983. The question that persists is: was he robbed of Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year” honors? Did Ronnie Reagan really deserve it? Did he have a better year than T? If not, who did? And is it possible that the Nancy Reagan lap dance at the White House Christmas party was acknowledgment of it all?

In this episode we open with that famous White House photo of Mr. T and The First Lady. Then we trace T's origin story, from Rocky III to the A-Team. We try to understand how he made it to the top, what his secret sauce was and whether it was the man or the moment that created his astonishing ascent. Or whether it was Sly Stallone. Once at the peak of the mountain, we try to figure out what the last thirty seven years have been like for T and what they could have been like. 

Then, finally, we recast the ballots for 1983s "Person of the Year" award and consider Mr. T in the context of Reagan, Michael Jackson, Eddie Murray/Cal Ripken Jr., Dr. J, Harrison Ford and others.

Season 1. Episode 3. Total Eclipse of the Heart. Was an over the top power ballad performed by a Welsh bar singer really the greatest Pop song in the greatest year in the history of Pop music? Spoiler alert — the answer is “yes.” We revisit nine iconic hits from 1983 and listen in as Bonnie Tyler eviscerates Michael Jackson, Prince, The Police, Toto and more. We then double click into the singer, the writer and video director of “Total Eclipse.” Kevin guesses each’s celebrity net worth as a palette cleanser before we hurt our brains trying to understand the bat-shit awesome, epic video for the incredible power ballad.

1983 was completely stacked with Pop hits that defined the decade. In the year of "Thriller" there are dozens of songs that are still mainstays of radio and movie soundtracks. There is no other year that even approaches 1983 in terms of enduring Pop hits. And, in that mountain of music, a weird, inscrutable power ballad rose to the top. With the benefit of hindsight, we try to separate the music from the moment through a bracket-style tournament of the top songs of the year. The fact that at least two of our esteemed panelists were personally offended by the late, great Prince, helped us with the elimination process. 

Once we crown the winner, we then try to understand a video that won the Billboard Music award for the "Best Use of Symbolism" in a video. And by "best," we mean "most." And by "most," we mean, "it makes no sense." 

Join us as we unpack the song that everyone knows and loves but nobody understands.

Season 1. Episode 2: The Pine Tar Rage. And here’s the question we want to answer for history: Just how traumatic was that game? For George Brett? For the players? For all of us?

In 1980 George Brett missed three innings of a World Series Game to get treated for hemorrhoids. Three years later, he would blow a gasket for getting called out for using a bat with an excessive amount of pine tar. Roughly a quarter century later, Brett would confess, in a legendary Youtube clip, that he twice a year, he would defecate in his own pants. It seems impossible that these three things are unrelated.

Moreover, what is the relationship with Brett's unsuppressed anger and that of Hulk Hogan's? Of John McEnroe's? Of Mike Tyson's? Or Ron Artest's? Did George Brett inspire those rageful outbursts? Did he cause them? What about the four Royals that were arrested for cocaine possession following the 1983 season? Was that Brett's fault? And what about our own childhood traumas of the 1980s? The divorces. The angry gym teachers? Can we draw a through-line back to Brett?

We kick off by revisiting a fairly meaningless baseball afternoon in the summer of 1983 and the at bat of one of the greatest hitters of all time and the very best player in Kansas City Royals' history. From there, everything goes haywire. A game winning home run gets protested and then called an out by virtue of an obscure rules violation. And, from there, George Brett blew a gasket that symbolized America's repressed rage. We trace that event to the WWF, to other professional sports, to politics and to our home towns. Twenty plus years later, Brett is caught on mic retelling a story about how he soiled himself at The Bellagio. We try to find the truth of the through line between all of these events that might seem unrelated, but cannot possibly be.

Season 1. Episode 1: All The Right Moves. And here’s the question we want to answer for history: If Tom Cruise is willing and able to do everything that is possible on film, why the hell can’t he act like an actual, decent athlete? 

In 1983, Tom Cruise starred in a modest, Rust Belt high school football movie wherein he played an undersized, but hard hitting, corner back. This would mark the first of many times that Cruise would apply his obvious strength and physicality to a role as a "sporting athlete" (rather than just a person who is athletic). It would also be the first time that we could not help but notice how aggressively "off" he seemed in acting out sports. We've known it for decades. It seems everyone knows this defect in the biggest star of the last forty years. And yet, the mystery persists: Why can't Cruise act like a decent athlete and why does he try so hard, so often to do so?

Buckle up for a very deep dive into Tom Cruise. Full disclosure, this is episode is supersized. We explore the earliest text in what would become a pile of evidence regarding Tom Cruise, the movie athlete. With conflicting evidence in that film, we go on to review every major scene Cruise has acted in wherein he tries to act like he's playing a sport. It's a consistent move for the actor, who is clearly very physically gifted but also clearly confused about sports. Our panel goes film by film, shot by shot, to uncover evidence on all sides of the argument.

Finally, with the evidence in hand, we ask the panel to consider how Cruise would rank as an athlete relative to other leading men of his era by holding a "Leading Man Fantasy Football Draft." Cruise is considered alongside other athletic actors such as Kurt Russell, Denzel Washington, Sylvester Stallone and many more. Nearly two hours later, exhausted by still laughing, the jury reaches its verdict.