When We Were Young - An 80s And 90s Pop Culture Podcast

In the mid-90s, multiplexes were invaded by an influx of movies centered on mankind’s first contact with extraterrestrials. And unlike the cute and friendly aliens we got to know in the 80s, like E.T. and ALF, the space invaders of the 90s mostly just wanted to annihilate us, starting with our favorite tourist destinations. Part One of the When We Were Young Early Late Mid-To-Late 90s Summer Alien Invasion Spectacular looks at two of the deadliest interstellar assaults to ever breach the silver screen, both celebrating their 25th anniversaries this year. First up, we celebrate the 4th of July in the most American way possible — with mass casualties, tons of military hardware, a bombastic presidential speech, and a stripper! Roland Emmerich’s record-smashing INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996) raised the bar for special effects-loaded summer entertainment, redefining the blockbuster with its cataclysmic destruction of U.S. landmarks (a popcorn movie hallmark ever since). Next, we attempt to shield our

If ever a movie earned its exclamation point, it’s MOULIN ROUGE! In Part 2 of our Baz Luhrmann Spectacular Spectacular, we revisit the scintillating (and over-stimulating) 2001 musical that saw the likes of Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor belting out pop music’s greatest love songs. Though the film earned several Oscar nominations (and two wins), it was a divisive cinematic experience upon its release, and twenty years later not much has changed. Luhrmann’s gift is his song—or rather his version of Elton John’s song—but is it one you’d want to re-open? Sling back some Absinthe and join us as we debate the beauty, freedom, truth and love of Moulin Rouge! Why? Because we can can-can, that’s why. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to wwwyshow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts so more folks check out the show! Help us defray the costs of creating this

Baz, Baz, wherefore art thou Baz Luhrmann? On the latest episode of When We Were Young, we travel back to the mid-90s (and then even further back to the 16th century) to rewatch the Australian director's frenetic modern-day adaptation of WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S ROMEO + JULIET (1996). The film was a hit at the box-office and cemented Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes' status as the heartthrobs of their generation. Plus, the film's soundtrack was considered one of the all-time greats, filled with original Bard-inspired tunes by the likes of Garbage and Radiohead. Shakespeare's tragic tale of star-crossed lovers is still considered a classic, but does Baz's exhilarating adaptation stand the test of time, too? Pray, join us in merriment for Part I of our Spectacular Spectacular review of the films of Baz Luhrmann - or do you dare bite your thumb at us, sir? Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to wwwyshow@gmail.com.

Have the podcast hosts stopped screaming? Not yet! We follow last episode’s discussion of the Best Actress nominees of 1991 - including the groundbreaking, genre-defying tale of female outlaws Thelma & Louise - with a look at the night’s big winner, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. The serial killer thriller not only won the Best Actress Oscar, but also Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture - a feat accomplished by only two other films in the Academy’s 93 year history. Like Thelma & Louise, The Silence Of The Lambs is now known for inserting intelligent, fully realized female characters into a genre typically dominated by men. And like Thelma & Louise, The Silence Of The Lambs generated plenty of controversy upon release, especially around its gender-bending antagonist, Buffalo Bill. Of course, it also birthed one of the most memorable and quotable screen villains of all time, with Anthony Hopkins’ brief but tasty turn as cannibal psychologist Hannibal Lecter. In this epi

When it comes to leading ladies, you’d have a hard time finding a more powerhouse lineup than 1991’s THELMA & LOUISE, which saw both of its stars nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars that year. Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon play BFFs whose road trip goes seriously south when they shoot a rapist and end up as unlikely outlaws bound for Mexico — via the Grand Canyon, of course. Callie Khouri’s original screenplay was so groundbreaking and audacious, it attracted the attention of nearly every actress in Hollywood — and was passed on by nearly every studio executive at the time, who pushed Khouri to make her characters more “ladylike” and change the controversial (and now totally legendary) ending. In this episode, our hosts discuss a film that had the odds stacked against it ever getting a greenlight, which has since become one of the most iconic and beloved films of the 90s. We also dust off the two other runners-up from the 1991 Best Actress race, seeing how For The Boys’ Bette Midler and Ra

We came away from our musical journey through the #1 Pop Singles of the 1980s loving many of the biggest hits of the decade. Good job, 80s! The 90s? Well, that’s another story. We’ve already discussed some of the decade’s biggest breakouts on the podcast, including No Doubt, Alanis Morissette, Spice Girls, and Nirvana, all of whom got to #1 on our own personal charts at one point in time. But the #1 Pop Singles of the 1990s are a much more scattered affair, veering from upbeat pop cheese to gangsta rap to disco-dance throwbacks, with a whole lot of “adult contemporary” in the mix. As it turns out, the Billboard charts of the 90s watched America go through a diverse range of musical moods, from mourning the death of British royals to celebrating barely-contained boners on the dance floor — plus a lot more Costner worship than should be permitted in one decade. Of course, the mid 90s also saw a Latin-flavored dance craze that’s not just a #1 Pop Single, but also the #1 Most Cringe-Worthy Aspect of

In the days before YouTube and Spotify, most people discovered new music through a little device called the radio, and tracking the popularity of hit songs was much simpler. Back in the 80s, Billboard determined which songs charted through sales of physical singles on cassette tapes or CDs, and of course, airplay on the radio — which is how singles by artists like Blondie and Prince became inescapable at that moment in time. In this episode, your When We Were Young co-hosts take Billboard’s #1 charting pop single from every year of the 80s out for a spin — and the results are mixed! If “80s music” makes you think of Madonna, Billy Joel, Van Halen, or even A-ha, you’re not alone — but none of these popular artists actually dominated the charts in any given year of the decade. (Believe it or not, neither did the King of Pop himself!) While some tracks, like 1983’s chart-topper “Every Breath You Take,” are no-brainers, there are a few head-scratchers in the mix, too. The 80s were surprisingly big o

We’ve been afraid… been VERY afraid… for most of 2020. Now we’ve made it to the New Year - a time of change, of hope, of possibility. But if you’re considering mutating into a human-insect hybrid as your New Year’s resolution, may we suggest… not? After chilling with John Carpenter’s barf bag classic The Thing in our previous episode, we’re buzzing about another horror maestro’s take on 50s sci-fi - David Cronenberg’s THE FLY remake (1986), starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis as a couple that meets cute, falls in love, and soon has a baby on the way - while daddy is sprouting coarse insect hairs, vomiting milky white acid, and losing his teeth and fingernails in the most graphic way possible. It’s not a good look! We talk about how The Fly embraces its B-movie roots, while also elevating body horror to new heights of critical and commercial success (plus an Oscar for its all-too-convincing makeup effects). And we admit that, at the tail end of a most unusual year, we can relate to this mad sc

Is this a podcast, or is it merely pretending to be? It’s 2020, so we’re celebrating the holidays a little differently this year. We’ve swapped twitching tentacles for twinkling lights, exploding wolfdogs for red-nosed reindeer, lighting killer space beasts aflame for roasting chestnuts, and a creeping existential dread for jolly good cheer. Ho, ho, ho! The 1980s saw a revival of 50s sci-fi B-movies, with notable remakes offering similarly bizarre chills and thrills with one major upgrade — some of the most stomach-churning special effects ever put to the screen. John Carpenter’s THE THING (1982) is a horror staple now, but it wasn’t so warmly received when it opened for audiences who had just fallen in love with Spielberg’s cuddly alien pal E.T., and Carpenter's career never fully recovered. We discuss how late 20th century horror masters took the traditions of drive-in camp classics and made them their own with gross-out gore and cringey body horror, then hunker down and contend with The Thing

As if 2020 couldn't get any more dismal, we sat down to rewatch Darren Aronofsky's REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, a movie so depressing that many of its viewers refuse to ever watch it again. Released in the year 2000 to positive reviews and horrified audiences, Aronofsky's film about drug addiction and the depths people will go to get their fix still carries the reputation of being a traumatizing film-watching experience. Is "Requiem" just as viscerally unnerving twenty years later? Join our discussion as we consider the appeal of disturbing cinema and share why Ellen Burstyn's performance as Sara Goldfarb is in a category all its own. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to wwwyshow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts so more folks check out the show! Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food

In cyberspace, there is no right or wrong… there’s only fun and boring! At least, that’s what 1995’s techsploitation thriller HACKERS would have you believe. After getting caught up in THE NET in Part 1 of our “net-rospective,” Part 2 finds our hosts recalling other 90s movies involving the internet, including The Lawnmower Man, Virtuosity, Johnny Mnemonic, and Disclosure, which were heavy on virtual reality but short on stuff people actually use the internet for nowadays. Then, we take a deep dive into Hackers, starring future sweethearts Johnny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie, plus an eclectic supporting cast that includes Matthew Lillard, Fisher Stevens, Penn Jillette, and Marc Anthony. With its pulsing techno soundtrack, rave-inspired fashion, and some badass rollerblading, we marvel at how 90s one film can be — and cringe at Lorraine Bracco’s unintentionally hilarious turn as a trashy corporate executive whose main function in the story is repeating nonsense computer jargon with perpetually i

You’ve got podcast! In our latest episode, we’re flashing back to the bygone days of floppy disks, away messages, and actually disconnecting from the world wide web sometimes. It’s a two-part When We Were Young Net-rospective as we reminisce on all things internet, including the cyber-conspiracy thrillers that were Hollywood’s first attempt at cashing in on the dot-com boom of the 90s. In Part 1, our hosts recall their earliest memories of both the net and THE NET — the 1995 techno-thriller that raised issues of online privacy long before social media made being tracked and manipulated by sinister forces part of our everyday lives. First, we share our memories of chat rooms, CD-ROMs, and what it was like to dial-up with a modem every time we wanted to get online. Then, we learn a little about why 1995 was such a seminal year for the information superhighway, before diving into that year’s surprisingly prescient Sandra Bullock flick — made back when ordering a pizza on the internet was still just a bit

Does the phrase “Bewitched Be-Wednesdays” ring a bell? If so, you may remember that the mid-90s spawned a revival of classic sitcoms from the 50s, 60s, and 70s through Nick At Nite’s Block Party Summer programming, allowing a whole new generation of viewers to binge “oldies” like I Love Lucy, The Munsters, I Dream of Jeannie, and Welcome Back Kotter for the very first time. In Part 1 of our return visit to TV Land, we checked in on the seminal, groundbreaking Mary Tyler Moore Show — which is still fresh and funny nearly 50 years after its debut — and the horror-inspired sitcom The Munsters, which is… less so. In Part 2, our look back at Nick At Nite’s Block Party Summer continues, starting with “Lucy Tuesdays” and an appreciation of TV’s mischievous redhead goddess of physical comedy, Lucille Ball. Join us as we revisit seven beloved Nick At Nite shows to see which ones still taste just like candy, and which go down like a spoonful of Vitameatavegamin now that our TV palettes have matured. So fo

Hello, friends! In the latest episode of When We Were Young, we are sitting on the sofa, there’s a TV in the corner, we are watching Major Nelson… and Mary, Lucy, Samantha, Herman, Horshack, and Sergeant Joe Friday, too. Does the phrase “Bewitched Be-Wednesdays” ring a bell? If so, you may remember that the mid-90s spawned a revival of classic sitcoms from the 50s, 60s, and 70s through Nick At Nite’s Block Party Summer programming, allowing a whole new generation of viewers to binge “oldies” like I Love Lucy, The Munsters, I Dream of Jeannie, Welcome Back Kotter, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show for the very first time. We revisited seven of these beloved shows to see which ones still taste just like candy, and which go down like a spoonful of Vitameatavegamin now that our TV palettes have matured. So fold your arms, twitch your nose, and toss your hat up in the air as we take you back to a long-ago era before we were young, when entertainment was sweeter, simpler, and way more sexist. Yeah… these

Last time on the podcast, we shared our own histories with the X-Files from back When We Were Young - so listen to Episode 78 for Part 1 of this conversation. Here in the second installment, we talk about some of the most impactful and fan-favorite episodes from the course of the show, as well as the X-Files Movie: Fight The Future - and we discuss the cultural impact of The X-Files and its online fan community. Do we get drawn deeply into the mythology arc where Mulder and Scully seek to uncover the truth about extraterrestrial life? Do we think David Duchovny can actually act? And in the inevitable Buffy vs X-Files showdown, can any of us truly win? Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to wwwyshow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts so more folks check out the show! Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music

The Truth Is Out There… but so are lies. And so are two extremely beautiful FBI agents. And so is a Fluke Man who lives in the sewer, but also hides out in Porta-Potties! The WHEN WE WERE YOUNG podcast continues our Quarantine Indoor Summer Slam by revisiting Chris Carter's THE X-FILES, the long-running smash hit Fox TV drama starring Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny as FBI Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, respectively. In this first X-amination, we uncover the shocking truth about each of our hosts' pasts with the X-Files, our love for the lead actors, the history of the series and its creator Chris Carter, and we rewatch the pilot. The X-Files brought spooky atmospherics and an hour of stories of little green men, government conspiracies, and sometimes-silly-sometimes-terrifying "monsters of the week" to primetime TV audiences throughout the 90s. And it made science fiction horror into unexpected ratings and Emmys gold for many years of its original 9-season run. Beyond just Nielsen ratings and

If you thought this podcast was done discussing everyone’s favorite gang of pubescent crime fighting reptiles, we’ve got news for you! Less than a year after the first TMNT movie did some major league butt-kicking at the box office, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II: THE SECRET OF THE OOZE offered a second helping of Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo — plus their furry but wise sensei Splinter, their cutlery-inspired arch-nemesis Shredder, and a whole lot of shameless pizza promotion. There’s no question that this sequel is more kid-friendly than the original, replacing Judith Hoag’s feisty April O’Neil with the more amiable Paige Turco, ditching the hockey-stick wielding bad boy Casey Jones, and giving our heroes a teenage pizza delivery boy sidekick. It also shows off more of Jim Henson’s creature effects with its super-sized baby villains Tokka and Rahzar. But TMNT II is perhaps best known as the film debut of Vanilla Ice, whose “Ninja Rap” inspires the hip-hop dance number that no early

The world’s most fearsome podcast team unleashes its most tubular episodes yet, diving deep into the mythos of those lean, green phenoms of yore, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. First, we check out the comic book where it all began, discussing how a black-and-white spoof aimed at adults became one of the most popular children’s franchises of all time. Radical! Next, we revisit the kitschy cartoon series — and the catchy theme song we’ll never be able to get out of our heads, even if our brains are removed from our bodies and placed in awkward bald-guy-in-red-underwear human suits. Righteous! And finally, we return to 1990’s live action TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES movie and debate who, exactly, this mashup of samurai lore, stoner slang, dated movie references, and goofy kiddie humor is supposed to be for. Cowabunga! Do we still feel the Turtle Power after all these years? Or has this whole franchise aged about as well as April O’Neil’s bright yellow jumpsuit and white go-go boots? Don a trench

Riots. Fires. Police violence. Ruinous bigotry. A cacophony of voices calling for justice for Black Americans. These are all very present in today’s newspaper headlines and social media feeds, and also set the scene for Spike Lee’s seminal modern classic DO THE RIGHT THING, which is no less urgent in 2020 than it was upon its 1989 release. Lee’s film was praised by most critics but received a backlash from some, who wrongly believed the film itself would incite riots upon its summer release. Instead, When We Were Young happily joins in the thoughtful conversation on racial tensions Do The Right Thing has prompted for thirty years and counting, finding the film not only rightfully angry but also vibrant, loving, insightful, and incredibly funny. As the world mourns the senseless killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others by those meant to serve and protect, our cohosts discuss just how difficult it is to “Fight the Power” when that power is armed with a license

We've already passed the future depicted in BACK TO THE FUTURE, PART II (1989) and we know just how many things the action-adventure flick got wrong about the year 2015. (Though the film's hellish alternate reality where a boorish, corrupt egomaniac is in charge rings familiar.) But does the film otherwise hold up more than 30 years later, or does it sink like a hoverboard over water? Is BACK TO THE FUTURE, PART III (1990) the superior sequel? And will we ever figure out why Marty is best friends with someone more than three times his age? When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email your episode suggestions to wwwyshow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on the iTunes and Google Play Stores so more folks check