Today in 80s history! What happened on August 2nd in the 80s? Find out what happened today in 80s Movies, 80s Music, 80s TV Shows, and 80s Sports! Also find out about celebrity birthdays for the legends, icons and characters we grew up with in the 80s!
TODAY'S 80S BIRTHDAYS
James Hetfield (Metallica) - 63
August 3, 1963
Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now, Wall Street) - 86
August 3, 1940
John Landis (An American Werewolf in London, Thriller) - 76
August 3, 1950
John C. McGinley (Platoon, Wall Street) - 67
August 3, 1959
Lee Rocker (Stray Cats) - 65
August 3, 1961
Steven Berkoff (Victor Maitland in Beverly Hills Cop) - 89
August 3, 1937
Jo Marie Payton (Harriette on Family Matters) - 76
August 3, 1950
REMEMBERING
Bubba Smith (Hightower in Police Academy)
February 28, 1945 - August 3, 2011 (Age 66)
TODAY IN 80S MUSIC
80s Music Released on August 3rd
1987 - Hysteria
Artist: Def Leppard (4th Album)
Billboard Charts: #1
Note: Three years in the making, a drummer who lost an arm partway through, and a production budget that meant it had to sell five million copies just to break even. It sold over 25 million. Seven singles, and "Pour Some Sugar on Me" still empties no bar anywhere.
1984 - "When Doves Cry" Was #1 in America
Artist: Prince
Note: Five weeks at #1 for a song with no bass line at all — Prince stripped it out at the last minute and the label thought he'd lost it. It ended up the biggest-selling single of 1984.
1985 - "Shout" Was #1 in America
Artist: Tears for Fears
Note: Three weeks at the top, and #1 in eight other countries besides. Orzabal wrote it about protest, not therapy, however many people have insisted otherwise since.
TODAY IN 80S MOVIES
80s Movies Released On August 3rd
The Philadelphia Experiment (1984)
Release Date: August 3, 1984
Director: Stewart Raffill
Starring: Michael Paré, Nancy Allen and Bobby Di Cicco
Box Office: $8.1 Million
Note: Two sailors from 1943 get spat out into 1984 by a Navy experiment gone wrong. Executive produced by John Carpenter, and the source of a conspiracy theory that refuses to die.
Grandview, U.S.A. (1984)
Release Date: August 3, 1984
Director: Randal Kleiser
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, John Cusack and Joan Cusack
Budget: $5 Million
Box Office: $4.7 Million
Note: A demolition-derby drama nobody saw, with a cast that reads like a casting director predicting the next ten years. Swayze and Curtis three years before Dirty Dancing and A Fish Called Wanda.
TODAY IN 80S TV
1989 - Primetime Live Premiered
Event: Series Premiere
Network: ABC
Note: Diane Sawyer and Sam Donaldson in front of a live studio audience, which was the gimmick and lasted about a year. The show itself ran 23 seasons.
TODAY IN 80S SPORTS
1984 - Mary Lou Retton Won the Olympic All-Around
Event: Summer Olympics, Los Angeles
Details: A 16-year-old from West Virginia, six weeks removed from knee surgery, needed a perfect 10 on the vault to win. She got it — and a 10 on floor too — edging Ecaterina Szabo by five hundredths of a point to become the first American woman to win the all-around. Then she was on the Wheaties box, and stayed there.
1987 - Joe Niekro Got Ejected for the Emery Board
Event: MLB
Details: Asked to empty his pockets mid-inning, the Twins knuckleballer flung an emery board and a piece of sandpaper onto the infield with a shrug that fooled absolutely nobody. Ten-game suspension, and a bit he happily did on Letterman afterward.
TODAY IN OTHER 80S NEWS
No other news today in the 80s!
