What's so great about 1987? Alamo Drafthouse's Henri Mazza explains
We can think of at least one guy who wouldn't be so eager to relive 1987.
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The “sing-along” has been a staple of The Alamo Drafthouse for years now, but in the past it’s always had a bit more focus: Justin Timberlake, say, or those ’90s one-hit wonders that everyone has tried so hard to forget. But programmer Henri Mazza is apparently bored with specificity, as he’s getting set to institute a series based on songs pulled from a single year. First up: tonight’s tribute to 1987, a year that’s famous for the Iran-Contra affair, Black Monday, Gary Hart’s Monkey Business, and—more importantly—the first-ever Simpsons cartoon. But other than the debut of U2’s The Joshua Tree and Guns N’ Roses Appetite For Destruction, what was there to sing about? Decider asked Mazza to explain.
Decider: Why 1987? Did you just choose that year randomly?
Henri Mazza: I thought, “I've done a lot of ’90s lately; let's give the ’80s some love." Some of the other years had more obvious hits, but in ’87, you still had Madonna and Michael Jackson, but you had a little bit less of it. Like Bad, as compared to Thriller, is not as full of hits. It also had a bunch of songs that you almost forgot about. Rick Astley was 1987. Rick Astley everybody remembers now, but before the Rickroll, it was just like, "Oh yeah, that song." I thought I was going to be able to put in [Bob Seger’s] "Shakedown" from Beverly Hills Cop II, because I totally remembered that chorus being stuck in my head—mainly because it said, "Let down your bra, honey," and I was a 10-year-old kid who was like, “Ooooh!” But then I listened to the whole song and I thought, "No."
D: The video is a little lackluster.
HM: But goddamn, the chorus was good.
D: It seems like you could pick almost any year and find a bunch of cool stuff that we forgot happened.
HM: Yeah, it's a little bit like a horoscope. You're like, "I'm totally this!" 1987 did have the last stock market crash, though. I wasn't even thinking about that. It was the last time the economy was this bad, so we partied.
D: In an odd coincidence, the Alamo just had the director of the highest-grossing movie of 1987 stop through.
HM: I did not know that. Who?
D: Leonard Nimoy. Three Men And A Baby.
HM: That's right! We were making jokes about that today because we wanted to have him do a “Don't Talk” [PSA], and then we were like, “It'll never happen unless we put together a Three Men And A Baby reunion.”
D: That would be a kick-ass reunion.
HM: All anybody would talk about would be, "Remember when we thought that there was a ghost in that one scene, and it was just a cardboard cutout of Ted Danson? Why did you have a cardboard cutout of Ted Danson on the set?” Why did we all watch that movie?
D: It was the highest-grossing movie of 1987!
HM: How is that plausible?
D: It far outstripped Fatal Attraction, Moonstruck, Lethal Weapon, Dirty Dancing…
HM: It does make sense, though, because we have all seen Three Men And A Baby. I know people who haven't seen Star Wars, but I don't know that I know anyone who hasn't seen Three Men And A Baby.
D: Speaking of babies, another notable thing from that year was Baby Jessica.
HM: Baby Jessica was 1987?
D: Yep.
HM: That makes sense because it's in the "Man In The Mirror" video. That’s one of those videos that shows African babies crying, but then it has a turnaround, like, “Look, mankind has the capacity to do great things for each other!” It's got clips of Gandhi, and then it has a clip of pulling Baby Jessica out of the well.
D: That was one of the things I thought about when I was young: “How would I rescue a baby from a well?” Or, “How would I screw over my kidnapper?”
HM: I remember when I was 10, thinking, "I can't wait until I graduate from high school, because then I will know that I made it without getting kidnapped.” Then I thought, "I might get adult-napped, but I won't be as defenseless then.” That's another interesting side effect of choosing a specific year instead of doing an ’80s party. It makes everybody realize who they were in that year… I was actually scared of Billy Idol. You see him do his “White Christmas” nonsense nowadays, but he was scary to a kid. I got uncomfortable when his videos came on. I think that's why Michael Jackson was so crazy popular because everyone was like, "Yay, Michael Jackson!"
D: His videos were relatively innocuous.
HM: He wasn't trying on a weird persona. He was trying on the most normal persona he could possibly pull off. It's weird that he touches his crotch, but who cares? So does Billy Idol.
