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Nine Memorable 1980s Pop Parodies

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The HeeBee GeeBees

One adjective you couldn’t use about 1980s pop is ‘boring’. The music had way too much character and the artists too much physical presence for that.

But 1980s music culture was easy to lampoon. And there was so much mainstream TV to do the lampooning, from ‘Not The Nine O’Clock News’ and ‘The Goodies’ to ‘The Kenny Everett Video Show’ and ‘Spitting Image’.

And across the pond, of course, there was ‘Saturday Night Live’. Then there were the radio spoofs and specially-constructed ‘bands’ like The Hee Bee Gee Bees. All in all it was a golden era for satire.

So here we round up some classic spoofs of 1980s music, with a few recurring subjects…

9. Not The Nine O’Clock News: ‘Happy Crappy Nappy Song’
Inane pop pretenders or joyous post-punk tunesmiths? If you thought Altered Images were the former, Pamela Stephenson and pals pretty much nailed the Glaswegian band’s shtick right here.

8. Stevie Nicks: ‘What The Hell Is She Saying?’
Who the hell is responsible for this classic?

 

7. Not The Nine O’Clock News: ‘Nice Video, Shame About The Song’
It’s the naughty gang again, this time brilliantly skewering early ‘80s pop videos, particularly the work of pioneers Russell ‘Vienna’ Mulcahy and David ‘Ashes To Ashes’ Mallet.

 

6. The Hee Bee Gee Bees: ‘Quite Ahead Of My Time’
Angus Deayton, Phil Pope and Michael Fenton Stevens brilliantly lampoon David Bowie’s 1976-1980 era, with nods to ‘Golden Years’, ‘Ashes To Ashes’, ‘African Night Flight’, ‘Fashion’, ‘It’s No Game’ and even ‘The Secret Life Of Arabia’. There’s also a touch of Eno and Bowie’s ‘point to some chord signs with a baton and get the band to play them’ Berlin-era modus operandi about the music here.

 

5. Spitting Image: ‘We’re Scared Of Bob’
Lyrically and musically spot-on, and also highlights the use of minor celebs in ‘We Are The World’ and ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’.

 

4. The Kenny Everett Video Show: The Bee Gees
Ten years before Clive Anderson’s disastrous TV interview, Kenny nails the inescapable naffness of the Brothers Gibb.

 

3. The Hee Bee Gee Bees: ‘Too Depressed To Commit Suicide’
The first of two Police pastiches, Messrs. Deayton, Pope and Fenton Stevens (apparently with amusing lyrical input by Richard Curtis too) offer a great distillation of their sound, somewhere between ‘Walking On The Moon’ and ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’. Also check out the delicious piss-taking of Stewart Copeland’s penchant for adding ‘delays’ (echoes) to his drums.

 

2. Weird Al Yankovic: ‘Velvet Elvis’
Not as good as the previous track – his voice is pretty poor – but musically it’s pretty damn sharp.

 

1. Saturday Night Live: Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder
Just a timeless classic…

Any classic ’80s parodies missing here? Leave a comment below.

‘Top Gun’ And 33 Other ‘Classic’ 1980s Movies I’ve Never Seen

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Which ‘non-classic’ 1980s movies are virtually impossible to switch off when they come onto the TV late at night, no matter how many times one has seen them?

In my case, it’s stuff like ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’, ‘Barfly’, ‘Innerspace’, ‘Hollywood Shuffle’, ‘The Man With Two Brains’, ‘Christine’, ‘Evil Dead II’, ‘Clockwise’, ‘Fletch Lives’, ‘Uncle Buck’, ‘Caddyshack’, ‘Class’, ‘The Sure Thing’, ‘Alligator’, ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ etc. etc. – the list goes on and on.

But then there are the ‘classic’ 1980s movies which leave this writer totally cold. Most of the below are either multi-award-winners, critically-acclaimed cult favourites and/or films that made a huge splash in popular culture, but are hitherto completely unwatched in their entirety by movingtheriver, either by accident or design. I generally didn’t fancy seeing them during my teens, and the clips I’ve seen since haven’t changed my mind…

34. Top Gun (1986)
Smug, young Cruise is too much for this writer – see also ‘Risky Business’ – but that changed with ‘Rain Man’.

33. Reds (1981)

32. Arthur (1981)

31. Another Country (1984)

30. Porky’s (1982)

29. Woman On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (1988)

28. My Beautiful Launderette (1985)

27. Mona Lisa (1986)

26. Dirty Dancing (1987)

25. The Mission (1986)

24. Beverly Hills Cop (1985)
I’m a big Eddie fan, but somehow haven’t been snared by the supporting cast/set-up of this.

22/23. First Blood (1982)/Rambo First Blood Part II (1985)

21. Splash (1983)

20. Repo Man (1984)
Emilio Estevez was part of a great ensemble cast in ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ and ‘The Breakfast Club’, but carrying a whole movie?

19. Sophie’s Choice (1982)
Forever tarnished by Joan Smith’s takedown in her classic book ‘Misogynies’.

18. Wall Street (1987)

17. Platoon (1986)

16. The Lost Boys (1987)
Kiefer Sutherland directed by Joel Schumacher? No thanks… Great theme song by Gerald McMann though.

15. The Karate Kid (1987)

14. Ordinary People (1980)
Or ‘Ordinary Peepholes’, as memorably renamed in ‘The Fisher King’.

13. On Golden Pond (1980)

12. Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
Have never really got the Jim Jarmusch ‘thing’…

11. Wings Of Desire (1987)

10. The Last Emperor (1988)

9. Pauline At The Beach (1983)

8. River’s Edge (1986)

7. Gandhi (1982)

6. Out Of Africa (1985)

5. Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

4. Kiss Of The Spiderwoman (1985)

3. Mississippi Burning (1988)

2. Paris, Texas (1985)

1. Room With A View (1985)

(Postscript. The ‘classic’ 1980s films I do wanna see, but have somehow managed thus far to miss: My Dinner With Andre, Salvador, My Favourite Year, The Coal Miner’s Daughter, Silkwood, The Year Of Living Dangerously, Once Upon A Time In America…)