Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: How John Hughes Made the Greatest Hooky Movie Ever
John Hughes wrote the script in six days. The Ferrari wasn’t real. And Alan Ruck was 29 playing 17. Here’s everything you didn’t know about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
-
-
On This Day: August 21, 1986 — A Lake in Cameroon Exhaled and 1,746 People Died in Their Sleep
On August 21, 1986, Lake Nyos in northwestern Cameroon experienced a limnic eruption — a sudden, catastrophic release of dissolved carbon dioxide from its depths. The invisible gas cloud traveled 25 kilometers downhill and suffocated 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock across four villages while they slept. It remains the deadliest limnic eruption ever recorded. At…
-
From the Block to the Box: How Golden Age Hip-Hop Conquered American Television
Before streaming, before YouTube, Golden Age hip-hop had two TV shows and a mission to make America watch. Here’s how Yo! MTV Raps and BET Rap City changed a generation.
-
The Goonies: How Richard Donner Turned a Kids’ Treasure Hunt into an 80s Legend
The Goonies (1985) was directed by Richard Donner — not Steven Spielberg, who produced it and originated the story — from a screenplay by Chris Columbus. Shot in Astoria, Oregon and on elaborate Burbank soundstages, it followed seven kids through a pirate’s underground treasure cave to save their homes from foreclosure. Made for $19 million,…
-
On This Day: August 20, 1989 — The Night the Menendez Brothers Shot Their Parents
On August 20, 1989, brothers Lyle (21) and Erik (18) Menendez shotgunned their parents Jose and Kitty to death in the den of their Beverly Hills mansion. The brothers disposed of the weapons, went to a movie for an alibi, then called 911. Their arrest in 1990, and the televised trial that followed in 1993,…
-
Stretch Armstrong: How the 80s Stretchy Toy Turned Millions of Kids Into Saboteurs
Stretch Armstrong is a gel-filled action figure first sold by Kenner in 1976. Made of latex rubber packed with gelled corn syrup, it stretches from 15 inches to over four feet before snapping back to shape. Kenner’s original run ended in 1980, but the toy has been revived multiple times — Hasbro owns the brand…
-
On This Day: August 19, 1995 — Iron Mike Came Back and the World Couldn’t Look Away
The date was August 19, 1995. Inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, 16,113 people were on their feet before the first punch was thrown. Millions more were watching on pay-per-view — phones ringing off hooks, pizzas going cold, nobody moving. Mike Tyson was walking to the ring. Four years in prison. Four…
-
Thou Shalt Not Sample: The Lawsuit That Changed Golden Age Hip-Hop Forever
In 1991, a federal judge quoted the Bible and tried to break hip-hop’s most powerful tool. Here’s how the sampling wars forged the golden age sound.
-
Dirty Dancing 1987: How Patrick Swayze Made the Summer Movie That Never Gets Old
Dirty Dancing (1987) is a coming-of-age romance set at a Catskills summer resort in 1963, following sheltered college-bound Frances “Baby” Houseman (Jennifer Grey) who falls for the camp’s dance instructor Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze). Made for $6 million in 44 days, it grossed $214 million worldwide. Its soundtrack sold over 11 million copies and the…
-
On This Day: August 18, 1991 — The Coup That Tried to Save the Soviet Union and Killed It Instead
On August 18, 1991, Soviet hard-liners cut Mikhail Gorbachev’s phone lines at his vacation dacha in Crimea, placed him under house arrest, and declared themselves the new rulers of the USSR. Three days later the coup had collapsed, the Communist Party was banned, and the Soviet Union had roughly four months left to live. The…
-
The Street Report: How Golden Age Hip-Hop Told the Stories America Refused to Hear
Before podcasts, before social media, before citizen journalism had a name, MCs were filing dispatches from America’s forgotten cities. Here’s how golden age hip-hop became the decade’s most honest news source.
-
Set It Off 1996: 9 Wild Facts About the Female Heist Classic
Set It Off (1996) grossed $41.6 million on a $9 million budget. Here are 9 wild facts about Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, and F. Gary Gray’s classic 90s heist film.
