On This Day: October 19, 1985 — a-ha’s “Take On Me” Hits #1
On October 19, 1985, a-ha’s “Take On Me” reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 — not on the strength of the song alone, which Warner Bros. had already released twice and watched flop both times, but because of a four-month, hand-drawn rotoscope video that turned singer Morten Harket into a pencil-sketch hero reaching…