In this episode we quickly mentioned Ricky Schroder but I must confess, the love that I had for him and his character Ricky from Silver Spoons (I will admit any time a character has the same name as the actor I find the whole situation completely weird. Of all the names, do they have to go with the actor’s? It’s awkward. As a further aside, you might be familiar with the name Norm Macdonald. He was a comedian and actor famous for his time on SNL and as star of a TV sitcom, Norm. I read years ago and did not bother fact checking this story for this, the longest aside ever to grace print, that the show Norm originally had a totally different name. However, they quickly learned during rehearsals that when the other actors referred to him as his onscreen name (let’s go with Jake, just to avoid confusion) it didn’t trigger with Norm that they were speaking to him. After Jake missed a lot of line prompts and things didn’t seem to be improving at all, the writers/directors/powers that be decided to just change the character and name of the show to Norm so he’d always know they were talking to him. Again, I have no idea if that’s true but at least it explains the awkward actor/character same name thing!) Back to the most adorable blonde haired boy 10 year old Carrie had ever seen. I have zero memories of the show other than the fact that there was a grown woman on the show who was crazy beautiful and I wanted to grow up to be just like and that Ricky Schroder was clearly my one true love.
Beautiful woman = Erin Gray, Best friend = Alfonso Ribeiro
Another favorite heart throb of both Kristen and Carrie’s youth was Shaun Cassidy. Those dreamy eyes, his perfectly straight teeth, beautifully feathered hair and sultry voice were the things that childhood dreams are made of. Kristen and I shared a 45 single album of Shaun’s, you might remember it, Da Doo Ron Ron. Oh how it made our hearts stand still! Kristen in a bold proclamation of her love for Shaun, wrote in all capitals on the album sleeve, I LOVE YOU SHAUN! Truer words were never spoken for us both.
The sound quality is awful. Just like listening on my Strawberry Shortcake record player!
These two were just the tip of the “make my heart melt” iceberg that was my youth. The list could go on and on. Spurred on not only by my own fickleness, the strong opinions of my friends and most importantly the glossy, brightly colored cover of the teen fan magazine. I could just stand in that section of the magazine display looking at the cover before carefully selecting which publication of guaranteed nirvana I should peruse. There were so many to choose from and so many that ended with “beat”. Was this week’s Teen Beat or Tiger Beat better? Or maybe Bop or 16 Magazine won out? I never had any money to buy them, I just appreciated every second of guilty pleasure I could eek out for free while my mom finished the grocery shopping. Of the few I was able to buy, I think I still have the originals. That kind of love just can’t be tossed aside like….well, like yesterday’s news.
https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/i-worked-for-tiger-beat-magazine-during-its-1980s-glory-days