Pop Culture Headlines: 1986
Top Events in January 1986 Pop Culture History
1. Super Bowl XX (January 26, 1986): The 1985 Chicago Bears crushed the New England Patriots 46-10 at the Louisiana Superdome, capping one of the most dominant and quotable seasons in NFL history. The team’s “Super Bowl Shuffle” music video had already gone platinum before the game was even played, which is either supreme confidence or a great way to jinx yourself. It wasn’t. Trivia: defensive tackle William “The Refrigerator” Perry scored a touchdown in the game, a rare offensive moment for a 335-pound lineman that instantly became one of the most beloved oddities in Super Bowl history.
2. Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster (January 28, 1986): The shuttle disintegrated 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, killing all seven crew members, including Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire schoolteacher who would have been the first ordinary civilian in space. The tragedy, watched live by millions of schoolchildren who’d tuned in specifically for McAuliffe, became one of the defining televised moments of the decade. Trivia: the failure was later traced to a faulty O-ring seal that became brittle in the unusually cold launch-morning temperatures, a root cause the Rogers Commission would formally confirm that June.
3. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Holds Its First Induction Ceremony (January 23, 1986): Founding rock pioneers including Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, James Brown, and Buddy Holly were honored in New York City, formally establishing an institution that would go on to define the genre’s official canon. Trivia: the Hall of Fame’s physical museum in Cleveland wouldn’t actually open its doors for another nine years, in 1995.
4. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Observed for the First Time (January 20, 1986): The federal holiday honoring the civil rights leader was celebrated nationwide for the first time, three years after Congress passed the legislation establishing it. Trivia: it took several more years and considerable public pressure before all fifty states individually recognized the holiday, with Arizona and New Hampshire among the last holdouts.
5. “That’s What Friends Are For” by Dionne & Friends Holds at No. 1 (Early January 1986): This AIDS-research charity single, uniting Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder, opened the new year still parked at number one, ultimately becoming Billboard’s top song of 1986 overall. Trivia: the song was originally written years earlier for the 1982 film Night Shift, sung by Rod Stewart, before this all-star charity version turned it into a phenomenon.
6. “Say You, Say Me” by Lionel Richie Begins a Four-Week Run at No. 1 (January 25, 1986): Richie’s soaring ballad, written for the film White Nights, took over the top spot and held it for a month, becoming one of the defining adult-contemporary hits of the era. Trivia: Richie has said he wrote two entirely different endings for the song before settling on the uplifting final version used in the film.
7. Voyager 2’s Closest Approach to Uranus (January 24, 1986): NASA’s probe made its historic flyby of the seventh planet, sending back the first detailed images and data ever collected of Uranus and its moons. Trivia: Voyager 2 remains, to this day, the only spacecraft to have ever visited Uranus up close.
Top Events in February 1986 Pop Culture History
1. 28th Annual Grammy Awards (February 25, 1986): “We Are the World” swept four awards including Record and Song of the Year, while Phil Collins’s No Jacket Required took home Album of the Year. Whitney Houston picked up her first-ever Grammy that night for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, a fitting preview of the year she was about to have. Trivia: Sade won Best New Artist, edging out a crowded field that included both Bryan Adams and Freddie Jackson.
2. People Power Revolution in the Philippines (February 22-25, 1986): Massive peaceful protests forced authoritarian president Ferdinand Marcos to flee the country after two decades in power, and Corazon Aquino was sworn in as the nation’s new president. The bloodless uprising became a global symbol of nonviolent resistance. Trivia: the event is credited with popularizing “People Power” as a phrase now used worldwide to describe similar peaceful uprisings.
3. “Baby Doc” Duvalier Flees Haiti (February 7, 1986): President Jean-Claude Duvalier’s departure ended 28 years of family dictatorship in Haiti, closing out a regime his father, “Papa Doc,” had begun decades earlier. Trivia: Duvalier fled aboard a U.S. Air Force jet reportedly arranged with help from the French and American governments, since nobody particularly wanted him staying around.
4. Spud Webb Wins the NBA Slam Dunk Contest (February 8, 1986): At just 5-foot-7, Webb stunned the basketball world by out-dunking taller, more famous competitors, proving that the slam dunk contest was about hops, not height. Trivia: Webb’s own Atlanta Hawks teammate, Dominique Wilkins, was the reigning champion he dethroned that night.
5. “How Will I Know” by Whitney Houston Hits No. 1 (February 15, 1986): Houston’s bright, bouncy single became the second number-one of her career, following her debut album’s slow but unstoppable climb up the charts. Trivia: the song was originally written with Janet Jackson in mind before it landed with Houston instead.
6. Pixar Animation Studios Is Founded (February 3, 1986): Steve Jobs purchased the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm and spun it off into its own company, laying the groundwork for an animation studio that wouldn’t release its first feature film for another nine years. Trivia: nobody involved at the time had any real inkling this scrappy hardware-and-software outfit would eventually make Toy Story.
7. The Soviet Union Launches the Mir Space Station (February 19-20, 1986): Mir would go on to remain in orbit for 15 years, hosting crews from multiple nations and serving as a proving ground for long-duration spaceflight. Trivia: Mir stayed in service so long past its original five-year design life that its eventual 2001 deorbiting felt, to many space watchers, like retiring an old friend.
Top Events in March 1986 Pop Culture History
1. 58th Academy Awards (March 24, 1986): Out of Africa won Best Picture along with six other Oscars, while Geraldine Page finally won Best Actress on her eighth nomination for The Trip to Bountiful, a long-overdue victory lap for one of the era’s most respected character actors. Trivia: Jane Fonda, Alan Alda, and Robin Williams shared hosting duties that year, an unusual three-way arrangement the Academy never quite repeated.
2. Challenger Crew Compartment Located (March 9, 1986): Navy divers recovered the largely intact crew compartment of the Space Shuttle Challenger from the ocean floor, confirming the worst fears of investigators and grieving families nearly six weeks after the disaster. Trivia: the recovery effort spanned months and eventually retrieved roughly 118,000 pounds of shuttle debris from the Atlantic seafloor.
3. Chart Turnover: “Kyrie,” “Sara,” and “These Dreams” All Hit No. 1 (March 1986): Mr. Mister’s “Kyrie,” Starship’s “Sara,” and Heart’s “These Dreams” each took a turn at number one within the same few weeks, a rapid-fire changing of the guard that showed just how fast 1986’s charts were moving. Trivia: “These Dreams” gave Heart’s Nancy Wilson her first lead vocal on a Billboard number-one, a rare moment in the spotlight for a guitarist better known for harmonies.
4. Geffen Records Signs Guns N’ Roses (March 26, 1986): The unsigned Los Angeles hard rock band inked a deal that would lead to Appetite for Destruction the following year, an album that would eventually redefine what mainstream rock sounded like. Trivia: the label reportedly signed the band sight unseen based largely on word of mouth from the Sunset Strip club scene.
5. Martina Navratilova Becomes the First Tennis Player to Earn $10 Million (March 8, 1986): The dominant women’s tennis star crossed the milestone in career prize money, a figure that underscored just how thoroughly she’d rewritten the record books during her prime. Trivia: Navratilova would go on to win a record nine Wimbledon singles titles before her career wrapped up.
Top Events in April 1986 Pop Culture History
1. Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster (April 26, 1986): A botched safety test at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Ukrainian SSR triggered an explosion and fire that released massive amounts of radioactive material across much of Europe, becoming the worst nuclear accident in history. Soviet officials initially tried to suppress news of the disaster, only admitting it after Swedish monitoring stations detected abnormal radiation levels nearly a thousand miles away. Trivia: the nearby city of Pripyat, evacuated within 36 hours of the blast, remains a ghost town to this day.
2. Halley’s Comet Makes Its Closest Approach to Earth (April 11, 1986): The famous comet, visible from Earth only once roughly every 76 years, passed within about 39 million miles of the planet, giving an entire generation their one and only chance to see it. Trivia: Halley’s Comet won’t swing back into view again until the year 2061, so if you missed it in 1986, you’ll need to plan ahead.
3. Clint Eastwood Elected Mayor of Carmel, California (April 8, 1986): The Hollywood icon won the small coastal town’s mayoral race in a landslide, trading movie sets for city council meetings for a two-year term. Trivia: Eastwood ran largely on a platform of loosening the town’s notoriously strict zoning and business regulations, some of which had, ironically, blocked expansion of his own restaurant.
4. “Kiss” by Prince and the Revolution Hits No. 1 (April 19, 1986): The stripped-down funk track, originally intended as a giveaway for another artist before Prince decided to keep it for himself, became one of the most distinctive number-one hits of the decade. Trivia: that same week, Prince also wrote and produced the Bangles’ “Manic Monday,” making him the rare songwriter to occupy both the number-one and number-two spots on the Hot 100 simultaneously.
5. United States Bombs Libya (April 15, 1986): American aircraft struck targets in Tripoli and Benghazi in retaliation for a Libyan-linked bombing at a West Berlin disco that had killed two people, including a U.S. serviceman, ten days earlier. Trivia: the West Berlin bombing that prompted the retaliation had specifically targeted a discotheque known as a popular hangout for American soldiers stationed in the city.
6. Arnold Schwarzenegger Marries Maria Shriver (April 26, 1986): The bodybuilder-turned-action star wed the NBC journalist in a high-profile Massachusetts ceremony that briefly merged Hollywood muscle with Kennedy family political pedigree. Trivia: the wedding took place on the very same day as the Chernobyl disaster on the other side of the world, an odd split-screen moment in the news cycle that week.
Top Events in May 1986 Pop Culture History
1. Top Gun Opens in Theaters (May 16, 1986): Tom Cruise’s need for speed turned this Navy aviator drama into the year’s box office champion, and its soundtrack, aviator sunglasses, and volleyball scene became instant cultural shorthand for the entire decade. Trivia: the U.S. Navy reportedly saw a significant bump in recruitment interest after the film’s release, with some recruiting stations even setting up tables outside theaters.
2. Hands Across America (May 25, 1986): An estimated 5 to 6.5 million people joined hands in a human chain stretching across the continental United States to raise awareness and money for hunger and homelessness relief. Trivia: the chain had a few notable gaps, including stretches of sparsely populated desert, so organizers filled them in with ropes and banners to keep the line technically unbroken.
3. “Greatest Love of All” by Whitney Houston Begins a Three-Week Run at No. 1 (May 17, 1986): Houston’s soaring, self-affirming ballad became her third number-one hit in barely a year, cementing her as pop music’s breakout star of the mid-1980s. Trivia: the song was actually written years earlier for a 1977 biopic about boxer Muhammad Ali, though it wasn’t a hit until Houston’s version took over the airwaves.
4. Expo 86 Opens in Vancouver (May 2, 1986): The World’s Fair, themed around transportation and communication, drew more than 22 million visitors to British Columbia and left behind landmarks still associated with the city today. Trivia: the fair’s futuristic geodesic dome later became the Vancouver planetarium and science center now known as Science World.
5. NBC Unveils Its Modern Peacock Logo (May 12, 1986): The redesigned, sleeker peacock debuted during the network’s 60th anniversary special, refreshing an emblem that had represented NBC’s color broadcasting since the 1950s. Trivia: variations of that same 1986 peacock design, tweaked only slightly over the decades, are still in use by NBC today.
6. Sandra Kim Wins Eurovision at Age 13 (May 3, 1986): The Belgian singer took the Eurovision Song Contest crown in Bergen, Norway, with “J’aime la vie,” becoming the youngest winner in the contest’s history, a record that still stands. Trivia: Eurovision organizers later raised the contest’s minimum age requirement to 16, a rule change widely seen as a direct response to Kim’s win.
Top Events in June 1986 Pop Culture History
1. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Released (June 11, 1986): John Hughes’s comedy about a Chicago teenager skipping school for one perfect day became an instant classic, turning Matthew Broderick’s fourth-wall-breaking charm into a defining teen-movie performance. Trivia: the Ferrari featured in the film was actually a fiberglass replica built on a Ford Mustang chassis, since a real vintage Ferrari of that caliber was far too expensive to risk wrecking on camera.
2. Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” and “Goal of the Century” (June 22, 1986): In the same World Cup quarterfinal match against England, Maradona scored one goal by illegally punching the ball into the net and, minutes later, scored arguably the greatest solo goal in soccer history by dribbling past nearly the entire English team. Trivia: Maradona later described the illegal goal as having been scored “a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God,” which is how the nickname stuck.
3. Argentina Wins the 1986 FIFA World Cup (June 29, 1986): Led by Maradona, Argentina defeated West Germany 3-2 in the final at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca, capturing the country’s second World Cup title. Trivia: the tournament was originally awarded to Colombia before financial troubles forced that country to withdraw, with Mexico stepping in as host on relatively short notice.
4. The Rogers Commission Releases Its Challenger Report (June 9, 1986): The presidential commission investigating the Challenger disaster formally confirmed that a failed O-ring seal, made brittle by unusually cold weather at launch, was the technical cause of the explosion. Trivia: physicist Richard Feynman, a commission member, famously demonstrated the flaw on live television by dunking a piece of the O-ring material into a glass of ice water to show how it lost its flexibility in the cold.
5. “Live to Tell” by Madonna Hits No. 1 (June 7, 1986): This somber, dramatic ballad marked a notable departure from Madonna’s earlier, bubblier hits, previewing the more mature sound she’d continue exploring on her next album. Trivia: the song was written for the film At Close Range, in which Madonna’s then-husband, Sean Penn, co-starred.
6. “On My Own” by Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald Hits No. 1 (June 1986): This duet, recorded by two singers who never actually sang together in the same studio, became a massive adult-contemporary crossover hit and one of the most beloved duets of the decade. Trivia: LaBelle and McDonald recorded their parts separately, on opposite coasts, and the track was stitched together afterward, a technique the song’s success helped normalize for future long-distance duets.
Top Events in July 1986 Pop Culture History
1. Statue of Liberty Reopens After Restoration (July 4-5, 1986): First Lady Nancy Reagan cut the ribbon reopening the newly restored monument following a multi-year renovation, kicking off “Liberty Weekend,” a massive celebration featuring tall ships, fireworks, and a mass naturalization ceremony for new citizens. Trivia: the restoration replaced the statue’s original iron support framework, corroded after a century of exposure, with stainless steel.
2. Aliens Released (July 18, 1986): James Cameron’s sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror classic swapped scares for firepower, and Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley returned as one of action cinema’s most enduring heroines. Trivia: Weaver received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for the role, a rare honor for a performance in what most critics still classified as a science-fiction action film.
3. The Great Mouse Detective Released (July 2, 1986): This animated Sherlock Holmes riff about a mouse detective became a modest hit that critics credit with helping save Walt Disney Animation Studios from collapse following the costly box-office failure of The Black Cauldron two years earlier. Trivia: the film used early computer animation for a climactic clock-tower sequence, an experimental technique Disney would build on for years to come.
4. “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel Hits No. 1 (July 26, 1986): Gabriel’s only solo number-one hit came paired with a groundbreaking stop-motion and claymation music video that became one of the most awarded and imitated clips in MTV history. Trivia: the video reportedly took weeks of painstaking, frame-by-frame animation work, and Gabriel himself had to remain motionless for hours at a stretch during filming.
5. “Invisible Touch” by Genesis Hits No. 1 (July 1986): The title track from the band’s biggest-selling album gave Genesis its only American chart-topper, a commercial peak for a band that had spent the previous decade evolving from prog-rock cult favorites into full-blown pop stars. Trivia: Phil Collins has said the song’s title and hook came together almost instantly during a jam session, one of the fastest songs the band ever wrote.
6. “Holding Back the Years” by Simply Red Hits No. 1 (July 12, 1986): Mick Hucknall’s soulful ballad gave the British band its first American number-one, a slow-building hit that had actually first appeared, largely unnoticed, on an earlier Simply Red release before this re-recorded version broke through. Trivia: Hucknall reportedly wrote the song’s earliest lyrics as a teenager, years before the band was even formed.
Top Events in August 1986 Pop Culture History
1. Stand by Me Goes Wide (August 22, 1986): Rob Reiner’s coming-of-age drama, based on a Stephen King novella, expanded into wide release and became a sleeper hit, launching the young careers of River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell. Trivia: the film’s title song, Ben E. King’s 1961 classic “Stand by Me,” saw such a dramatic sales resurgence after the movie’s release that it climbed back into the Billboard Hot 100 top ten a quarter-century after its original chart run.
2. The “Preppy Murder” Shocks New York City (August 26, 1986): Eighteen-year-old Jennifer Levin was found dead in Central Park hours after leaving a bar with 19-year-old Robert Chambers, a case the tabloids dubbed the “Preppy Murder” that sparked a national conversation about privileged youth culture and casual violence. Trivia: the case dragged on for years and became one of the most heavily covered true-crime stories of the late 1980s, well before true crime was its own media genre.
3. “Papa Don’t Preach” by Madonna Begins a Two-Week Run at No. 1 (August 16, 1986): Madonna’s bold single about an unplanned pregnancy sparked public debate over its intended message, with some groups reading it as pro-life and others as a simple story about a young woman choosing to keep her family close. Trivia: Madonna has said in interviews that she considers the song a story about a young woman’s right to make her own choice, regardless of how various groups tried to claim it for their own arguments.
4. “Glory of Love” by Peter Cetera Begins a Two-Week Run at No. 1 (August 9, 1986): Cetera’s soaring power ballad, written for The Karate Kid Part II, became his first solo chart-topper after years fronting Chicago, proving he didn’t need a horn section to still crack number one. Trivia: Cetera reportedly wrote the song’s chorus in a single afternoon after being handed a rough cut of the film’s climactic fight scene.
5. “Higher Love” by Steve Winwood Hits No. 1 (August 30, 1986): Winwood’s horn-and-synth-driven single gave him his first solo number-one after a career that stretched back to his teenage years fronting the Spencer Davis Group in the 1960s. Trivia: a young, then-unknown Chaka Khan sang backing vocals on the track, years before her own solo career fully took off.
Top Events in September 1986 Pop Culture History
1. The Oprah Winfrey Show Goes National (September 8, 1986): Oprah Winfrey’s daytime talk show expanded from Chicago-only broadcasts into full national syndication, launching what would become one of the most influential and highest-earning programs in television history. Trivia: the show’s national debut episode drew such strong ratings that within a single year, Winfrey had become one of the highest-paid entertainers in the country.
2. Siskel & Ebert Premieres in Syndication (September 13, 1986): Film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, who had already been reviewing movies together on public television since 1975, launched their long-running syndicated show, complete with the now-iconic thumbs-up, thumbs-down rating system. Trivia: the “two thumbs up” phrase became so culturally powerful that studios would eventually pay to license it for their own movie posters and trailers.
3. Metallica’s Tour Bus Crashes in Sweden (September 27, 1986): The heavy metal band’s tour bus skidded off an icy road, killing bassist Cliff Burton in the crash, a tragedy that reshaped the band’s sound and lineup for years afterward. Trivia: Burton reportedly won a coin toss with guitarist Kirk Hammett for the bunk he ended up sleeping in that night, a grim detail the surviving band members have spoken about candidly over the years.
4. “Venus” by Bananarama Hits No. 1 (September 1986): The British girl group’s disco-tinged cover of the 1969 Shocking Blue original gave them their only American chart-topper, decades before the song found a second life in Gillette razor commercials. Trivia: producers Stock Aitken Waterman, who oversaw the track, would go on to define much of the UK’s late-1980s pop sound with acts like Kylie Minogue.
5. “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin Hits No. 1 (September 1986): The synth-pop love theme from Top Gun became the band’s only chart-topper, permanently tying their legacy to the film’s soaring aerial romance subplot. Trivia: the song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song that year, a rare honor for a synth-pop single.
6. “Stuck With You” by Huey Lewis and the News Begins a Three-Week Run at No. 1 (September 1986): This upbeat single became the band’s second American number-one, part of a hot streak that made Huey Lewis one of the most reliably chart-topping acts of the mid-1980s. Trivia: the song helped extend Huey Lewis and the News’s remarkable mid-1980s run, during which nearly every single released from their album Fore! landed in the Billboard top ten.
Top Events in October 1986 Pop Culture History
1. Reykjavik Summit (October 11-12, 1986): President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met in Iceland for talks that came remarkably close to eliminating both nations’ nuclear arsenals entirely, before the negotiations ultimately broke down over Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. Trivia: although the summit technically ended without an agreement, many historians credit its frank exchanges with laying essential groundwork for the arms reduction treaties signed over the following years.
2. New York Mets Win the World Series (October 25-27, 1986): The Mets came back from the brink of elimination to beat the Boston Red Sox in seven games, a series forever remembered for a ground ball that rolled through Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner’s legs in the tenth inning of Game 6. Trivia: the Red Sox wouldn’t win a World Series again for another 18 years, a drought fans and sportswriters alike loved to blame, perhaps unfairly, entirely on that one play.
3. Statue of Liberty Centennial Celebrated (October 28, 1986): New York Harbor marked the 100th anniversary of the statue’s original 1886 dedication with another round of festivities, officially closing out the year of Liberty-themed celebrations that had begun with July’s reopening ceremony. Trivia: the original 1886 dedication ceremony was itself nearly rained out, a bit of historical irony organizers were careful to plan around a century later.
4. Elie Wiesel Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (October 14, 1986): The Auschwitz survivor and author of Night was honored for his lifelong work ensuring the Holocaust would never be forgotten, cementing his role as one of the era’s most respected moral voices. Trivia: Wiesel used his acceptance speech to draw explicit attention to ongoing human rights abuses worldwide, framing remembrance as an active, ongoing responsibility rather than a purely historical exercise.
5. “When I Think of You” by Janet Jackson Begins a Two-Week Run at No. 1 (October 1986): This bouncy, horn-driven single became the youngest Jackson sibling’s first number-one hit, launching her definitively out of her famous family’s shadow. Trivia: the song’s music video, choreographed with the same sharp precision that would define her career, is widely credited with helping establish Jackson as a visual artist on par with her older brother Michael.
6. “True Colors” by Cyndi Lauper Begins a Two-Week Run at No. 1 (October 1986): Lauper’s tender, stripped-down ballad marked a striking contrast to her earlier, quirkier hits, proving she had genuine vocal and emotional range beyond the fun-loving persona that made her famous. Trivia: the song has since become something of an unofficial anthem for LGBTQ+ pride events, a meaning that grew organically over the decades following its release.
Top Events in November 1986 Pop Culture History
1. Iran-Contra Affair Comes to Light (November 3, 1986): A Lebanese magazine first reported that the Reagan administration had secretly sold weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages, kicking off one of the biggest political scandals of the decade. Trivia: the affair takes its name from the second half of the scheme, revealed weeks later, in which profits from those arms sales were secretly funneled to Contra rebels fighting Nicaragua’s government.
2. Reagan Confirms the Iran-Contra Fund Diversion (November 25, 1986): Attorney General Edwin Meese publicly confirmed that proceeds from the Iran arms sales had been diverted to the Contras, and National Security Council aide Oliver North was fired the same day. Trivia: North and his secretary had reportedly spent the preceding weeks shredding documents related to the scheme, a detail that later became a major flashpoint during the Congressional hearings that followed.
3. Beastie Boys Release Licensed to Ill (November 15, 1986): The trio’s debut album became the first rap record to top the Billboard 200, powered by the frat-party anthem “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!),” proving hip-hop could dominate mainstream rock radio too. Trivia: the band later expressed public regret over the album’s more juvenile, party-boy image, spending much of their subsequent career trying to be taken more seriously as musicians.
4. President Reagan Signs Immigration Reform Bill (November 6, 1986): The Immigration Reform and Control Act granted legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants already living in the United States while also introducing new penalties for employers who knowingly hired undocumented workers. Trivia: the bill passed with bipartisan support at the time, a level of consensus on immigration policy that would prove increasingly rare in the decades that followed.
5. An American Tail Released (November 21, 1986): Steven Spielberg’s first animated feature, the story of an immigrant mouse family separated in New York City, broke box-office records for an animated film’s opening weekend, a record previously held by Disney’s The Rescuers. Trivia: the film’s theme song, “Somewhere Out There,” went on to become a massive adult-contemporary hit in its own right the following year.
6. Cary Grant Dies (November 29, 1986): The legendary leading man, known for decades of effortless charm in films like North by Northwest and Bringing Up Baby, died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Davenport, Iowa, while on tour with his one-man stage show. Trivia: Grant was famously never nominated for a competitive acting Oscar during his active career, receiving only an honorary Academy Award in 1970 for his lifetime body of work.
Top Events in December 1986 Pop Culture History
1. Platoon Opens (December 19, 1986): Oliver Stone’s unflinching, semi-autobiographical Vietnam War drama opened in limited release before expanding nationwide, eventually winning Best Picture and cementing Stone’s reputation as one of Hollywood’s most fearless directors. Trivia: Stone based the film directly on his own experiences as an infantry soldier in Vietnam, a rare instance of a major studio war film written by someone who had actually lived it.
2. “Walk Like an Egyptian” by The Bangles Begins Its Run at No. 1 (December 20, 1986): This quirky, dance-craze single spent two weeks at number one before the year closed out, then returned for two more weeks in early 1987, ultimately logging four total weeks atop the chart split across two calendar years. Trivia: the song’s signature dance move was reportedly born out of session guitarist and songwriter Liam Sternberg simply goofing around during rehearsals.
3. “The Way It Is” by Bruce Hornsby and the Range Hits No. 1 (December 1986): This piano-driven single, addressing racial and economic inequality in plainspoken terms, became an unlikely chart-topper for a relatively low-key singer-songwriter act more associated with the Grateful Dead orbit than the pop charts. Trivia: the song’s central piano riff was later sampled by rapper Tupac Shakur for his own 1998 hit “Changes.”
4. “The Next Time I Fall” by Peter Cetera and Amy Grant Hits No. 1 (December 1986): This duet gave Cetera his second solo number-one of the year, following August’s “Glory of Love,” and gave contemporary Christian music star Amy Grant her first and only pop chart-topper. Trivia: the pairing was reportedly Cetera’s idea after hearing Grant’s voice on Christian radio and deciding it would blend perfectly with his own.
5. Little Shop of Horrors Released (December 19, 1986): This musical adaptation, featuring a giant man-eating plant with a taste for blood and a soul-belting voice, brought the beloved off-Broadway show to the big screen with Rick Moranis in the lead role. Trivia: the film’s original ending, faithful to the stage musical’s darker conclusion, tested so poorly with early audiences that the studio ultimately reshot it with a happier finale for theatrical release.
