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1987 Fun Facts, Trivia and History |
Quick Facts from 1987:Table of Contents |
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Top Ten Baby Names of 1987:Jessica, Ashley, Amanda, Jennifer, Sarah, Michael, Chris, Topher, Matthew, Joshua, David |
Fashion Icons and Sex Symbols:Elle Macpherson |
Hollywood Hunks and Leading Men:Johnny Depp, Michael Jackson, Sean Connery, Mel Gibson, Michael Hutchence, Morrissey, Mickey Rourke, Patrick Swayze, Tom Jones |
“The Quotes”“I’m going to Disney World.” “This is your brain… This is drugs… This is your brain on drugs.” “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” “Snap out of it!” “Nobody puts ‘Baby’ in a corner.” “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” |
Time Magazine’s Man of the Year:Mikhail Gorbachev |
Miss America:Kellye Cash (Memphis, TN) |
Miss USA:Michelle Royer (Texas) |
The Scandals:Jim Bakker resigned as the PTL (Praise The Lord) Club host in 1987 after a scandal involving former secretary Jessica Hahn. Gary Hart, a Democrat, abandoned his 1988 campaign for U.S. president after details of his alleged affair with Donna Rice became public. Prior, he challenged reporters to “Follow me” around, and they did.
Iran-Contra – Reagan security advisor Ollie North was part of a plan to help anti-communist Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua with funds from Iran, which directly (or indirectly) got hostages out of Iran. Israel may or may not have been involved in the deal as well. It was much more confusing than it sounds here. |
Pop Culture Facts & History:Eli Lilly & Company’s Prozak was first sold to the public. The Garbage Pail Kids were made into a live-action movie in 1987, with a cast of little people. Beastie Boys Licensed to Ill album made history in 1987 as the first rap album to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, and it spent seven straight weeks at No.1. Red M&Ms were discontinued in 1976 in response to the “red dye scare” over Red Dyes #2 and #4, which had been considered cancerous. M&M’s were made with Red Dye #40, but the public was afraid of any food being dyed red. Red M&M’s were reintroduced in 1987. 1987 was the year that Red Bull started accelerating parties. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis invented and patented (#4,753,647) a diaper modification, a moisture-proof pocket containing wipes for easy access. She refused to allow it to be marketed until companies started selling biodegradable diapers; the patent expired in 2007 and is now in the public domain. The heaviest newspaper ever delivered was the September 14, 1987 edition of the New York Times. It weighed 12 lbs. and contained 1,612 pages. In 1987, Steve Rothstein bought a lifetime unlimited first-class American Airlines ticket. He flew over 10,000 flights, costing the company $21,000,000. They terminated his ticket in 2008. In addition to his AAirpass for $250,000, he got a companion ticket for $150,000 more. Italy’s Andrea de Cesaris, the driver who placed 3rd in the 1987 Belgian Grand Prix, finished the race by pushing his car over the finish line because the car had run out of gas. In 1987, 50% of the US population had access to 9-1-1 emergency service numbers. When the Pope visited Arizona in 1987, 75,000 Catholics attended mass at a local university’s stadium. The stadium’s name and the mascot’s image had to be covered because their mascot is the devil holding a pitchfork, and the stadium’s name was Sun Devil Stadium. During their 1987 Joshua Tree tour, the Irish rock band U2 occasionally appeared on stage as a “local” country band known as “The Dalton Brothers,” complete with wigs and costumes. A new word, “Borked,” came into the political arena, meaning “railroaded through an interview, with no chance of being approved.” Some 7 million American children suddenly disappeared in 1987 when the IRS started demanding that their Social Security numbers be included on the tax returns of those claiming them as dependents. In 1987 Harvey Comics sued Columbia Pictures for $50 million, claiming that the Ghostbusters logo was too reminiscent of Fatso from ‘Casper the Friendly Ghost’. The court ruled in Columbia’s favor, citing the “limited ways to draw a figure of a cartoon ghost.” Roger Cadenhead registered the domain name benedictxvi.com several weeks before Pope Benedict XVI chose the name. He said he would give it to the Vatican for a miter and “complete absolution, no questions asked, for the third week of March 1987”. His offer was declined, and he donated the domain to ModestNeedsorg. Since 1720, the Baltic Sea has frozen over 20 times, and the most recent case was in early 1987. Tennis bracelets became known as ‘tennis bracelets’ in 1987 when that type of bracelet became popular after the tennis player Chris Evert lost her bracelet on air at the US Open. In 1987, Bruce Willis released a Motown R&B album called The Return of Bruno, with Respect Yourself reaching #5 on the US Billboard Pop Chart. Steven Spielberg’s film Empire of the Sun (1987), about a boy surviving Japanese occupation during World War II, received six Oscar nominations but lost all of them to The Last Emperor ( also 1987), the story of the final Emperor of China. There is no national minimum drinking age in the United States. Instead, a law called the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 punishes states that allow anyone under 21 to purchase alcohol by cutting their federal highway funds by 10%. The last state to comply was Louisiana in 1987. To lower the retail price of the VHS release of Top Gun in 1987 to a more affordable $27, Pepsi sponsored a 60-second ad before the film. $27 is $60 in today’s dollars. Bras were not shown on live models in TV commercials until 1987… before that, they had to be displayed on headless/armless mannequins. A treasure hunter named Tommy Thompson located a ship that sank in 1857 called the SS Central America. The ship carried several tons of gold; in 1987, he recovered up to $1 billion worth of gold. He never paid back his crew or investors. Tom’s Restaurant, the inspiration for Suzanne Vega’s 1987 song Tom’s Diner, is the same diner used as the exterior for the fictional Monk’s Café in the television sitcom Seinfeld. In 1987 someone wearing a Max Headroom mask interrupted 2 TV broadcasts in Chicago. The FBI investigation was never solved. Jon Bon Jovi’s parents were attending a wedding in 1987 when they recommended the wedding singer try out for Jon’s friend’s band. The singer was Sebastian Bach, and that band became Skid Row. The tallest unoccupied building in the world is a 3,000-room hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea. Construction on the 1,082-foot Ryugyong Hotel began in 1987 and was halted in 1992. After many attempts to resurrect the project, the hotel still hasn’t opened 28 years after construction began. Bebop & Rocksteady were added to the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon primarily because the toy company wanted more characters to sell. Thousands of cans filled with 1.5 kg of pot started washing ashore on the coast of Rio and São Paulo. In total, there were 22 tons of marijuana dumped by traffickers scared of the DEA while parked near Brazil. The cans were collected at the beaches. The Summer of 1987 was known as the ‘Summer of the Can.’ The 1987 Porsche 944 was the first car sold with standard driver and passenger-side airbags. Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx suffered a heroin overdose that left him legally dead for two minutes. One of his paramedics, who was a Crüe fan, revived him with two shots of adrenaline. This is what motivated the song “Kickstart My Heart”. In 1987, Mike Hayes convinced 2.8 million people to send him a penny each for his college education at the University of Illinois. Some people sent more. He raised $29,000, one thousand more than his target. The famous “Keyboard Cat” video was originally filmed in 1984, and its star, Fatso, died in 1987, twenty years before it was posted on YouTube. 300,000+ People joined on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge to celebrate its 75th anniversary. The sheer weight of all those people flattened the bridge and caused the middle to sag 7 feet (or 15 feet, depending on who is telling the story). Until 1987, surgeries could be performed on babies with no anesthesia, as it was commonly thought that babies could not feel pain. #wut “Baby Jessica” (Jessica McClure), who fell down a well in October of 1987 and was rescued after 58 hours, received $1.2 million for a trust fund from multiple donations. She used part of those funds at age 25 to purchase a home but lost most of what was left in the stock market crash in 2008. Cost of a Super Bowl ad in 1987: $600,000 |
| Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, has gone through 9 name changes since being built in 1987. Joe Robbie Stadium (August 16, 1987 – August 25, 1996) Pro Player Park August (26, 1996 – September 9, 1996) Pro Player Stadium (September 10, 1996 – January 9, 2005) Dolphins Stadium (January 10, 2005 – April 7, 2006) Dolphin Stadium (April 8, 2006 – May 7, 2009) Land Shark Stadium (May 8, 2009 – January 5, 2010) Dolphin Stadium (January 6, 2010 – January 19, 2010) Sun Life Stadium (January 20, 2010 – January 31, 2016) New Miami Stadium (February 1, 2016 – August 16, 2016) Hard Rock Stadium (August 17, 2016–present) |
The Spy:In 1987, FBI agent Robert Hanssen was tasked by his superiors to find a mole within the agency after the FBI’s moles in the KGB were caught. He was the mole, working with the KGB since 1979. He was caught in 2001. |
The Feuds:Singer/songwriter Debbie ‘Foolish Beat’ Gibson vs Tiffany, who sang Tommy James’ I Think We’re Alone Now. |
After two and a half seasons, David and Maddie ‘did it’ on TV’s Moonlighting. Then, the audience stopped watching the show. The U.S. Senate rejected Robert Bork as a Ronald Reagan Supreme Court Justice. |
The Habit:Watching Moonlighting until about 1/2 way through the season. |
Nobel Prize Winners:Physics – J. Georg Bednorz, Karl Alexander Müller |
1st Appearances & 1987’s Most Popular Christmas Gifts, Toys and Presents:Double Loves transforming plush animals, Jenga, Koosh ball, and Pictionary (Pictionary has been available in small markets since 1985) Spuds MacKenzie first appeared in Bud Light beer advertisements. |
Popular and Best-selling Books From 1987:A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking |
Broadway Show:Les Miserables (Musical) Opened on March 12, 1987, and closed on May 18, 2003 |
Best Film Oscar Winner:Platoon (presented in 1987) |
The Bomb (Movie):Ishtar starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman |
The Bomb (Television):Shelly Long Quit the popular NBC TV Show Cheers |
The Big Movies: (according to boxofficemojo)1. Three Men and A Baby |
1987 Most Popular TV Shows:1. The Cosby Show (NBC) |
1987 Billboard Number One Songs:December 20, 1986 – January 16, 1987: January 17 – January 23: January 24 – February 6: February 7 – February 13: February 14 – March 13: March 14 – March 11: March 21 – April 3: April 4 – April 17: April 18 – May 1: May 2 – May 15: May 16 – June 5: June 6 – June 12: June 13 – June 19: June 20 – June 6: June 27 – July 10: July 11 – July 31: August 1 – August 7: August 8 – August 21: August 22 – August 28: August 29 – September 18: September 19 – September 25: September 26 – October 9: October 10 – October 16: October 17 – October 23: October 24 – November 6: November 7 – November 20: November 21 – November 27: November 28 – December 4: December 5 – December 11: December 12, 1987 – January 8, 1988: |
Sports:World Series Champions: Minnesota Twins |
More 1987 Facts and History Resources:Most Popular Baby Names (BabyCenter.com) |
