I'm going back through what comprised my senior year of high school and first semester of college in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Come along for the ride. New posts every day or so mixed in with other things.
April 12, 1985. One of the biggest highlights of my senior year of high school was being part of the Quiz Bowl team. Our team was at Martin College in Pulaski, Tennessee on this date. I'm pretty sure the Katman drove several of us down on that day. We did pretty well finishing around 4th or 5th like we had been consistently doing which was pretty good considering it was the first year for our team. There may have been academic squads before at Riverdale, but if there had been I'm unaware. We were either the first or the first revival. A few years after my graduation the team would win a state championship.
This was the one contest where I emerged as the top scorer for the team. I was usually 2nd best to DD Blank. I had struggled through most of the day and seriously thought about benching myself for the last round. I had been a starter all year which a pleasant surprise for me. I was always a trivia nut which was a big help in the academic bowl world. I was strong in everything but mathematics, but DD had that covered. One of our advisors/coaches Becky Hofstetter wouldn't let me sit out the last game. I felt tired yet the questions asked all seemed to be ones I immediately knew the answers to so I was buzzing in at a hectic rate. I ended up the lead scorer of the team for the day based on this one game. I think I was in the top 5 overall too.
When we drove back to Murfreesboro that afternoon I convinced several of my teammates to go see The Breakfast Club at the Martin Four. I wrote about this on one of my best Film Flashbacks several years back.
I'm going back through what comprised my senior year of high school and first semester of college in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Come along for the ride. New posts every day or so mixed in with other things.
February 8, 1985. The Warriors were on the road at White County on this night which worked out good for me. The boys stayed undefeated on the eve of our snow delayed Homecoming game which will be against Manchester on the 9th. Sparta was a little too far for me to go see them play so I was to take in a sneak preview of The Breakfast Club. I would later see The Breakfast Club again in April and this would get mixed up in my memories for decades. I wrote about this on my April 17, 2020 Film Flashback. I think it's one of the best film flashbacks.
Chicks cannot hold their smoke....
February 9, 1985 Daily News Journal report on RHS basketball
It was a Wednesday in Murfreesboro on April 17, 1985. My senior year of high school was in its last furious full swing. We'd dodged having to move graduation until the middle of June by having our spring break taken after January and February snows caused us to miss almost 4 weeks of school. Those were glorious frozen days, but the spring thaw had come and fresh movies had arrived along with one film that was in its second to last night after playing for 19 straight weeks.
The Cinema Twin offers up the biographical story of the The Killing Fields. It's about a journalist trapped in Cambodia during the dark and terrible reign of Pol Pot. The trailer is very intense. The other movie is Stephen King's Cat's Eye. I haven't seen it, but the trailer is interesting. It's an anthological horror film with a stray cat linking each story. Both of these movies played for just one week so they were near the end of their stay in Murfreesboro.
The Martin Four has got you covered with fantasy, cop comedy and drama, and one of my favorite films ever made.
Ladyhawke directed by Richard Donner stars Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer, and Michelle Pfeiffer and is a megadose of fantasy. This movie would stick around for an additional week.
Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment continues in the dumb humor style of the first movie. Bobcat Goldthwait steals the show as the evil Zed. I didn't see this one in the theatre, but I saw it on VHS back in the day. Guttenberg and company would play at the Martin Four for 9 weeks. This was its 3rd week.
Beverly Hills Cop was in its 19th and final week at the Martin Four. Somehow I never went to see it, but I caught it later on video. Eddie Murphy is great as Axel Foley. It really is a deft fish out of water comedy mixed with just enough drama to have you on the edge of your seat. There's a reason it played so long and that reason is it's a darn good movie.
The last movie is the one dearest to my heart. The Breakfast Club was the perfect movie for a high school senior to watch. I'm not going to delve into the plot because if you've read this far I'm sure you know it yourself. I did love how the movie was more like a play and the actors were all fantastic. I bought a movie poster of it from Collector's World even. Most intriguing for me was when I thought back to when I had seen it because after delving deeper into the past I discovered a mystery. There were a couple of things I knew for a fact.
I saw the film one week before seeing Vision Quest which is another essential 80's movie and I saw the film with teammates of the Riverdale Quiz Bowl team. We had been at a competition at Martin College in Pulaski on a Friday. We drove back to Murfreesboro that evening and I insisted we needed to see the movie so myself, DD Blank, Radargirl, the Katman, and perhaps Rob P also went to see it. I remember Radargirl loving the Bowie quote from "Changes" used at the beginning of the film. Since The Breakfast Club general release was on February 15th that had to be the night we saw it, right? Wrong. Boy was I wrong. It's not your heart that dies when you get older it's your memory.
So I did some research. It turned out that Vision Quest came out on February 15th also and unlike The Breakfast Club it did play in Murfreesboro on that date. It played for two weeks. I definitely went to see Vision Quest on February 15 because I met my cousin Freddy in town and he had brought along a couple of girls. We saw the movie and then drove around town in my old Plymouth Fury II with the ladies. That was a bit unusual as I didn't see my cousin as much in those days as I had when we were younger. So why had I remembered seeing The Breakfast Club the week before? Had I really seen it then and then seen it again with my Quiz Bowl teammates? I had. And here's how:
February 8, 1985 DNJ
I was there that night for this sneak peek. I had seen a trailer and the movie looked interesting to me. So I had seen it before Vision Quest. Note, I had not even seen Sixteen Candles at this point. I vaguely recognized Molly Ringwald as having been in the movie Spacehunter: Adventures In The Forbidden Zone which I had seen at the theatre outside Hickory Hollow a year or so before and I remembered her from the first half season of The Facts Of Life as she was part of the original cast. She was not yet the icon that The Breakfast Club made her. Seeing her in The Breakfast Club made me want to see her in other things and ABC was about to air a TV movie about teen suicide titled Surviving. This aired on February 10, 1985. There was even a blurb about it in that same issue of DNJ. Of course, I watched this movie when it aired.
I had already seen The Breakfast Club long before I saw it again with my Quiz Bowl teammates. The movie began its regular showing at the Martin on April 12th. So that was the day of our competition at Martin College. I insisted they see it because I had seen it and knew it was great. I was going to see it again with or without them. But seeing it with them made it all that much better. There was a core group of us on that Quiz Bowl team that had gone to all of the early morning practices and had gone to every competition and we had a great time together. I loved all of then and love them all still. A good friend of mine once said the best thing about being in the marching band was being part of something bigger than themselves and that's the way I feel about Quiz Bowl too. My senior year of high school was pretty darn cool and the last few months were close to being outright magical. The whole world seemed to be opening up for me and everything seemed to be in on it....if you get my drift. Writer and director of The Breakfast Club John Hughes definitely was in on it. Oh, and in case you are wondering The Breakfast Club only played for one week in Murfreesboro.
When I helped deejay the student council dance I brought The Breakfast Club soundtrack.
Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did was wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain......an athlete...... a basket case......a princess......and a criminal...Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.
It's time once again to look through an old Tennessean Sunday Showcase to see what I can find. This post is coronavirus free and guaranteed to bring you a smile or leave you muttering under your breath, The cover brings us Betty Boop who was in the midst of an umpteenth revival, Miss Piggy and Kermit shilling for "The Muppet Show On Tour", the Chieftains, and Roger Whittaker who is billed as the Mellow Music Master.
First up we're going to examine a whole slew (how much constitutes a slew?) of ads for satellite television. Cable TV had taken hold and those beyond the reach needed their fix too. Plus, we were in that brief window of time that satellite TV could often pick up unscrambled cable stations for free....well minus the cost of installing the monster dish. I wonder how many of these businesses are still around? Here are the ads along with some songs released before this date that mention satellites.
she drove a Plymouth Satellite faster than the speed of light
You know I don't like where you come from it's just a satellite of London
I watched it for a little while
Timothy Leary should have trademarked turn on and turn off
The other big craze of the 80's was VCR's and by 1985 it had calmed down a little, but I was surprised to see that you could once rent movies at Circuit City. I loved to visit Circuit City from the age of 13 or so until I was out of high school just to go into the car stereo playback room manipulating the dials.
If I ventured into the car stereo room on this week back in 1985 and turned on the pop station here is what I might have heard. This Top Ten is definitely full of pop with nary a real rock song in sight. That doesn't make it a bad list, but it does tend to be boring. The only song out of this batch I owned was David Lee Roth's cover of "California Girls" since I had bought the Crazy From The Heat EP that day it was released.
What was going in Nashville music wise besides The Chieftains and Roger Whittaker? The local scene was still buzzing at Cantrell's with a full slate of shows happening.
Cantrell's Stage Announcements by Rick Champion
So the Bible tells me so...
Foreigner would be playing M.T.S.U's Murphy Center with Giuffria opening a month from this issue's edition date. "I Want To Know What Love Is" was still on the Nashville Top Ten list having been on it 12 weeks. Boy, did I hate that tune and I still do. It's just complete treacle. I'd hear it come on and immediately think to myself.....man, these guys used to rock.
There was other upcoming soft music to choose from. Dan Fogelberg was coming to town soon to play the Grand Ole Opry House with an ace band of country rock musicians.
Debby Boone was set to amp up her volume though with an all new techno-pop sound in her performance at TPAC on March 18, 1985.
Be careful you could be entering the danger zone
The Backstreet club located at Nolensville Road and Haywood Lane was bringing us some "New Wave" music with The Wrong Band and the Top 40 stylings of The Grip. Thursday was ladies night and Sunday was 2 for 1 (I'm assuming drinks?). The Wrong Band had put out a great 45 called "I Live In My Car" that I really liked. I can't find it online, but maybe I will dig through my stuff sometime and post it even though I'm pretty sure it skips.
The Muppets would be at Municipal Auditorium for 6 performances. You could see them in the morning and in the evening on Friday. Perhaps the night time show was edgier.
New Orleans
Muppets rule!
Tuesday March 26, 1985 would bring an interesting tribute show to the Grand Old Opry House. The legendary WLAC disc jockey John R. would be honored in a star studded night of music. Just check out that list of performers below and the night would be hosted by another legend Wolfman Jack, I would have loved to have seen this show. Read all about John R. at the Wikipedia page devoted to him. When people think of Nashville they think of country music, but WLAC-AM 1560 was playing rhythm and blues during the overnight hours with a 50,000 watts reach throughout the 50's, 60's, and into the 70's. Gene Nobles, Herman Grizzard, Hoss Allen, and John R(ichbourg) reached almost half the country with the sounds that were the beginnings of what became rock and roll.
The last thing this week is this ad for The Breakfast Club being in its final week. I've got a Film Flashback post coming up in April about seeing this incredible film multiple times in 1985 and many times over since. I have the blu-ray after all. I hope you've enjoyed this Sunday Showcase review and will come back for another one next week.
