Happy National Handwriting Day! Someday, when all the AIs have realized humans are stupid and boring and they take all our technology and leave the planet for somewhere else more interesting, we'll have a need for writing by hand once again. But that probably won't happen until way after I'm dead, so whatevs.
This is The Reset Button from Classic Nerd, resetting your day.
Here are five things that happened on January 23rd at the intersection of nerd and pop culture.
Birthdays of honor: Tiffani Thiessen (1974), Randolph Scott (1898), Rutger Hauer (1944), John Hancock (1737), Django Reinhardt (1910), Lead Belly (1888), Richard Dean Anderson (1950).
40 years ago today, the golden age of professional wrestling was born when Hulk Hogan defeated the Iron Sheik to win his first WWF title at Madison Square Garden.
Hogan, aka Terry Gene Bollea, was filling in for an injured Bob Backlund. I wonder what the script had originally called for, and how it ended up that they decided to give this rising yet largely unknown character his shot at the title, but hell, I'm betting Vince McMahon and co. are glad they did.
The match set off Hulkamania in earnest, skyrocketing Hogan to superstardom — probably because he was the first person to escape Shiek's deadly Camel Clutch. But more than that, it kicked off an era of bigger-than-life personas, awesome video games, and pay-per-views that my parents definitely couldn't afford.
In 1983 children everywhere learned what it really means to be a team — and that you should try to escape prison if you're wrongfully convicted — when The A-Team premiered on NBC.
Featuring George Peppard, Mr. T, and Dirk Benedict (among others), the show ran for five seasons and 98 episodes. It was a surprise hit, which itself is surprising to me. It featured Mr. T dropping hilarious sayings, lots of rockets and explosions, weapons being made out of random items, and a kick-ass theme song. I love it when a plan comes together.
I also have a vague memory of seeing an A-Team stunt show at Universal Studios, and I swear to you that it was the actual actors from the show. That would, of course, be shocking, but try telling that to five-year-old me.
If you were looking to spice up your life today in 1998, you were in for a treat: Spice World, the universally panned "movie" featuring the Spice Girls, was released in theaters in the United States.
Say what you will, but plenty of people saw this movie, including you, probably — it broke the box office record for a Super Bowl weekend and remains the highest-grossing movie of all time made by a musical group.
Today in 1988 Tiffany's persistence at malls paid off when her debut, self-titled album, went to number one — and at 16, making her the youngest female artist to achieve that feat.
