Woohoo, it is 1982…again. Let’s go back in time and see what was happening during the week of April 1, 1982:
The Oscars were held and Chariots of Fire won Best Picture. Henry Fonda won his first Oscar at the age of 76 for his role in On Golden Pond (although he did get an honorary Oscar the year before. Fittingly enough, movie legend Katharine Hepburn also won an Oscar that year for On Golden Pond. Warren Beatty won Best Director for Reds. Who was the Oscar host? None other than Johnny Carson! Having just lost co-star and good friend John Belushi a month earlier, award presenter Dan Ackroyd paid tribute to Belushi, saying he “would have loved this – he was somewhat of a special effect himself.”
On the boob tube, it was announced that “Little House on the Praire” would return for a 9th season, but without parental figures Michael Landon and Karen Grassie. The Thursday night lineup on CBS included “Cagney and Lacey” and “Knot’s Landing” while over on NBC you could find “Diff’rent Strokes” and “Gimme a Break.” Highly rated shows included “Three’s Company,” “Dukes of Hazzard,” and “One Day at a Time.”
As for music, New Wave artists like the GoGos and The Police were starting to break onto the charts. Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll” was a favorite as was Stevie Wonder’s “That Girl.” Also popular was “Sweet Dreams” by Air Supply, “Edge of Seventeen” by Stevie Nicks, and “Bobbie Sue” by the Oak Ridge Boys.
If you were guilty of saying “Eh?” or calling someone a “hoser” in 1982, chances are you were a big fan of Bob & Doug McKenzie (played by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas), a skit from SCTV.
Sports fans may have seen Michael Jordan sink a 16-foot shot to give North Carolina the win over Georgetown for the NCAA Basketball title. By the way, Patrick Ewing was playing for Georgetown.
In the news, President Ronald Reagan began a weekly series of radio addresses to the nation while the government still tried to recover from the air traffic controllers strike. The Office of Personnel Management had to test trainees in hopes of replacing the 11,500 controllers fired after an illegal strike the previous August. The Falklands War started this week, with the UK and Argentina fighting over the set of islands.