Everybody Cut Footloose: The Soundtrack

Carolyn Cochrane 0:00

Ariel's bad, bad boyfriend pulls up behind them in his pickup truck, and we start to see that Ariel is not this Goody, two shoes, buttoned up pastor's daughter that we thought she might be. She is wild and she gets around.

Unknown Speaker 0:16

Hello World is a song that we're singing. Come on, get

Unknown Speaker 0:27

happy, bringing we'll make you happy.

Kristin Nilsen 0:31

Welcome to the pop culture Preservation Society, the podcast for people born in the big wheel generation whose anxiety began with the Game Perfection.

Carolyn Cochrane 0:41

We believe our Gen X childhoods gave us unforgettable songs, stories, characters and images, and if we don't talk about them, they'll disappear, like Marshall will and Holly on a routine expedition.

Michelle Newman 0:53

And today we're saving the music that saved dance in Beaumont, the soundtrack to the movie Footloose. I'm Carolyn, I'm Kristen, and I'm Michelle, and we are your pop culture preservationists.

Michelle Newman 1:15

From the very first drum hit, the soundtrack of Footloose isn't just playing in the background, it's basically grabbing you by the collar and saying, Pay attention. It pushes this movie forward, stomping its way through every scene. This movie doesn't work without the music. These songs tell us how suffocating this town is, how restless and trapped these kids feel, and how dancing ultimately saves them. And all of it was very intentional, besides apparently being sponsored by Coke, did you guys notice all the obvious product placement in this movie? Coke cans, Coke signs everywhere. We could say this movie is sponsored by Dean Pitchford, the real MVP, who is not only the screenwriter, but co wrote all nine songs on the OG soundtrack. Wow, isn't that crazy? And lots of our favorite films from the 80s use a soundtrack as background noise, but Footloose takes this to the next level. That soundtrack made the music as much of a part of the movie as the plot. Don't you agree 100% yes, yeah, you can't. It's almost like you can't have one without the other, right? Each iconic track serves as more than just a catchy melody. It defines the character's identities, and it fuels this high stakes battle for self expression. And as I just said, this was all very intentional, thanks to the movies true hero, not Kevin Bacon, Dean Pitchford. That's right, yeah, right. We're going to probably talk a little bit more about Dean Pitchford. There's a great video on YouTube called the making of Footloose. And in it, Dean Pitchford says I wrote the screenplay to Footloose, and so I wasn't just going to throw my hands up and walk away from it as a songwriter, nor was I going to stick the songs in there to sort of fill the gaps. I basically asked myself myself two questions whenever I wrote a song for a scene. One was, whose song is this? And the second question was, what are they singing about? What do they want? Oh, wow, I know

Kristin Nilsen 3:25

that's pretty brilliant, actually, yes, because all the songs are different. And so that's why, whose song is this that has many, many did I just totally interrupt you? Sorry this. When you first said, Whose song is this, my first thought was which performer like, Which singer is this? And then I was like, oh, no, no, she means which character, right? But it still works on both, on both levels, because even though Dean Pitchford co wrote all nine songs, every song is different. They're all like different genres. It's It's incredible,

Michelle Newman 3:58

yeah, and Dean Pitchford says they actually this one's gonna blow your mind. You guys, are you wearing hats? Dean Pitchford says they actually cast the movie based on the voices of the vocalists. Wait, wait. Okay, so listen, I'm gonna keep going like he said, It was like they were casting for a Disney animated movie. The voice of the singers were the subconscious voices of the actors, like Kenny Loggins was Kevin Bacon or vice versa. He said it's like a musical where the characters don't sing. So think of it. That's a musical, but the movie character is just not the one doing the singing.

Speaker 1 4:35

They're speaking for the character, right? They're speaking for the character.

Michelle Newman 4:39

It's so intentional. And so today, listeners, we'll be talking about this, how the Footloose soundtrack doesn't just set the vibe of the movie, but drives the story, fuels the conflict, and became a bit of a battle cry for us. Gen Xers, Kristin, what is your like? What's your connection with is what your what are your memories?

Kristin Nilsen 5:00

And this was a for sure, in the theater experience for me, I went with a big group of dancers. Of course, I went with a big group of dancers, and we stood in line at the Anoka theater in downtown Anoka to watch Kevin Bacon. And then when we left, everyone was in love with Kevin Bacon, and my friend Patty started going jump back. Every time you'd say something, she'd go jump back. Like, that was her new thing after seeing Footloose, which is Kevin, like, Kevin Bacon's like, big city, his big city idiom, jump back. Uh huh.

Carolyn Cochrane 5:34

Well, I was last week years old when I actually saw the movie for the first

Michelle Newman 5:40

I can't believe we're still letting you sit today.

Carolyn Cochrane 5:44

I can't believe you're not revoking my gen x card and kicking me off the podcast. But again, when I do a little of the research and look at the timeline, this would have been February of my freshman year of college. When the movie come when does the movie come out? 1984 four. Four, right? And so we February,

Michelle Newman 6:03

actually, February 17, so that was just a couple weeks ago.

Carolyn Cochrane 6:06

Yeah. So one, I'm at college. Two, nobody has a car, no. And we would have had to have gotten in a car and driven to a movie theater. And I think I've shared before, I can probably count on one hand how many times I actually went to a movie theater while I was in college to see a movie. But you guys, I knew every one of those songs. I danced every one of those songs my at all, like the all school parties all that spring. So when we were I was watching this movie last week, I was like, No, you had no idea. I had no idea. Like, I thought, That's not from Top Gun. Literally, I thought some of these were just standalone hits. I had no idea it was like I was getting whiplash every time a song would come on. I had to, like, pause the movie and just be, like, my whole vision of the song and the narrative in my head had to change, because this wasn't Denise Williams, just cute video that I saw on MTV.

Michelle Newman 7:02

What's so interesting about that? So to me, Carolyn is like, this is one of my favorite 80s movies, for sure. I mean, you guys know how I feel about Pretty in Pink, but this and Dirty Dancing, but Footloose is right up there. And I just, I don't get sick of sick of it. Now I don't watch it all the time, and when I watched it again a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't seen it and probably, you know, 1520 years. But I love it so much. I credit most of it to the soundtrack, to it together to, yeah, but ever since 1984 when I hear any of those songs Holding Out for a Hero, anything I picture the scene from the movie, Oh, absolutely. So you never have done that.

Carolyn Cochrane 7:42

No, I think I thought Holding Out for a Hero was from Top Gun, so I think I probably had Tom Cruise in my Oh yeah. Well no, but I just never Yeah. So I never had a visual from the movie to go with the song.

Michelle Newman 7:59

Well, I was gonna tell you, tell you something really funny when I watched it. Brian and I watched it together because he loves this movie too, a couple of weeks ago, and when it was over, I just looked at him, I was like, so good. And I said, I can't believe Carolyn has never seen it, and I'm so excited for her to see it, and I'm so excited to know what she thinks. And Brian just deadpan looks at me, and he goes, she'll probably feel bad for the guy in the truck, because Carolyn, I never seem pretty in pink, and she came to the discussion, I will defend stuff. I will stand by Steph, but I wonder if she's gonna defend Chuck. No, I'm not gonna defend Chuck.

Kristin Nilsen 8:36

You know for sure that Chuck has some daddy issues there you see. And stuff are the same person. They're the same person.

Michelle Newman 8:43

Well, that's a different conversation to your corners. We're gonna

Carolyn Cochrane 8:49

say, but I do want to say, like, if I could just have a second about the movie, because very soon into the movie, obviously I know Kevin Bacon is in it. I know that John Lithgow is in it. I know the singer girl. I mean, I just, yeah, Ariel. I had no idea until last week that Sarah Jessica Parker was in it. Yeah, no idea. And then there's Wren's mother. And I kept going. Is it, believe it or not, it's not the plumber. She was the mom from Apple's way. And

Michelle Newman 9:29

I never saw

Carolyn Cochrane 9:32

Apple's way, so I didn't, so you would never would have those moments, but like, I just, I felt really calm when she was on. I was like, she's a good she's a good one. But as I was watching it, I just thought again, who? Who is this person? How do I know it? And you guys, she is like a quintessential Gen X movie mom, because she was a mom in Gremlins Back to the Future and stand and stand by me.

Michelle Newman 9:53

Oh, my God. Okay, that's why she looks familiar to me.

Kristin Nilsen 9:57

When you said Apple's way, there was like a little explosion that went. Off in my head. I could sleep so immediate that I was like, of course, of course. And I couldn't tell you her name or anything. I couldn't have either. I just thought she was so familiar. I just thought because she was a character actress, like, Oh, certainly she's been in a lot of things. I never could have pulled out apples way

Carolyn Cochrane 10:15

I know. And you know what, you probably couldn't have pulled out this one. And this will be my last fun fact about Francis Lee McClain. She also starred in the CBS TV movie of the week, no other love, that starred Richard Thomas and Julie Kavanagh. It was kind of like the Sean Cassidy Linda Pearl movie, like normal people, like normal people, but it was calling no other love. So there you go. We will

Kristin Nilsen 10:44

never talk about we're never gonna talk about that movie,

Michelle Newman 10:47

yeah, we don't want to Google it. Just

Carolyn Cochrane 10:50

John boy and rhoda's sister. It just like

Kristin Nilsen 10:53

Simpson, John boy and Marge. Simpson, yeah,

Michelle Newman 10:57

that's like your you can invite three people to dinner. Who's it gonna be, let's see Mark, Simpson, John boy and Jesus. Well, let's just talk, just for a couple more minutes. Let's talk about the movie. Because while it was a huge favorite of so many of us, Gen Xers and spoke to us, it still holds up, I think, and it's relevant in this day. What do you guys think it was

Kristin Nilsen 11:19

hard to watch this movie at this moment in history. I have to be honest with you, when you see it in 1984 it's like, it's sort of like a fairy tale of something that could happen in this far off land, but it would never touch you. And when you watch it today, you're like, shit that's happening right now,

Michelle Newman 11:36

censorship, basically, of your self expression

Kristin Nilsen 11:41

and this and this divide of the the city people versus the small town people. And it's just, and it's turned up to 11, and it was more, I think it's more relevant today than it was in 1984

Carolyn Cochrane 11:56

Yeah, I thought, actually again, because I hadn't seen it until last week that I had to actually look it up, because I thought it was set in the 50s at first, like when I looked at, you know, the first scene is there in church, and it's Sunday, and if you go and look at what the girls are wearing, they have like, cardigans on and button down shirts. He's the only one that looks like and I bet this was certainly intentional, because he's got like, the skinny tie on and, like, that kind of unstructured, structured blazer, but between what the girls are wearing, and then she's like, we're gonna go to get a soda at the ice box. And it's like, this kind of happy go lucky. Almost feel like this town is stuck in another time, and it wasn't really, until probably one of the scenes where I saw cars that I thought, okay, that's now, but yeah, there never even got the feeling of being in the 80s, yeah, based on what this town was like stuck in well.

Michelle Newman 12:53

And, you know, the movie is based on a true story that had just happened a couple of years before. So in the early 80s in Oklahoma, this the fictional town of, I mean, this in the movie, it's taking place in Beaumont is supposed to be Utah, but it actually, this all is a true story. This is all based on a true story. Yeah. It was directed by Herbert Ross. It opened at number one, and it was at the time, the hot at the time. Let's just everybody hear that at the time, it was the highest grossing February release in film history. Oh, wow, which is pretty big. So then tell me this. Riddle me this. Listeners, Carolyn and Kristen, how does this movie, to this day only have a 55% on Rotten Tomatoes? No, come on. Yes, it does. What the hell? Why? What do they say exactly?

Kristin Nilsen 13:42

That's a crowd. This was such a crowd pleaser. Like there was nobody that was like, it was fine. Everybody was running.

Michelle Newman 13:53

Yes, the cast and Carolyn, you just said most of them, but you know, I'll just Kevin Bacon, Laurie singer, Chris Penn, John Lithgow, Diane, Wiest, Sarah, Jessica Parker, among a lot of other. Francis Lee McClendon, remember that she would go, who is it? So you've got this powerhouse cast, you've got this incredible soundtrack, you've got a really tight, I think, great story, you've got good writing. I don't know. I don't get

Unknown Speaker 14:19

it. I have, I have my feelings about what it could be.

Michelle Newman 14:23

Okay, well, I think it's Laura singer, well, there's no denying that what Dean Pitchford and his crew set out to do was a success, and the Footloose soundtrack played an enormous part of it. It hit number one on the US Billboard, 200 chart by April. Do you guys want to guess what song, what album it knocked off April of 84 it's gonna be something off. It was thriller. Good job. Kristen, very much. Thank you. Thank you. You get to wear the pop culture crown. The crown, yeah, and it held that position for 10 weeks, and it contained six Billboard Hot, 100 Top 40 hits. Three of those reached the top 10. And one of the reasons the soundtrack did play such a huge part of the movie's success is because the soundtrack was released a couple of weeks before the movie. The soundtrack was released on January 27 1984 the movie was released on February 17, 1984 and fun fact, listeners, we're actually recording this episode right now. It is February 17. We're not do this all the

Unknown Speaker 15:31

time, not on purpose. We are pop culture witches. No, you're

Michelle Newman 15:34

listening to it. You know, in the future a couple of weeks, but still. So we're all celebrating basically 42 years of Footloose. But yeah, so the soundtrack was released before the movie, as well as the video, the official Footloose video. Now Kevin Bacon says in that that little YouTube video the making of Footloose, and I'll put a link to that in this week's Weekly Reader, because it's super good. He says MTV really launched this movie, because the video for Footloose is just a bunch of clips from the movie. Kenny lock ins isn't even in it at all. It's like a big trailer, yeah? So audiences know, yeah, exactly. It's like a three and a half minute trailer, and they don't

Kristin Nilsen 16:15

have to pay for it. They don't have to. It's not an advertisement, yeah? They give the video to MTV, and men, MTV plays it for free. Don't have to pay for

Michelle Newman 16:23

so many great scenes set to this amazing song that I'll tell you about just in a minute. You know that obviously written for the movie. And so they are like, I want more. I want more. So he says they couldn't believe that the lines were around the block when the movie premiered because everybody had seen all the dancing. They had seen the prom, you know, part of the prom scene and, and, you know, cutie patootie Kevin.

Kristin Nilsen 16:47

Oh, my God, I know. Yeah. So when we talk about the music of Footloose, we have to acknowledge that the 80s was so rich with soundtracks, right, in a way that other eras are not. And there's a reason for that, it's because music started to be used differently in movies in the 80s. Okay, I'm gonna get a little nerdy. Are you ready? Oh, just for a second. We love it. Yeah, a little nerdy. So in general, there are two ways that you can use songs in movies, not I'm not talking about a score, I'm not talking about music, I'm talking about songs. And that is, here are my nerdy words, diegetically and non diegetically. So diegetic, yep, take notes, sharpen your pencils, eye diegetic, non diegetic. Diegetic songs. That's music that exists in the world of the movie, meaning that the characters can hear it. A character may stop and break into song the cantina. You walk into the Cantina in Star Wars and the band is playing. The people in the movie can hear that music, non diegetic music, is not part of the real world of the movie. The characters cannot hear it, only the viewer hears it, and it's there for the viewer to understand something like about the vibe or the tone of the scene, or it's providing commentary about what's happening in the scene, or about your character, like when Rocky is running up the steps of the museum, he's gonna fly now, right? Or Rocky has the eye of the tiger. We're learning something from this song. And in the 50s and the 60s, all we had was diegetic music. We only had characters singing the song, or characters dancing to a song that was being played by a band in the movie, or an anthem. The only other thing would be an anthem over opening credits. But that's separate. That's a different thing. We didn't have non diegetic music until the graduate COO, COO, coochoo, Mrs. Robinson, that's the first time we had a song where somebody wasn't singing it or listening to it. And this is why the 80s is the golden age of soundtracks, because diegetic music came of age from the graduate and it was peaking in the 80s. And before watching Footloose this week, I would have told you that all of the songs in Footloose were non diegetic as we that's how we think of a soundtrack, right?

Michelle Newman 19:09

One, the first one where they can't hear it too, right? Or where they are hearing it too, no, they can't hear it. To say, I was about to say, no, they they're actually listening to the same things.

Kristin Nilsen 19:22

We very sneaky. It's very sneaky. And Footloose, you think that it's just music that's playing for the viewer like we that's how we think of soundtracks. But Footloose walked a very fine line by doing some very small but clever things to make the songs more than just background music for the viewer. They were super sneaky. So as we go through these songs, I'll let you know

Carolyn Cochrane 19:46

I can only think of one,

Michelle Newman 19:49

one thing that I thought was funny watching it again, that I don't know that I noticed all the other times I've seen it, that boom box gets passed around unless they all have the same boom box. That's right, but that's right. Different is. Always carrying that same boombox. There's always a boom box, yeah, for sure. Well, in a town where dancing is illegal, these songs become the character's way of communicating. So Are y'all ready? Okay, we're gonna go song by song of this iconic soundtrack in the order they appear in the movie, and discuss not.

Michelle Newman 20:30

Right out of the gate. The song Footloose tells you exactly what kind of movie this is going to be and what it's about without saying a word of dialog, some facts you might not know. Kenny Loggins wrote the 1984 hit as a favor to his friend and screenwriter our hero, who is everybody listening. I want you to get your beverage of choice, if it's alcoholic rate, and tell us how much, either how full you are of liquid by the end, or how drunk you are by drinking every time we say Dean Pittsford.

Kristin Nilsen 21:01

Okay, I have to add to did you got did that name sound familiar to you guys? Dean pittford, a

Michelle Newman 21:06

little bit fame, fame.

Kristin Nilsen 21:09

Oh, and I don't know. I can't, I didn't Google it, so I can't give you all the stats. I just know that there was, he was involved in the music in some way. I'm gonna guess he was the lyricist for fame. So He is no stranger to the soundtrack.

Michelle Newman 21:21

Oh yeah, he's so great. Well, he he needed a title song for his little movie he was writing called Footloose and and Kenny Loggins had, you know, at the time, he was still mostly known for the soft rock stylings, kind of with Jim Messina. He'd had a handful of breakout solo hits, but he had recently written, I'm all right, for Caddyshack. I mean, in 1980 so you know that had been a few years before at the time. Let's not forget, he was probably writing this in like 1982 for this movie. And that song was a huge breakout for him, and became kind of like an anthem for Caddyshack. So he was more than willing to branch out and be like, Yeah, all right, another one. He says he wrote the song Footloose in one day. Wow. Kenny Loggins, who are these people? And there's a great behind the scenes story about the conception and the writing process of Footloose in Kenny Loggins, his memoir called still. All right. I love the title, still. All right, but the vulture article, where I read this excerpt, it's the whole thing, is just way too long to share right now, because we have a soundtrack to get to, yeah, so I will include the link in this week's Weekly Reader. It's very much worth reading, and it's actually made me want to now listen to his memoir. Okay, Footloose, the song, spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 from March 31 to April 14, 1984 and this was Kenny Loggins is only chart topper. I was surprised by that. This is only number one. Well, you know, this is according to like Wikipedia and places like that. So yeah, Footloose was the first of two number one hits from the film, and Bill bird ranked it at the number four song of all songs in 1984 I think that's good place.

Kristin Nilsen 23:09

Yeah, I think that's that's about right, considering how big the movie was and the role that the movie played in in popular culture at that moment, that seems about right.

Carolyn Cochrane 23:16

And to me that like, totally the beat of that song is, like, the beat of every dance I think I did in college. I mean, Andy calls it the spur dance, but it's that, like, kind of kick the one foot, you know,

Unknown Speaker 23:31

Molly Ringwald, yeah.

Carolyn Cochrane 23:33

I just feel like every time I hear that song, it's, it encompasses a whole way of dance for me and all that, just like, hop kick. Yeah, it's the hop kick in the arms,

Michelle Newman 23:44

one of those 80 songs that still, today's generation still knows, and, you know, gets and it's still played and everything Footloose. The song was nominated for a Golden Globe as well as an Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 1985 ceremony. And it lost. It lost to Stevie Wonder's I just called to say I love you from the women in red. And that is apples and oranges. I say that really is, I have a problem with that. You can't put those pit those two against each other. They're both such great songs. Plays three times during the movie, the first, of course, being the iconic opening. In fact, that opening is thought of as one of the most famous opening credit sequences, really, with

Kristin Nilsen 24:31

the feet, right? The shoes, everybody's different shoes, and they're doing the heel, toe, heel, toe, the different socks they got, the

Michelle Newman 24:38

faces, we don't know names. The feet aren't all the same. Some are athletic sneakers, some are dress shoes. Some are boots. It's you can tell they are the feet of old people, young people, males, females. It's everyone. And like you said, Kristen, those feet, they're tapping, stomping, sliding, kicking, and that immediately frames dancing as something that people, all people, do without thinking. Dancing, right? So before we even know anything about this movie, before we even know dancing is illegal in Beaumont, this movie is showing us that dancing, it's basically human nature. It's basically for toe tapping and all of that. And the video I mentioned earlier, that's so great that I'm going to share in that Weekly Reader, the editor of the film, whose name was Paul Hirsch, he said they realized having the first dance number coming in 20 ish minute, minutes in the film, like in the movie, that was going to be a problem. So they just called in 150 dancers and came up with dances that fit that beat.

Speaker 1 25:33

You mean, of the feet you're just talking about, just like talking about the feet,

Michelle Newman 25:37

yeah, just the feet, like, okay, because otherwise, if they like it, I guess whatever opening they had planned, it wasn't dancing. And so they're like, Wait, this is a movie about dancing.

Unknown Speaker 25:48

Really smart. I would have been like, it's time to go now.

Michelle Newman 25:50

Yeah, well, and the energy that you get from that opening, the energy of the song and of the feet dancing, immediately clues you in to that movies, what you're about to see. I mean, it's loud, it's kinetic, it's sweaty, it's emotional. And the song right out of the gate, it's a statement. And I feel like, right out of the gate, you know, you're in for a fun time, like with this movie, yeah, Kenny Loggins says that when he wrote Footloose, well, he and who Dean Pitchford, oh, yeah, they wrote Footloose. They'd always envision it as the barroom scene, never the opening and closing of the movie. So he goes to the movie, he writes the song, then he leaves right the movie's being filmed. He goes to the screening Kenny Loggins is sitting in the audience, and when it starts, and he sees those feet and hears his song, he said, he was like, what? And he was like, so pleased. And he was like, wow, this is going to be a home run because of how so

Kristin Nilsen 26:44

he just thought it would be like, embedded in the middle somewhere in a race, because that barn is a random,

Michelle Newman 26:50

yeah, I have to ask you this before I move on. For Kristin and me, our question is, back in the 80s. Carolyn, for you last week, did you have favorite feet in 1984 or back in the day, I did, I had a good question that I loved. Every time they came up, mine were the the the little like, they're like white, they look like flat K Swiss sneakers, kind of like Canvas ones. And they have worn tree torn. Their tree Tor like, tree torn. Yes, they were tree torn. Yeah. And then there's another pair. They were Reeboks with rainbow leg warmers, yeah? And every time I watch that movie, like those were my most pleasing feet, I

Kristin Nilsen 27:25

didn't at the time recognize that. But I'm gonna say tree torn, because obviously I recognize, I know exactly what you're

Michelle Newman 27:30

talking about. Canvas, flat, worn. I used to have tree torrents too. I love them. And that one, they're kind of, it's kind of like a beige, ratty, yeah,

Kristin Nilsen 27:39

they're all of these shoes, for the most part, are well loved, right? They've been, there's been a lot of dancing going on in all of these

Michelle Newman 27:45

shoes well. And it wasn't just the main cat. I mean, the main cast did get to dance. Kevin Bacon's feet are in there. But the production brought in various dancers, even crew members got to provide their feet. And fun fact, if you look closely at the gold booted feet, and it's around 118 that minute. 18 n, that's Kenny Loggins. His boots, really? Yeah, and they're gold. I know exactly which ones you're talking about. Yeah. Okay, he happened to be on set. So here's a question. If he didn't know, I'm just thinking this out loud now, if he didn't know that song was being used in the open, was he fibbing when he said that his feet are in the

Carolyn Cochrane 28:20

Yeah, maybe they spliced that in after he was so impressed with the scene, they said, you know, oh, they said, well, we'll get your feet in there too, and they put it in.

Kristin Nilsen 28:30

But we also know that when they record dancing scenes of any kind, they often don't use the same song, you're right. They might even use it just a click track, just to keep you on me, but they're not using the song, so

Michelle Newman 28:42

maybe then they decided later,

Kristin Nilsen 28:44

yeah, he's on set. They're like, Oh, here, do a little dancey thing. We're gonna play an Elvis Presley song. And he's like, Yay, I'm in the opening credit.

Michelle Newman 28:52

Yeah. Okay, so go and stop. Go to one minute 18, and you'll see Kenny Loggins his feet. Okay, we have a the second place we hear Footloose in the movie is at the bar where they intended it to be, and it just breaks in. It's not the whole song. It comes in with. Now I gotta cut loose. And this is when they're at the bar and rusty Sarah, Jessica Parker is going nuts because she's sitting on the sidelines with Willard, who can't dance, and it's so infectious. And the way she just Bobs her little head and she goes, she's like, I can't help myself Willard, and she has to just run in there and just,

Kristin Nilsen 29:25

and she's just doing your dance. She's just teeny weeny, and she's literally bouncing in her chair, kicking her feet and kicking and like little like, with glee, with and I've not even seen the movie that much, like, if I've, I bet you I've never even seen it on video. I bet I only saw it in the theater, because when I saw it this time, it was kind of a deja vu experience, and yet, there were elements that were so hoosker Dewey, and that was one of them. The image of her bouncing like she can't she got to go.

Michelle Newman 29:50

She has her feet flying over like a little wall, and she just starts kicking them. And it's just then she runs out there and there, and she's dancing with anybody hold down. With her, and it's just such a representation of just how much joy and Glee dancing gives you. Yeah, right, there's little pockets, and we'll talk about them as you guys start talking about songs that the music is kind of directing us to.

Carolyn Cochrane 30:16

Yeah, like you said earlier, it's, it's in us. It's not this thing outside of us, like she couldn't help. Oh, you know,

Speaker 1 30:25

it was an impulse, yeah, and it's

Carolyn Cochrane 30:27

part of who we are. So yeah, imagine being told this thing that's in you can't happen. Oh, it's illegal.

Kristin Nilsen 30:35

You're loud, yeah, no wonder you're going across the state line to go dance, and

Michelle Newman 30:41

even poor Willard is looking so longingly out there at him. He wishes so much. Yeah. And then, of course, the song plays during the epic final prom scene, and using Footloose again at the end of the movie, this time inside the story, not like out at it's really a victory lap, and it's a full circle moment. Kenny Loggins says that the song, when they wrote it, it was written to be inseparable from the movie, so that they could make sure the audience felt that same celebratory energy at the end. That's why, you know, they ended up just putting it in other places, because I think the song is truly a representation of that, this celebration, right?

Kristin Nilsen 31:24

Like, remember at that, like, right before the song starts, he says, I thought this was a party. Let's dance. And then Footloose begins, and we get the iconic Footloose dance number with Kevin Bacon doing his little, you know, shoot your feet out thing. Yeah, I love it. It's so damn cute. It's so damn cute.

Michelle Newman 31:39

And I read this in something like I said I was doing a lot of research, and I'm sorry I can't cite this, because I think it's so great, and I wish I could take credit for writing this, but it didn't at the beginning. Footloose is almost theoretical. It's played over anonymous feet. We don't know the story yet. It represents transformation. The movie opens with feet that want to dance. It ends with feet that are allowed to dance. And that difference is everything,

Speaker 1 32:07

that's the whole thing. There you go.

Michelle Newman 32:10

And I tell you guys, y'all, if you don't in that last scene, like when he comes in, yeah, and they, if you don't get up and dance during that scene, your legs are broken. I mean, I can't even know in my living room a couple weeks ago, I had to just get up off my sofa and dance in that it's

Kristin Nilsen 32:26

so fun. And when you know, especially as an adult, when you're watching it, and you can see those kids dancing, and you know that the joy is tripled because they're not allowed to dance they've previously like this is that you got to cut loose, foot loose, and we can dance whenever we want, but they are cutting twice as loose, yeah, because they've not been allowed to do it. And it makes that ending scene, that prom scene, all the more fun. And that was, by the way, in the prom scene that is diegetic, because they're listening to the song at the prom while they dance. It's in they can hear it just and at the bar too. It's playing at the bar, they can hear the song just like we can.

Carolyn Cochrane 33:05

Thank you, professional. Very nice.

Carolyn Cochrane 33:17

So coming in at number two, everybody is the one song off of the soundtrack that never was released as a single, and this would be the song The girl gets around, performed by Sammy Hagar pre Van Halen, okay, guys. This is when he's just kind of getting on our radar. This song is perfection for telling the story and propelling this narrative forward. Okay, this happens, literally. It's the second scene, really in the movie. The first scene is, you know, we're in the town and we we learn that it's this really buttoned up, have no fun, straight and narrow. Again, I thought it was the 1950s in the beginning of the movie. So this scene is, let me just say I I was on the edge of my seat last week. Okay, the tension around the scene, yeah, is incredible. Let me tell you what is happening in this scene. Ariel and her friends are zooming down the road when Ariel's boyfriend, and I forget his name,

Unknown Speaker 34:16

chuck, chuck. Oh, that's the bad boyfriend, the bad boyfriend

Carolyn Cochrane 34:19

and Ariel's bad, bad boyfriend pulls up behind them in his pickup truck, and we start to see that Ariel is not this Goody, two shoes, buttoned up, pastor's daughter that we thought she might be. She is wild, and she gets around. Okay, so here you go, guys. I'm going to try to say it as quickly as I can, but Chuck pulls up next to the car. Obviously, he's on the wrong way of traffic. And all of a sudden, Arielle decides, huh, I think I can get out of my window, straddle the two cars and put my hands above my head, all while. Sammy Hagar, perfect song for this is singing, girl get no, yeah. Girl gets around. I. Words are playing like, well, she'd like you to think she was born yesterday with her innocent looks and her little town ways when she's smiling at me, when she's smiling at me, she's got Angel lists in her eyes, but I've seen how she moves and the girl really cooks, and that is what she is doing in this scene, you guys. I just thought, What on earth is happening here? This like, is so dangerous,

Michelle Newman 35:21

possible, dangerous, impossible, you guys,

Kristin Nilsen 35:24

and she stay. At one point, she is standing with one foot on the wheel or on the window of her friend's car and one foot on the window of the bad boyfriend's car, and she's standing while what comes at them,

Carolyn Cochrane 35:35

a giant semi 18 wheeler coming full speed. And you guys, the trucks were real, okay, the timing was critical in this, because there's no CGI back in 1983 82 whenever we're filming this movie. So a stunt person was really doing now, I don't know that a stunt person was, well, yeah, I think a stunt person was really doing that. Now, how fast they were going, and if the truck was really as close as it was, because still, but, yeah, yeah. And this matter, Sammy Hagar is screaming this song, and it seems to get louder and louder as Ariel again, straddling the cars, and we see the semi tractor trailer coming up, coming at them, Sarah Jessica Parker screaming. And I mean, Ariel's not doing anything. You think she's laughing.

Michelle Newman 36:20

She's laughing. She's not just laughing. This is when I'm like, This is not her hands are up and she's dancing, swaying to the music. And I'm like, well,

Unknown Speaker 36:30

poor Sarah, Jessica Parker is having a coronary, right?

Carolyn Cochrane 36:33

Yeah. And having a coronary, I think there was maybe, you know. And this is me putting a Carolyn spin on it, and this would be later in the movie, when I question whether or not she didn't have, like, a, what do I want to say, a will to die? Like I think,

Michelle Newman 36:52

Well, let's think about that too. And listeners, we're going to be kind of talking about the scenes as they go with the music. But it is a good it is a good question Carolyn, because we not we learn a little bit later that her brother was killed in a car accident. Now she has all this pressure on her to be the only child, the perfect child, so it doesn't, yeah, she's gonna do some really risky things that she's

Carolyn Cochrane 37:17

partaking in. Yeah, is part of her kind of rebellion, and that's a part of that storyline, and it plays out in this song, and then, oh my gosh, like in real life, this couldn't have happened the physics of it, but the semi truck is so close, and all of a sudden you hear, like the scene, the camera goes away from her, and next thing you know, she's pulled in to the truck, and she's sitting, Chuck pulled her in by her ankle, and she got through the window and is sitting perfectly, yeah, yeah, as the 18 wheeler goes whizzing by.

Kristin Nilsen 37:50

It's bad, and it's, it's great, the mixture of the song and the thing that is happening is it's setting up the whole movie and telling us who Ariel is, because she's got this, this pastor daddy, who doesn't want her to do stuff, and she's the girl who does all this stuff, right? It's setting up the whole character. And as a parent again, remember, I haven't seen it since like, 1984 or something, and as I'm watching it as a parent, this time, I'm super angry with her. I'm so mad at her, yeah, she endangered all of those people, not just herself, right?

Carolyn Cochrane 38:23

And you know what? To your point, Kristin, I hadn't really put two and two together, but I never really liked her character in this movie. And I think that's what set it up, was that, yeah, so from the get go, where, like you would do that to all those people, your friends, and yes, you know, this innocent 18 wheeler truck driver that's coming down the road, like, Who do you think you are? And I think that kind of clouded my judgment about her the whole movie.

Kristin Nilsen 38:50

It's very selfish. And I didn't put that together. What you just said, I didn't put that together until this watching of it. I've never liked her. I didn't like her the first time I saw it, and so I never thought that their relationship was believable. Because I'm like, why would you be with a bully like her? And this time, I'm like, this is why? Because the first scene that we meet her and they're telling us about her, she has complete and utter disregard for the safety of all of those people. They all could have been killed. And her friends are pleading with her, her friend driving the car. They're like, Ariel, Ariel, get in the car and poor, poor Sarah. Jessica Parker, I'm just feeling so bad for all of them. Yeah, and I'm angry with her. I'm so angry to

Michelle Newman 39:29

play devil's advocate and to take a card from Carolyn's playbook and pretty pink. I think we can maybe understand her a little bit better if you think about everything we just said, and how she's the pressure that she has from this, this family and and, and we get to see a lot more of that, the relationship between her and her father, and how much she what she wants out of the relationship with her father she's not getting from him, yeah, until maybe the very end. But I still am right with you guys. I think it's a. Extremely selfish, and she has such disregard, and I don't like her in that moment and for most and for much of it, but I definitely but then you see that, you know, we're gonna keep seeing I mean, we could do a whole entire podcast episode just on Ariel, right? Because then you see the way she's been allowing herself to get treated by her boyfriend. I mean, he's physically abusive to her. I'm not just verbally abusive. And so we can go down, you know, we can, we can therapize Ariel,

Kristin Nilsen 40:27

yeah, for two hours. And if you think about the, you know, all the things that you said about her family pressure, and it's not just her family, because her dad is really the dad of the whole town. She's the preacher for the whole town. And so he's not just telling Ariel not to do all of these things and to be a good girl, he's telling the whole town not to do those things. And so it's like her job to make sure that she's not associated with him. And somebody in the movie, at some point says when they're talking about her behavior, and this person, I wish I could remember what character it was, says she's just gonna do everything she can to make you forget that she's the preacher's daughter. That's exactly what she's doing, exactly.

Kristin Nilsen 41:16

Okay, so next we have dancing in the sheets. I love the song. This is by Shalimar, which is the band that gave us Jody Watley. By the way, I'm looking for a new love baby. Jody Watley didn't actually sing this song, but I don't care, because it's a really fun fact. Jody Watley was the best new artist of 1987 and totally unrelated to Footloose. This is for Carolyn. Jody Watley was married to Andre Simone. Andre Simone, okay, they know their looks on their faces are not giving me a positive Okay, let me just explain. Andre Simone. So when Prince got kicked out of the house at age 13, he went to live with Andre Simone and his family. Andre Simone was a schoolmate of his, and he's like, can I live at your house? Andre and so he went and he moved in with Andre Simone. Andre Simone then went on to have his own he was in various iterations of Prince's band. He had his own solo career, and apparently he was married to Jody Watley. Okay, so if, if you didn't go deep on funk music in the 80s, maybe you don't know that name, but just know he was Prince's buddy, and he lived with him when he was 13. Okay, so when I read, I love this song, and when I read the lyrics, you know, you sing along, but I, like, looked up the lyrics and I read this one line, and I got hoosker Dude, hoosker Dude, because there's a line that says, grab your coat and wave goodbye to your friends. And I remembered that my friends and I had this little move that we would do, and we would do like, of course we did. We would do the moonwalk. And then we would be like, wave goodbye to your friends. Are doing the moonwalk. We're like, grab your coat and wave goodbye,

Kristin Nilsen 43:00

because we could Moon lock. Okay, so this song is a play on the hit, on the Motown hit dancing in the street. It's a play on words, and it's played in the scene a la gris with like milkshakes and burgers and hot dogs and, you know, high school hijinks in the parking lot. Ariel's friends arrive in their car, and they are pissed because their friend almost killed them, and Ariel arrives in her bad boyfriend's truck, which is tricked out to tell the audience that he is a redneck, Like they are over the top, trying to show you who he is. There are antlers on the top gun rack, and he is the and so this is done to show us that He is the antithesis of our city boy Wren. So these two are going to be enemies. And also, notably, in his car is a boom box. There's a boom box, I guess he doesn't have a stereo in his car, and so he had just has like the boom box propped up in the back window. And when they arrive at the drive in, Ariel grabs the boom box and puts it on the hood of the car. This is what will make this song, diegetic, yeah, because it's actually going to happen in the scene in the world of the characters, and they will hear it. So then she grabs something out of her pocket, and bad boyfriend says the words, smuggled tapes. Smuggled tapes, and they behold the smuggled tape like, like she's a kid in seventh grade showing you a joint for the first time. Basically, she pops it in the boom box and presses play, and we hear the opening to dancing in the sheets. And all the high school hijinks are now being done on the beat. On the beat of dancing in the sheets. They chew their gum to the beat, they eat their hot dog to the beat, they talk on the pay phone to the beat, and the beat is infectious. And pretty soon everyone they can't hold still, they can't control themselves, and they have to dance. And that, of course, is illegal. It's so adolescent, like the whole song. The whole notion of the song is very adolescent. It's so cheeky. Because it's you're at this age when you're starting to think about dancing in the sheets, even if you aren't dancing in the sheets, but you're like, he he, and just when it's about to turn into a full on dance party, the music abruptly stops. Don't because Ariel's pastor Daddy has arrived, and he presses the stop button, and Ariel is in trouble. And as a viewer, you're like, oh shit. And she looks Guilty, guilty, guilty, like she's a seventh grader again, like with a joint instead of a instead of a boom box instead of a cassette tape, right? But daddy, Pastor, instead, very quietly, says Your mother didn't think that you had any money with you. And then he like, stuffs some crumpled bills into her hand, and he turns around, and he leaves all Charlie Brown like, which is worse than getting in trouble, right?

Carolyn Cochrane 45:48

I was gonna say that's like, the epitome of, I'm not mad at you. I'm disappointed.

Kristin Nilsen 45:52

I'm just disappointed. That's exactly what this is. And Ariel feels shame, so much shame he is shaming her by being disappointed and bereft instead of angry, and that's so much worse. So Dean Pitchford, drink. Everybody. Drink, right? Not Dan Pickford, no. Dean Pitchford, he says he knew he needed he knew that he needed the lyrics to be naughty enough for Daddy pastor to object to it. But if he did this play on dancing in the streets. It was not overtly naughty. It was more like wink wink. And he said it needed to be suggestive enough that it would provoke her father's ire, but not vulgar in an over the top kind of way. Mission accomplished. Mission accomplished. Plus the song is literally about dancing in the streets or otherwise in the sheets, whatever. And so even if you didn't get the wink wink part, you could get in trouble just for listening to a song about the thing you're not allowed to do, right?

Carolyn Cochrane 46:47

Yeah, which, again, I've seen this movie and these songs in such a different way now, because of something you said in the beginning, Michelle, it is innate in us to move to music when we hear the song and the beat, and like you're saying, Kristen, they're chewing, they're everything they're doing is to that beat, because that's how our bodies respond. And so to be told again, the theme of this movie is being told over and over that you can't do this thing that your body is automatically doing. And you're being told, you know, no, it's illegal.

Kristin Nilsen 47:18

It's just oppression. It's oppression and restriction and suppression and it and it makes people what we found out makes people mean, mean and nasty.

Michelle Newman 47:28

I love that song so much. That's my number two. That's hard. It's hard to rank this one. I have definite number one. I promise you that every time I hear that. Now I'm gonna, in my mind, at least, and be moonwalking and waving.

Carolyn Cochrane 48:02

All right. Well, we're gonna move on to our next song, which you guys it's called somebody's eyes. And of course, having not seen this movie and not recognizing the song, I was like, where is it in the movie? But because I tried to do all this research, and I found some interesting things, there is just one line of this song played in the movie. This is the song when they're at the picnic, but it only plays. There's only a little music that plays, and it's almost at the end of the scene. So you hear, there's obviously an instrumental in the beginning of the song, and then there's like the first line, and that is all that is all that you hear of the song. Okay, interesting. Okay. Now, this was written all by Dan Pickford. Okay, Dan

Unknown Speaker 48:42

Pitchford, but thanks for making up his name.

Carolyn Cochrane 48:47

Dan Pickford in my thing, because it kept changing it to pitchfork every time I typed it. And so I think this one, it changed it Okay, Dan Pitchford, I

Carolyn Cochrane 49:04

Dean. Okay, so it's Dean Pitchford, right. There we go, look up Dan Pickford when I'm done by someone really famous, Mary Pickford. So interestingly enough, the song was written entirely by Dan Yeah. Okay. The song is written by Dean Pitchford. Everybody. Okay, good.

Carolyn Cochrane 49:33

You listen to all of the lyrics, which you will never hear in the movie. It pretty much tells the story about this town, like a small town, somebody's always watching you. Somebody's eyes are on you. Ouch. Okay. Are you guys ready for this? Originally, in the original filming of the movie, this song was actually played, and the entire song was played. They had it during the montage of Christopher Penn trying to learn to dance. No, no, that's not. Yeah, absolutely not. Does not work

Michelle Newman 50:02

at all. Such a pretty song, yeah, but if

Carolyn Cochrane 50:07

you catch, if you listen to the beat, the beat is exactly like the beat in let's hear it for the boy and put them together. Because, like you said earlier, Kristen, sometimes they film a dance scene to one song, and then they put another song in. So when they realized that somebody's eyes was not going to work for this montage dance scene where he's learning how to dance, they had to quickly come up and write another song that would be that would fit better into that scene. And then I'm sure we'll hear more about that when we talk about that song. Let's hear it for the boy. So the song was already written, it was already performed, all of that. So they sneak it in with this little snippet of it during the picnic scene of Chuck and Dodd, okay, of Chuck and Arielle at this little picnic, which really, I don't even know why that scene is in the movie at all.

Michelle Newman 51:03

I do. It's very that's where she's got her red boots. And she says, my daddy hates these boots. And that's true. She's feeling all like empowered, kind of in her boots that daddy hates and whatever. And then Chuck says to her. She says, I'm getting out of here. Well, she tells him, like, next year I'm going to college. And he says, why? You're not going to he goes, you're a small town as they come. And she just turns away from him, like, that's the last thing she wants to hear, right? She's trying good scene to really illustrate who she is, yeah, and where she's coming from more, and maybe for us to get a little bit more sympathy toward

Carolyn Cochrane 51:38

her, right? I mean, because I think it comes very soon after, obviously our other scene, where we have the girl gets whatever she gets while

Unknown Speaker 51:46

around around, she gets around.

Michelle Newman 51:49

I was like, what does she get? Like, chicken pox.

Unknown Speaker 51:55

Yes, shingles, yeah.

Carolyn Cochrane 51:58

So that's where somebody's eyes comes in that scene, but literally, like four or five seconds

Kristin Nilsen 52:04

up, and I can't even picture the scene. This is such a this is such a nothing burger.

Kristin Nilsen 52:16

This next song, I there's a little confusion with this next song. But all you need to know, really, is that I love this song, Holding Out for a Hero was the next one, sung by Bonnie, sung by Bonnie Tyler of Total Eclipse of the Heart fame. But she said she would only do it if she could work with songwriter Jim Steinman. This is a name people will might know. Jim Steinman is known for his very like, outlandishly intense anthems like paradise by the dashboard light and bad out of hell. He did tons of meatloaf stuff, and, of course, totally clips of the heart, like things that are just like melancholy and anthemic. And there's just so much drama and big anthems, huge anthems, and Holding Out for a Hero follows suit. This is a big anthem. It's so intense, it's so overly dramatic and so earnestly invested that it's actually mocked by a lot of people who just can't take it. It's too much. A lot of people hate the song because it's too dramatic. And our theme, the theme of this scene that it's happening in, can be found in the first lines of the song, where have all the good guys gone? And where are all the gods? Where's the streetwise Hercules who fight the rising odds? That's essentially what's happening here in this scene. So Jim Steinman literally bled for this song when he demoed it for Dean Pitchford drink. So you know, the beginning of the songs, like Dean Pitchford says he was just pounding the shit out of the keyboard. Everyone was just grooving along, and he's pounding, pounding, and the girls are singing, singing, singing. And at the end of the whole thing, I looked over and there was blood up and down the keyboard. So when he writes a dramatic song, he is not half assing it, in it. He is in it. And that kind of intensity really matches the scene perfectly. Yeah. Just prior to this scene, Ariel had shown up at wrens. He's got, like, a flour sack job. He, like carries flour

Carolyn Cochrane 54:17

sacks grain. It's like he green elevator.

Speaker 1 54:21

I was at first, I was like, What is this place? He's just, like, picking up flat sacks of flour. So, yeah,

Michelle Newman 54:27

but Utah in the movie. But yeah, there we go. Very fits in with the Oklahoma. He's at his flower sack

Kristin Nilsen 54:33

job, and she gives him Ariel comes by, and she gives him this very ominous sort of she bully message. There's another reason I don't like her. She's a bully. She says, I have a message from Chuck. That's bad boyfriend. He says, meet him at the edge of his daddy's field. And Ren says, why? She says, you'll find out. And then she turns around and leaves. Okay, so Wren, show. Up at the edge of his daddy's field, and now what we find out is that Ren has to learn how to drive a tractor because chicken races tractor chicken, tractor chicken. Ariel's bad boyfriend plans to humiliate the big city kid by beating him at a game of tractor chicken, and there's no way that the kid from Chicago knows how to drive a tractor, but the guy who sends his girlfriend to tell you to tell you to meet him at the edge of his daddy's field probably does. And that is not fair. That's not fair. So the question is, Will Ren prove himself? Ren is very Oh, my God. How did I get myself in this? He asks Willard. He's like, has anyone ever died doing this? Emerges just once, just once and again. Somebody pulls out a boom box, again with the boom box, and presses play so that we have musical accompaniment to our chicken races. That makes this song diegetic. I don't know how they could hear the song over the sound

Michelle Newman 55:58

in most of the scenes where there's the diegetic song. You have to, you have to wonder that, yeah, you also have to just suspend reality for a trick. I love that part, though, that you just described when Ren first gets on the tractors, like, how do I? And he's getting, he's getting advice from everybody, from Willard, from Woody, the other character who he's befriended, and yeah, they're all telling him, and then, and don't press this, and whatever you do, don't touch this, and don't write. And I just got so nervous again watching it, and I know how it ends.

Kristin Nilsen 56:30

And he's clearly nervous. Ren does not know what he's doing. He's he's looking down, he's pulling at levers. He's struggling to hold on to the steering wheel, and he accidentally raises the bucket on the front of the tractor. But then that looks like a challenge. So then chuck raises his bucket too, and Red's like, oopsie, like, I didn't mean to do that. I just pressed a button. Ren is sweating. He's wiping his brow. He is scared, and at a certain point he's like, I am out Fuck this shit. I do not need to prove I do not need to prove myself in this way. Why am I doing this? And he tries to jump off repeatedly. He tries to jump off, but his shoelace is stuck on the pedal. And somebody wrote this in a comment, and it was so brilliant. Essentially, he can't get his foot loose. Can't get his foot loose. His shoelace is stuck on the pedal, and he cannot jump ship. But guess who does? Chuck is the one who chickens out and he jumps off the tractor. The tractor goes tumbling into the water again. Somebody could have been killed, right? How does it not fall on him? None of this makes sense. But and Ren is the winner, even though it's by accident, but he has successfully faced down the bully and gained everyone's respect. But he doesn't not by he's the hero holding up for a hero. Where Have All the good guys gone? He's the good guy, and he becomes the hero, not by being a badass, but by being scared and vulnerable and doing it anyway. It's such a good song for the for the intensity of this scene. I mean, they almost died. This song is just like and it is a companion.

Michelle Newman 58:12

Go ahead, I was just gonna say it's so perfect. When she says, white knight upon a fiery steed. It's like the pick, like they're doing the shots of them both on the tractor.

Kristin Nilsen 58:26

Yes, I've got a John Deere and you've got an Alice Chalmers. I think that's tractor, or maybe it's an actress, I'm not sure. But anyway, it's a really great companion to the scene in Greece where Danny wins the drag race at Thunder Road, and all the kids like, yay. And they remember how they just all come running at Danny, and they just all run and throw their arms around him, and that's exactly what happens to Ren. He wins the race. The kids are ecstatic, and they all run toward his chat, his tractor, and he's the big hero, and their kids just jumping all over him. He's the he's the white knight on the steed.

Carolyn Cochrane 59:00

Well, I had read too that they showed that scene to Bonnie Tyler before she performed the song, because they wanted her to kind of get that feel that we got from the song of what's happening. And you know, this chicken fight thing we're seeing with the tractors. And so you hear that in her actual performance of the song, too. So the urgency Exactly, yes.

Michelle Newman 59:40

The next song is never and the scene that accompanies this song is widely recognized as one of the most memorable moments in the movie, and it is a masterpiece in teen angst, right? First, let's get this out of the way. Yeah, let's get our drinking out of the way. Never was written by. Dean pictured drink. Everybody remember him and Michael Gore, and it was recorded by the Australian pop rock band, moving pictures. Okay, I just have

Kristin Nilsen 1:00:10

jump in. Michael Gore wrote the music for fame.

Michelle Newman 1:00:14

Ah, it's all intertwined. It's very interesting.

Speaker 1 1:00:18

Yeah, it's all coming back to me now, which is a song that's Wayne Steinman, okay,

Michelle Newman 1:00:25

I think this is kind of sad. This little fact, despite the popularity of the song, moving pictures were never paid royalties. I see its use awful is that they said, they said we performed it. It was written by the guys who made the movie, and we got nothing from it. Someone made a lot of money out of that song, and it wasn't us. What kind of contract Do you have that doesn't pay you for that? So then they say, in this little interview I read, they're like, so subsequently, in all of our shows, we're never, never, never, ever gonna sing that song. So when? But let's, let's think about the scene that this song is used in. It's when Ren is dancing in the warehouse, and when he's dancing to the song again, he pushes play like he's plays it on his little in his the stereo of his little VW Bug, yet he's dancing all over the warehouse. So it must have some great speakers, right? But he's basically shouting his frustration and his anger in this new world he's living in that's silencing him. The song is almost like his internal dialog. So to remind you of what instigates this anger, by this point in the movie, we're 35 minutes into the movie, Ren is beyond overwhelmed and frustrated by the strict and religious, illogical restrictions against dancing in this little you know, backwards town he's moved into, and then, just to top it off, his close minded uncle, he gets in an argument with him, and he pounds the final nail into this coffin I think That Ren is feeling trapped in when he scolds him, and then he offhandedly says, you know that I would never try to take the place of your father. When the uncle says that to him, he slams out, and he races his little yellow VW bug to the empty warehouse, and as he pulls it in, I swear that little VW bug has angry headlight eyes because the song is starting, and you see this cute little bug pull in, and all I can imagine is the eyes like in the movie, cars, like I have, yeah, yeah. And the synthesized staccato begins, and Ren, he grabs a beer, and, oh, that's rebellious too, right? Grabs a beer, and we see all that is going on in his mind via flashes of all these moments we've already seen in the movie that have led to this anger and frustration. It's Ariel dismissing him. It's that asshole bully Chuck Cranston. It's the bully cop. It's Reverend Moore pounding the pulpit in church, you know, which seems very like you said Carolyn, very like 1950s to him, you know, and it's just all too much. The boy needs to dance, is what he needs to do. And they call it in everything I read, they call this dance punch rage. And I'll be honest, yeah, I really wish I could do some punch rage. Yeah, dancing right now, I might just need to install like a high bar in my backyard. Pommel horse a little bit. Yeah, and as the lyrics say, with nothing,

Speaker 2 1:03:40

to start with

Michelle Newman 1:03:53

nothing. The lyrics are just like, yeah. They're written to just narrate these scenes. The lyrics then go on to speak to fighting through pain and breaking free, they says it's time to fight time for tearing free, which directly mirrors Wren's situation. Since getting to this backwards town of Beaumont, and the scene and this song together, like the combination of them, they show Ren as not just a rebellious kid, because he's really not, if we think about it, just a normal team, just someone who's deeply affected by just the stifling rules and atmosphere

Kristin Nilsen 1:04:31

and the town, like so many people are just mean to him. They're picking they're picking on him.

Michelle Newman 1:04:35

They're picking and at him really. And yes, anyway, it allows us to really see, I don't know his vulnerability and his internal self a lot. It's widely recognized, like I said before, this scene is widely recognized as one of the most memorable moments in the film, because it's just this emotional release, and, like I said, this punch rage. I have a fun fact for you. Okay. It was Kevin bake he wanted to do all the dancing. And they were like, Dude, you can dance. We know you're a gymnast and you can dance. You can't do it all. So they brought in a guy named Peter tram who was the main dance double. But guess who was the gymnastic double?

Speaker 1 1:05:12

Burt Connor, good. Guess it's the only name I know.

Michelle Newman 1:05:16

It's someone named Chuck Gaylord.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:05:20

Oh, Mitch Gaylord,

Michelle Newman 1:05:24

connection, brother. Oh, my God, yep. Now everybody listening, if you're like, Mitch Gaylord, that sounds familiar, 84 Olympics. Yes, he was my that's was my guy. I had a poster of how I did. Cutie. He was and Chuck. His older brother wasn't an Olympic medalist, but he did. He was an 11 time all American gymnast, wow. So if you go back and watch the, you know, some of the gymnastics, that's,

Kristin Nilsen 1:05:49

it's really the biggest dance number in the movie, yeah, it's, it's the, I think it's the most impactful dance number, and in the movie, it's one of the most impactful moments in the movie. And there, this is so funny, and I wonder if some other people listening right now are going to be with me on this. But when I chose the song Holding Out for a Hero, I thought it was this scene. I thought it was a punish rage dancing scene. And so then I asked Liam, because Liam has opinions about Footloose. And so I'm like, Liam, what is your favorite song from Footloose? What is your favorite scene? He's like, Well, obviously it's Holding Out for a Hero. And you know, when he's dancing on the pommel horse and doing the gymnastics, like, dude, no, that's not, that's not Holding Out for a Hero. He's like, What are you talking about? Yeah, so I'm not the only one there. I've got to be other people who thought Holding Out for a Hero is when he's dancing in the weird house,

Michelle Newman 1:06:37

I would say, just from the research I did, if you take that little, you know, that little slice of population who likes to comment on Reddit threads and stuff, it's about 95% of the other people

Kristin Nilsen 1:06:51

really, okay, that makes me feel so much better

Carolyn Cochrane 1:06:55

to what I don't remember the music videos for any of These, but I know that some of the music, maybe it was for Footloose.

Michelle Newman 1:07:04

It's in Footloose, you see a lot of his warehouse. Okay, okay, yeah, his rage, okay, so,

Kristin Nilsen 1:07:09

and it was fun. It was fun to be watching this scene and point out, like, Okay, this is Kevin Bacon, body double Kevin Bacon, body double Kevin Bacon, and he's got like, the little wife beater tank top on, and he's got his skinny little jeans on, and he's doing these little flippies and his Palma horse. And then he does like these little punchy, punchy, punchy, a lot

Michelle Newman 1:07:29

of it is and a lot of it it's it was easy for them to use, like I said, it was Kevin Bacon plus three either dance or gymnos. And it was easy to do because so much of that scene is done in silhouette and so dark. I love it. It's such a great scene. Yeah.

Michelle Newman 1:07:55

This is my very favorite song on the soundtrack, then and now, and that's, let's hear it For the boy, but let's

Unknown Speaker 1:08:19

hear it for the boy. Well, Steve

Michelle Newman 1:08:26

Morse of The Boston Globe called this song one of the happiest, most infectious sing alongs in a long time. And I do not disagree. I totally agree. Yeah, so good. Written by Dean Pitchford drink and Tom snow, like I said earlier, and performed by Denise Williams, so cute, the song topped billboards, dance and RMB charts, and it peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart, right behind Wake Me Up Before You Go, go. Another one of my very favorite,

Speaker 1 1:08:56

both bops, like they are kind of companions.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:08:59

They're totally 80s. Had just such great bop songs, yeah, sunshine, yeah.

Michelle Newman 1:09:05

And it was also nominated with Footloose for an Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 57th Academy Awards. Wow. Like I said, losing to I just called to say, I love you, apples and oranges. You can't put these two bops up against that song. Not only is it my favorite song on the soundtrack, it's my favorite scene in the movie. Yeah, I love it so much. So this is when Ren Willard and woody are in the locker room before it starts and they're and you guys, Woody, let's just talk about the character, Woody for a hot second. Appreciated woody before Okay, Woody played by an actor named John Laughlin, and he has 25 film credits, 30 TV credits. You might know him. The other only thing that I looked at his filmography, and he's An Officer and a Gentleman. He's a character named Troy, okay, I confuse him with meat from Porky's do. Oh, he looks similar. Nope. That was a guy named Tony ganios. But when Brian and I were watching it, I was like, this is that the guy that was me, in poor

Kristin Nilsen 1:10:10

case, Woody is notable because he's nice and there are no besides Willard, there are no nice boys in this movie. They're all dicks, they're bullies. They're so

Michelle Newman 1:10:20

mean, and then we see a lot, yeah, but anyway, so they're in

Unknown Speaker 1:10:24

the history I don't know them.

Michelle Newman 1:10:27

You can't speak to that. They're in the locker room. They're ribbing each other about Woody and Willard both not knowing how to dance. And Wren says, hey, if I got to get up in front of that town council, you got to learn to dance. Hugh, the 80s synthesizer and drum beats. And Ren is such a patient dance teacher. They're sitting in his little his little bug, and he's patiently trying to teach Willard to keep the beat. That's all just keep the beat by snapping first, then clapping, then trying to clap his hand against Willard, then pound the dashboard. And it's just so classic, because Willard is just off the beat. He's he's on the off beat every single time. So hard. And then one of my favorite parts, they're walking but in the school, like the locker halls, but they're connected via Walkman, like headphone court, like they each like, and they're going up and down to the beat. And you just see Wren come in first, and he's doing it. But then here comes Willard, and he's off beat.

Kristin Nilsen 1:11:31

He's completely opposite from Kevin Bacon. And so the whole

Michelle Newman 1:11:34

trajectory of these dance lessons, which probably lasted over a week or two, you know, you were seeing snippets of them, and finally, finally, he gets it, and they're running and they're rolling and they're doing one of my other favorite parts is when they're on the football field and they're running, but then they stop and they do that box step, and they're wrestling in the gym, and then they're spinning the cutie nieces. And it's all so great, especially when Willard incorporates the robot.

Kristin Nilsen 1:12:03

These Willard dance moves, these are iconic. These, every, every shape that he makes with his body is like is something that is seared in all of our brains.

Michelle Newman 1:12:13

When he finally gets it, you want to just stand up and cheer with them. And fun fact, another fun fact, this scene was put in in its entirety. Because, like, instead of like, they shot all those things thinking they were just going to do snippets of it, yeah, but they put it in in its entirety. You hear the whole song in this movie. I mean, this is like a three and a half minute scene, or a three minute scene, and it was put in because Chris pan actually did not know how to dance, so this was all real life. Kevin Bacon was teaching him to dance, and he would teach him to dance between takes, like off camera as well. And Chris Penn was a wrestler, so the choreographer would tell Chris Penn to relate dance moves to wrestling moves, and that's what drove this whole montage. And then I have another really good fight for you guys, again, our least the listeners, I told Carolyn and Kristen to watch the video for let's hear it for the boy. I hope they followed that Homer direction. Okay, last week. So, okay, it's fine. No, it's fine. Okay. It was directed by Kenny Ortega. That's not the Fun fact, but it is a good fact. I'm gonna blow your mind. So in the video, and if you remember it, there's a little boy, and he's sitting in a classroom, and he's so cute, and he has like a big dunce hat on at one point, and then he's in a tuxedo, and Denise Williams is dancing with him, and everything. The whole video is basically just him and Denise Williams. It's not anything really from the movie. So this little boy is named Aaron lore, l, O, H, R, and he went on to do many episodes of Sister. Sister. He was in newsy, Disney's movies. He was in the Mighty Ducks. He starred as Mickey Dolan's in the VH one movie, Daydream believer. Those are great facts, but that's not the one I want to tell you. Guess who he's married to.

Kristin Nilsen 1:13:54

Now, the married thing just gets me. Okay?

Michelle Newman 1:13:57

The married since 2017 it's he's married to Adina Menzel go

Michelle Newman 1:14:12

well, she digs first she was married to Tay Diggs, and you know, they have a little boy together. And then they were divorced. She got married to Aaron Lohr in 2017 and if you go look at like their Instagram, he you can see that little boy in him.

Kristin Nilsen 1:14:27

Wow. Okay, did you notice also on the piano? The photos on the piano? Oh, no. What else? So it goes really fast, and I know that they're all significant, but I could only pick out one. It's the Hardy Boys. It's Sean Cassidy and Parker Stevenson are in a photo on the piano. Okay? We got

Michelle Newman 1:14:44

to think this through. Then we got to make this make sense. Yeah, it feels like I need to set up like a homeland thing on my wall and photos and yarn strings so I can figure out how we connect this. I thought that

Speaker 1 1:14:57

was going to be your fun fact. I thought you'd be like, did you. See the photo of the question

Michelle Newman 1:15:03

better fact that he's married, that the little boy's now married to Adina Menzel, that blew my mind, though. Let's you know what? Let's DM Sean. Let's ask him. It's got to just be one of the happiest, most joyful, cutest, funnest scenes. Yeah, in like, a lot of like, I want to say movie history, but we can say, I do. I love that scene so much. Yeah, I could watch it over and over.

Kristin Nilsen 1:15:28

I mean, just him doing the snapping of the fingers and the going up and down, there's something to

Carolyn Cochrane 1:15:33

be said for a really good montage that's coupled with a really good song. Like, it's just a moment so good.

Michelle Newman 1:15:41

And we love Willard, and we love Kevin Bacon, and they're and they're not just being the tough guys. And we love their friendship. We love their friendship the way that, yeah, the way that Wren is just cheering for him, and, I mean, he's, let's hear it for the boy, right?

Speaker 1 1:15:55

So sweet, because every time he pulls me, I just want to change that. Me, okay,

Kristin Nilsen 1:16:09

we're heading toward the end of the movie now, and I have a new favorite song from this movie. I thought it was one thing. Turns out it wasn't. Turns out that my new favorite movie, or my new favorite song from this movie is I'm free, and this is by Kenny Loggins, and I believe this is the true climax of the movie, not the prom that we all remember. Everyone wants you to think that that is the climax of the movie. No, that's the resolution, the catharsis. Yeah, because this scene with I'm free with Kenny Loggins, this is the scene where Wren has won. The kids have won. The battle between the teens and the preachers has been won, and they are going to have a dance. This is a non This is one of the only non diegetic songs, even though I thought they were all non diegetic, but they're not, because of that dance flavor. Yeah. So this is non diegetic, and it begins, and it takes place, actually, over several scenes. So they pack a lot into this song, and it is triumphant. Like I said, the kids have won, but it's not a hostile takeover. In the previous scene, Ren has visited the good Reverend, the preacher daddy, preacher man, and explained that they both have loss. They have a common wound. Ren's father ditched him. Pastor, Daddy's son was tragically killed. Ren deals with his loss by dancing. Pastor, daddy deals with his loss by being a dick. So you tell me which way is better, which one is the true evil, right? Is dancing the true evil, or is being a dick the true evil? So Ren says, you know, what if you can explain to me about my father, maybe I can explain to you about your son, and a meeting of the minds has been made. And Pastor daddy is like ruminating and thinking. And in Pastor daddy's next sermon, he brings up the controversy of the senior prom, because the kids want to change the law. We Why do we have Why is dancing against the law? We have to have a prom. We're teenagers. We're seniors in high school. We deserve this. And Pastor daddy announces to the congregation that maybe we don't need to change the law, but they could be a little nicer to the kids, and that also, ren's boss at the flour sack place has said, you can use my flour sack place to have a dance.

Michelle Newman 1:18:24

Maybe they're milling a flour. We

Kristin Nilsen 1:18:25

don't know. It's a mill. It's a mill. Yep, it's a mill. They're grilled. They're milling wheat. Is what flour comes from, okay? And because notably this, I was gonna say flour sack place, the mill is across the town line. They don't have to change their laws. They can have a dance at the mill. And as he quietly, as the pastor quietly reveals his approval of the dance in church, the song starts to play low and slow, I'm free. Hey kids, kids, you have been set free. You're gonna have a dance. And the camera pans around the room. I'm getting, I'm getting nip of lightning right now. The camera pans around the room to each kid, Wren, Ariel, Rusty, Willard, Woody, the other ones, the people who don't know their names and they realize like Wendy or Wendy Joe, yes, Wendy, Wendy Joe. Sperber, the song four people are

Michelle Newman 1:19:18

gonna knock her, by the way, we know who she is, but it's not her. If everybody right now is going Kristen, it's not we know. It's not her. It was a good reference.

Kristin Nilsen 1:19:26

She doesn't know her bosom buddies. So the song very urgently but quietly transitions the viewer from the quiet of the sermon to the silent jubilation of the kids in the congregation. And as the song intensifies, the scene changes from the sanctuary of the church to three motorcycles riding a breast. It's so dramatic. It's so dramatic, and little by little, more motorcycles join the badass three motorcycles, and they start a little parade. Then the road is filled with motorcycles. I don't know why all these kids have motorcycles. It's as if every. Went into town, aren't they, like me, mopeds, motorcycles, the motor, yeah, oh, it is whatever. Yeah, it's a motor, and it's got two wheels, and there are a lot of them, and every kid has one. And they're driving out to the mill to decorate for the senior prom. They're gonna be free. And it's like, this is diegetic commentary, right? They're telling us that decorating for the forbidden dance has freed them to be real teenagers. They're hanging lights and stars. And this brings everyone together as a senior class, and it ends the song ends with Ariel modeling her prom dress. They are on their way to the dance, and what makes this a Gen X movie instead of a current day movie, is that the kids are doing this all on their own. There are no parents helping, and in a movie today, it would be like the parents are going to surprise the kids by transferring the mail.

Michelle Newman 1:20:54

Dusty's Dad's an electrician, so he's

Carolyn Cochrane 1:20:58

going to be and that's what we did. I mean, now I'm remembering, like, during the day, it was like, Go decorate for prom, and then go home and get ready for prom. It was like, you or the day, like

Speaker 1 1:21:10

you were going to the prom, yeah, but you were also part of,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:21:15

like, you said, like, decorating and hanging the stuff. And it wasn't, you know, parents surprising us, or we did all the work, right?

Speaker 1 1:21:21

We did all the work. And that's good. That's a good thing, yeah, oh, for sure.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:21:34

Well, you guys, we get to go to the prom, and this is exciting. We see Kevin Bacon, pick up me, we see Ren pick up Ariel at her home, and again, much unlike any prom we've ever experienced over the last whatever, 10 years, he doesn't even go in the house. He just she walks out. There's no pictures. There's nothing like that. But she is goofy as she looks with her hair and all that she's she's so happy, it's like, exactly, exactly, yeah, almost see this weight lifted, and that she's like, her age, and she's who she's meant to be. And you get what some might think is the ultimate song of this movie. And again, I didn't know we have almost paradise knocking on heaven's door, written by Dean Pitchford and drink, yeah, that's right. And you guys, Eric Carmen, Eric Carmen and Dean Pitchford sing this.

Speaker 1 1:22:35

Wrote this song together. I did not know that. Yeah, Eric Carmen is everywhere. He is everywhere.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:22:40

Yeah, he's we almost probably need to do a little episode on Eric Cartman. I think he's places we didn't even know he was agreed. And that's right, and Sean had some very nice things to say about him. So yeah, so they both wrote the song, and we have hearts, and Wilson and lover boys. Mike Reno singing this classic, ultimate duet.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:23:15

Oh my gosh, they're they're rock, kind of strong voices mixed with how soft and beautiful this song is. And I read something that said this was kind of Anne Wilson's the transition that she helped heart make from the 70s, the real barracuda, the kind of loud rock songs, to a little bit more of the softer 80s side that heart became afterwards. And so

Kristin Nilsen 1:23:40

they had their 80s, they had their 80s era, just like Holland Oates had their 80s era, and it was so different from their 70s era.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:23:46

Yeah, for a lot of people, this is a quintessential prom song. I mean, this is, for me, it is one of the quintessential slow dance songs at these all school parties that we would have. So, yeah. So great classic song, a great scene. They're just finally getting to be kids, in a way, like they're getting to be who they're meant to be.

Michelle Newman 1:24:06

Yeah, the best part is how nobody's dancing. They like don't know what to do. And I just love the pans of, you know, those cameras panning past like it looks like many of the people didn't come with dates, but they all want to come to this prom, and you've sort of got the wall of girls and the wall of boys. They're like, chewing on their fingernails, or they're like, twiddling with their dress or their hair, or, like, looking down nobody's dancing, because nobody knows really, like, this is new, like they've never danced.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:24:39

It's kind of like, this thing you've always been taught not to do. It's kind of like how I feel about pot right now, like, whenever I smell it anywhere, and even it's legal, like, I get this initial someone's gonna get caught. Like, that's my first response to it. And so, yeah, so for them, I'm sure it's a little mixed thing, this thing I've been told I can't do forever, and now, now's this, oh,

Michelle Newman 1:24:58

it's just such a great. Scene, though it's so awkward, you just feel so bad for all of them and they're so cute.

Kristin Nilsen 1:25:18

There's a really important scene that comes before, after, I think it's after, Almost paradise, and before we get the party going. And that's when the bad boyfriend comes back. Because, of course, he's pissed that Ren is taking out his girlfriend, and of course there is a fight, and Sarah Joshua Parker has made Willard promise not to fight, because he's a big fighter. And she's like, this is my night. This is, this is my prom. Don't fight. But those guys play so dirty. They're so dirty. And so finally, poor Willard. He looks at rusty, he's like, on his hands and knees, and they're beating him up, and he's not fighting back. And he looks at Sarah, Jessica Parker, he says, Rusty, what do you want me to do? And she says, kick the son of a bitch's ass. And they're just like, yes. And so not only does Willard kick the bad boyfriend's ass, but then Ren comes out and he kicks ass with his dance moves. Like he uses dance moves to kick dance ninja. It is, it is dance ninja. He uses dance moves to whip Chuck's ass. And then they go in.

Michelle Newman 1:26:19

That's Footloose starts the

Michelle Newman 1:26:31

dancing is so great, and then they get into, like the soul train lines, and they're all going down the line. Interesting fact about this is much like Pretty in Pink, where that whole ending had to be reshot and redone. Same with Footloose. It actually just kind of ended with, like a freeze frame. And everybody in the movie theater was starting to get up at the screening and dance, and they realized, oh, we need to make this scene a lot longer. So they we need everybody to get up in celebration, because, like I said earlier this the end of this movie is such a celebration. And, yeah, we are now celebrating feet that are allowed to dance, and everybody that has been on this ride and this story with with them in the theater. That's you, that's me. We all want to get up and dance like I said I did last week. I had to. I couldn't, not you need the song and almost in its entirety. Well, they had to go back and reshoot it. So if you watch the scene again, guess who's not in any of those dance scenes? Sarah Jessica Parker, she was all filming something else so rusty. So you get a lot of close ups of Willard doing all his new dance moves. Now you get her at the very beginning, when they run in, she's with them because they froze it like right as they all run in originally. But then you would expect when willard's doing, he's doing like you said, Kristen. He's doing the boxing with his hand. He's doing the robot. He gets down, like, get down on the floor. They do all this. It's his moment. Is his shots of rusty going out of her mind with excitement and Glee and so proud of him. You don't see Sarah, Jessica Parker in any of those scenes way. Oh my gosh,

Kristin Nilsen 1:28:15

so, and that's the natural progression, because they're out there after the after. They kick everyone's ass, yeah, go in for the scene where he's like, I thought this was a party. Let's dance. Cue Footloose.

Michelle Newman 1:28:26

That makes me sad, because I would have loved to have seen her be so excited. I know I'm watching Willard dance right and dancing with him. But regardless of that, it's such a great scene. And I love when you get you you get to see, you know, it showcases different, different people.

Kristin Nilsen 1:28:44

Everybody gets to do their thing, and I just like them. And glitter is just like glitter.

Michelle Newman 1:28:49

It's like a glitter is constantly like a machine. Somebody brought in a glitter machine because it's just going and it's so good.

Kristin Nilsen 1:28:55

It's so great. It's so great. This is this scene. Is really willard's Triumph right here. And I think it's a credit to the to the director, that we didn't notice that Sarah, Jessica Parker, wasn't there.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:29:06

I was just gonna say that I didn't notice that until you just well, I've seen it once, but I wasn't missing her. I wasn't I wasn't on the screen. So that's good for good for that. Down.

Kristin Nilsen 1:29:27

I think we have not talked about Footloose previously, because it's almost too familiar, right? Like we know it so well. What is there to talk about but watching this week, I think, like you said in the beginning, Michelle, I think it means more to us today than it did then, because back back then, we were like, who would ban a book? Like, do that? Yeah, who would burn a book? There's a whole book burning scene and and now this is what's happening here. It really exposes how fear, how fear of the unknown, fear of looking foolish, fear of. Losing the people you love. Fear of people who are not like you drives us to be mean to outsiders, mean to each other, and if you look at the songs from the soundtrack, it reads kind of like a manifesto for living your life. You got to cut foot loose, Holding Out for a Hero. Let's hear it for the boy or the girl. I'm free, Almost paradise. Watch it today. Everybody watch it today. It might hit different. Thank you so much for listening today, and we will see you next time.

Michelle Newman 1:30:31

I love this episode, y'all, I loved I loved having this conversation. This was really fun. And before we go, we want to say a genuine thank you to our Patreon members. Your support means everything to us. You help keep this show going, and being part of this community feels a lot like the best Gen X moments, trading mixtapes, hanging out until the street lights came on, rewinding the tape just right, dancing to Footloose, right? We're so grateful you're with us, and we can't tell you how much we appreciate your support. Today, we're giving a special shout out to these patrons. Carolyn, Jennifer, Cindy Collette, Sharon, Susan Helene, Christina, Heather Jill, Elizabeth Claire, Susan and Lance. Love it. Yes.

Kristin Nilsen 1:31:17

Thank you everybody. Thank you so much. In the meantime, let's raise our glasses for a toast, courtesy of the cast of Three's Company, two good times,

Michelle Newman 1:31:25

two Happy Days,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:31:27

Two Little House on the Prairie. Cheers, cheers, everyone.

Kristin Nilsen 1:31:32

The information, opinions and comments expressed on the pop culture Preservation Society podcast belongs solely to Carolyn the crushologist and hello Newman, and are in no way representative of our employers or affiliates. And though we truly believe we are always right, there is always a first time the PCPs is written, produced and recorded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of the fictional wjm studios and our beloved Mary Richards, Nanu. Nanu, keep on truckin and May the Force Be With You. You.