Kids in America
- TD’s Top 13 Movies of the Summer
- Nathan’s Hotdog Eating Contest Recap
- John Deere Classic
- YouTube Rabbithole
Alright @YouTheReader,
Today’s tune is Kim Wilde’s Kids in America. This song came out in 1981, peaking at #25 in the USA while reaching #2 in the Ireland and UK.
Kim Wilde was 20 years old at the time of this tune and funny enough she’s from the UK.
Her father, Marty Wilde, and brother, Ricky, were the writers of this song. Wilde said…
"My dad's head went into a fantasy, this idea of everything being better in America. Of course for his generation, that was very true. Everyone was going to drive-in movies, drinking milkshakes, and having hamburgers in America. We weren't doing things like that in the UK. I think a lot of that got caught up in the lyrics – all the kids in America are having a better, more interesting, more dangerous time than we were here."
Her father was jealous of American kids in his day who were listening to Elvis Presley.
This is going to sound very niche for people around my age, but this song reminds me of the Jimmy Neutron movie. It feels like a scene where people might go, oh yeah, I remember that. That’s what this song reminds me of, being a kid around ‘01.
If you don’t remember the scene, that’s okay, carry on.
When Kim Wilde recorded this song, she was still living under her parent's roof and her brother’s bedroom shared a wall with hers. "He'd got himself a Wasp keyboard – the little yellow and black thing – and I was really annoyed by all the noises coming out of his room. It had a sort of pulsing beat which ended up being the intro to Kids In America. That was particularly annoying coming through into my room while I was trying to listen to Joni Mitchell."
Apparently, this song was also in the movie Clueless.
It’s catchy as hell.
The classic La La La La-La La-La filler always works.
You can tell the Wilde family didn’t have an American history background as the manifest destiny didn’t end in East California. Why stop at East California when you can go sea to shining sea?
Now these kids in America from the 80s are all grown up with grown-up kids and some with grandkids.
Great tune, well shit, somebody’s gotta play this music and recommend some Movies of the Summer…
Kicking off with 2 mid-2000s comedies. Both films are about late teenagers on their summer vacation. American Pie takes place at a Lake House around Lake Michigan while Eurotrip goes abroad.
Fellas, I felt like I had to throw the women a bone with The Notebook. I’m not quite sure what Rachel McAdams saw in Ryan Gosling after he was an absolute liability at corner in the Titan’s secondary and couldn’t tackle a lick. Speaking of throwing bones, the doggos needed some representation and My Dog Skip feels like it took place around the summer. McAdams and Diane Lane were superb in their roles.
Everybody assumes Macaulay Culkin went through a lot as a child actor because of his iconic roles in Home Alone 1 & 2, but I disagree. Imagine being 11 years old and asked to take on the role of My Girl. To this day there are grown-ass men from the 90s petrified of getting stung by little bees because of this film. Jaws is just such a classic and is needed to help give this list some credibility. To this day there are grown-ass men from the 70s petrified of getting in the ocean because of this film.
The Goonies is the ultimate 80s kids’ adventure while Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is the ultimate senioritis adventure film. Neither of these takes place in the summer, but the vibes for both are very summer-like.
Stand By Me is Stephen King’s classic coming-of-age film about a writer recounting a childhood journey with friends. You guys want to see a dead body? Makes a ton of sense why King writes so much horror. Dazed and Confused doesn’t get talked about enough. Set in 1976, we get to watch what the last day of school in Austin, Texas, was like. There are so many scenes and one-liners, I forgot about the Air Raid one. If you haven’t seen it, it’d be a lot cooler if you did.
Aliens were the move here. I was conflicted between Men In Black and Independence Day, but being that it’s July 4th Weekend it became a no-brainer. ET, enough said.
The most obvious summer movie of all time. What’s cooler than partying at the Moontower in the 70s? Well, it’d be playing America’s Pastime at the Sandlot in the summer of 1962! Somehow The Sandlot has not yet been added for preservation in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. You’re killing me smalls, what an outright catastrophe. Week to Week Notes will be banging on the table every summer to bring awareness to this cause until this cinematic masterpiece is placed in the Chambers of Congress for good.
People forget, this was the original Week to Week Notes with the updated heading cover. That Note featured KD wanting out of Brooklyn, a whatever happened to Gary Cooper reference, USC joining the Big Ten, and the Aaron Judge Watch as he hit his 28th homer in ‘22 to walk off against the Houston Astros. Times were so simple.
Back in 1916, a Polish immigrant by the name of Nathan Handwerker started selling hotdogs from his hotdog stand on Coney Island. He started the business thanks to a $300 loan from friends and his wife’s secret hotdog recipe. Legend has it that on July 4, 1916, 4 immigrants gathered around Nathan Handwerker’s hotdog stand and made eating contest history using the amount of hotdogs they could eat as a measuring stick as to how patriotic they were. After years of unofficial urban legend stories, in 1972 Coney Island hosted the first recorded Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest.
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