This week on the Totally 80s Podcast, host Lyndsey Parker (Yahoo Entertainment Music Editor/SiriusXM Volume Host) and the other John Hughes blast into the past as they reminisce on their favorite '80s TV guest spots by musicians, from Devo on Square Pegs to Boy George on The A-Team. Listen to the full podcast below.
ON DEVO'S GUEST APPEARANCE ON THE HIGH SCHOOL TV COMEDY SQUARE PEGS
PARKER: "I'm Jewish on my mother's side. I'm a good half Jew. And I'll tell you this. This is not a lie. The reason I had a bat mitzvah was because of Square Pegs - I was really wanting to have my full Muffy Temperman fantasy."
"Sadly Devo did not play at my bat mitzvah, just like Josie Cotton did not play at my prom. Everything that I saw on the screen was not how it really was in the Valley, but I swear, I bet you, that episode made people like want to convert to Judaism."
HUGHES: "Yeah, it was interesting because they were like the second really popular new age band to be on Square Pegs because you know, the debut episode had the waitresses."
"So that was cool, but yeah, the batmitzvah was amazing. And you know, the interesting thing for me as a Devo-tee, was the Oh No! It's Devo-era Spud uniforms with the potato white rings, as opposed to the Freedom of Choice red helmets that they were so well known for. So I wonder, I've always wondered if there was some executive at like CBS that saw this filming and went, 'How come they're not wearing the red hats?'"
ON BOY GEORGE'S GUEST SPOT ON THE A-TEAM:
HUGHES: "Well, it's late period Culture Club, which fascinates me, that whole From Luxury to Heartache, Move Away era, spiky hair."
PARKER: "'Sexuality' was from that era. That was a good song."
HUGHES: "Yeah. Actually his long spiky hair or hairdo where, you know, he kinda butched it up a little bit. I don't know if that was his choice."
PARKER: "He was butch by Boy George Standards, which made it a perfect way, perfect casting for him to be cowboy George. He was the original Orville Peck."
"So from what I understand from my fuzzy memories, and they're still fuzzy, even though I looked it all up on YouTube right before this, because it's just like, I'm still trying to compute that this actually happened. So there's some kind of plot where he's a country performer. Like I said, the proto-Orville Peck / cowboy George."
PARKER: "And he's performing in some, it's very reminiscent of like the Blues Brothers scene of them performing behind the chicken wire or like, you know, the Sex Pistols performing in the South or something, except everyone likes it. When Boy George and Culture Club start performing 'Karma Chameleon' in this like cowboy dive bar, what's great is the acting in it because Boy George is, like, forced to say things, all sorts of thing he wouldn't say like, in his Boy George voice, like, 'Go for it, Hannibal!' and like 'Awesome. Mr. T!' And there's one sassy moment where they're walking away and they go, 'We're the A-team,' and Boy George goes, 'So there!'"
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