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Apocalypse news: 1999, the year in review
Now we invite you, gentle reader, to join us on a thrilling ride through everything you always wanted to know about Revelations, but were afraid to ask--pivotal events in entertainment, news, and sports, inspiring and insipid, revolutionary and revolting, of the last year of the rest of your life.
Star Shtick Enterprise
If 1999 was anything, it was a year of surprises. Who knew that Prince Charles would turn out to be the father of Scary Spice's baby? Who could've predicted that Norm MacDonald's Dirty Work would sweep the Oscars? And who would have guessed that the year's top-rated television show would be Fox's When Limbs Get Mangled? In music, the biggest shock was the Backstreet Boys, who followed 1998's multiplatinum Backstreet Boys with the remarkable Sgt. Backstreet's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Yo. A startlingly original aural landscape, it featured an unprecedented level of studio experimentation and was heralded as an instant classic by Rolling Stone, calling it "an exquisite, quasi-Beatlesesque melange of quirky polyrhythms and blungy neo-Zeppelin heckelphonics, as if the Beach Boys and Snow had met in a dark alley and gingerly waved at one another." The album marked the group's maturation following the tragic death of head Boy Nick Carter, who caught pneumonia after shooting a video in which he spent four hours standing in front of an industrial fan, shirtless, water dripping off his bare torso. Another unforeseen development in the music world was the advent of the style known as Incoherent Screaming, which was popularized by young, California-based bands such as Bleargh and Waaaaaah! Suburban teenagers snapped up Incoherent Screaming records by the barrelful, forcing slightly older, slightly less-incoherently-angry bands like KoRn and Limp Bizkit off of the charts. "It's like all our fans just left us to friggin' rot," former Bizkit vocalist Fred Durst told an interviewer in October, adding, "do you want fries with that?" Film didn't prove to be surprising. The major studios stuck with tried-and-true formulas, releasing huge summer blockbusters like Jerry Bruckheimer's Doom Tentacle and Roland Emmerich's Attack of the Computer-Generated Graphics. The Farrelly Brothers capitalized on their hit comedy of 1998 with the winter's popular There's Something About Semen, and Kevin Williamson struck gold yet again with his smash hit Girls With Big Boobs Get Stabbed. Indie hits included Two Lesbians Talking, which won the Horse d'Or at Sundance, and The Schoolhouse Rock Syndrome, a plotless comedy in which five youngish guys just sort of hang around and make references to pop culture. But what film lacked in shock value was made up for in the world of television. The major networks began to feel massive pressure from cable networks, and found their viewer base eroding more and more as the year went on. Three hundred new cable channels debuted in '99, including the Hobo Channel, the Robert Wagner Channel, and the 24-hour Sanford and Son Network. In response, the major networks began to air programs loaded with sex and violence, designed to eliminate remote-control flipping by keeping their viewers' attention glued to their sets. Hits in this genre included ABC's Bone Improvement, NBC's Mortally Wounded By An Angel, and Fox's Ally McWhore. Although 1999 was a year of surprises, it can hardly prepare us for what awaits us in 2000--the growing popularity of interactive DVDs, HDTV, and the biannual Reinvention of Madonna's Image. Who can say what the future will bring? --Brian Levinson
Y2K? GR8 4 S8-10!
1999 was a slow news year, as millenial fears prompted hibernation and virtuous behavior worldwide. The biggest event, December's apocalypse, came late in the news cycle but had far-reaching effects. When Jesus returned to judge the quick and the dead, newspapers and television stations across the country took note. Footage of his flaming chariot and angels preempted football broadcasts and movies-of-the-week alike. "We're just here to separate the wheat from the chaff," the Prince of Peace told reporters. He made a big splash in the media, especially by posing with the Four Horsemen for American Express ads in a promotional stunt extensively criticized by fundamentalist leaders. In a baffling gender-bending escapade, he and the Holy Spirit showed up at the Oscars in matching print dresses. Shortly thereafter, the Son of God was jailed for trashing a hotel room in Hollywood and retaliated by torching the prison and all its inhabitants. Widespread panic ensued after dozens of Grammy nominees and management consultants lost the power of speech and began to hiss and slither on the ground. Having been walked incessantly across the street by eager volunteers, two old ladies collapsed from exhaustion. Congress went on extended hiatus. President Bill Clinton, LAW '73, was reportedly immolated after making advances toward a fire-breathing angel, whom he'd mistaken for one of Chelsea's college roommates. While he did not inhale the seraphim's smoke, he did expire in a burst of flame, leaving a charred cigar in his wake. "A cigar is never just a cigar," chuckled ABC News Commentator Sigmund Freud, resurrected from the dead in another widely publicized promotional stunt. The First Lady got whisked directly to heaven, where she and God discovered a common fondness for headbands and the "politics of value" and Vice President Al Gore assumed the highest office in the land. When the smoke cleared, Gore set to work reconstructing the Information Superhighway, which had been reduced to a deer-infested back road in the wake of the Y2K crisis. The task proved daunting, as many computer programmers had been weighed in the balance and found wanting on Judgment Day. Gore wrote a dense and little-read tract on the subject, and then returned to getting yuks on the Buddhist temple/Borscht Belt fundraising circuit for the duration of the year. The web became a repository of useless information, naked pictures of Alyssa Milano, and obnoxious personal pages eulogizing pets and Gothic rock. At Yale, with the ranks of the School of Management and Administration largely depleted, faculty members regrouped. Religion classes saw record jumps in enrollment, while the biology and astronomy departments lost academic credibility and became casualties of "selective excellence." Despite the upheaval, the endowment continued to grow, fueled by generous bequests of perishing alumni. Smaller enrollments allowed for dramatically improved housing and dining contracts. President Richard Levin, GRD '74, speaking from a smoldering pit in Hades, predicted a successful 2000 for the University. "I am confident that Yale and the nation will prosper in the next millennium, with Yale at the forefront of the Information Age," he announced as cackling, unionized demons poked him with pitchforks. --Darby Saxbe
The instant replay at the end of the universe
Although 1999 started slowly with the NBA lockout, sports fans were treated to a year filled with excitement and controversy. In January, the Minnesota Vikings won an overwhelming victory over the New York Jets in the Super Bowl, 77-0. The Vikings did not use a single running play in the game. Viking coach Dennis Green commented, "We tend to score a lot more points when we throw the ball." The basketball season began with news that shocked Gatorade, Wheaties, Coca-Cola, and the rest of the nation. Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player ever, announced he would not play, instead choosing to pursue political aspirations. Inspired by Governor Jesse "The Mind" Ventura of Minnesota, Michael funded a Republican effort to remove Bill Clinton from office. After becoming a Supreme Court Justice and co-signer of the Constitution, he declared a national election, which he and Elizabeth Dole handily won. President Jordan officially announced that soccer would replace hockey as the fourth "major sport." Canada cared. Dennis Rodman shocked virtually no one by joining the New York Liberty of the WNBA. An on-court marriage to Rebecca Lobo cost him a four-game suspension--four times as long as the marriage lasted. In baseball news, pitchers, taking advantage of nutritional supplements, set records for strikeouts during the year. Mark McGwire hit his 43rd home run on the final day of the season to retire with 500 home runs. In tennis, Anna Kournikova broke up with Sergei Federov and posed for Playboy. A steroid-enhanced Venus Williams became the first woman to win the Grand Slam since Steffi Graf did in 1988. Graf admitted to training with the East German Olympians that year soon after Williams' achievement. Golfer John Daly drove a ball 450 yards to score a hole-in-one on a par-five hole, the first triple eagle in history. At a press conference, a reporter asked Daly, "Did you use steroids?" to which he replied, "Do you really want to know?" to which the introspective reporter said, "Not really." Afterwards, they both enjoyed the all-you-can-eat buffet at Sizzler. At the outset of the '99-'00 football season, the Reverend Reggie White, speaking before the Wisconsin legislature, proclaimed that God created football before Adam and Eve. Teaching evolution became illegal in Wisconsin. Reverend White and his mother were prevented from doing any more Campbell's soup ads. And finally, Sports Illustrated awarded the Sportsman of the Year trophy to Kournikova. --Keith Berman Graphic by Sara Edward-Corbett. | |||||||||||||||||
