It all started with Korea. Almost everything in my life does, so who’s surprised here.
We were talking about the upcoming Psy album because it’s full of super-hyped duets and collabs. Henry actually scooped me on this one: Psy and Hwasa have allegedly covered an old Pia Zadora song.
“PIA ZADORA?!” I screeched.
Look. Someone at my Pappap’s house liked her in the 80s and I can remember that one of her cassettes was permanently housed in a kitchen drawer near the fridge. As a kid in elementary school, all I knew was that she was “the singer with the crazy hair and weird name.” Of course I didn’t know until years later that she was also the butt of Late Night jokes and a bit scandalous.
I’m pretty sure it was my Aunt Sharon who liked her, and Sharon must be sending me signs from the beyond because I have been reminded of her nearly every day this week.
Anyway! This started the Google descent because first I needed to know what song this was that Psy and Hwasa would be covering and I can safely say that I have never heard it but this is evidently the second time it’s been covered by Korean singers – is Pia big in Korea?!
Then I needed to, of course, see if she’s dead. She is not!
So now I’m on getting deeper in and this is how I saw that she was listed in the cast of Troop Beverly Hills…
wait, what? And then it was starting to come back to me because I saw that movie (one of the best, honestly) in the theater with my Girl Scout Troop OBVIOULSY and have a vague recollection of cheering when she was on the screen for a blip and everyone being like, “????” but then not really caring to know because this was also around the same time I was obsessed with Zsa Zsa Gabor too so my peers just knew when to walk away.
Well, now that I was fully immersed in the Troop Beverly Hills cast list, Henry admitted that he had never seen it. Friends….WHAT. I have clearly done this man a disservice if I wasted 20 years of opportunities to rectify this.
I know that we’ve talked about this movie before at least because he was there in the early 2000s when I realized that JENNY LEWIS was in Rilo Kiley — I used to love them so much in their early years! And fun fact: When Chooch was born, I opted for him to have Henry’s last name because I thought that “Riley Kelly” was too much like “Rilo Kiley” and also didn’t cascade off the tongue as beautifully as Riley Robbins.
Back then, when I told people my reasoning, they were like, “Rilo who?” It got even better when I said he was named after the drummer of Thrice.
“Thrice?”
But I digress! Now that I knew that Henry hadn’t seen this, and after watching the 30 year reunion of some of the cast (Shelley Long is the greatest) on YouTube, I made the unilateral decision that we would be spending our Friday night by watching one of the best movies of my whole childhood.
I screamed at the Frankie and Annette cameo!
This movie REALLY HOLDS UP. I forgot about how perfectly it makes fun of itself. And how fabulous Shelley Long is. And how much I miss the show Life Goes On.
And guess what?? Henry said that he didn’t hate it and I kept staring at him to make sure he wasn’t falling asleep. Of course, he did his typical “ok what?” smirk here and there but that’s only because he doesn’t understand Girl Scout things.
I screamed, “I can’t believe you never saw this!
” And he goes, “What year did this come out? YEAH, I WAS 24.”
OOh OK, tough guy. So, after he went AWOL.
Still on that Pia Zadora tip though and needing someone to stop me from purchasing a vintage Pia Zadora satin bomber jacket for $130.
I’ll leave you with the opening credits because I forgot how amazing they are and also because I WAS OBSESSED WITH THIS BEACHBOYS SONG and 100% had this recorded from the TV onto a mix tape so I could roller skate to it in the basement.
Just so good, I’m crying, I want to be 9 again (well, actually no).