The Weekly Wayback: Notable Pop-Culture Anniversaries for Jan. 25-31, 2025

Each week, the Weekly Wayback will take you back — often way back — to relive (or discover) the notable happenings in popular culture that first occurred during a given week in a certain year at least two decades ago.

Memorable movies, music, television, books, sports, radio, comics and more will be spotlighted. So hop in the Wayback Machine, and away we go!

The Weekly Wayback: Pop-Culture Anniversaries for Jan. 25-31, 2025

85 Years Ago (1940)

MOVIES
The Fighting 69th
James Cagney, Pat O’Brien and George Brent led this war film that opened on Jan. 27, 1940, and became one of the top 10 highest-grossing movies of that year. It was based on the actual exploits of New York City’s 69th Infantry Regiment in World War I. Cagney’s character, brash and loud-mouthed Private Jerry Plunkett, was created for the film, but some real-life people were dramatized, including Father Francis P. Duffy (O’Brien), Major “Wild Bill” Donovan (Brent) and Joyce Kilmer (played by Jeffrey Lynn), the noted writer and poet who was killed during the Second Battle of the Marne on July 30, 1918.

Courtesy Everett Collection

RADIO
Beat the Band
Airing from Jan. 28, 1940-Sept. 6, 1944, on NBC radio, this quiz show featured music-related questions submitted by listeners and read by the host to band members in the show’s orchestra (from 1940-41, it was the Ted Weems Orchestra; the Harry Sosnick Band took over from 1941-44). Band members who got stumped and answered questions incorrectly had to toss a fifty-cent piece into the bass drum “kitty” that would be claimed at the end by the musician who had the most correct answers. Garry Moore hosted from 1940-43, with Marvin Miller announcing; later hosts included cabaret singer Hildegarde (Hildegarde Loretta Sell) and Eddie Mayehoff. A young Perry Como, who was in Weems’ orchestra, was featured as an early vocalist on the show.

80 Years Ago (1945)

MOVIES
National Velvet
After a December 1944 premiere, this drama opened in wide release on Jan. 26, 1945. It featured Elizabeth Taylor in one of her most famous earlier roles, as Velvet Brown, a girl who, with the help of a jaded former jockey (Mickey Rooney), tries to ready a wild but gifted horse for competition in England’s Grand National Sweepstakes. National Velvet costarred Best Supporting Actress winner Anne Revere, Donald Crisp and Angela Lansbury.

55 Years Ago (1970)

MUSIC
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Simon & Garfunkel’s fifth and final studio album was released on Jan. 26, 1970, featuring classic Paul Simon-penned hit songs like the title track, “Cecilia” and “The Boxer.” A certified platinum-selling album eight times over, Bridge Over Troubled Water won Grammys for Album of the Year and Best Engineered Recording, with its title song winning Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Contemporary Song and Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s).

Chicago
This second studio album from the title band, retroactively known as Chicago II and considered the group’s breakthrough album, was released on Jan. 26, 1970. It featured classic tracks like “Make Me Smile/Colour My World,” which hit No. 7 on Billboard’s Hot 100 (the two singles were featured on the album within a nearly 13-minute-long, seven-song mini-rock opera/suite called “Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon,” written by James Pankow), and “25 or 6 to 4,” written by Robert Lamm and with lead vocals by Peter Cetera, which reached No. 61. Chicago peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 chart and received three Grammy nominations: Album of the Year, Contemporary Vocal Group and Best Album Cover.

Moondance
Van Morrison released his third, and probably his most quintessential, studio album on Jan. 27, 1970. Often ranked among the greatest pop/rock albums ever, Moondance featured classic tracks that became staples on FM radio, like the title song (which was not released as a single until 1977, when it hit No. 92 on Billboard’s Hot 100), “Crazy Love,” “And It Stoned Me,” “Into the Mystic,” “Come Running” and “Caravan.” Though not even nominated for a Grammy upon its release, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and has been a certified platinum seller three times over.

45 Years Ago (1980)

MUSIC
Love Stinks
Released Jan. 28, 1980, this ninth studio album from The J. Geils Band reached No. 18 on the Billboard 200 chart. Leading off with the fun track “Just Can’t Wait,” which reached No. 78 on Billboard’s Hot 100, the album also featured a couple of other singles that charted: “Come Back” (No. 32) and the title track, an anthem to all who have loved and lost and are bitter about it, which peaked at No. 38. A certified gold album, Love Stinks was the J. Geils Band’s biggest success until the end of the following year, when they would peak with Freeze-Frame.

 “Call Me”
New wave band Blondie had one of their biggest hits with this extremely danceable single released on Jan. 29, 1980, as part of the soundtrack to, and the theme for, the movie American Gigolo, which hit theaters on Feb. 1. Cowritten by singer Debbie Harry and disco producing legend Giorgio Moroder, “Call Me” was a No. 1 hit, and earned Grammy and Golden Globe nods (how it didn’t get an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song is beyond me).

TELEVISION
BET
Founded by Robert L. Johnson and Sheila Johnson, and beginning as a programming block on the Madison Square Garden Sports Network (which became USA Network) on Jan. 25, 1980, Black Entertainment Television became a full-fledged independent channel on July 1, 1983.

40 Years Ago (1985)

MUSIC
“We Are the World” Recorded
Supergroup USA for Africa began recording “We Are the World,” the charity single written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie to raise money for the Ethiopian famine, on Jan. 28, 1985. That group was indeed super; among the many musical icons in USA for Africa were Jackson, Richie, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers, Tina Turner, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson, Cyndi Lauper and many more, conducted by Quincy Jones.

30 Years Ago (1995)

MOVIES
Before Sunrise
This romantic drama from director Richard Linklater opened in wide release on Jan. 27, 1995, about a week after its Sundance Film Festival premiere. Linklater and Kim Krizan cowrote the screenplay, which told the minimalistic story about a young man and woman, Jesse (Hawke) and Céline (Delpy), who meet on a train in Europe and end up spending the evening together in Vienna, knowing it will probably be their only night together.

But Jesse and Céline did see each other again, and audiences enjoyed catching up with them, in the sequels Before Sunset (2004), which earned an Oscar nomination for its screenplay set in a single afternoon in Paris, and Before Midnight (2013), set in a single day on the Peloponnese coast of Greece, which also received an Oscar nod for its screenplay. Hawke and Delpy collaborated with Linklater on the latter screenplays (Krizan was co-credited with Linklater for the story on Before Sunset), which featured the pair ultimately getting together and having twin daughters.