It can be cathartic to dunk on your past. I use Facebook Memories as a shooting gallery for my previous “deep thoughts,” commenting that I’d like to go back in time to hit myself in the face with a toaster and things like that. And it’s fun! Anyway, Daily Show correspondent and comedian Roy Wood Jr. was propelled by a similar concept to launch the Comedy Central YouTube original interview series, Stand-Up Playback, wherein Wood chats with comics as they review some of their old clips (which he digs up) and pick apart their style choices along the way.

For Wood, the show is a natural extension of something he does to continue improving on stage, telling Uproxx, “Part of my process is to go back and watch stuff from two, three years ago, just to clock the evolution of the physicality of my performance.” Aside from playing MLB The Show at night, popping up on The Daily (Social Distancing) Show, co-raising his kid, and writing, Wood has extra time on his hands thanks to the quarantine. Time that he might have spent on stage or on tour, but which he’s now spending digitizing VHS tapes and DVDs of performances from a career in comedy that spans more than 20 years. As you can imagine, that kind of deep-dive has unearthed some wince-worthy moments tied to his penchant for bad suits. This includes Wood’s “youth pastor” look that he and Mike Birbiglia went all-in on a recent episode of the show.

Poking at Birbiglia as he acknowledges the crimes against fashion that he committed when he dressed like a barely keeping it together dad on Sears photo day helps Wood to keep his “comedy knife sharp.” But the look back also leads Birbiglia to talk about the change in the pacing of his jokes, his move to more biographical material, and getting a hand from John Mulaney on a punch line from way back. It’s comedy catnip, insight into comedy craft that, according to Wood, almost feels like “a director’s commentary.”

Wood knows that diving deep into such things isn’t for everyone, but he also posits that it doesn’t really matter. “I know that, to a degree, there’s a lot of nicheness to what we’re doing, but I just think the way content is now, it’s okay to be niche.”

Friday’s guest, the legendary George Wallace, helps to provide what Wood describes as, “one of the most meaningful conversations [he has] had with a veteran in the game.” In the episode (which you can preview below), Wood praises Wallace for his uncommon willingness to mentor younger comics after discussing the limits put on him when he made late-night appearances on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show (as well a quick thought on the rise of DefJam). This runs parallel to Wallace riffing on staying at home and Wood being stunned by Wallace’s purple leather jacket that needs to be seen to be believed.

Wood has big ambition when it comes to future guests, looking to bring on comics whose experience crosses multiple eras. He mentions Cedric The Entertainer, Chelsea Peretti, Chris Rock, Ellen, Michael Che and others. Dave Chappelle, of course, is mentioned as a dream fit.

While Stand-Up Playback launched as an answer to the insatiable need for fresh content during COVID, it’s not something tied explicitly to when things open back up and comics like Wood are able to get back on the road. Wood tells me that the idea for the show had occurred to him before COVID and that he sees value longterm with little change — which means keeping it at home as opposed to in a studio with the more lo-fi location providing a dose of intimacy that Wood believes comes through in the conversations. A take that’s hard to deny after watching the end result.

Episodes of ‘Stand-Up Playback’ launch Fridays on the Comedy Central YouTube channel.

Due to the global novel coronavirus pandemic, almost all sporting events and leagues around the world were forced to suspend or cancel their plans starting in March. However, as some countries begin to ease their lockdown restrictions, some sports are starting to slowly return. As some European soccer leagues begin preparing to resume their seasons, the International Football Association Board has temporarily amended the laws of the game, allowing teams to use up to five substitutes per game, increased from the original limit of three.

The IFAB approved FIFA’s proposal on Friday and will take effect for any leagues that start and end within the 2020 calendar year. FIFA originally submitted the proposal in order to ensure the health and safety of players given that they have not played soccer competitively since mid-March. There is also the possibility that some leagues may attempt to play more games in a shorter period to make up for the number of games missed. The hope is that the new temporary substitution rule will limit the number of injuries and stress on players’ bodies once the season picks back up.

While the rule increases the number of substitutions allowed by each team, it does not change the amount of times a change can be made, eliminating any added possibilities for time-wasting. So teams will still have just three opportunities in a game to make a substitution, but with the chance to swap more players than usual at each stoppage in the game.

“The temporary amendment comes into force with immediate effect, and has been made as matches may be played in a condensed period in different weather conditions, both of which could have impacts on player welfare,” IFAB’s statement read. “The decision on whether to apply this temporary amendment will remain at the discretion of each individual competition organiser, while The IFAB and FIFA will determine at a later stage whether this temporary amendment would need to be extended further (e.g. for competitions due to be completed in 2021).”

The German Bundesliga resumed training in April and is set to become the first European league to resume on May 16 with a plan to play without fans and end the season on June 30. This week, players in Spain’s La Liga began reporting for training after being tested for COVID-19. There is no set date for the league’s return yet, but Sports Illustrated reported that the Spanish football authorities wanted teams to train for about a month before competition resumes. Most Serie A teams in Italy began training this week with no set return date.

In France, the remainder of the Ligue 1 2019-20 season was officially canceled on April 30 and Paris St. Germain were crowned champions. The Premier League season remains postponed, and it is unclear whether domestic and European competitions will return this year.

Jimmy Snuka and the 1983 death of his girlfriend, Nancy Argentino, was brought up again last month when the story was told on Vice’s Dark Side of the Ring series. Today, a new piece for MEL Magazine examines the detains of both Argentino’s death and Snuka’s domestic violence arrest months earlier, and reveals new information about the involvement of Vince McMahon.

How much of a role Vince McMahon played in Snuka not initially facing criminal charges related to Argentino’s death has been one of the wrestling industry’s bleakest questions for decades. “Who Failed Nancy Argentino?” doesn’t have a concrete answer for that, but the piece does show that McMahon was directly involved in making sure Argentino didn’t go through with pressing charges against Snuka for a domestic violence incident about five months before her death in 1983.

Though Argentino was initially willing to press charges, she ended swearing that Snuka “never struck me or intentionally harmed me in any way on January 18, 1983, nor at any other time in the past,” a claim that doesn’t mesh with police and other witnesses’ reports of what happened between her and Snuka that night. Why did Argentino change her tune?

According to an interview during the investigation of Argentino’s murder with law enforcement officers who worked on the January case, “Vince McMahon tried to talk her out of making the complaint against Snuka.” Meanwhile, McMahon claimed during the murder investigation that he had never heard of any issues between Snuka and Argentino even though the January assault was in the news.

On May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered to Ally forces, thus ending World War II in Europe. For most of the world, it’s a day to celebrate, but for the German people, the day comes with a feeling of uneasiness.

May 8 has different connotations throughout the country. In the west, most people feel a sense of shame over the day. In the east, which fell under the power of the Iron Curtain, it was taught in schools as the “Day of Liberation” by Soviet forces.

For the 75th anniversary of the fall of Nazism, the city of Berlin is celebrating with a public holiday to mark the end of World War II for the first time. The holiday commemorates May 8 as a day of liberation from the forces of fascism.

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The day was scheduled to have public events including an open-air exhibition and museum events. But they were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Posters by Kulturprojekte declaring “In the beginning was a choice — a choice and a result” have been hanging around the city.

Kulturprojekte says the goal of its campaign is to remind Berliners that the Nazi regime came through Democratic means and “that it is the responsibility of everyone to ensure that history does not repeat itself.”

It believes that making May 8 a public holiday “offers the opportunity to send an unmistakable message against fascism and war and for peace.”

“We are also keen to reach a young audience, particularly those with a migrant background, who have little knowledge of German history,” Moritz van Dülmen, the head of Kulturprojekte, told the BBC.

“It’s the principles of democracy that we want to get across,” Dülmen added.

There is also a movement to make May 8 a national holiday celebrating the liberation of Germany from Nazis. Holocaust survivor Esther Bejarano, 95, wrote an open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel pushing for May it.

Over 100,000 people have signed her petition for a holiday that would commemorate “a day of liberation and the crushing of the National Socialist regime.”

Prominent politicians from Germany’s left-wing Linke party have backed Bejarano’s plan. However, Alexander Gauland, a leading figure in the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), disagrees.

“You can’t make May 8 a happy day for Germany,” Gauland said. “For the concentration camp inmates, it was a day of liberation. But it was also a day of absolute defeat, a day of the loss of large parts of Germany and the loss of national autonomy.”

As right-wing nationalism spreads across Europe, it’s essential to keep the lessons learned during World War II from falling by the wayside. The biggest opposition party in Germany right now is the AfD, a right-wing nationalist party that has downplayed Nazi atrocities and has declared to fight an “invasion of foreigners” into the country.

Kulturprojekte’s May 8 campaign is to remind Berliners that living in a democracy doesn’t inoculate Germany form the forces of fascism. There’s never been a better time to remind them than now.

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Figuring out which brand makes the best-tasting whiskey in the world is a silly task. It’s fun, don’t get us wrong. But also silly. Different life experiences will lead to different palates, tastes, and desires. Different expressions from brands can vary widely in flavor. Different years or rickhouse conditions can change the game immensely.

There’s no point in arguing anyone’s favorite whiskey, is what we’re saying. We all like what we like.

That being said, there are certain whiskey brands that have broad appeal and are almost universally beloved. Does that make them the “best” whiskeys? We’re not so sure. Sometimes being a tasty whiskey is good enough for the mainstream; whereas a professional taster might want to see certain elements truly stand out. Still, it’s never a bad idea to know what a huge swath of whiskey lovers drink, so we thought we’d check the pulse over at Ranker.

The site’s ranking of the “best tasting whiskey” has nearly 50,000 votes. While that’s not a consensus, it is a fair amount of folks chiming in — enough votes to make interesting conversation, at the very least. We lay the top ten brands out below and pair those rankings with tasting notes for our favorite expression from each brand.

10. The Glenlivet

Expression To Try: The Glenlivet Caribbean Reserve
ABV: 40%
Average Price: $40

The Whisky:

It’s hard to argue with a decent bottle of The Glenlivet. This is an accessible whisky all around. Their Caribbean Reserve expression is a classic single malt that has been finished in Caribbean rum casks, giving the whisky a layer of depth that elevates the sip.

Tasting Notes:

You’re greeted by a sense of an apple orchard full of ripe fruit. Notes of banana and crisp apples play on the palate as simmering brown sugar and butter meet rich toffee notes next to a sense of oak. In the end, it’s the sweet and breezy pineapple and banana that carry you towards a mellow, slightly sweet, and long-lingering finish.

9. Johnnie Walker Black Label

Expression To Try: Johnnie Walker Double Black Label
ABV: 40%
Average Price: $45

The Whisky:

Johnnie Walker Black is made to be sipped. Their Double Black take notes of Island and West Coast whiskies and dials them up for maximum sippage. The expression is finished in deeply charred oak barrels to add an extra layer of smoke and depth.

Tasting Notes:

Smoke is what you get with this dram. Hints of orange, apples, and honey mingle with dark spices and a clear sense of peaty smoke throughout. The sip finishes long with that sense of smoke carrying through, alongside the wood and spice.

8. Buffalo Trace

Expression To Try: Buffalo Trace Experimental Collection
ABV: 45%
Average Price: $120

The Whiskey:

Picking only one expression from Buffalo Trace is tough. They make a lot of whiskeys. Some of the most interesting expressions come under the “Experimental” line. Currently, Buffalo Trace has over 22,000 barrels of experimental whiskey aging in their rickhouses. We’re calling out their “Double-Barreled” expression, distilled in 1997, as being a worthwhile bottle to track down (though don’t sleep on any of their Experimental bottles, really).

Tasting Notes:

The rye-centric mash bill really shines through upfront with equal measures of oak and spice. A sense of apples, wildflowers, orange zest, and caramel mix with hints of vanilla and dark, bold spiciness. The end is long, warm, and spicy as the toasted wood and slight bitter char shines through.

7. The Macallan

Expression To Try: The Macallan Rare Cask
ABV: 43%
Average Price: $300

The Whisky:

The Macallan has a deep roaster of great whisky to choose from. On the higher end of the spectrum, their Rare Cask is a hell of a bottle to have around. The juice is aged in hand-selected American and European barrels that have been seasoned with sherry. Some of the barrels are second fill but most are seasoned and the first whisky that touches them is this one. It’s a dynamic aging program that brings some serious whisky goodness.

Tasting Notes:

Vanilla and oak dance with a sense of dried fruits and bright orange. Christmas spices cut through the sip as fresh and almost juicy ginger peeks with a sense of bitter dark chocolate with a hint of salt. The citrus, spice, and wood combine for a long, warm, and enduring finish.

6. Crown Royal

Expression To Try: Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye Blended Canadian Whisky
ABV: 45%
Average Price: $30

The Whisky:

This much-lauded whisky is the crown jewel of the Crown Royal family (sorry). The 90 percent rye mash bill, subtle aging, and expert blending make for a refined yet very drinkable dram of rye whisky.

Tasting Notes:

The rye grains come through next to a feeling of wood and the sharpness of Christmas spices. The oak carries through, accompanied by the peppery spice, rich vanilla pods, tart red berries, and an undercurrent of butter-forward butterscotch. That butteriness turns slightly creamy as the spices and wood carry on through the short-yet-powerful finish.

5. Knob Creek

Expression To Try: Knob Creek Single Barrel Reserve Bourbon Whiskey
ABV: 60%
Average Price: $50

The Whiskey:

Everything about this expression is amped up. The barrels are hand-selected for their character and bottled with no fuss whatsoever. That directness leads to a powerful sip with a high ABV that’ll leave you tipsy but wanting more of this unique pour of nine-year-old whiskey.

Tasting Notes:

Every bottle is going to have a little variance. Expect classic notes of bourbon vanilla next to oak with a sense of roasted nuts. That vanilla carries through as caramel brings a sweet edge with the wood shining throughout. A mild wisp of smoke arrives late with a little old library funk on the long and velvety end.

4. Jack Daniel’s

Expression To Try: Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Select Tennessee Whiskey
ABV: 47%
Average Price: $50

The Whiskey:

This single barrel Tennessee whiskey is a winner all around. The expression is pulled from deep in Jack Daniel’s rickhouses’ and judged by the depth of flavor and signature nature of Jack Daniel’s overall.

Tasting Notes:

Again, there will be slight variations at play withing these bottles. Still, expect toasted wood, banana, and dark spices upfront. The sip flows with the fruit and spices to a point of feeling like bananas stewed in butter and spice with clear notes of vanilla and caramel. The finish is clearly fruity, spicy, and woody and lasts like a good “Kentucky hug.”

3. Maker’s Mark

Expression To Try: Maker’s Mark Private Select Bourbon Whisky
ABV: 55.55%
Average Price: $70

The Whisky:

This is a whisky that’s kind of made to order. Maker’s Mark brings in bartenders and retailers to choose from ten different finishing oak staves to create a unique expression by combining different finishings. That means there are 1,001 possible stave combinations. This makes Private Select a fascinating dram to chase down.

Tasting Notes:

This really just depends on what bottle you’ve tracked down. Expect classic notes of bourbon vanilla, caramel, and oak as a foundation. Then, the taste can really go in a thousand directions.

2. Jameson

Expression To Try: Jameson 18 Years Irish Whiskey
ABV: 40%
Average Price: $150

The Whiskey:

This is a special bottle of Irish whiskey. The juice is aged for up to 18 years in both former sherry and bourbon casks. Then, the master blenders hand-select the best of the best for an additional three years of finishing in fresh first-fill bourbon barrels.

Tasting Notes:

Oak is prominent alongside spice, toffee, and bright florals. Toffee carries on and augments oily leather, wisps of smoke, vanilla, almonds, and thick milk chocolate. The end marries the spice, wood, and toffee into a subtle but long finish.

1. Woodford Reserve

Expression To Try: Woodford Reserve Double Oaked Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
ABV: 45.2%
Average Price: $55

The Whiskey:

This expression spends years mellowing in lightly toasted but deeply charred new oak. Once it hits the sweet spot, it’s transferred to new barrels that have been heavily toasted but lightly charred for a nine-month finishing session.

Tasting Notes:

That toasted oak comes through next to marzipan, dark tart berries, and a whiff of honeycomb. Caramel, apple orchards, sharp Christmas spices, and oily vanilla pods dance in the sip. The finish is long, nutty, spicy, and bolstered by an almost velvet oakiness.

As the coronavirus pandemic spreads, the live music industry has taken a hit. Nearly every festival and concert tour this summer have been postponed or canceled entirely, and live music and touring stocks saw a major dip in value. Live Nation recently reported they were postponing all upcoming stadium concerts, but with the uncertainty of the virus and a vaccine, the organization was purposefully vague about when they planned on returning to normal. In a recent call with investors, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino has detailed a firm plan about when the company hopes to resume full-scale operations.

According to Variety, Rapino said on a Thursday call that the company plans on “starting slow and small” over the next six months before revaluating. “Over the next six months, we’ll be starting slow and small, focusing on the basics and testing regionally. But whether it’s in Arkansas or [another] state that is safe, secure and politically fine to proceed in, we’re going to dabble in fan-less concerts with broadcasts and reduced-capacity shows, because we can make the math work,” Rapino said.

Rapino continued that concerts in the fall are dependent on whether or not cases begin to spike after cities start reopening. Venues will begin to reopen in small numbers, but Live Nation’s goal is to resume concerts in the summer of 2021: “I think in the fall you’ll see more experimenting and more shows happening in a theater setting, into some arenas. And then our goal is really to be on sale in the third and fourth quarters for 2021 at full scale.”

Rapino also said that he believes fans are willing to wait to see their favorite artists for as long as it takes: “Fans wanted to see Billie Eilish in March, but they’ll wait ’til October or until February because the average customer goes to two-and-a-half shows a year.”

Elsewhere on the call, Rapino reportedly detailed the company’s recent earnings report to investors, and it was unsurprisingly down. Though the lockdown began the last three weeks of the quarter, Live Nation’s revenues were down 20 percent, concert revenue was down 25 percent, and ticketing was down 16 percent. However, though Live Nation faced backlash over their ticket refund policy, the company found that 90 percent of ticketholders were keeping their passes until the rescheduled show. The company’s numbers show a promising trend that fans are hopeful about the future of live shows, and plan on attending as soon as they are able to.

As far as rom-coms named after Paul Simon songs go, they don’t get much better than Obvious Child, the “Inside Llewyn Davis of abortion films.” For her follow-up, that movie’s co-writer Karen Maine went back to the early 2000s, a different, more simple time, when guys with screen names like HairyChest1956 were on AOL, not Reddit.

(Maybe it wasn’t that different.)

Yes, God, Yes, which Maine both wrote and directed, stars Stranger Things breakout Natalia Dyer as Alice, a midwest teen who “discovers masturbation and is overwhelmed with guilt” following a racy AOL chat. “Seeking redemption, she attends a mysterious religious retreat to try and suppress her urges, but it isn’t easy, especially after a cute upperclassman starts flirting with her,” according to the official plot synopsis. But after discovering a “shocking truth” at the retreat, she leaves, only to meet an “unlikely ally who offers an alternative view of what it means to be a good person.” Not helping matters is Father Murphy (Timothy Simons) telling her that “God is always watching.”

Pretty sure Jonah is the last guy I want to hear spiritual guidance from.

Yes, God, Yes, which won a Special Jury Award at SXSW, is out this July.

DMV area rapper IDK has built a strong buzz over the past couple of years since changing his stage name (dropping the “Jay” from “Jay IDK”) with a string of solid, critically-acclaimed projects that includes the autobiographical IWasVeryBad and the metaphysical Is He Real. His projects so far have all been extremely personal works that come from his own experiences, so it only makes sense that he sticks to that philosophy as he branches out with his next one: Producing music for Kevin Durant’s upcoming basketball documentary, Basketball County: In The Water, according to Billboard.

The connections between the two stars are apparent: Both Durant and IDK grew up in Maryland’s PG County, just outside of Washington DC, and have remained close to their hometowns even as both have become international stars. Basketball County aims to highlight the talent and stories of hoop stars from the DC/Maryland/Virginia area. IDK will serve as the composer, music supervisor, and narrator for the project, which airs next Friday, May 15 on Showtime.

In a press release, Durant writes, “This is a project that is near and dear to my heart. Having grown up in Prince George’s County and with my family residing there today, it’s my life’s mission to not only give back through my foundation but continue to tell the amazing stories of those that have come from there. I’m really excited to be partnering with Showtime and for fans to hear from some of the world’s best players about what PG County means to them.”

Watch Basketball County: In The Water next Friday at 9pm.

IDK is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Have you ever watched a movie and had no idea if you’ve ever seen it before or not? Like, maybe some of it feels familiar, but you can’t put a finger on if you’ve actually sat down and watched the whole thing before? For me, that’s Flashdance. A movie I think I saw as a kid, but, then again, the songs are so popular, maybe I’m just thinking of the music videos.

Right after everything in our current world started getting delayed or canceled, I told several movie studios I’d be interested in any reissues or anniversary edition Blu-rays of catalog titles. Because, well, there are so few new movies, a new perspective on something older didn’t seem like such a bad idea. So, yes, smashcut to this week and a new Flashdance Blu-ray shows up at my door.

Flashdance is remarkable for a few reasons. Most notably, it launched the career of Jennifer Beals, who stars as Alex. It spawned two massively popular songs, “What a Feeling” by Irene Cara and “Maniac” by Michael Sembello. And it was the first producing collaboration between Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, who would go on to produce some of the biggest blockbusters of the decade and beyond.

What’s weird is, the thing about everything I just wrote in that previous paragraph almost dwarfs anything there is to say about the actual film. Watching it now, I’m fairly sure I had seen it before on HBO or whatever, but the reason I couldn’t put a finger on the plot is because there’s barely a plot to speak of. Yet, while watching, this movie is pure adrenaline. It feels obvious today why critics dismissed Flashdance and yet audiences ate it up. My brain knew what I was watching wasn’t particularly great, but yet at the same time, I felt great. It’s impossible to watch it and not feel happy. It’s cinematic dopamine. And it’s the template Bruckheimer and Simpson would use to great effect in many more movies to come. But with Flashdance, it’s like getting a look at the raw source material.

Flashdance both begins and ends with Irene Cara’s “What a Feeling.” This is smart because it’s an impossibly catchy song. As the song fades we see a welder, with the name “Alex” written on the welder’s mask, hard at work in a Pittsburgh factory. Beals then removes her mask and shakes her hair out, which was no doubt to get some sort of 1983 audience to do a doubletake and say, “What?! A lady?!.”

Alex, short for Alexandra, works as a welder during the day, then dances at a cabaret at night, doing elaborate performances that are better than many music videos of the era. But Alex’s dream is to be accepted at the Pittsburgh Conservatory of Dance, but doesn’t think she has the experience to get even an audition. Eventually she starts dating the owner of the steel mill who has a lot of contacts with local influencers and gets Alex an audition. Now, mind you, everything I just explained is about 90 minutes of plot. Almost nothing else happens. (Except for a subplot about a cook who wants to be a comedian. Also, Robert Wuhl shows up as a patron of the cabaret in a roll so small that I wasn’t sure if he was in the movie or just happened to be hanging out there he night this was filmed.) It’s pretty much just montage after montage of Alex dancing. And because Flashdance was concocted in a laboratory to be visually and audibly pleasing to humans, I was somehow riveted the whole time. Flashdance is witchcraft.

But it’s weird, because Flashdance doesn’t have the cultural footprint today that other Bruckheimer and Simpson productions do, like, say, Top Gun or Beverly Hills Cop. No one is asking for a Flashdance sequel. (The argument could be made, and I guess I’m making it now, that today Flashdance is best known for its soundtrack as opposed to the film itself. So it still has a footprint, I just doubt that many people under 30 have actually seen Flashdance.)

But what matters most about Flashdance, it’s legacy, is the blueprint it provided for basically printing money. Director Adrian Lyne crafted a movie that’s less a narrative and more an assemblage of scenes and moments. (Something Bruckheimer and Simpson would have even greater success doing when they teamed with Tony Scott.) With Flashdance, it’s almost like we can scientifically pull apart the secret ingredient for success: There’s the opening title, scrolling from left to right in huge letters as the opening synth beats of “What a Feeling” start. There’s the montage of Alex dancing alone to “Maniac.” There are some passing attempts at plot, but not anywhere near enough to get in the way of the cool scenes. Then there’s the finale, as “What a Feeling” amps back up in a perfectly edited audition (it actually picked up an editing Oscar nomination) as Alex flies around the room and win the hearts of the school board and the audience. Pure, unfiltered triumph.

Flashdance would become a sensation that was relegated to just its time. It would gross $200 million worldwide and become the third-highest-grossing film of 1983. Flashdance was so popular it inspired a Peanuts special titled Flashbeagle.* But I can only assume its lack of any real plot eventually caught up with Flashdance. If I watched it again right now, I’m not going to feel the same adrenaline rush. I’m just going to notice that most of this movie is filler. But the seeds are there. And that’s what’s fascinating about Flashdance: that the basic Flashdance formula was refined and harnessed and made billions of dollars for the movie industry.

*So, around Halloween 2018 I bought a 4K transfer of all the holiday Peanuts specials. As a bonus, this included Flashbeagle, which I had forgotten existed and, after watching, couldn’t imagine watching a Peanuts special that made more sense for its time and less anytime after. Anyway, no, Flashbeagle doesn’t get played on television very often these days.)

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.