Well, the summer is done. The Wow Report just celebrated 10+ years and 50,000 posts on Tuesday. A decade ago doesn’t seem that far back – but 20 years? – you have to think for a minute. Let’s go back to the summer of ’94;
“My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.”
With that, Forest Gump ruled the summer along with The Lion King, The Mask, True Lies, Speed and Clear and Present Danger all screeching onto the big screen as OJ Simpson raced down the freeway and had the whole country glued to their TVs. On June 17, the NFL Hall of Famer led police on a low-speed, televised chase on LA freeways after the killings of his ex-wife, Nicole Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. Ace of Base (that’s a band) had two hits that summer: “The Sign” and “Don’t Turn Around” and All-4-One’s “I Swear”, Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love to You” and “Stay (I Missed You)” by Lisa Loeb, all burned up the Billboard charts.
On May 26, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, married the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, in a surprise ceremony. (The marriage didn’t last.) And the tabloid press went nuts after Prince Charles admitted in a British TV documentary, designed to paint him in a sympathetic light after his separation from Princess Diana, that he had “committed adultery” with Camilla Parker Bowles. (We know who lived happily ever after.) The “internet” was still a mystery to The Today Show and host Bryant Gumbel asked Katie Couric and producers about the @ symbol and then, “What is the Internet, anyway?” Katie responded;
“Internet is that massive computer network. The one that’s becoming really big now. A lot of people use it to communicate.”
It’s not THAT dumb of a question for the time, really. As a young reporter tasked with explaining the “widespread interest” in “going online with the Internet,” David Gregory reported;
“…the possibilities along the Internet are limitless and the demand has only just begun. While the service has always been able to offer facts about the world or the weather, coming in 1995 – you can buy such things as chocolate on the Internet, or even order pizza from this electronic storefront.”
Hmm, sounds promising.
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