2015: A look ahead to pop culture anniversaries

By Andy Edelstein

Newsday

In 2015, we’ll be marking many significant pop culture anniversaries, from “The Sound of Music” and “Toy Story” to “Saturday Night Live” and “The Golden Girls.” Check out our (extremely subjective) list of 34 notable anniversaries and we dare you not to say, “Has it really been that long?”

1955 (60th anniversary)

July 9: “Rock Around the Clock.” Bill Haley and his Comets’ hit (used as the theme for the film “Blackboard Jungle”) becomes the first rock-and-roll song to reach No. 1.

Sept. 10: “Gunsmoke” debuts. The “adult Western” would run another 20 years.

Sept. 30: James Dean’s death. The star of “Rebel Without a Cause,” 24, was killed in a car crash at the height of his popularity.

Oct. 1: “The Honeymooners.” The year Jackie Gleason and Co.’s “classic 39” episodes aired. They’re just as funny today.

1965 (50th anniversary)

March 2: “The Sound of Music.” The hills are still alive with the songs from this movie classic.

June 15: Bob Dylan records “Like a Rolling Stone.” The folk singer plugs in, ticks off his fans but kicks off a revolution. (Rolling Stone magazine recently declared it to be the greatest song of all time.)

June 19: “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” enters the Top 40. The rebellious anthem that defined the Rolling Stones, then and forever. (It’s also No. 2 on that Rolling Stone list of the greatest songs of all time.)

Aug. 15: The Beatles play Shea Stadium. Rock and roll in a baseball stadium? Who came up with that crazy idea?

Sept. 18: “Get Smart.” Would you believe it’s been a half-century since Maxwell Smart first bumbled his way into our consciousness?

1975 (40th anniversary)

Jan. 18: “The Jeffersons.” George and Weezie leave Archie and Edith behind and move on up to a deluxe apartment in the sky.

May 31: “The Hustle” hits No. 1. Disco fever begins to break out, with Van McCoy’s dance hit. Sales of polyester shirts triple.

June 20: “Jaws.” The birth of the summer blockbuster.

Oct. 11: “Saturday Night Live.” Still running strong, now watched by the grandchildren of the original viewers.

Oct. 27: Boss-mania breaks out. As “Born to Run” launches Bruce Springsteen in the national consciousness, he becomes the first entertainer to appear simultaneously on the covers of Time and Newsweek.

1985 (30th anniversary)

Feb. 15: “The Breakfast Club.” The Brat Pack at its height.

May 22: “Rambo First Blood, Part 2.” Sylvester Stallone gets gung-ho as he re-fights the Vietnam War.

July 3: “Back to the Future.” So if they remade this movie today, and Marty McFly went back in time 30 years, he’d be in 1985?

Oct. 26: “Saving All My Love for You.” Whitney Houston has her first No. 1 song.

Sept. 14: “The Golden Girls.” Three decades later, all we can say to Dorothy, Sophia, Rose and Blanche is: Thank you for being our friends.

1990 (25th anniversary)

April 8: “Twin Peaks.” The Log Lady, a dancing dwarf, and damn fine coffee and cherry pie ... plus David Lynch’s oddball series is coming back in 2016!

May 31: “Seinfeld.” After its pilot aired almost a year earlier, the series about nothing joins the NBC schedule for good.

Aug. 4: “Vision of Love.” A few years after leaving Harborfields High School, Greenlawn-raised Mariah Carey has her first chart-topper.

Sept. 10: “Fresh Prince of Bel Air.” Could anyone have predicted Will Smith would become one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars?

Nov. 16: “Home Alone.” Kudos to Kevin: Macaulay Culkin’s holiday movie is still the highest-grossing nonanimated movie comedy of all time.

1995 (20th anniversary)

Jan. 16: “Star Trek: Voyager.” The fourth in the TV franchise (and the first with a female captain) was the centerpiece of UPN, a new (and ultimately doomed) broadcast network.

March 31: Death of Selena. The world’s most popular Tejano singer is shot to death by her former personal assistant in a Corpus Christi, Texas, Days Inn.

July 19: “Clueless.” Take one Jane Austen novel, change the setting to Beverly Hills and the result is an instant classic and star-making vehicle for Alicia Silverstone (not to mention the inspiration two decades later for Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy” music video).

Aug. 9: Death of Jerry Garcia. The Grateful Dead leader, 53, dies of a heart attack in his room at a California rehab facility.

Nov. 22: “Toy Story.” Woody and Buzz become pop-culture icons, Don Rickles finds a new audience as the voice of Mr. Potato Head and computer-generated animation comes of age.

2005 (10th anniversary)

Feb. 14: YouTube launches. Just what did we do with our time before this?

March 24: “The Office.” The funniest workplace show on TV since “Mary Tyler Moore.”

May 23: Tom Cruise jumps on Oprah’s couch. Declaring his love for then-wife Katie Holmes, the actor knocks down his reputation several notches and creates a TV moment that went viral (as the term would become known).

Nov. 8: TMZ.com launches. Celebrity culture would never be the same.

Dec. 9: “Brokeback Mountain.” Breakthrough film that was definitely not your daddy’s cowboy movie.