The 80's duo "Wham!" looking macho.

Recently, the 80's hit "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham! got into my head and wouldn't leave for a couple of days. I eventually forced myself to listen to an equally catchy Mariah Carey song to drown it out, but that didn't stop me from looking up the original video on YouTube in the meantime. Click here if you're brave. The video features the duo performing the song onstage in front of an audience of teens, wearing t-shirts that say "CHOOSE LIFE" and "GO-GO" in the largest possible text. They are both wearing a notable amount of makeup, although that doesn't even BEGIN to describe just how over-the-top the video becomes (as in, when Pepsi, Shirlie, and Guru are onstage together wearing tiny neon shorts with white socks and break out into a poorly-coordinated "monkey dance").

Is it possible that this video once looked totally normal?

Perhaps, considering how often similar, jazzercise-inspired dances are featured in prominent films from the 80's. Maybe Wham! really did once blend in with the crowd. Released in 1980, Alan Parker’s dance/musical FAME served as a fortuitous introduction to a loud decade full of dances with names like The Moonwalk, Cloning, The Hammer Dance, The Sprinkler and The Worm. In a number of popular 80s films, an epic dance scene could unite seemingly incompatible characters, or provide emotional release after watching an hour and a half of dialogue. Sequences from 80’s films such as RISKY BUSINESS and FOOTLOOSE are still being imitated by revivalist fans and referenced by characters on television shows like "Scrubs" or "Friends."

Alex, the famous dancer in Adrian Lyne's hit movie FLASHDANCE (1983).

Jennifer Lopez was even successfully sued in 2003 for referencing the 80s movie FLASHDANCE in one of her music videos, which she intended to be a tribute to the original. In the video, Lopez wore the same messy hair and black leotard that the character Alex once did in the 1983 film. Instead of gyrating to Michael Sembello’s song, “Maniac”, however, Lopez dances to her own song “I’m Glad”, as the camera moves up and down her sweaty, muscular physique and taped feet. Alex’s costume in this particular FLASHDANCE scene inspired about five to seven years of aerobics-inspired fashion that included items such as the terrycloth sweatband and leg warmers.

Has there EVER been a girlfriend cooler than Sloane Peterson?

In the 80’s, dancing also took place in the street. The well-loved John Hughes film, FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF, climaxes during a larger-than-life dance sequence lead by Bueller (the young Matthew Broderick) during a local street parade while he ditches school with his girl and his best friend. Ray Parker Jr.’s theme song for the film GHOSTBUSTERS was the number one hit in the country for three weeks after the movie’s release. The music video for the song features Ray Parker and other stars of the film dancing in the streets of New York, as Bill Murray leads a triangular formation of men swinging their arms in unison to the left and right. The dance sequence, like the hit song, became a familiar part of American pop culture and was shown again in the Ghostbusters cartoon series as well as the 2009 video game.

Everything here was brought to you by Kenny Ortega.

The choreographer who later became famous for directing Michael Jackon's THIS IS IT tour and for his work in HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL, Kenny Ortega, was also the mastermind behind the dance scenes of the 1987 hit DIRTY DANCING, featuring the late Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. Their performance during the goosebump-inducing sequence at the close of the film brought the song "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes, to international fame and to the Academy Awards. While dancing, Grey whips her round mop of curly hair back and forth as she spins and swivels, perfectly demonstrating t-h-e signature move of the 80’s (see it again while watching Molly Ringwald in THE BREAKFAST CLUB, Jennifer Beals in FLASHDANCE, or like, every aerobics video ever made before 1993).

And with that, I will leave you with the lyrics from the song "Funkytown" by none other than Lipps, Inc., whose music continues to define an era:

Gotta make a move to a
Town that's right for me
Town to keep me movin'
Keep me groovin' with some energy

Well, I talk about it
Talk about it
Talk about it
Talk about it

Talk about, Talk about
Talk about movin

Gotta move on
Gotta move on
Gotta move on

Won't you take me to

Funkytown

Won't you take me to

Funkytown

Won't you take me to

Funkytown

Won't you take me to

Funkytown

Gotta make a move to a
Town that's right for me

Town to keep me movin'
Keep me groovin' with some energy

Well, I talk about it
Talk about it
Talk about it
Talk about it

Talk about, Talk about
Talk about movin

Gotta move on
Gotta move on
Gotta move on

Won't you take me to

Funkytown

Won't you take me to

Funkytown

Won't you take me to

Funkytown

Won't you take me to

Funkytown