New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments Vol.67: I Wanna Hold Your Hand

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I Wanna Hold Your Hand: Protests, Police, Prostitutes, and PAUL!!!

Some DVDs linger on my “must watch list,” but for one reason or another keep getting passed up in favor of repeat viewings of Mr. Mom and Nightmare on Elm Street. Those things happen. I’m rendered powerless when I turn on the TV and see Psycho on, but when there’s a hundred movies that I’ve been meaning to watch for years and I still haven’t followed through, then that’s a problem. Recently, I finally watched one that has literally been on my list for more than 5 years.

Talk about underrated! I hereby add 1978’s I Wanna Hold Your Hand to the most underrated comedies ever. While growing up I never even knew about this film. It didn’t really play on TV all that much and it didn’t make a ton of money at the box office either. Considering all the movies that have gone unnoticed in theaters and eventually became legendary on VHS and DVD, by rights this should be one of them, but it’s not. As we take a closer look you can be baffled along with me as to why I Wanna Hold Your Hand doesn’t always show up on those lists of classic rock and roll comedies.

There’s several reasons why you’ll want to check this movie out. What’s most noteworthy is that the film was written and directed by Robert Zemeckis and get this – it was produced by Steven Spielberg! If they aren’t the movie Mega Powers, I don’t know who is! Secondly, my notion of the film before I watched it was that it was probably some sort of Beatles biopic like a more straight laced version of Spinal Tap. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. The Beatles merely serve as the catalyst for the teenage characters to get to the Beatles legendary performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Remember when Clark Griswold said “Getting there is half the fun, you know that!” Well that is definitely the case and the Beatles take a back seat to all the craziness that happens along the way.

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I Wanna Hold Your Hand has more in common with a teen period piece like American Graffiti than a straight up rock and roll film. It’s a time capsule of Beatlemania. Naturally it will have more of an effect on you if you lived through the ’60s, but that didn’t phase me one bit. The cast is fantastic and it includes Nancy Allen who makes out hardcore with Paul McCartney’s bass, the late Wendie Jo Sperber in her film debut (you may remember her from Bosom Buddies and as Mary McFly’s sister in Back to the Future) in her funniest role, Marc Mclure (Marty McFly’s brother), and Eddie Deezen who played the geek Eugene in the Grease films.

In 1999, the KISS version of this film was released as Detroit Rock City. That’s not an exaggeration. DRC is one of my favorites, but I couldn’t believe how much that film borrowed from I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Oh, and last but not least…the film opens in Maplewood, New Jersey! 

The Beatles “Every Little Thing” Written in Atlantic City, NJ

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWe543eWAR8?rel=0]
This cool piece of New Jersey rock and roll history comes from The Beatles Bible, a boundless online source of everything Beatles. While reading this amazing site, I discovered some trivia about the track “Every Little Thing,” from The Beatles For Sale album which was released at the end of 1964. Several months prior to the album’s release, The Beatles played Convention Hall in Atlantic City on August 30th, 1964.
After The Beatles played to 18,000 fans at Convention Hall in A.C, they stayed at the Marquis De Lafayette in Cape May. There was no pay per view porn back then so they did what all typical rockers did in their down time, they played cards, had a fiercely competitive game of Monopoly, chatted with Elvis on the phone, and oh yeah…wrote another song. It was “Every Little Thing,” a love song about how lucky this guy was to have such a great girl.

“John and I got this one written in Atlantic City during our last tour of the States. John does the guitar riff for this one, and George is on acoustic. Ringo bashes some timpani drums for the big noises you hear.” – Paul McCartney,  The Beatles Off The Record Keith Badman

Take a look at a collection of ticket stubs from The Beatles A.C concert HERE
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“Yesterday”: An Unexplained Occurence

As I write this, it’s technically Sunday morning but the incidents I will describe happened in the afternoon of Saturday 12/9/06. Please keep in mind I’m not the type of person who thinks everything is freaky. Some people think everything that happens to them is freaky and only happened because of some greater or mystical power. This isn’t me. I do have to write that I am a person who believes in fate, as well as the unexplained. Ghosts and the paranormal have always fascinated me but not to the point where I tell people that I see ghosts and my condo is haunted by a spirit of an evil great, great grandfather.

When incidents that happen in everyday life seem coincidental some people really blow them out of proportion and think there was some magical reason for it happening. Scientifically, lots of things happen because there’s a good chance that they CAN happen that way. It becomes simply a numbers game. Sometimes, though there’s occurrences that can’t be explained by an equation much like what happened to me today.

My mother has a vintage doll that my father or uncle bought for my sister when she was a baby. This isn’t like a Cabbage Patch Doll or anything, it almost has a China doll type face and an ornate maroon dress. It’s on a stand and it’s eyelids open and close. On its back it has a key that you wind up to make it play music. The song it plays is the Beatles “Yesterday.” There’s a name of the line of dolls but I don’t recall what it is, all I know is that they go for a lot of money on eBay.

My mom keeps this doll on the top of her dresser and it’s immediately noticeable when you walk into the room. I stood in the hallway by her door to her bedroom and she was laying down on the couch in the living room. No one else was home and the television was on very low playing “Only You” starring Robert Downey Jr. and Marisa Tomei. I called for my mom but she was in and out of sleep trying to relax from her head cold. I called for her but heard nothing. “Mom?…” At that very second I heard the chimes of a music box playing the Beatles’ “Yesterday.” I attempted for a moment to figure out what I was hearing and where it was coming from. To be honest, I didn’t even remember that my mother had this doll in her room let alone what song it even played.

Jay: “Mom, do you have a music box?” I asked.
Mom: “No, but the doll on my dresser plays music.” she admitted
Jay: “Did you just turn it on?”
Mom: “No, I haven’t moved off the couch.”
Jay: What song does that doll play?
Mom: The Beatles’ Yesterday
Jay: That doll was just playing the song, did you put it on?
Mom: No, I didn’t. Where’s your father, maybe he did.

Needless to say, my father wasn’t home and he didn’t get home for a few hours afterward. My mother reminded me that it was YESTERDAY 12/8 in 1980 that John Lennon was shot in New York City.

**People, this is 100% true, no exaggeration. I also went into NYC Saturday night to celebrate my girlfriend’s birthday which was Friday 12/8.