Pop Culture Archaeology
If you’re familiar at all with Marc Tyler Nobleman, it’s likely because his nonfiction kids’ book Bill the Boy Wonder was adapted as the Hulu documentary Batman & Bill. Both tell the story of Bill Finger, the long-forgotten co-creator of Batman. For decades, Batman stories were credited as “created by Bob Kane” but the truth is that Bill Finger wrote the first stories with the Joker, Catwoman, Commissioner Gordon, and the Batmobile. He named Gotham City and Bruce Wayne. He created Batman’s look. And he suggested that Batman get a sidekick. Eventually, in 2015, DC Comics announced that Bill would get credit alongside Bob Kane. And now Batman stories say, “Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger.”
But that’s not why I’m telling you about Marc Tyler Nobleman.
As a child of the 70s and 80s, Marc grew up with the same mainstream pop culture as every other kid in America. He watched MTV, Family Ties, the Peanuts holiday specials, Back to the Future, and so on. The main characters were the primary draw for most of us, while minor characters popped up for a story arc or even just one scene. Sometimes we might have recognized a character actor, but for the most part we didn’t give them much thought. But Marc did.
A few years ago, Marc began to reach out to the actors in those small roles to get the stories of some of the 70s and 80s biggest hits from the point of view of the background players. And now he’s amassed hundreds of interviews on his website Noblemania.
Here are some examples of the people he’s interviewed to show just how wide and deep his nostalgia goes:
The kids who played young Tom Hanks and Darryl Hannah in Splash.
The actor who played Marvin Berry in Back to the Future.
The cast of “The Bloodhound Gang” segments from 3-2-1 Contact (sing along with me: 🎶 Whenever there’s trouble, we’re there on the double. We’re the Bloodhound Gang. If you’ve got the crime, we’ve got the time. We’re the Bloodhound Gang.)
The singers of the Scooby-Doo theme song.
An actress who had just one line, “I’ll catch you later, Clark,” in Superman II.
An oral history of Family Ties as told by 53 guest stars from across seven seasons.
More than 50 interviews with girls from 80s music videos. The girl in Aha’s “Take On Me” video? Here she is. The background models in Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love”? Marc found them all. Along with Sister Christian, Diane (as in “Jack and…”), and so on.
The little kid who played Clark Kent as a toddler in the 1978 Superman.
Peter Venkman’s test subject at the beginning of Ghostbusters. (Aside: I recently watched Ghostbusters with my kids and that scene provoked a discussion of whether or not Peter acted appropriately by hitting on one of his students while he was in a position of authority. Sign of the times.)
Did you know Sea World had a superhero water ski show in 1977? Marc tracked down 37 skiers, 1 boat driver, 1 high diver, 2 announcers, 4 production staff, and interviewed them all.
This list is the tip of the iceberg. Check out Noblemania and prepare to go down some very deep rabbit holes.
Interview With The Interviewer
When I decided to write about Marc’s interviews, I figured I would just make a recommendation that you explore his website and check them out. But then I realized that it would be more appropriate to the subject if I actually reached out to Marc and interviewed him about these interviews. Here is a condensed and edited excerpt of our conversation:
You call yourself a “pop culture archaeologist.” So what does that mean?
I'm mostly interested in trying to just fill in the gaps in cultural history over the last 40-plus years. There are so many people who are involved with big cultural events who have never been interviewed before, so that means that they have a perspective that we've never heard before. You know, you talk about a music video from the 80s. Well, if you're talking about Van Halen, or a Go-Gos video, well, they've all been interviewed about this stuff, ad nauseum. But if you find an extra on the set of those videos, they may tell stories that have never been published.
I use the word archaeologist because it is digging. These people are not always easy to find, even when I know their names. And oftentimes, I don't even know their names. So it becomes this rabbit hole of trying to find who they were and where they might be now. A lot of dead ends, but totally worth it.
I know from experience that sometimes the projects that I work on the hardest are not the ones that the internet responds to. Have you done an interview you feel didn’t get the attention it deserved?
I'm in the middle of doing a bunch of interviews with people who were in the movie Footloose, which is a cultural touchstone for people of my generation, but not on the same level as, you know, Back to the Future, or Ghostbusters. So I haven't gotten much feedback on that. But I'm not expecting to. There's not a lot of Footloose fan clubs that I'm aware of to reach out to.
I thought the Sister Christian woman-in-the-video would get more attention. But then I realized, that was big in my memory but it wasn't maybe the biggest cultural touchstone at the time. So that didn't get as big of a — I mean, it got some reaction, but I was expecting something more.
I should ask the inverse of that question: Is there something that got a lot more attention than you expected it to?
One cool thing that did come about was [what happened with] a woman who was in a Survivor video, “I Can’t Hold Back.” After this all happened, she was asked to be in a video of one of the members of the band now. So that was really fun.
What’s an interesting thing about this series that people don’t know?
If you go to the Sister Christian interview, I recreated the trail to get her. And when you look at it now, it's just insane. It's insanity. Especially because I was doing it not because I was getting paid to do it, but just because I wanted to do it.
A lot of times, it's literally as simple as looking on Facebook, finding them or finding someone that's connected to them, messaging them and being lucky enough that they respond and are interested. But then there's the “Sister Christian” situation. I did have a name for her, but it wasn't the name she goes by now. So searching that name for months was futile. I didn't know that she has a totally different name now. Not just a married name, a totally different name. So some people might be interested to know the lengths that people like me go through to find a person, and you don't even know yet if there's a story there.
Where You Come In
There are a handful of 80s music video women that Marc has tried to track down and only found dead ends. After talking to video directors, producers, and casting agents, he still couldn’t find them. Maybe you know someone who knows someone who knows one of the women from these videos?
“Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield
“Africa” by Toto
“Gimme All Your Lovin’” by ZZ Top
“Tell Her About It” by Billy Joel (multiple women)
“Along Comes a Woman” by Chicago
“Shake Me” by Cinderella
“Should’ve Known Better” by Richard Marx
“Got My Mind Set on You” by George Harrison
If you have any leads, you can reply to me and I’ll pass it along to Marc, or you can find him on Twitter at @MarcTNobleman.
A Good Post Went Un-“pun”-ished
I have to give a shout out to @LarZee on Twitter who pointed out I missed a good opportunity for a pun with last week’s newsletter which should have really been called My Neighbor Turturro.
Thanks for reading. And if you’re new, be sure to check out the archive. See you next week!
David
Venkman hitting on the girl was appalling at the time!