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The Week in Nostalgia: ‘Halloween’ Turns 35, Butch and Sundance Debut, and the iPod is Born (VIDEO)

This week in pop culture history: ‘Halloween’ scares us for the first time 35 years ago, the iPod revolutionizes music, and more.

This past week was one of innovation in pop culture history. Apple’s first generation iPod debuted on the mark twelve years ago, Halloween, one of the most successful horror films, celebrated its 35th anniversary, and NBC’s landmark medical drama St. Elsewhere began its six-season run. Check out our video rundown for you weekly dose of nostalgia.

October 24, 1969Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is released.

In this iconic Western, Paul Newman stars as Butch Cassidy, the leader of Hole in the Wall Gang, and Robert Redford as Butch’s partner the Sundance Kid. After a train robbery attracts the wrong attention, Butch and Sundance escape to Bolivia. The Library of Congress placed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in the United States National Film Registry for preservation in 2003. In 2010, the FOX medical drama House paid tribute to the film’s iconic final scene, which finds Butch and Sundance surrounded by Bolivian soldiers and are left with no option but charge out of the building guns blazing.

October 25, 1978Halloween scares moviegoers for the first time.

John Carpenter’s seminal horror film Halloween turned 35 this week. (Yes, that’s not a typo.) Halloween featured one of the first uses of the Steadicam, a mount that holds a camera still and allows the operator to move without shaking the camera. Halloween also helped spawn the slasher film genre, and provided the genre with many of its tropes. To commemorate this milestone, a special 35th Anniversary Edition was released on Blu-ray in September, featuring commentary from director John Carpenter and Jamie-Lee Curtis.

October 26, 1982St. Elsewhere premieres on NBC.

Would House, ER, and Grey’s Anatomy have been possible without this NBC medical drama? Probably not. Denzel Washington, Howie Mandel, Mark Harmon (NCIS) and William Daniels (Boy Meets World) were just some of the big names that starred on St. Elsewhere. Over its six-season run, the series developed a strong fan base and pushed storytelling boundaries. St. Elsewhere was one of the first network series to have a leading heterosexual male character contract HIV/AIDS. In an “Ask Tina” webisode, Tina Fey said that St. Elsewhere’s series finale was one of her favourite series finales alluded to it in the 30 Rock series finale.

Oct 26, 1984The Terminator hits theatres.

The Terminator was the second feature film James Cameron had directed, and was his first hit. After surprising box office success, The Terminator would go on to spawn three sequels. In 2008, FOX premiered a spin-off series called The Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which took place after Terminator 2: Judgement Day and followed Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) and her son John (Thomas Dekker), and featured a female Terminator played by Summer Glau.

Oct 23, 2001Apple releases the first iPod

Apple has come a long way in 12 years. The iPod that was released on October 23, 2001 was white, held only 5GB (a 10GB model was released in March), and had a mechanical scrolling wheel. When the iPod first hit the market in 2001, it was not a hit because it could only work with Mac computers. A Windows compatible model was not released until the following July. The iPod was one of Apple’s greatest innovations as it not only dominated the portable music player market for years (RIP Windows Zune), but also changed the way we interacted with media. While once a staple Apple product, iPods are now overshadowed by Apple’s iPhones and iPads. There hasn’t been a new version of the iPod in over a year.

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