Burly TV created programs to be aired on college TV networks around America (an audience that no doubt included a large contingent of weed-smoking twilight gamers). Lorne Michaels would then buy show time on national TV networks such as TBS, and broadcast the shows as if they were original programming. But budgets were implausibly tight and, rather than hire writers and actors, Michaels approached David Mandel and Steve Lookner to both write and star in a new show.

This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly. This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly. Dave Chappelle in The Closer. Vulture’s review of The Closer originally ran earlier this month. We’re republishing it in light of ongoing turmoil at Netflix following the special’s release.

Dave Chappelle in his new stand-up set. Every now and then an artist comes along and changes their field so completely that their fingerprints seem present in everything that comes afterward. John Carpenter’s Halloween birthed many decades of creeping, suspenseful shots of horror-movie killers stalking their prey, picking off decadent, unsupervised teenagers one by one in locations conveniently out of reach of parents and police. Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced?

In February 1994, we were just over a year into the first Clinton administration, Nancy Kerrigan’s knee was still healing, and a strangely compelling hipster urged us to get crazy with the Cheez Whiz. Twenty years ago this week, Beck sat atop Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks chart with his breakout single, “Loser.” As we prepare for the release of Morning Phase, let’s flip through the February 19, 1994 issue — which featured telling headlines such as “House Panel to Examine Gangsta Rap Lyrics” and “Blockbuster Tops $2 Billion: Revenues Rise 70% During 1993” — and check out what other alternative gems were lurking in the top 30 that week.

We are coming up on another Coachella weekend and, even though I’m not going, my ringing ears need a break. So for this week’s installment of Somewhere in Time, we’re going to take a little day trip in my Delorean GIF in the opposite direction. If you were alive in the 1970s and 1980s, and if you were raised by a television set as I was, you have fond memories of the biannual TV extravaganza event Battle of the Network Stars, in which your favorite personalities from ABC, CBS, and NBC would show off their athleticism (by which I mean their thighs and chests).

It’s No Respect Week here at Vulture, which means we’re celebrating things that never seem to get any love: schlock rock, Adam Sandler cry-fests, over-the-top action sequences, romance novels, and, yes, a novelty song by a comedian whose catchphrase was “No respect.” For this installment of Somewhere in Time, I’m taking my DeLorean GIF back to the week of January 28, 1984, the week Rodney Dangerfield hit his chart peak with the timeless single “Rappin’ Rodney” and its Vulture-theme-week-appropriate “no respect” chant.

Even though 2014 is brand-new, it’s already terrifying: Ke$ha’s at No. 1 and Britney’s in Vegas. Grown men are showing up to awards shows with their hair in loose buns, like some kind of prairie bride. I’m starting to think Icona Pop may never have another hit. It’s all too depressing to think about, and makes one yearn for simpler and better days gone by. For Vulture’s 1998 week, I flashed back to that momentous year with a look at MTV.

Dave Rebirthday Season 3 Episode 7 Editor’s Rating 3 stars *** «Previous Next» « PreviousEpisode NextEpisode » Dave Rebirthday Season 3 Episode 7 Editor’s Rating 3 stars *** «Previous Next» « PreviousEpisode NextEpisode » Last week’s episode of Dave ended at a potential point of no return: Dave chose to drum up publicity for Lil Dicky by letting the world believe he was dead for a few days.

Mad Men is okay, we suppose, though sometimes it’s impossible not to think how much better it would be if Sterling Cooper employees were permitted to strip naked and drop F-bombs. Alas, the show airs on swear-free, nudity-forbidding basic-cable channel AMC because HBO famously turned it down some years back. HBO’s pass has never been fully explained, since the network has been (understandably, we guess!) reluctant to discuss its own hilarious stupidity.

Oh, what a stunning opening shot—a prelude to damnation—director ­David Fincher serves up in his elegantly wicked suburban noir Gone Girl, adapted by Gillian Flynn from her best-selling novel. It’s the back of the head of a woman (Rosamund Pike) on a pillow, her golden tresses aglow. An unseen man (Ben Affleck) narrates; he suggests that the only way to know what’s in a person’s mind would be to shatter her skull.