50 times pop culture helped us through the worst of school

High school is no one’s idea of a good time while they’re there (you’ll miss the hell out of it when you get older), but it’s doubly difficult if you’re an outcast who digs the wrong music and movies, or, worst of all, evinces a fashion sense woefully out of step with what’s considered cool. Writer-director Paul Feig was one of these weirdos from junior high until graduation, and his criminally short-lived TV show captures every humiliation and doomed crush with piercing sincerity and raucous wit. It also launched no fewer than eight successful acting careers.

“Up in the morning and out to school!” Released as a single sixty years ago, this rollicking account of school day drudgery is all builds to an ecstatic final two verses of freedom. In Chuck Berry’s song, it’s all about hitting the juke joint after school, and “making romance” with your sweetheart on the dance floor. The destinations have changed over the years (from ice cream parlours to malls to wherever it is kids congregate today), but school and hormones have not. Hail, hail Chuck Berry!

One of the most beloved and widely quoted movies of the 1990s was largely relegated to cult film until viewers discovered it on home video. As with all cool things, knowing “Dazed and Confused” front-to-back was a valuable piece of cultural currency. Then Matthew McConaughey became a movie star, and soon everyone was saying “Alright, alright, alright.” The film is now a repertory house favorite, and is probably playing somewhere on cable at this very moment.

Forget crushing on the teacher. David Lee Roth and his miscreant Van Halen bandmates are in lust with the “little girl from Cherry Lane” who evidently grew up to be the hottest authority figure in school. The lyrics aren’t terribly detailed, but the music video sure is: the boys hang out in the classroom as the teacher does a strip tease across their desks. For some reason, the video imagines the band as elementary school students because that’s not icky at all. But that’s classic Van Halen for you. It’s is a riotously lewd, go-for-broke rocker that, if we’re all being honest, applies to at least one teacher over your high school experience. 

This long-running spinoff of “Diff’rent Strokes” was never a great show (it never aspired to be anything more than a perfectly agreeable sitcom), but the boarding school milieu gave the writers an opportunity to explore class and racial differences. Young women of various backgrounds could see themselves in style-conscious Blair, tomboy Jo or the smart-alecky duo of Natalie and Tootie. The show followed the girls out of school and into business with Ms. Garrett, and it was always nice to know that, for nine seasons, you could drop in on these ingratiating characters.

Growing up in the '90s could be tough, but pop music made it a bit easier. No matter whether you sat at the cool kids' table or not, everyone could bond over the pure, innocent, and intensely enjoyable debut album from Hanson: "Middle of Nowhere." The album still holds up today, especially since the Hanson brothers wrote the whole thing themselves at a surprisingly young age.

Will Smith hooked young folks of all backgrounds when he began this infectiously goofy hip-hop track by assuring us that “parents are the same no matter time nor place.” He proceeds to tell stories of fashion humiliation (his mother buys him school clothes two decades out of style) and youthful indiscretion (taking dad’s Porsche out for a joy ride) that feel universal despite their upper-middle-class trappings. It’s a rap song you can quote within earshot of your folks without getting grounded.

"The Wonder Years" was one of those rare shows that traded in catharsis. It didn't sugarcoat how hard being a kid could be, and in doing so, gave us perspective on our own developing lives. It was nice to come home from a tough day at school and watch a show that dealt with the difficult parts of childhood. It let us know people understood. Well, it let us know that TV writers understood, at least.

Almost everyone had that young teacher who broke ranks with the stuffy long-term faculty to connect on an emotional level with their students. In Peter Weir’s 1989 classic, it’s Robin Williams as John Keating, an alumnus of a Vermont all-boys boarding school who teaches English class with an evangelical zeal for poetry. Most of these kids are being groomed for the boardroom, not for a career in theater or, god forbid, teaching English. It’s a defiant film that inspires young people to rebel against their parents’ wishes and chart their own path.

It would be a while before you could talk about anime at the lunch table without being on the receiving end of an atomic wedgie, but with their album "Discovery," and the anime musical odyssey "Interstella 5555" that accompanied it, Daft Punk did a lot to make geekiness cool. 

The graduation song from Alan Parker’s “Fame” is an inspiring statement of purpose – borrowed from Walt Whitman – that, in the film, showcases the many talents of the students from New York’s High School for the Performing Arts. It’s bursting with youthful bravado: “We are the emperors now, and we are the czars!” Free of the shackles of high school, the world is ours! No wonder it became a favorite of high school choirs at graduation ceremonies all over the world. It’s the moment of liberation, and the beginning of a new life – one that rarely matches the unfettered hope expressed in the song.

There was, plain and simple, no better way to unwind from being cut from the junior varsity football team than to go home and destroy your brother at "Madden 2005."

The Illinois-bred brat of the National Lampoon magazine first connected with mainstream audiences when he took them on a “Vacation” in the family truckster to Wally World. A year later, he made his directorial debut with “Sixteen Candles”, and launched a million crushes on Molly Ringwald and Michael Schoeffling (the guy who played Jake Ryan). He wrote and/or directed six beloved high school movies over three years, balancing an irreverent sense of humor with heartfelt romanticism. Despite their garish 1980s trappings, these are still connecting with young viewers today. 

For burgeoning hipsters, Mandy Moore's hit single "Candy" provided a great first opportunity to look down on the plebeian masses that listened to more popular pop acts like Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and Christina Aguilera -- for better or worse.

Chris Makepeace is the new kid at Chicago’s Lakeview High, and Matt Dillon is the bully who makes his life a living hell – that is until Makepeace hires the toughest (and scariest) guy in school (Adam Baldwin) to be his bodyguard. Makepeace’s father is the manager of a four-star hotel, while Baldwin comes from a broken home; the latter also harbors a terrible secret about the death of his nine-year-old brother. The two have nothing in common, but become the best of friends as they pull each other out of their respective shells. 

Sure, the song was meant to be taken with a large dash of irony, but we didn't care. During the lead-up to winter break, the summer holiday, or really any other day where school wouldn't be in session, this song got us through tough class periods as we yearned for the day school would actually be out. 

Hair-metal’s empty-headed reign ended in 1991 when Nirvana took grunge rock mainstream with their seminal LP “Nevermind”. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was the first single, and it’s a primal scream of adolescent rage; the lyrics may not make a whole lot of sense on the surface, but that’s what makes the song so powerful. You don’t expect the adult world to understand you at that age, and you’ve had it with the patronizing, eager-to-be-hip marketing efforts of major corporations. You’ll compromise one day, but in this moment you are truly dangerous, and, man, it feels great.

Sure, this works for plenty of fighting games, but for our money, Nintendo's flagship fighting franchise provided a fun and relaxing venue for young nerds to take out their aggression after a day of being picked on.

Never mind the fascist imagery of the album artwork and, eventually, feature film directed by Alan Parker: “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2” will always resonate as an excoriation of strict teachers and a rejection of school altogether. “We don’t need no education.” Well, yeah, you kind of do with that horrendous English, but get it off your chest. Youthful rebellion is a necessary rite of passage, no matter how self-destructive.

Sometimes, after a hard day of school, all you wanted to do was veg out on the couch and escape into a fantastical world full of space bounty hunters that cruise the galaxy accompanied by jazz music, super-burly men who flex so hard their hair turns blonde, and magical girls with talking cats. Cartoon Network's Toonami anime block gave us all of that -- and for many of us, it was a much-needed break from reality.

This Duncan Sheik/Steven Sater musical about nineteenth-century German teenagers experiencing the first pangs of sexual desire took Broadway by storm in 2006. Validated by eight Tony Awards, the show quickly caught on with high-school theater kids all over the world. It speaks to young adults who’d rather not discuss their hormonal stirrings with their parents (who may just preach the same hypocritical lesson of abstinence that confuses the characters in the show). The musical lets kids know that someone has gone through this before. Someone is listening, and they want you to know you’re not alone.

A one-hit wonder on the level of "Macarena," "The Cha Cha Slide" was all-but-ubiquitous at school dances, bar mitzvahs, and birthday parties. And unlike other school dance classics, this song gave us nerds a chance to stop leaning against the gymnasium wall and actually dance with some people, since we all knew the steps -- well, with the possible exception of the Charlie Brown.

Two seventeen-year-old kids skip town to live life on their own terms somewhere on “the coast”. The characters in Rod Stewart’s song are aware that “life is so brief and time is a thief when you’re undecided”; they don’t have any stated goals, other than to enjoy the hell out of their youth while they have it. It’s an anthem for young people who’ve seen how miserable their parents have become, and want anything other than to be that unhappy and unfulfilled. By the end of their song, they’re starting their own family. Young hearts be free tonight.

For those of us who had any interest in cooking, Alton Brown was a gift from the pop culture gods growing up. He had made a career out of being his weird, wacky, nerdy self, and proved to us that despite the fact that kids can be cruel, being yourself really is the first step on the path to happiness and success.

Wes Anderson’s portrait of a private school wunderkind may not be the story of any normal kid’s high school experience, but the authority-flouting insouciance of Jason Schwartzman’s Max Fischer is, on some level, aspirational. He’s got it figured out. Even when he hits rock bottom after failing to woo his private school’s new first grade teacher, there’s little doubt he has the pluck to reclaim his former glory. Max is a jerk, but he’s as clever as many teenage troublemakers imagine themselves to be.

A movie for every kid that had to deal with their billionaire father matriculating to their college, turning their dorm rooms into a penthouse suite and throwing rad parties headlined by the likes of Oingo Boingo. This hilarious big-screen vehicle for Rodney Dangerfield owes its existence to “National Lampoon’s Animal House” (as do most college comedies post-1978), but it’s one of the few debauched comedies of that era that doesn’t hit any notes that would be considered problematic nowadays. It’s good-hearted fun. 

High school romance is never easy, and while today’s young people are far more socially enlightened than the generations that came before them, it can still be especially difficult if you’re coming out as LGBTQ. Lukas Moodysson’s Swedish dramedy centers on a shy young girl’s secret crush on her popular and outgoing classmate. It’s a genuine and often very funny story about two young women discovering who they are, and, ultimately, choosing to let the world know they’re in love. 

As bad as things may seem in the throes of adolescence, it can be comforting to remember that your parents went through the same thing when they were your age. It’s just not so comforting when you’re the time-traveling Marty McFly and you’ve accidentally caused your eventual mother to fall in love with you. Robert Zemeckis’s escapist masterpiece gives you license to screw up when you’re a kid, and the wisdom to trust your children when they begin acting out in the same way.

This perfect bubblegum pop song became a teenage breakup anthem, while also launching then sixteen-year-old Britney Spears into global superstardom. Originally written for Toni Braxton, the lyrics are nevertheless in line with the lovelorn feelings of a high school girl. The music video caused a stir with some parents who objected to the sexual nature of Spears’s dance moves (as well as the sports bra peeking out of her schoolgirl outfit), but what was verboten in their day was now common and generally accepted – whether they liked it or not. (Nineteen years later, it’s all terribly quaint.)

What happens when the girl of your homeroom dreams turns up in the pages of a gentlemen’s periodical shorn of her clothes and innocence? If you’re Seth Justman of the J. Geils Band, you write a #1 Billboard hit about it. There’s no evidence Justman based this song on personal experience, but the single connected on a buoyantly juvenile level with every kid who ever snuck a peek at their dad’s girly magazines.

Perhaps no other song did as good of a job at reminding us that getting old isn’t scary, and that you can still be a kid even when you’re a 23 year old geezer.

If Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was a generational howl of discontent, Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” is an impassioned attempt to understand the anguish of a young outsider. Eddie Vedder has said the song also deals with the futility of teen suicide, asserting that the best revenge against your tormentors is to live a fulfilling life. Whether or not the message gets through, “Jeremy” will always be a classic close-your-bedroom-door-and-vent song. 

Sure, maybe it's cliche, but when you’re stuck in school not being a radical monster-fighting superhero, it’s fun to pretend that you are.

Twenty-eight years before “High School Musical”, “Grease” was the word. Based on the hit 1971 musical, director Randal Kleiser’s film version of “Grease” has become the definitive take on the material. After all, can you imagine “Grease” without the title track, “Hopelessly Devoted to You” or “You’re the One That I Want”? Though occasionally written off as a trifle, it deals with some pretty serious issues; for example, the matter of Rizzo’s pregnancy remains a thorny one (there’s no definitive answer, but she either miscarried or had an abortion). “Grease” may be a blast, but it doesn’t completely shut out reality.

Sisqo gets a lot of credit here for teaching us what our schoolteachers wouldn't: exactly what a thong was. As an added bonus, it had all of us immature kids debating whether “dumps like a truck” was about poop or not.

“High School Musical” is the millennial “Grease,” and while there’s not a song anywhere near as enduring as, say, “Greased Lightning,” it’s still a vibrantly charming piffle. Director Kenny Ortega knows from choreography (he’s responsible for all of your favorite moves in “Dirty Dancing”) and the talented young actors – especially Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale – are in on the goof. For kids, it’s a cheery escape from homework and pop quizzes.

Above and beyond the anime that was shown on Toonami, Pokemon was universal. Everyone watched or played it in one form or another, and for those of us who couldn't play four-square to save our lives, beating people at the Pokemon card game and hustling them out of foil Charizards offered some measure of comfort.

Here’s one for the bad kids. The rock group Brownsville Station took up the cause of smoking in the high school restroom in 1973, while hair metal bad boys Motley Crue echoed their rebellious stance in 1985. Both got top ten hits out of it; neither managed to budge local school boards on their anti-smoking stance. For those daring enough to risk suspension for a nicotine fix, this song was their “My Way”.

School is rough, but learning legitimately can be fun, which is where Carmen Sandiego, Wishbone, Ghostwriter, and other great shows came in. They not only proved to us that learning new things is its own reward, they actually made the next day of school more fun, as we were made more aware that yeah, we were actually learning interesting stuff.

The entire high school experience is on display in Amy Heckerling’s adaptation of Cameron Crowe’s nonfiction book. There’s young love, loss of innocence, drinking, drug use, crummy mall jobs, even crummier fast food jobs and Phoebe Cates emerging from a swimming pool to The Cars’ “Moving in Stereo”. It’s gets wacky at times (particularly when Sean Penn’s iconic stoner Jeff Spicoli is on screen), but when Heckerling’s zeroed in on Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Stacy Hamilton, it’s bruisingly unsentimental.

For many of us, this teen-angst anthem from Good Charlotte was our first introduction to the emo genre. And though it wasn't for everyone, cathartic songs like those sure helped when things got really rough at school.

The absolute worst part of high school is the death of a classmate. It’s senseless no matter what the cause; their journey was cut short, and there’s very little that can assuage the grief you feel at an age when you’re supposed to be carefree and full of hope. But a beautiful, heartfelt song can provide some solace. It’s a personal call, but G.C. Cameron’s lovely “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” conveys this anguish as well as any ballad. It was first recorded for “Cooley High” (where it plays over a funeral for a teenager), and was revived for a new generation by Boyz II Men.

This was a big one. Rivers Cuomo and the rest of Weezer had always been geeks, and that shone through on their self-titled "Blue Album" -- especially in the references to Dungeons and Dragons in the song "In The Garage." It didn’t stop us from being bullied, but it did let us know that geeks can be cool kids too.

Years before George Lucas whisked us off to a galaxy far, far away, he jolted audiences back to the last day of summer vacation in 1962. The film is set in Lucas’s old Modesto, California stomping grounds, and it recaptures the joy of cruising Main Street in Thunderbirds and Deuce Coupes in search of a drag race or just a good time. The main characters have all graduated, and are entering an uncertain future what with the Vietnam War beginning to escalate. Their concerns throughout the film are more immediate, but the epilogue lets us know where they ended up. It’s a real punch to the gut.

If bullies were giving you a hard time, Rockstar Games (the creators of the "Grand Theft Auto" series) had you covered with this classic game that lets you live out your fantasies of pranking and humiliating bullies in hilarious and satisfying fashion.

On one level, this Aaron Spelling-created show was gratuitous wealth porn: two kids from the Midwest move to the swankiest zip code in American, and we get to experience luxury living through them. Fortunately, co-creator Darren Star realized that his teenage characters had to be relatable on a human level; by the end of season three, Brandon, Brenda, Dylan, Kelly, Steve, Donna and Silver felt like old friends. These friends just happened to be really freakin’ rich.

There was a lesson in this song somewhere about not trying to be someone you’re not that went way over our heads as kids. Nice hook, though.

Sam Cooke might not know much about history, biology, foreign languages and just about every aspect of mathematics, but he does know he’s in love, and that is all that matters to him (which is easy for Cooke to say with that magnificent since voice). It’s a great song that is now forever associated with John Belushi’s cafeteria pig-out in "National Lampoon’s Animal House".

For all of the really hard times, being in school as a wide-eyed kid really was special. That song, though we might not have realized it then, really captured a lot of what made those years so special.

Josh Schwartz’s hit series about a kid from the wrong side of the tracks getting taken in by a wealthy family in Orange County was to a certain degree a wish-fulfillment fantasy akin to the original “Beverly Hills 90210”. But his writing was sharper, wittier and laden with enough nerdy pop culture references to attract hip young viewers who’d normally turn their noses up at this kind of fare. Add in two lovable parental units played by Peter Gallagher and Kelly Rowan, and you had one seriously irresistible show. From the adults down to the kids, everyone on “The O.C.” was perfectly crushable.