Isaac from "Children of the Corn" sings Lionel Richie as a leprechaun for your St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Here's John Franklin, best known as Isaac from Children of the Corn, dressed as a leprechaun singing Lionel Richie's "Stuck on You" on a 1983 episode of "Kids, Incorporated" because the world is full of wonder.

The Computer Chronicles help you choose the Christmas gifts for the hacker in your life, circa 1983

Christmas cards on floppy discs!  $400 word processors!  Programs that can make graphs!  It's an amazing array of goodness to choose from for the "hacker" in your life.

Trailer: The "lost" film ROCK'N'ROLL HOTEL (1983) with Judd Nelson and Rachel Sweet

Shot in 1982, this musical flick featuring Nelson, Sweet, Colin Quinn and Dick Shawn (among others) was thought to be lost for years, but has recently turned up, though it's still unavailable on home video in any format.  Read more about it here -- and it looks like a lot of fun.

The kids show "Just Kidding" visits video game company Imagic in 1983

"Just Kidding" was a local TV show created in the Bay Area, and this segment from one of their 1983 shows is pretty amazing, giving a behind the scenes look at Imagic, one of the most reputable creators of home video games in the early '80s.  Seems like a good place to work.

Morning Music Video: Meat Loaf - "If You Really Want To" with Caroline Munro

MANIAC star Munro plays a number of diverse roles (including a vampire), all of which feel like they can never love again!  Good thing the Loaf is here, from his 1983 album "Midnight at the Lost and Found."

Evening Entertainment: Heather O'Rourke and Morey Amsterdam promote Disneyland renovations in "Believe You Can... And You Can!"

You didn't think playing a virus was the only way I'd celebrate Morey Amsterdam's birthday, did you?  In this 1983 TV special, made as a thinly-veiled promotion for the new renovations at the "Fantasyland" part of Disneyland, Amsterdam plays "J. Fauntenoy Chiffenrobe," a strange sprite creature who helps a young girl upset that she has to move by, er, showing her how cool Fantasyland is going to be.  The girl is Heather O'Rourke, POLTERGEIST's Carol Anne, whose tragic death in 1988 lends the cheery promotional vehicle an accidentally morose tone.  It would honestly be pretty creepy anyway, what with a really random morality about wishing and dreams and being penalized for not dreaming enough.

Sandahl Bergman wins "Best New Female Star" Golden Globe in 1983 for CONAN THE BARBARIAN

Yes, CONAN THE BARBARIAN is a Golden Globe winner, with Bergman beating out Molly Ringwald, Lisa Blount, Amy Madigan and ANNIE's Aileen Quinn to win an award that is no longer presented.  It's a shame, and I blame/give props to Pia Zadora for ruining it for everyone.

Morning Music Video: Le Roux ft. Fergie Frederiksen - "Lifeline" (1983)

I believe this is what it referred to as "stadium rock."  All I know is that the lead singer is tormented and sees a lady kissing a man in black in the mirror when he shaves as the band plays in a ridiculously bright nebulous computer graphic.  Frederiksen was the lead singer of Toto.

Jambi the Genie John Paragon sings about voluptuous ladyparts in his 1983 special

It's John Paragon's 60th birthday!  Paragon has turned up in plenty of things over the years, from playing would-be TV station inheritor Richard Fletcher in UHF to a sex shop salesman in Paul Bartel's EATING RAOUL, but he's likely best known as Jambi the Genie on "Pee-Wee's Playhouse."  Like Pee-Wee himself, Paul Reubens, Paragon got his start as a member of The Groundlings -- along with Phil Hartman and Cassandra Peterson, for whom he played The Breather on Elvira's "Movie Macabre."  Here he is as Vegas performer Larry McGuire singing a pleasant little song about the female anatomy, from Paragon's 1983 HBO special.

McDonald's "Clean It" training video with a fake Michael Jackson and a lot of smoke

If you ever had the opportunity to make a corporate training video, you could go the boring route and make one with lots of graphs and people sitting at desks talking about things.  Or you could make one that will stand the test of time and be incredibly amazing decades after other training videos have been tossed in the trash. 

This is the latter.

Morning Music Video: Toni Basil - "Shoppin' from A to Z"

Happy Black Friday everybody!  Now go out and spend money, like a good American.

Behind the scenes of Mad Magazine in 1983

This nifty news segment profiles a number of Mad Magazine regulars, including Al Feldstein, Dick DeBartolo and William Gaines, with an interesting (and surprisingly honest) look at the working conditions of the magazine.  What me, underpaid?

Evening Entertainment: Danny DeVito's THE SELLING OF VINCE D'ANGELO

On the birthday of Danny DeVito, we bring you one of his earliest directorial efforts -- a two-part series of shorts made for "Likely Stories," a made-for-Cinemax comedy anthology series documenting the fictional campaign of a "concret businessman" attempting to become New Jersey senator.  With DeVito's wife Rhea Perlman, Vincent Schiavelli, and TRANCERS' Tim Thomerson as the current man in charge.

Television commercial announcing the debut of the Journey arcade game in 1983

Journey! The name alone means excitement, and the Journey arcade game will allow you to play as every member of the band, any way you want it. Completely different from the previous year's Atari 2600 version, the 1983 arcade game was completely ridiculous, featuring digitized photos of the group in the game and gameplay that seemed dated even by then.

Happy birthday, Ghoulardi! Watch the immensely talented Ernie Anderson on Letterman in 1983

Today marks the birthday of Ernie Anderson, the voice-over talent whose dulcet tones could be heard at the beginning of countless television shows throughout the '80s.  He was also an actor, and his character of Ghoulardi, the late-night personality that hosted the horror movie show "Shock Theater" in Cleveland in the '60s that became legendary as one of the most well-known horror hosts of all time.  Here he is on Late Night with David Letterman in 1983.

Watch This Thing - Coty Wild Musk "A Thousand Quivers" commercial from 1983

Long ago in the beforetime, when man and woman first interacted, there was a quivering.  And that quivering can only be reproduced by Coty Wild Musk.  Featuring Jill Schoelen, the star of THE STEPFATHER, POPCORN and the Robert Englund PHANTOM OF THE OPERA!

Watch This Vote - Rappin' Ronnie

Released in 1983 as a reaction to President Reagan's "trickle-down" economics campaign that lower-income folk are still waiting to work, this is the sort of satire we had in the '80s. There are Mr. T references and a Bob Goodman shout-out.

Watch This Thing - The insanely catchy 1983 New Zealand hit "Shoop Shoop Diddy Wop Cumma Cumma Wang Dang"

I just dare you to watch this video and not have this ridiculously catchy song running through your head all day. New Zealand band Monte Video and the Cassettes, featuring lead vocalist Murray Grindlay, never had a follow up album after their 1983 debut, and it's probably best for my psyche that that's the case. No wonder Grindley went into advertising jingles.

Watch This Thing - Will Powers wishes you "Adventures in Success"

Welcome to Tuesday!  You have talents and abilities nobody else has! The self-help movement is the focus of "Will Powers"' 1983 track with a delirious and hypnotically oddball music video. Powers is the pseudonym of photographer and director Lynn Goldsmith, who recorded her album "Dancing for Mental Health" as a response to self-help shysters.