LINEHOLD NIEBR TV

I was all about it, as were most tweens in the MTV Generation. When I was 10 in October 1985, “Jem and the Holograms,” an animated half-hour program about an all-girl band, made its debut. With all these cartoon-like “rock” stars, it seemed inevitable that the next lady rocker would be an actual cartoon. (Via ) Below: Jem-inspiration Cyndi Lauper on the cover of 1983’s “She’s So Unusual,” the album that spawned the girl-power mega-hit, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Top: 1980s cartoon rock superstar Jem performs in a music video. I even tried to tie measuring tape into a hair band. I practiced these starlets’ dance moves and adorned myself with twist beads and a chunky plastic charm necklaces. The same month, Madonna turned heads with videos for “Lucky Star” and “Holiday,” synth-laden sassy-in-love songs, while making this punk-lite look even more kid-friendly, with floppy hair bows, cropped T-shirts, mesh gloves, and leggings. In September 1983, Cyndi Lauper declared “Girls just wanna have fun!” According to the music video, fun entailed the wildest game of dress-up imaginable, with piles of petticoats and flamenco skirts, beads, bangles, and glitter for days. Why would an 8-year-old girl play with “babyish” toys when this colorful and rebellious world danced before her, beckoning from the screen? Pretty much every kid I knew had it on in the background all the time.

LINEHOLD NIEBR TV

We got cable TV in the 1983, the same year I discovered what I called “rock” music, thanks to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” Since the “Thriller” video gave me nightmares, I wasn’t supposed to watch MTV, the all music-video channel that launched in 1981, but I did.

Linehold niebr