REEEEJECTION!2 Great Moments in Walkman History!

Great Moments in Walkman History 1927-2010

1927: The first Walkman is created by University of Toledo sophomore Theodore Alphonses Sony when he has his phonograph retrofitted with straps and the ability to play sideways.  Far from self contained, the portable yet obtrusive innovation never caught on in the States, but the legend of such innovation leads him to become the first American to go “Big In Japan.”

1980: Originally called the “Sound About” in the UK, the Walkman becomes a symbol of nerdom in the English town of Durham and after frequent beatings and losing his girl, a young Tony Blair dedicates his life to working out and taking his revenge against a young John Major.

1981: Quiet Riot and Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Randi Rhoads gets his headphones stuck in a limo door at the airport and misses his flight to St. Louis.  Nothing happens to the plane but it would have been creepy if it did, because he tooootally dies in a place crash the next year.

1985: Distraught with the breakup of Van Halen, TV star Thomas Hanks sits, blinds drawn, listening to 1984 on his Walkman and misses the call that would have scored him the coveted role of Goose in the 1986 blockbuster Top Gun. The role eventually goes to future TV great Anthony Edwards and Hanks is never heard from again.

1986: “Walkman” is officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary and paving the way for other intellectual polysyllabic pop culture fare as Macarena, Girl Power, and Muggle.

1986: After failed summit talks in Reyjakvic, Ronald Reagan stays up all night making a mixtape and has George Schultz slip it in Mikhail Gorbachev’s Walkman has he takes him back to his helicopter.  Then Moscow “mayor” Boris Yeltsin would recall Gorbachev, on the flight home, tearing up right around Mott the Hoppel’s “All the Young Dudes.”  Fourteen months later, Gorbachev would sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in Washington.

1991: A shipment of Walkmen heading to the Yugoslavian province of Slovenia is intercepted by a group of Serbian military leaders.  The Slovenian President Milan Kucan called Belgrade and tolf President Stjepan Mesic that if the Walkmen were not returned Slovenia would secede.  Mesic assuming its a joke, wired back immediately, “That would be soooo Croatian.”  Hilarity ensues.