In 1987, the Fox network, cobbled together from previously independent stations, launched with the programs Married . . . with Children and The Tracey Ullman Show. The latter program, a sketch-comedy anthology, would ultimately launch The Simpsons, while the former, an unusually crass sitcom, would keep Christina Applegate employed for the next eleven years. Another Fox program, 21 Jump Street, about the adventures of a group of police officers youthful enough to go undercover at high schools, cast Johnny Depp—and made him a teen idol.
That year, fourteen-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio was struggling to find an agent. His closest brush with show-biz glory: On a family trip to Germany, he entered a break-dancing contest and almost won. Brad Pitt had uncredited work on a variety of films with nihilistic titles—No Way Out, No Man’s Land, and Less Than Zero—before booking a two-episode role on the NBC daytime soap Another World. Samantha Mathis was also filming an NBC program: Aaron’s Way was a high-concept spin on The Beverly Hillbillies, starring former NFL star Merlin Olsen as the patriarch of an Amish family that relocates to California when his estranged son dies in a surfing accident. Mathis played one of Olsen’s daughters, but the program lasted only fourteen episodes.
Gibby Haynes and the Butthole Surfers recorded and released their third album, Locust Abortion Technician. Working in the basement of Capitol Records, the Red Hot Chili Peppers recorded The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, the last album guitarist Hillel Slovak made with the band before dying of a heroin overdose. Singer Anthony Kiedis was dating Ione Skye and struggling with his own heroin addiction—when staying at his manager’s place, he would use a fishing rod to retrieve the manager’s car keys from his bedroom dresser without waking him up, so he could go score.
Kiefer Sutherland and Corey Feldman starred in the modern vampire movie The Lost Boys. The project marked Feldman’s first time working with Corey Haim; the duo became an on-screen team, known to teenage audiences as “the Two Coreys.” Ethan Hawke was attending high school in New Jersey. Wil Wheaton, having been cast as Ensign Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was traveling through the galaxy at warp speed nine.