Pendergast T., Pendergast S. St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Volume 5: U-Z

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Wynette, Tammy (1942-1998)

Often criticized for her conservative, traditional values, country

vocalist Tammy Wynette became famous in the late 1960s for ‘‘Stand

by Your Man,’’ a hit single that made her an unintentional spokesperson

for antifeminists. While she was known for her ‘‘doormat’’ songs, in

which men treat women subserviently, much of her material offered

valuable insights into the lives of working-class housewives and

mothers. Her songs often exhibited an optimistic perseverance in a

never-ending quest for love and happiness. Wynette expressed this

attitude with a heartfelt sincerity, for even after she became a country

superstar, her life was not easy. Sometimes referred to as the ‘‘Hero-

ine of Heartbreak,’’ she suffered from marital difﬁculties, drug

addiction, ﬁnancial troubles, and countless severe health problems.

Although she was portrayed as an unhappy victim, Wynette was

stronger than she appeared to be. As a woman in the male-dominated

music industry of the 1960s, she held her own as a performer. During

her 30-year career she sold more than 30 million records, had 39 Top

Ten country hits, and received three Country Music Association awards.

Born in Itawamba County, Mississippi, on May 5, 1942, Virgin-

ia Wynette Pugh was raised by her grandparents after her father died

not long after she was born and her mother found work at a Memphis

defense plant. As a child, she picked cotton on their farm, and this

arduous and exhausting work made her determined to create a better

life for herself. She learned to play the piano and the guitar, and she

started singing in church. Accompanied by a female friend, she

performed on local radio programs and in area talent competitions. In

her autobiography, Stand by Your Man, she recalled, ‘‘during my

adolescence I daydreamed a lot about singing professionally.’’ How-

ever, in the spring of 1959, 17-year-old Wynette married Euple Byrd,

and in 1961, their ﬁrst child was born. Two years later, after the birth

of a second child, she was training to become a licensed beautician.

The family lived in Memphis brieﬂy, where she worked as a barmaid,

occasionally singing songs requested by the customers. Unhappy in

her marriage, Wynette asked Byrd for a divorce; he responded by

attempting to have her committed to an institution. In 1965, pregnant

with their third child, she and her two daughters moved to Birming-

ham, Alabama. Born prematurely, her third daughter was diagnosed

with spinal meningitis. Wynette managed to support her family by

working as a hairdresser full-time and singing on a local early

morning television show. She maintained her dream of being a

professional country singer, and after attending a disc jockey conven-

tion in Nashville, she decided to move there and focus her efforts on

landing a record deal.

Wynette auditioned unsuccessfully for several labels located in

the part of Nashville known as Music Row. Executives and producers

repeatedly turned her down, saying that they were looking for a ‘‘girl

singer’’ who sounded like a particular established male country artist,

or that they simply did not need any more female artists. After a series

of rejections, she approached Billy Sherrill, a producer/songwriter

with Epic Records. Recognizing her tremendous vocal capability, he

agreed to record her. Within a few weeks, he suggested that she call

herself Tammy Wynette, and he chose ‘‘Apartment #9’’ as her ﬁrst

single. By December of 1966, Wynette’s debut release was on the

country charts; less than a year later, her ﬁrst album, Your Good Girl’s

Gonna Go Bad, reached the Top Ten. Despite this success, Wynette

Tammy Wynette

encountered further difﬁculties as she searched for a booking agency.

According to her autobiography, one agent she approached expressed

the opinion that women were ‘‘not worth the trouble’’ because of

conﬂicting obligations to their families and their careers. She man-

aged to ﬁnd an agent lacking this prejudice and began performing

regularly as her next three singles became number-one hits. She

married songwriter Don Chapel, but their marriage dissolved as she

became involved with singer George Jones. By the time she married

Jones in 1969, she was a full-ﬂedged star known for the anthems ‘‘D-

I-V-O-R-C-E’’ and ‘‘Stand by Your Man,’’ which became one of the

best-selling country songs ever recorded by a female artist.

As Jones’s wife, Wynette was known as ‘‘The First Lady of

Country Music,’’ and together they performed and recorded duets

that often reﬂected problems existing in their own relationship.

Jones’s legendary substance abuse and his tendency toward violence

caused Wynette to seek a divorce in 1975. A year later, her fourth

marriage lasted less than two months. Her ﬁfth and ﬁnal marriage

took place in 1978 to George Richey, a songwriter she had known for

several years. During the 1970s, she began to be plagued by a variety

of medical problems, many requiring operations, that continued up

until her death. Her house in Nashville was broken into on 15 separate

occasions and mysteriously set on ﬁre. In 1978, she was the victim of

a bizarre kidnapping incident. By the late 1980s, she had been treated

WYNETTE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE

202

for addiction to painkillers and had ﬁled for bankruptcy. As a writer

for People noted after her death, ‘‘in Tammy Wynette’s world,

something always seemed to go wrong.’’

As Wynette’s career continued into the 1990s, so did her image

as the devoted, subordinate wife. In 1992, after Hillary Clinton made

a condescending reference to Wynette on 60 Minutes, she quickly

apologized at Wynette’s insistence. That same year, Wynette collabo-

rated with the dance group KLF on ‘‘Justiﬁed and Ancient,’’ which

became a British club hit. An album she released in 1994 featured

duets with Elton John, Smokey Robinson, and Sting, among others,

and the following year, she and George Jones were reunited on a new

album, which would be her last. While the country industry essential-

ly abandoned older artists like Wynette, the fans remained faithful. In

spite of increasingly serious health problems, she persisted in per-

forming up until a month before she died on April 6, 1998. Months

later, artists from various musical genres recorded a tribute album of

her songs entitled Tammy Wynette Remembered.

—Anna Hunt Graves

URTHER READING:

Bufwack, Mary A., and Robert Oermann. Finding Her Voice: The

Saga of Women in Country Music. New York, Crown, 1993.

Dew, Joan. Singers and Sweethearts: The Women of Country Music.

Garden City, New York, Doubleday and Company, 1977.

Gliatto, Tom. ‘‘Heroine of Hardship.’’ People. April 20, 1998, 54-61.

Wynette, Tammy, with Joan Dew. Stand by Your Man. New York,

Simon and Schuster, 1979.

203

X Games

The annual Summer and Winter X Games bring together “ex-

treme” athletes who compete in such sporting events as skateboarding,

in-line skating, snowboarding, sky-surﬁng, sport-climbing, stunt

bicycling, street luge, and barefoot water-ski jumping. The cable TV

sports network ESPN developed the X Games and ﬁrst broadcast

them in the summer of 1995; the Winter X Games debuted in 1998.

Touted as an alternative Olympics, the X Games cater to youth culture

(the name is a convenient play on Generation X) and popularize

athletic risk-taking. The X Games also commercialize and organize

characteristically marginal and disorderly activities like skateboarding

and skydiving, calling into question whether these increasingly

mainstreamed sports can still be considered “extreme.”

“Extreme” sports are those largely individualistic athletic activi-

ties that require people to push themselves “to the extreme,” often by

defying both gravity and society’s standards for reasonable risk.

Typically, extreme athletes also project an image that counters that of

the “normal” athlete in terms of appearance, attitude, and training

regimen. The emerging popularity of extreme sports in the 1990s

reﬂected a shift in American ﬁtness trends. The ﬁtness craze of the

1980s inspired many otherwise inactive, non-athletic individuals to

take up activities like jogging and aerobics. Memberships at health

clubs boomed. While health and ﬁtness remained a big business into

the 1990s, both advertisers and young adult consumers transformed

ﬁtness into a lifestyle rather than just a periodic visit to the health club.

A cult of “adrenaline addiction” inﬁltrated the rhetoric of youth

culture and inﬂuenced the marketing strategies aimed at these new

consumers of the “extreme” image. Sales of mountain bikes, in-line

skates, and snowboards increased dramatically, as did the popularity

of bungee jumping and skydiving. ESPN’s X Games capitalized on

this emerging ﬁtness and consumer trend.

The X Games codify activities that typically have no rules. By

applying measurable performance criteria to such recreational pur-

suits as in-line skating, rock climbing, and snowboarding, ESPN is

able to order and control potentially chaotic sports. Because of their

inherent physical dangers, extreme sports have generally garnered

society’s disapproval, thus amplifying their popularity in youth

culture. However, in the wake of the X Games, which have assimilat-

ed extreme sports into an organized brand of Olympic-like games,

such activities have become more respectable and organized. As a

result, “extreme” has an increasingly slippery connotation—extreme

sports are a popular pleasure because of their marginality and

perceived threat to the mainstream, but events like the X Games

render extreme sports less marginal and subsequently alter their

popular culture meanings.

Ultimately, the X Games represent far more than just a sports

competition. Mass marketing and media strategies tie in music,

fashion, and manifold product endorsements aimed at ESPN’s mostly

male, 12 to 34-year-old viewing audience. Sponsors include caffeinated

colas, athletic shoes, fast-food restaurants, and an “ofﬁcial” pain-

killing aspirin. Additionally, the competition annually promotes

related alternative music soundtracks and videos. ESPN also launches

a road show prior to the Games, and the touring sports extravaganza

spotlights the various events. The featured sports even have their own

unique language; ESPN offers a glossary of “X Speak” on its World

Wide Web X Games homepage.

—Adam Golub

URTHER READING:

Youngblut, Shelly, editor. Way Inside ESPN’s X Games. New York,

Hyperion, 1998.

Xena, Warrior Princess

A 1996 Ms. magazine cover story lauded Xena, Warrior Prin-

cess as a feminist and progressive retelling of Greek myth, as

television that is notable for ‘‘breaking new ground in its treatment of

sex.’’ Debuting in syndication in 1995, the series chronicles the

adventures of a sword-wielding princess seeking to atone for her

violent past. Accompanied by her sidekick, Gabrielle (Reneé

O’Connor), Xena (Lucy Lawless) battles ﬁckle gods, tyrants, slave

traders, barbaric tribes, and other nemeses in a magical land that

evokes ancient Greece and Rome. Filmed in New Zealand and

produced by Renaissance Pictures in conjunction with MCA TV, the

series is a postmodern pastiche of classical mythology, characterized

by hyperbolic violence and slapstick. At the same time, it manages to

explore sexuality and ethical issues without losing its mass audience.

Xena’s sexually-charged relationship with Gabrielle has made the

series popular with lesbian audiences, in particular.

—Neal Baker

URTHER READING:

Minkowitz, Donna. ‘‘Xena: She’s Big, Tall, Strong—and Popular.’’

Ms. July/August, 1996, 74-77.

Weisbrot, Robert. Xena, Warrior Princess: The Ofﬁcial Guide to the

Xenaverse. New York, Doubleday, 1998.

The X-Files

When The X-Files premiered on the Fox network in the fall of

1993, no one predicted the degree of success that the show would

eventually enjoy. After all, dramas in the fantasy and science ﬁction

genres had not done well on TV for a decade (the Star Trek spin-offs

excepted). But there was considerable interest in UFO phenomena in

America, as evidenced by news accounts of alleged alien abductions,

speculations about ‘‘crop circles,’’ and sightings of supposed alien

X-FILES ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE

204

David Duchovny (right) and Gillian Anderson as they appear in The X-

Files.

spacecraft streaking across the skies. For some Americans, belief in

UFO visitations dovetailed with their mistrust of the U.S. govern-

ment, which has consistently denied any knowledge of alien encoun-

ters. Thus when the show premiered, tales of visitors from space and

government conspiracies to cover up those visits might ﬁnd a ready

audience—and The X-Files did. It ﬁnished its ﬁrst season with

respectable ratings, and the second season began with an even larger

audience. The show was clearly a hit, one of the few Fox programs to

compete successfully with the major networks. Soon there were

Golden Globe awards for the show, then Emmy awards, a successful

full-length ﬁlm released in the summer of 1998, and talk of a second

ﬁlm to follow.

The show’s premise is that the FBI occasionally encounters

cases that seem inexplicable in terms of science and logic—which

are, in short, paranormal. Such investigations, designated ‘‘X-ﬁles,’’

are referred to the show’s two protagonists: Special Agent Fox

Mulder (David Duchovny) and Special Agent Dana Scully (Gillian

Anderson). Mulder tends readily to accept paranormal explanations

for the cases that he and his partner investigate—partly due to the fact

that he believes that his sister Samantha, who disappeared when they

were children, was a victim of alien abduction. Scully, who earned a

medical degree before joining the FBI, is usually a skeptic, positing

rational explanations for phenomena that appear to defy reason. The

two agents are supervised by FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner

(Mitch Pileggi). In the show’s early years, Skinner tended to be

suspicious, and sometimes hostile, toward Mulder and Scully. By the

fourth season, however, he appeared to have become their ally.

From the beginning, the show has had a recurring theme involv-

ing alien visitation, alien abductions, and the efforts of certain

powerful groups to conceal or deny these sinister activities. The

show’s writers and producers refer to this story arc as ‘‘the mytholo-

gy,’’ although some fans call it ‘‘the conspiracy.’’ The character most

closely identiﬁed with the effort to cover up the alien presence is

known only as ‘‘Cigarette Smoking Man’’ (William Davis), a ruth-

less covert operator who has cold-bloodedly ordered the deaths of

several people who came too close to the truth - including Mulder’s

father. When asked by an associate why he did not have the trouble-

some Fox Mulder killed, the CSM replied, in effect, ‘‘Alive, Mulder

is merely a nuisance; dead, he’s a martyr.’’

But the mythology is not the sum total of the series. In a typical

season of The X-Files, about half the episodes deal with the ongoing

struggle over the aliens, while the other shows ﬁnd agents Mulder and

Scully investigating other sorts of paranormal phenomena. Over the

course of several seasons, the agents have dealt with zombies,

werewolves, ghosts, vampires, demons, and witches, not to mention

astral projection, precognition, reincarnation, and the transmigration

of souls. A few of their cases have had no paranormal aspects at all,

involving instead relatively mundane subjects such as serial murder,

psychological obsession, and genetic mutation.

In some of their cases involving the mythology, Mulder and

Scully receive assistance from a group called ‘‘The Lone Gun-

men’’—an ironic reference to the Warren Commission’s much-

disbelieved conclusion that President John F. Kennedy was assassi-

nated by a ‘‘lone gunman.’’ These three men, identiﬁed only by their

last names of Byers (Bruce Harwood), Langly (Dean Haglund) and

Frohike (Tom Braidwood) are self-styled ‘‘conspiracy freaks’’ who

once told Mulder that they help him because ‘‘You’re more paranoid

than we are.’’

Chris Carter is the series’ creator, producer, and principal writer.

After some time spent writing for Surﬁng magazine, Carter married a

television writer and soon began to turn out scripts of his own. He

wrote for several TV series, which gave him the contacts that allowed

him to sell The X-Files to the Fox network. Carter says that his idea for

the show is derived from his memories of a short-lived TV series

(lasting only the 1974-75 season) called Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

The show was, in turn, based on two successful made-for-TV movies:

The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler. The premise for the

movies and the series was the same: hard-bitten newspaper reporter

Karl Kolchak (Darren McGavin), while covering the story of one or

more bizarre crimes, comes to the conclusion that some supernatural

creature is involved. Kolchak then researches the phenomenon (vam-

pire, werewolf, witch, or whatever), learns how to kill the creature,

and does so.

The 1998 feature ﬁlm based on Carter’s series, entitled X-Files:

Fight the Future, may be unique in one respect. Although it was not

uncommon during the 1990s to see theatrical ﬁlms based on popular

TV shows, such ﬁlms were invariably produced after the TV series

X-MENENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE

205

that inspired them had gone off the air. The X-Files movie may be the

only one to date to be based on a TV show still on the air with ﬁrst-run

episodes when the ﬁlm was released. Indeed, X-Files: Fight the

Future was tied into the last episode of the 1997-98 season, its plot

resolving several issues raised by the show’s season-ending cliffhanger.

The popularity of The X-Files has been manifested through

several aspects of popular culture beyond the series itself. Animated

versions of Mulder and Scully (voiced by Duchovny and Anderson)

appeared in an episode of the popular Fox cartoon The Simpsons.

David Duchovny guest-hosted Saturday Night Live several times,

which led to skits parodying his series. The X-Files was also satirized

on Fox’s comedy show Mad TV, in a skit about porn ﬁlms called

‘‘The XXX Files.’’ More respectful treatment has come from comic

books and novels based on the series, fan clubs (many of whose

members communicate with each other via Internet discussion groups),

WWW sites, and Fox-sponsored X-Files conventions. The show has

also generated the usual ephemera of anything in popular culture with

a devoted following—hats, t-shirts, posters, PC screen-savers, and

coffee mugs. In addition, episodes from the show are available on

video about a year after airing.

Although the ﬁrst ﬁve seasons of The X-Files were shot in

Vancouver, British Columbia (to save production costs), the show

moved to Los Angeles beginning with the 1998-99 season. The

change was in response to a demand from David Duchovny, who

wanted to be nearer to his Los Angeles-based wife, actress Tea Leoni.

That the Fox network was willing to undergo the expense and

inconvenience involved in the move was testimony to the popularity

of the show and the network’s high expectations for its future success.

—Justin Gustainis

URTHER READING:

Farrand, Phil. The Nit-Picker’s Guide for X-Philes. New York,

Dell, 1997.

Genge, N.E. The Unofﬁcial X-Files Companion. New York,

Crown, 1995.

Lavery, David and Angela Hague, editors. ‘‘Deny All Knowledge’’:

Reading the X-Files. Syracuse, New York, Syracuse University

Press, 1996.

Lowry, Brian. The Truth Is Out There: The Ofﬁcial Guide to The X-

Files. New York, HarperCollins, 1995.

The X-Men

The X-Men is the most popular team of superheroes in comic

books in the 1990s. Featuring an often changing lineup of young

mutant superheroes and unusually complex story lines, the X-Men

have found a consistently large and loyal audience of comic-book

readers. Since 1980 only Spider-Man and Batman have rivaled them

in popularity and sales. The X-Men’s market clout has helped

publisher Marvel Comics remain the undisputed industry leader, and

the series’ formula has been widely imitated throughout the superhero

genre. Few other comic-book series of recent decades have been

as inﬂuential.

Marvel ﬁrst published The X-Men in 1963. The concept devised

by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby was an extension of the Marvel formula

already realized in such characters as Spider-Man and the Fantastic

Four. The X-Men were teenaged costumed superheroes who used

their powers in the service of humanity, even though the society at

large misunderstood and feared them. Unlike their superhero peers,

however, the X-Men had never even been human. As mutants, they

were born with their special powers—usually as a consequence of

parents exposed to radioactivity. This distinction left the X-Men

especially alienated from human society and made them special

victims of misplaced human anxieties. Lee and later writers would

often use this premise to conceive stories critical of bigotry and

racial persecution.

The ﬁrst X-Men lineup consisted of Cyclops, with the power to

project devastating ‘‘optic blasts’’; the Beast, with the agility and

strength of his namesake; the Angel, who could ﬂy with the aid of

natural wings; Iceman, with power over cold and ice; and Marvel Girl,

with the mental ability to move objects. Their leader was the enigmat-

ic Professor Xavier, who, though conﬁned to a wheelchair, possessed

an impressive variety of telepathic powers. Xavier recruited the

teenage mutants to enroll in his private School for Gifted Youngsters,

which was a front for the X-Men’s training facility. The X-Men

defended humanity against an array of evil mutants, the most formi-

dable of whom was Magneto—‘‘the master of magnetism.’’ The

heroes also had to ﬁght in their own defense against the Sentinels—a

series of mutant-hunting robots engineered by bigoted humans deter-

mined to resolve the ‘‘mutant question.’’

A modest-selling title, The X-Men did not achieve the spectacu-

lar commercial success enjoyed by most other Marvel comic books in

the 1960s. By the early 1970s the series consisted of only reprinted

stories and seemed doomed for cancellation. But in 1975 Marvel

revamped the series, keeping only Cyclops and Professor Xavier in

the group and introducing a new lineup of international mutants.

Created by writer Len Wein and artist Dave Cockrum, the new X-

Men included Nightcrawler, a German with superhuman agility, the

power of teleportation, and a horrifying demonic appearance; Colos-

sus, a Russian—one of the ﬁrst to be a hero in comic books—with

extraordinary physical strength; Storm, an African princess with the

ability to summon and control weather and the elements; and Wolverine,

a hot-tempered Canadian armed with indestructible steel claws and

the ferocious ﬁghting tendencies of his namesake.

Between 1977 and 1981 writer Chris Claremont and writer/artist

John Byrne transformed The X-Men from a second-tier title to the top-

selling comic book on the market. As the lineup of the X-Men

continued to evolve, the story lines became increasingly intricate and

absorbing. There was something about the series for most fans to

enjoy. The interplay among the distinctive characters was excep-

tionally well-developed and believable by comic-book standards.

Wolverine’s ethos of righteous morality backed up by violence made

him one of the most popular superheroes of the Reagan/Rambo era.

Strong and complex female characters like Storm, Phoenix, and

Rogue helped to make the X-Men one of the few superhero titles to

win a signiﬁcant following among teenage girls.

The X-Men’s fantastic commercial success predictably spawned

a host of comic-book crossovers, spin-offs, and rip-offs. Throughout

X-MEN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE

206

the 1980s and 1990s, they multiplied. There were titles devoted to

adult mutants (Excalibur, X-Factor), adolescent mutants (The New

Mutants, Generation-X), and even pre-pubescent mutants (Power

Pack). The concept of the 1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

originated in part as a satire of the X-Men’s overexposure (before

graduating itself to overexposure). The ﬁrst issue of a new X-Men

title launched in 1991 set an industry record by selling more than eight

million copies. An array of licensed products highlighted by the Fox

network’s successful X-Men animated series broadened the X-Men’s

market even further. The consequences of this ‘‘X-treme’’ mutant

proliferation became a matter of some controversy among comic-

book fans. While many fans welcomed the varieties of X-Men spin-

offs and crossovers, others criticized them for being poorly conceived

and confusing, and some fan critics charged Marvel with exploiting

brand loyalty at the expense of good storytelling. To a large extent, the

overexposure of the X-Men epitomized the problem of a saturated and

shrinking market that plagued the comic-book industry as a whole in

the mid-1990s.

Still, the X-Men remain at or near the top of the best-selling

comic-book titles. Among the more fully realized comic-book ex-

pressions of modern adolescent fantasies, Marvel’s team of misun-

derstood mutants fully deserve their status as the preferred superheroes

of Generation X.

—Bradford Wright

URTHER READING:

Daniels, Les. Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Great-

est Comic Book Heroes. New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1991.

Lee, Stan. Son of Origins of Marvel Comics. New York, Simon and

Schuster, 1975.

The Uncanny X-Men. New York, Marvel Comics, 1984.

207

Y2K

The expression Y2K, shorthand for the year 2000 (Y=year;

2=two; K=the symbol for 1,000), helped deﬁne the closing days of the

twentieth century by spotlighting some pitfalls of the computer age.

Y2K represented a major problem—some called it a crisis of global

proportions—caused mainly by older computers whose programmers

and software designers failed to foresee what could happen in the year

2000. Often called ‘‘the Y2K bug,’’ this problem came about because

early computer designers used only a two-digit year—uniformly

dropping the ‘‘19’’ that stands at the beginning of every year from

1900 to 1999. What the designers failed to take into consideration was

the problem posed by the year 2000. Computer logic meant the

machines would translate the numbers 00 not as the year 2000 but as

1900. In the closing days of the century, the world was put on

notice that computers using the two-digit formulation could malfunc-

tion because of this inability to distinguish years belonging to

different centuries.

Because computers had become intertwined with almost every

facet of life in America and virtually the rest of the world, some

doomsayers predicted that banks would fail, military systems would

become paralyzed, planes would fall out of the sky, elevators would

stop, stock exchanges would collapse, and life in general would be

dramatically disrupted.

Although the problem had been known about for years, govern-

ments and businesses waited until the last few years of the twentieth

century to tackle the potential crisis. For example, it was not until

September 1997 that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC),

the U.S. government watchdog over the stock exchange markets,

issued a notice to investors to pressure investment companies to make

their computers ‘‘Y2K compliant’’—a phrase meaning that comput-

ers had been checked and ﬁxed, if necessary, to avoid any year 2000

problems when the clock struck midnight on December 31, 1999. The

SEC also urged investors to press publicly traded companies to take

steps to avoid a Y2K disaster, including assessing the cost of ﬁxing

their computers and making sure their ofﬁcers and board members

took out personal liability insurance for what could be an avalanche

of lawsuits.

With great fanfare, U.S. President Bill Clinton announced in

December 1998 that the Social Security Administration, which then

handled some 40 million checks each month for pensioners, disabled

people, and widows, was Y2K compliant. Nevertheless, some Repub-

licans took issue with the Democratic president’s claims that checks

would go out on time, noting that some banks that receive checks for

recipients and are vital to the system might be noncompliant.

Later, the Agriculture Secretary, Dan Glickman, announced at a

Senate hearing on the Y2K problem that there would not be wide-

spread food shortages in the United States because of the millennium

bug. ‘‘There are some fear-mongers there,’’ Glickman said, as he

urged people to avoid stockpiling or hoarding food as the year 2000

approached. Glickman conceded, however, that although he did not

see major food shortages, ‘‘there will be some glitches’’ and disrup-

tions in the marketplace.

While American businesses and local, state, and federal govern-

ments were spending millions of dollars to correct the problem with

computers, some developing countries lagged. The World Bank

reported that some areas, notably sub-Sahara Africa, could run into

major problems with electricity, food, and health care. In early 1999,

with less than a year to go before the 2000 bug might hit, the Bank

found in a survey of 139 countries that only 21 had taken major steps

to solve the problem, although 54 had some kind of national policy to

deal with the bug.

By the end of 1999, observers hoped that the steps taken by

companies and governments would prevent Y2K from causing any

major disasters. The fear of Y2K ebbed and swelled in different areas

across the globe, depending on whether the most important computer

systems had become Y2K compliant. But certainly, Y2K had done

more than create a global panic; it deﬂated the esteem some held for

the early designers of software machinery, who had been looked upon

as geniuses and had become millionaires and billionaires virtually

overnight. Their use of the two-digit code saved steps in millions of

computer applications, but at the same time lobbed a gigantic, ticking

time bomb into the next century.

—Michael Posner

URTHER READING:

De Jaeger, Peter, and Richard Bergeon and Robin Guenier. Count-

down Y2K: Business Survival Planning for the Year 2000. New

York, John Wiley and Sons, 1998.

Yankee Doodle Dandy

In 1942, James Cagney starred in the Hollywood ﬁlm Yankee

Doodle Dandy—the story of the life of George M. Cohan. The title

refers to Cohan’s famous song, ‘‘I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy,’’

written for the Broadway play, Little Johnny Jones, in 1904. In this

musical, Cohan sang the lyrics that would live through the century:

‘‘I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, / A Yankee Doodle, do or die; / A real

live nephew of my Uncle Sam’s / Born on the Fourth of July.’’ It is

one of several Cohan tunes that have been passed from generation to

generation in celebration of the American spirit. Released shortly

after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Yankee Doodle Dandy was

warmly received by American wartime audiences, who were particu-

larly receptive to the patriotic songs in the ﬁlm. Cagney won an Oscar

for his performance, and the movie won Academy Awards for Best

Sound Recording and Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. On July 4,

1985, the Cagney ﬁlm was rereleased as the ﬁrst computer-colorized

production by Ted Turner.

—Sharon Brown

URTHER READING:

Buckner, Robert, and Patrick McGilligan. Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1981.

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James Cagney in a scene from the ﬁlm Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Yankee Stadium

Yankee Stadium, one of the oldest stadiums in the United States

is a shrine to baseball fans. Some of the game’s most dramatic and

historic moments have occurred there. But this most hallowed of

ballparks, haunted by the ghosts of baseball past, is also one of the

sport’s grittiest, most plebeian arenas, famed around the major

leagues for its rowdy, roughhouse Bronx crowd.

The Yankee Stadium area covers approximately 11.6 acres in the

South Bronx, with the playing ﬁeld itself spanning 3.5 acres. Con-

struction began on the new park, designed as a permanent home for

New York’s American League baseball team, on May 5, 1922. On

April 18 of the following year, Yankee Stadium opened to the public.

Yankee right ﬁelder Babe Ruth promptly delivered the ediﬁce’s ﬁrst

home run. Soon the park was renowned for its 296-foot ‘‘short

porch’’ in right ﬁeld, conducive to home runs by left-handed hitters.

Righties were commensurately daunted by ‘‘Death Valley,’’ a 457-

foot expanse in left-center where sure home runs miraculously turned

into ﬂy ball outs. With the advent of night baseball in 1946, a

combination of 800 multi-vapor and incandescent lamps were in-

stalled to illuminate the ﬁeld.

In 1932, the Yankees began to honor their greatest legends with

the erection of monuments and plaques in the outﬁeld section of the

stadium. The ﬁrst monument was dedicated to the memory of Miller

Huggins, the manager who led the team to three world championships

in the 1920s. Subsequent plaques and monuments have honored team

captains Lou Gehrig and Thurman Munson, both of whom died

tragically, as well as Hall of Fame players like Ruth, Joe DiMaggio,

and Mickey Mantle. Originally located on the playing ﬁeld itself, the

monuments posed a curious obstacle for outﬁelders, who often had to

dodge the memorials to retrieve ﬂy balls. Relocated in 1976 to a new

area dubbed ‘‘Monument Park,’’ the monuments are now safely

behind the outﬁeld fences and available for viewing by the public.

In 1973, as the Yankees completed their ﬁftieth anniversary

season in what was now known as ‘‘The House That Ruth Built,’’

Yankee Stadium was remodeled and renovated. While the two-year

project was under way, the team played its home dates at nearby Shea

Stadium. The new Yankee Stadium opened on April 15, 1976, to

mostly positive reviews. The building’s distinctive art deco facade

was retained in part and relocated to the centerﬁeld bleachers.

In both its incarnations, Yankee Stadium has played host to some

of baseball’s most historic moments. On September 27, 1927, Babe

Ruth clouted his record sixtieth home run there off Washington

Senators pitcher Tom Zachary. Thirty-four years later, Yankee out-

ﬁelder Roger Maris eclipsed Ruth’s record with his sixty-ﬁrst homer

off the Boston Red Sox Tracy Stallard, a mark which stood until St.

YANKOVICENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE

209

Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire shattered it in 1998. The old stadium

also provided the setting for some emotional farewells, from a dying

Lou Gehrig’s inspiring valedictory in 1939, when he told the world he

was ‘‘the luckiest man on the face of the earth,’’ to a cancer-ravaged

Babe Ruth’s last salute in 1948. In 1977, the Yankees celebrated their

return to championship status after a 15-year drought in the Bronx

ballpark after a clinching game that saw slugging outﬁelder Reggie

Jackson club three home runs off three different Los Angeles Dodger

pitchers. The following April, jubilant fans showered the ﬁeld with

‘‘Reggie Bars,’’ a chocolate and peanut confection named for the hot-

dogging star after he vowed he would become so famous ‘‘they’ll

name a candy bar after me.’’

Candy bars have not been the only objects to come ﬂying out of

the Yankee Stadium stands over the years. At various times, golf

balls, shot glasses, batteries, assorted coins, and torrents of beer have

been ﬂung onto the ﬁeld by jubilant, angry, or just plain inebriated

fans looking to terrorize Yankee opponents. The prevailing air of

rowdiness has occasionally taken a more endearing form, as when

ten-year-old Jeffrey Maier snatched a ﬂy ball away from Baltimore

Oriole right ﬁelder Tony Tarasco during the 1996 American League

Championship series, resulting in a game-tying Yankee home run.

Around the major leagues, Yankee Stadium is known as an exhilarat-

ing, if intimidating, place to play, in part due to its fans.

In the 1990s, baseball’s pre-eminent shrine suffered the ironic

fate of becoming something of a political football, when Yankee

owner George Steinbrenner loudly threatened to move the team when

its lease expired if he could not get a new stadium constructed with

municipal assistance. New York politicians responded with recrimi-

nation and posturing. Several civic leaders called for a referendum

aimed at keeping the team in the Bronx. Baseball purists and fans of

the old building largely sided with them. The fact that the team’s

crosstown rivals—the New York Mets—play in Shea Stadium, a drab

cookie cutter facility, has contributed to the gloriﬁcation of ‘‘the

Stadium’’ as one of baseball’s high holy places. Even as the Yankees

won their twenty-fourth World Series in 1998, Steinbrenner contin-

ued to threaten to move the team if a new stadium is not built. Despite

the stadium’s hallowed status, Steinbrenner’s wish may become a

reality. When a beam fell from the roof during the 1997-1998 season

(luckily when the stadium was empty) the future of Yankee Stadium

seemed more uncertain than ever.

—Robert E. Schnakenberg

URTHER READING:

Gershman, Michael. Diamonds: The Evolution of the Ballpark. New

York, Houghton Mifﬂin, 1995.

Lowry, Phillip J. Green Cathedrals: The Ultimate Celebrations of All

273 Major League and Negro League Ballparks Past and Present.

Cooperstown, Society for American Baseball Research, 1986.

Robinson, Ray, and Christopher Jennison. Yankee Stadium: 75 Years

of Drama, Glamor, and Glory. New York, Penguin Studio, 1998.

Yankovic, ‘‘Weird Al’’ (1959—)

Rock ’n’ roll’s top jester goes by the name ‘‘Weird Al’’

Yankovic. He specializes in creating amusing lyrics for popular rock

tunes as well as writing humorous ditties in generic song styles.

Yankovic has appeared on albums, starred in his own television show,

and appeared in several ﬁlms.

Yankovic was born Alfred Matthew Yankovic on October 23,

1959 in the Los Angeles suburb of Lynwood. He ﬁrst took up the

accordion when a salesman came around to solicit business for a

music school. His parents, Nick and Mary Yankovic, decided on the

accordion because of polka king Frankie Yankovic (no relation). As a

child and young teen, Al watched a lot of TV, and TV provided the

inspiration for much of his later work (most of his songs center around

either food or television shows). He also became a fan of such

musician/comedians as Allan Sherman (who also specialized in

creating song parodies) and Spike Jones. Yankovic became acquaint-

ed with these musicians through the Dr. Demento radio show, which

would later become a great source of publicity for his talents. In fact,

Yankovic played his ﬁrst song to be heard on the air, ‘‘Belvedere

Cruising,’’ on the Dr. Demento show in 1976.

After an extraordinary career at Lynwood High School, where

he graduated as valedictorian, Yankovic attended the California

Technical Institute in San Luis Obispo to study architecture, a ﬁeld he

chose because it was listed ﬁrst in the catalogue. It was at California

Polytechnical Institute that Yankovic had a radio show and earned the

nickname ‘‘Weird Al.’’ In 1979 Yankovic recorded his ﬁrst real hit, a

parody of the popular ‘‘My Sharona’’ by The Knack called ‘‘My

Bologna.’’ (The Knack liked the song so much they convinced their

label to release the song as a single.) After the astounding success of

that song, forever to be known as the ‘‘bathroom recording’’ as it was

recorded in the acoustically perfect men’s room, Al launched into a

phenomenal career that has spanned 17 albums, movies, videos, and

edible underwear.

Yankovic reached wide public attention in 1984 with his song

‘‘Eat It,’’ a parody of Michael Jackson’s popular hit ‘‘Beat It.’’

Yankovic’s video of the song amusingly parodied the visuals of the

Jackson video, earning it a good deal of play on MTV. ‘‘Eat It’’

earned Yankovic his ﬁrst Grammy Award, and the album, ‘‘Weird

Al’’ Yankovic in 3-D, reached the top 15. On the album, Yankovic

also recreated the set of the original Jeopardy TV series for his parody

‘‘I Lost on Jeopardy,’’ which was based on a tune by the Greg

Kihn Band.

Yankovic was tapped to provide songs for ﬁlms, including

‘‘This Is the Life’’ for Johnny Dangerously (1984) and ‘‘Dare to Be

Stupid’’ for Transformers: The Movie (1986). He starred in his own

ﬁlm, UHF (1989), as George Newman, head of a beleaguered, small-

time cable station, as well as appearing in all three Naked Gun movies

(1988, 1991, 1994), Tapeheads (1988), Nothing Sacred (1997), and

Desperation Boulevard (1998). Yankovic was given his own Satur-

day morning TV show, The ‘‘Weird Al’’ Show, that ran during 1997-

98 season and was compared to Pee-wee’s Playhouse. In it, Al starred

as himself opposite his best friend ‘‘Harvey the Wonder Hamster’’ (a

daredevil hamster in his own habitrail), with a collection of friends

and regulars (including Stan Freberg) who dropped by to discuss that

week’s moral problem. Also included in the show were a series of

‘‘Fatman’’ animated cartoons (for which Yankovic supplied the

voice) based on the overweight character from the video ‘‘Fat’’ done

up as a superhero.

His 1992 video ‘‘Smells Like Nirvana’’ pushed the preten-

tious original Nirvana video a step too far while lampooning the

unintelligibility of its lyrics, and earned a place on Rolling Stone’s top

100 videos of all-time. Nirvana members commented that they knew

they had made it when Yankovic parodied their song. Yankovic’s

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210

‘‘Weird Al’’ Yankovic

videos are some of the best in the business and have been compiled on

two collections, ﬁrst the Compleat Al (1985), and updated as the Al

Yankovic: The Videos (1996). Yankovic had his biggest success to

date with his album Bad Hair Day (1996), which featured a parody of

Coolio’s ‘‘Gangsta Paradise’’ as ‘‘Amish Paradise.’’ (Though Coolio

granted permission for the video, he later condemned Al’s version).

Yankovic has also tried his hand at directing, creating a parody

of Maurice Binder’s James Bond opening titles for the ﬁlm Spy Hard

(1996), with Yankovic singing ‘‘Theme from Spy Hard’’ while

silhouettes of overweight women swim by. Yankovic’s stage shows

are often described as some of the funniest and most entertaining

around. At the end of the century, Yankovic reigned as the king of

musical parody, a singular phenomenon in American musical history.

—Dennis Fischer

URTHER READING:

Insana, Tino, and Al Yankovic. The Authorized Al. Chicago, Contem-

porary Books, 1985.

‘‘The Ofﬁcial Weird Al Web Site.’’ http://www.weirdal.com.

May 1999.

Yanni (1954—)

Along with Slim Whitman, Ray Stevens, and Kenny G, New

Age artist Yanni is one of those inexplicable music curiosities who

rode to the top of the charts on a sea of critical incredulity. Dismissed

by one reviewer as a ‘‘musical Fabio,’’ Yanni is known not so much

for the music he makes as the sensation he creates. His albums and

videos have sold multiple millions worldwide, and he has personally

saved more than a few public television stations with his prodigious

pledge-drive potency.

Born Yanni Chryssomallis in Kalamata, Greece, the future New

Age superstar was a national swimming champion in his teens. After

immigrating to the United States in 1972, he passed up a career in