As Sweet as Morris Day's Shuffle

A few nights ago, I had the unique opportunity to view not one, but two 80s classics simultaneously: Purple Rain and Rocky IV (I cannot seem to get away from Brigitte Nielsen). I must admit, I only got through a bit of Purple Rain before totally being sucked into the testosterone fest that is Rocky IV.  For those of you who have not seen Purple Rain, it tells the story of the only black people in Minneapolis, in the mid-80’s, as they all pursue a singing career. Beyond that, Purple Rain is great for many reasons:

I'm so pretty!

1. Morris Day is awesome, cool and slightly effeminate, even though he is the alpha dog of the movie. Raise your hand if you didn’t at least try the Morris/Jerome shuffle move he does during Jungle Love (just after Jerome brings out an (almost) full length gilded mirror on stage for Morris to primp).  And I don't even have to ask if you did the Bird sometime during the 80s.  Oh yeah, and Morris can rock an Aunt Jemima hankerchief. 

Heeyyyyy! It's Morris, Jerome, Big Perm
and tall Eddie Murphy

 

2. Prince's lines are all pure cheese and, looking back, he borders on stalker rather than the cool/distant vibe we all thought it was back then.  I mean, just look at this picture where he is standing behind Appollonia, just after she arrives at the club:

Just like Cobra - 
dark glasses inside

What do you mean

I'm in Vanity 6?

3. Speaking of Appollonia, what could be better than the purification in the waters of Lake Minnetonka?  Nuff’ said.

4. All of the characters in Purple Rain were named with the same name as the person playing them (e.g. Morris Day was Morris; Appollonia Kotero was Appollonia, Wendy Melvoin was Wendy) except for Prince, who for some reason was “The Kid.”

5. Prince was a major league jerk-off, even though he was supposed to be playing the "good guy."  

And that’s about it, Jerome tosses some woman in a dumpster (who had the unmitigated gall to yell at Morris about standing her up). Morris was so cool, he couldn't even bother to respond to her accusations.  Jerome just looked slightly perplexed, as in: "What are you gonna do, guess I've got to toss this one in a dumpster."  I hope Jerome gets hazard pay. 

Oh Morris, call me!

Jerome, thanks for taking out the trash.

After this wonderful scene, I switched over to Rocky IV and never looked back. That's all I can do for today, hopefully I'll be back soon with Rocky IV.