Comeback(s) of the year(s)

The 1990s were responsible for three of the comebacks in our look at five times nostalgia was all the rage. Baby boomers were revisiting their high school years in 1992 and Pac-Man was on screens again after a 15-year absence in 1997.

Meanwhile, 20-somethings were conjuring the 1950s — a decade they didn't even remember —  by smoking cigars and drinking cocktails.

But the quickest nostalgia turnaround was for the 1970s. "There's a lot of kids out there that wanted to hear that disco music," said a Toronto nightclub spokesman less than 10 years after the decade was over.  

Dune in the cinema

A new adaptation of the 1965 science fiction novel Dune opens widely this month, and it was on a list of CBC's top 10 at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.

But critics were not so kind when its 1984 predecessor played theatres. "I think this is probably the worst thing that is being released this Christmas," Jay Scott of the Globe and Mail told the CBC's Bill Cameron.  "I really, really hated the film."  

A tough time for Team Ford 

Friday's Supreme Court ruling that Ontario Premier Doug Ford was within his rights to cut the size of Toronto city council in 2018 reminded us of another time someone wanted fewer politicians on Ontario.

The year was 1998. When two provincial legislature seats for Etobicoke were being absorbed into one, MPP Doug Ford, Sr. was fighting fellow MPP Chris Stockwell for the Progressive Conservative nomination in the new riding.

The younger Ford, seen above at Team Ford HQ, questioned his dad's opponent's credentials as a resident of Etobicoke. "He lives down at Queen's Park, he's not in the riding," Ford told a CBC reporter.