TEEN YOUR ENTHUSIASM (INTRO)

By: Heather Quinlan
April 1, 2023

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of heartthrobs from our adolescences). Series edited by Heather Quinlan.

SERIES INTRODUCTION

I grew up in the glory days of Teen Beat, Tiger Beat, Bop, et al: Ralph Macchio, Michael J. Fox, Menudo and even (WTF?) Don Johnson were just a few of the many mega-heartthrobs promoted back then. And when I say I devoured pages — yeah, I pretty much did devour pages about my favorites: Jason Bateman, the Coreys, and my big crush — Kirk Cameron, though even back then there seemed something a bit different about him. Perhaps because article after article mentioned that he followed the Pritikin Diet. The Pritikin Diet? What kid follows a specialty diet, especially a boy and one who weighed less than I did? But whatever, he was cute and we had the same birthday.

As times changed so did my taste, which went from boys to men. (Ugh, sorry.) I remember an Anthrax centerfold in Metal Edge where I asked my mother who she thought was the cutest, and she pointed to the guy with a towel over his face. And while these rags didn’t have articles like, “What Lemmy looks for in a date,” it suited where I was at crush-wise. So it’s no coincidence that in the showdown to write about my unrequited love, Faith No More’s Mike Patton won out over Kirk Cameron, because that’s where I’m still at. We’ve all gotten older, but to me, a guy like Jason Bateman will always be the kid from that Ricky Schroder show. (Meanwhile, Ricky Schroder has not aged well… nor has Kirk Cameron. Maybe it was the Pritikin Diet.)

However, that’s not to say all those years of articles with tips like, “Rob Lowe prefers a girl with a sense of humor,” lost their oomph. Which is why I suggested this series, and was thrilled when it was greenlit. Over the following weeks you’ll be treated to fantasy hopes and dreams spanning Robert Redford to Michael Jackson to Drew Barrymore. The New Kids craze as seen by kids from São Paulo, written by Mariane Cara. Lynn Peril sharing why Danny Bonaduce held such an appeal for the under-tween set. International loves like Gustavo Cerati, Kim Wilde, and Françoise Hardy and her bangs are given the spotlight in the U.S. And we’ll find out why my mom, who didn’t like Anthrax, wrote, “I <3 Eli Wallach” all over her notebooks when she was 12. As with the previous series I edited, KILL YOUR ENTHUSIASM, the choices I offered to potential authors rarely landed. Just like no one wrote about a death in The Sopranos, no one took me up on Leif Garrett or Method Man or even Bobby Rydell (I love Grease). But again that didn’t matter, because what was chosen was better than I could’ve hoped for, just like a date in 1988 with C. Thomas Howell. I would never have thought of Arlo Guthrie, as Mimi Lipson did, or that Cheryl Tiegs once had va-va-voom, as per Jack Silbert. So to those of you who are still teenagers in love, I hope you enjoy TEEN YOUR ENTHUSIASM, and get to indulge your 14-year-old hearts all over again.

Yours in like-like and in love,

Heather

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TEEN YOUR ENTHUSIASM (INTRO)

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