Shunning offers to teach at U.S. universities, Gorby goes instead to Hollywood. Over a lunch of arugula and sun-dried tomato salad with Paramount executives at Le Dome, a RayBanned Gorbachev, now known as “Mike,” negotiates a three-picture deal, with a high back end. Raisa scopes out a $6 million Bel Air estate near pals Ronald and Nancy Reagan.
Vowing a “kinder and gentler” 1992 campaign, the president decides to eschew a tax cut and buy every American $300 worth of socks. Roger Ailes comes up with new campaign slogan: “Everybody just hug.”
The Panamanian ex-dictator is acquitted on all counts and celebrates at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach with an all-night binge of Oreo cookies and adult movies on Spectravision. He returns to Panama, where he launches a lucrative career as a condominium rental agent.
Furious at being passed over for Time Man of the Year honors, the Iraqi dictator launches his own magazine, Saddam Week. Feature articles include “How to Build Your Own Supergun” and regular column, “It’s Always My Turn.”
The Cuban dictator is finally overthrown after 33 years in power. He flees to North Korea, where he forms a partnership with deposed East German chief Erich Honecker and opens a hardline Communist theme park. Its featured ride, Workers’ Paradise, breaks down repeatedly.
Still searching for an identity, the former Soviet Union changes its name three times. First, it tries the All Euro-Asian Conference of Independent Entities (AEACIE). Briefly switches to Trans-Uzbek-Russo-Ukramoldovan Democratic PostCzarist Union (TURUDPCU). Finally settles on Big Landmass Over by Bulgaria (BLOB).
As reunification and immigration feed growing xenophobia, the skinhead movement seizes the central region of Baden-Wurttemberg. It declares itself an independent state and names David Duke chancellor.
Increasingly out of step with West thanks to rising trade surplus and lack of ethnic conflicts, the island nation takes bold step to bridge both gaps: it buys Yugoslavia. The civil-war-racked country becomes part of the giant Mitsubishi Corp. Immediately, Yugoslav work habits begin to improve.
The fad turns ugly as gangs of blade-wearing thugs terrorize U.S. neighborhoods. Congress passes a seven-day waiting period. Bush vetoes the measure, saying the Second Amendment guarantees the right to wear plastic footwear.
The Montana State Legislature enacts a law subdividing the entire state into acre-size plots, which are then auctioned off to affluent East Coast professionals. Hoping to cash in, Bloomingdale’s opens a new Stetson-and-spurs department.
Sony introduces EMDATS, or edible microdigital audiotapes, a high-tech breakthrough that offers near-perfect sound duplication in nine lowcalorie flavors, including red bean and green tea. Sony chairman Akio Morita predicts it will be biggest moneymaker for the Japanese electronics giant since the Walkman. Paranoids who hear voices in their teeth declare themselves vindicated.
The goes-with-anything noncolor replaces plaid as the “in” fashion statement. Suddenly the entire country begins to look like a registered nurses’ college.
Requests that teammates call him “Your Airness” off the court. When teammates refuse, they are sent to the Continental Basketball Association (CBA). Jordan wins second NBA title with recruits from the YMCA Junior League.
Loudmouth Yankee owner returns to active stewardship of his team. Immediately fires all 45 team members, plus parking-lot manager, 14 Yankee Stadium T-shirt vendors and ground crew. Rehires them all three days later.
In their first collaboration, Ellis teams up with Andrew Lloyd Webber to adapt his controversial snuff novel into a Broadway musical, “Psycho!” Robert Goulet and Patti LuPone star.
Spielberg films sequel to 1991 blockbuster. Budget climbs over $100 million as “Lost Boys on the IRT” sequence forces building replica of entire New York City subway system on Columbia lot. Michael Ovitz demands and gets-93 percent of gross profits for Spielberg, Hoffman and Williams.
In “The Mayor of Castro Street,” Stone probes the 1978 assassination of San Francisco gay leader Harvey Milk. Enraging the gay community, Stone claims Milk was murdered in a conspiracy involving Moluccan separatists, G. Gordon Liddy, the Ku Klux Klan and the “A Team.”
As Hollywood’s hottest couple is presenting an Academy Award, she goes into labor in front of a global audience of 260 million. William Hurt, reprising his role in “The Doctor,” races onto the stage and delivers a healthy boy named Oscar.
When CBS decides to pre-empt “Super Tuesday” coverage with a rerun of “Bonfire of the Vanities,” the anchorman stalks off the set, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Kenneth! Kenneth? Where is the coffee filter?” Ratings soar.
Reeling from the aftereffects of “Hudson Hawk” and “The Last Boy Scout,” Bruce Willis signs for a step-aerobics exercise video with a cut of the 1-900 number proceeds. Fox TV passes on him as voice of Homer Simpson’s new neighbor.
A final autopsy report by Spanish authorities reveals Maxwell was pushed off the Lady Ghislaine by a crew member after a violent disagreement over a British football bet. But Maxwell’s empire is salvaged when his wallet, stuffed with $200 million in cash, is retrieved from ocean floor.
Gennady Yanayev and his fellow Soviet coup Plotters retain the attorney who defended Willie Smith. Black convinces a Moscow court that the plotters were “led on” by Boris Yeltsin. The key evidence: a torn fur hat left inside Yeltsin’s ZiL limousine.
At deadlocked Democratic National Convention at New York’s Madison Square Garden, Cuomo is paralyzed with indecision over whom to back with favorite-son support. He wanders the floor, muttering incoherent excerpts from “Hamlet.” Furious Democrats pass resolution vowing never to hold another convention in New York.
After stunning the GOP by almost beating Bush in New Hampshire, Buchanan splits conservatives with suggestion that the remains of Berlin wall be transported to the United States and erected as a boundary to keep out “Zulus and other undesirables.”
In his first Supreme Court rulings, the new justice sets forth strict-constructionist opinions on abortion, pornography and affirmative action. Legal analysts later say the wording of his decisions bears an unsettling resemblance to portions of William Peter Blatty’s “The Exorcist.”
