Junior High Memento: Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Want To Have Fun

It’s pretty hip to hate on Cyndi Lauper and most of the 1980s musical scene nowadays, but I still absolutely love everything about both the “Time After Time” singer and the decade she’s so inexplicably linked with. The outfits were vibrant and showy, the hair was wild and unkempt, and the people weren’t looking for anything but a good time. The me decade more than justified its name, and there’s possibly no other video that better represents this outrageousness than Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.”

Like a Timothy McVeigh Christmas present, “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” exploded onto the cultural landscape. The song reached the number two spot on the Billboard charts and received heavy-ration on then upstart network MTV. It’s cute, it’s fun, and the video perfectly compliments the care-free sentiments.

Between Cyndi Lauper’s side-mullet and former professional wrestler Captain Lou Albano’s form fitting wife beater, this video pretty much brought sexy back. Sorry, Justin. There’s also some great utilization of early editing technology (see all the random bubbles that morph into real people), and at the beginning of the clip, the mother is making eggs. I’m not sure why that’s relevant, but eggs are incredibly delicious. If you don’t like them, you’re probably a Communist.

Here are some other things to check for: Cyndi’s earrings look like Easter Eggs. Everyone seems to be wearing unusually large sunglasses. Some old guy in a suit almost makes out with a young woman during the dance sequence. The camera pans away before the juicy action, but here’s to hoping that the dirty old man got his jollies. So without further ado, here is “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”....