Teen Idols For the Ages (My Elementary Age)

There was a song on the radio as I was driving my daughter and her friends home from a birthday party and it made me think about my childhood. My daughter is 11 years old today, and the only thing she wanted to do for her birthday was to go to the new Zach Ephron movie. For those of you don't have a tween living in your home - count your blessings and then let me explain. Zach Ephron is the star of High School Musical 1, 2, and 3. He is THE teen idol of my daughter's generation. By the way, he is really cute with those blue eyes and charming smile... but I digress...All of my daughter's friends thought he was so "hot" and that the movie was the best! (It was a pretty good movie - 17 Again - if you haven't seen it. Even my husband would not have minded this movie.)

As I was chauferring the girls home from the movies, completely ignored, the song “You’ve Had a Bad Day” by Daniel Powter came over the radio. As I listened and sang along one line really stood out: “kick up the leaves and the magic is lost.” That is never more true than when you go back and look at your own teen idol crush. Teen idols from 1977-81 aren’t that great 30 years after the fact. Judge for yourself! But before you click these links, try to remind yourself, and be honest, if you were my age, these were the best out there. So here are my own version of the Historical Grammy Awards (maybe hysterical).

1. The best singing group, when I was nine... The Brady Bunch singing Sunshine Day. I caught myself singing this one outloud - out of the blue - in the car to my family and my husband actually remembered too, but would not admit to liking it.
2. The top male singing artist of 1977 and of my basement (while standing on a chair singing into the end of my silver baton)... Shaun Cassidy singing That’s Rock and Roll
3. The best movie of the year (and the girl we all wanted to grow up and be just like)... Grease starring Olivia Newton-John.
4. The best television show (disregarding The Hardy Boys since Shaun Cassidy already made the list) was Solid Gold which played the top songs of the week including Debby Harry singing the Tide is High.
5. The best Gibb brother. (No one wanted to admit that they loved the Bee Gees after a few years, but we all secretly had our favorite Gibb brother.) I loved Andy Gibb and his Shadow Dancing.
   

Maybe I need to do another post covering the awards from when I was in high school. These are definitely the best of the elementary years. And then... I could do one from the junior high years... but then I might get carried away...