On this day, way back in the year 1984, worried moms everywhere got just a little more uptight… Back when hippies roamed free, (’68), the MPAA was catching a lot of flack from angry moms, and decided that enough was enough. Moms everywhere were up in arms, and weren’t wanting their kids to have any cinematic fun, God forbid Timmy and Sally see some blood or a little skin, so the MPAA stepped in. Using their authoritarian power and scare tactics, they created the early forms of the movie rating system we know today. There was ‘G’ for general audiences, ‘M’ for mature (turned into PG), ‘R’ which is the same as it is today, except you could be 16 (I guess back then, they figured if you could run someone over with your car, you can handle watching someone famous do it for pretend on Mulholland Drive), and then ‘X’ which equated to NC-17. Well, fast forward almost 20 years, and, as is the fashion of our culture, we made it even more complicated. On July 1st, 1984, the MPAA created ‘PG-13’, which stopped zero 12 year olds from seeing such classics as “Red Dawn” starring the incomparable Patrick Swayze and our favorite tiger-blooded man, Charlie Sheen, but gave mothers something to be upset about. (Note: “Red Dawn” was released in 1983- save the comments.) So, there you have it- more useless knowledge you can ball up, put in your pocket, and forget about until you pull your pants out of the washer and realize, ‘oh, man, forgot that was in there…’.