The music video with movie actors they didn't want Andrew to know about

So yeah, there are a lot of videos from movie soundtracks starring actors from the movie, preferably in character. I have to say that the most memorable one from my childhood is one that's almost totally fallen off the cultural radar.

The year: 1983. The place: Jacksonville, Florida. Little Jamie Furdell had moved there during a cross country trip in his mom's Volkswagen Rabbit with no air conditioning. In the middle of summer. And along the way, I discovered how to fiddle with the radio and find the pop music stations.

Once we set up shop in Jacksonville I really dove into the world of pop music. I was all about American Top 40 and MTV, and I was especially all about... and this is embarassing... Olivia Newton-John. We had her greatest hits two-cassette tape (awesome) collection, and I was a big fan of the whole shebang. And thus, I was especially excited about a movie that came out in December 1983, starring ONJ (I call her ONJ) and John Travolta: Two of a Kind.

I distinctly recall dragging Mom to the AMC Regency Mall 6 theaters (since replaced by a larger multiplex) to see this, in retrospect, dreadfully awful movie. It was clearly an attempt to recapture the magic from previous ONJ-Travolta vehicle Grease, but wound being just an absolute mess of a love story. The main characters are revoltingly unlikeable: she's a bank teller, he's... um... an inventor. That's believable. He is struggling financially and decides to rob her bank; she replaces the loot with teller slips before handing it over and keeps the cash for herself, thus prompting Travolta to pursue her for the cash. Hijinks ensue.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them but knownst to us, a group of angels have wagered with God (voiced by, and I'm not making this up, an uncredited Gene Hackman) that they can get this pair together romantically, in an effort to... keep God from... ending the world? It sounds even stupider when I type it out like that. Basically they were trying to go for something Capra-esque, but it winds up making the exploits of these two dolts seem overly self-centered.

As a kid, I remember liking the fact that that the crew of angels had the power to freeze and rewind events in real time with a simple voice command. After rewatching this as an adult, I realize that the entirety of the film is a difficult experience to sit through and I must therefore take this moment to apologize profusely to Mom. Sorry, Mom. If you're still curious, here's a hilarious clip in which Travolta puts on his hero face and ONJ plays the victim.

The film was, super-sadly, not a hit, despite an all-star cast including Scatman Crothers, who at this point was being typecast as a magical black guy with a cool voice. And it was also the death knell for Travolta's film career... well, the first death knell, until its resurrection in Pulp Fiction and subsequent deathier knell Battlefield Earth.

But the soundtrack was actually a partial saving grace, and before the film came out, I'm pretty sure I succumbed to the hype of ONJ dancing around in her top single from the album, "Twist of Fate", on MTV. I still actually quite like this song, and I rediscovered it listening to an episode of American Top 40 from my collection.

Basically, ONJ, backlit and with super-high '80s hair, is defending her crush on Travolta, in a dark neon-lit courtroom suspended over some kind of body of water, while clips from the movie, including their plainly uncomfortable love scene, are presented as evidence. Then, the coup de grace at the end: John Travolta is there! Except that, hilariously, his scenes appear to have been filmed not at the same time as ONJ's, possibly in an entirely different country. They pretend to look directly at each other longingly, and fade to black.

That's the stuff right there.