Oh, don't get me wrong, I love the original 1957 recording by Bobby Helms; it has classic Golden Age of Early Rock feel to it that sounds so much like the soundtrack to a Stephen King movie set in the America of mid-twentieth century. That be-bop shuffle, the swing rhythm in the lyrics, the break in the middle of the chorus...they're all classic oldie standards.
No, today's version goes to one of the most outrageously eighties videos ever made for any reason, the Hall and Oates version from 1983, and yes, people actually dressed like that and wore their hair LIKE THAT back in the early eighties. Candy coated and egregiously goofy on purpose, this is about as much fun as you can have at Christmas without spiking the eggnog.
I don't know if the eighties were a better time to be a teenager than it is today, but there are a lot of similarities. Communication and entertainment were changing rapidly with new technologies, there was a lot of social anxiety about national and world events, our national leader seemed likely to start a nuclear war because he had a bad hair day (actually not true—Reagan's hair was lacquered in place and never moved), and forces of diversity and inclusion fought against narrow-minded bigotry in many venues. On the bright side, we had simple, silly diversions such as this one.
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