Ken Corday, the executive producer of “Days of Our Lives,” knew John Oliver needed to make an appearance on his series. The host of the Emmy-winning HBO series “Last Week Tonight” publicly declared his desire to star in a soap opera during a March episode of his talk show, and Corday immediately got to work.
Needle Drop as we know it was born in 1969, with the instantly iconic use of “Born to Be Wild” in “Easy Rider.” Of course, there were precedents. The first use of a rock ‘n’ roll song in a movie was “Rock Around the Clock,” played over the opening credits of “The Blackboard Jungle” (1955),