Ladies and gentlemen, you might now know it yet, but today is a glorious day. It’s the kind of day that makes you want to strap on your best dance shoes, brush the dust off your best glitter-fringed sleeves, and tap your way down main street, thanking God for the one thing that binds us as a people: The Internet. Because today is the day — at least for us — that we discovered “Stairway to Stardom“, the most ingenious 1980’s era cable access show to ever grace your wood-paneled Zenith TV.

Based in the New York area, and hosted by the lovable Frank Masi, the show featured local residents who wanted to just show the world all the talent they had been bottling up for so long, or those residents who wanted to scar their children for life. Either way, win/win for us new millennium viewers, who get to reap the kitschy benefits through the genius of the internet. What follows are the Top 10 Best Stairway to Stardom Performances… and by best, do we mean worst? Let’s just say, if you liked the girl playing Star Wars on the Trumpet, you will LOVE the following clips. And if you think you’ve seen them all, we’re guessing you haven’t.

Ed. Note: I have ranked these in the order of how many aneurysm tears my coworkers and I wept while watching these together, from least, to most, except for #10, which we’re using to bait you.

10. Here is the brilliant Gloria Huddle, singing The Manhattan Transfer’s “Operator”. If Gwyneth Paltrow had been raised in the deepest parts of Brooklyn, we guess her British accent would sound something like this (i.e.: Incredible):

9. Ever wonder what the Thriller video would like if performed by a less-than-athletic woman in a nude bodysuit who is addicted to thrusting her crotch out every 2 seconds? Let’s just say if Michael Jackson were a hetero black man, he would love the following dancer, Lola Perazzo:

Follow-up to the above video: OH MY GOD, SHE IS ONLY 13!!! Apologies for all that crotch-thrusting talk, but seriously, she’s gotta be 30.

After the cut, The Top 8 Best 80’s Cable Access Moments Ever…

8. One of the better dancing performances on Stairway to Stardom (the best one is #1, of course). Michelle Sutlovich clearly practiced this glitzy routine to Fame for days, if not minutes. The office hallway background really adds to its appeal:

7. No matter how much you or anyone tries to convince me otherwise, I am 100 percent positive the following huge-headed/small-bodied young boy is very seriously Chris Farley as a child. Note the angry eyes he is making to his stage mother, just off-camera:

6. What can one really say about our #7 pick, Dante? The Youtube Commenters said it best when they rated his “perm a 10 and his singing a 4.5.” Here’s to hoping someone gave him Correctol in the nick of time, as by the sound of it, his colon is on the verge of exploding:

5. Now we are getting to the meat and potatoes of Stairway to Stardom — The Top 5. “Hairdresser Hairdresser” is an original composition from the hottestest mess of 1984, Lucille Cataldo. Lucy, sporting the very same outfit seen 3 years later in Eddie Murphy Raw, really belts out the instructions to her hairdresser set to song in a way no one ever has, or hopefully will ever do again. Prepare yourself:

4. The only thing better than the adorably bowl-cutted Michael Fobes‘ performance of “Rock Around the Clock”? The corpse playing drums behind him:

Update: How many Cuckoos does this kid spit out, exactly?

3. The first thing you’ll probably think of when watching this next video is Jerry Seinfeld’s Puffy Shirt. The next thing you’ll probably think of is scooping your inner ear drums out with two golden grapefruit spoons. For God’s Sake, even the host has to leave the room. So here is Louise Mascia’s “Let Me Entertain You”, oddly inappropriate coming from a girl who is clearly underaged. People with animals at home, blast the last half of the video and let us know their reactions:

2. Three words sum up the following Oscar-winning monologue performance: Precious Taft Radiator. Second 42 will haunt my nightmares:

1. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve made it: Your #1 Best 1980s Cable Access Moment Ever. The following video might just look ilke a little girl playing air piano, and pointing invisible shotguns up at the sky while the saddest horn in the world plays behind her. But not to us. No, to us, this video of Melissa Ann Ledwon jamming to “They’re Playing Our Song” is, in its essence, what a joyful life is all about. Right down to the splits:

If you liked this list, feel free to Digg it til you can’t Digg no longer.

(With thanks in large part to Youtube user Sharpeworld, who uploaded most of these vids, and Girlatlas, who passed along the “Fame” video.)