Douglas Retzler, special effects coordinator for the 1988 movie Hairspray, remembers thinking it “wouldn’t be right to blow up Debbie Harry’s head” during the production. Yet the now-classic film, which would go on to inspire a 2007 adaptation, a Broadway musical, and a live television performance, called for Harry’s beehive hairdo to be explosively launched from her head, fly across the room, and land in a scorched heap amid appalled shrieks. Fortunately, Retzler was able to find a solution that didn’t harm the “Blondie” singer and actress (whom John Waters…
