History UnintentionalPeriodPiece / The80s

* ''Manga/DragonBall'' may be set on a fictional, futuristic version of Earth, but the tech and building designs for the cities are distinctly '80s, as is the fashion. This combines with the WWII-style military tech and the Ancient China locales for a rather unique aesthetic for the world. And, [[Anime/DragonBallSuper as the show evolves]], the tech does too, which itself will fall into this trope as TechnologyMarchesOn.

** "Twisting By the Pool" unintentionally dates itself with a line about never being out of reach because of a nearby call box. Call boxes, especially non-emergeny call boxes, largely disappeared in the '00s due to the rising ubiquity of cell phones.

* ''Film/BackToTheFuture1'' is very strongly '80s, to the point where the sequence introducing the "present day" of 1985 is now counted as an unintentional MisterSandmanSequence like the introductions to [[The50s 1955]] later in the film, [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture 2015]] in [[Film/BackToTheFuturePartII the second]], and [[TheWildWest 1885]] in [[Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII the third]]. The over-the-top portrayal of 2015 in the second film also demonstrates a particularly '80s flavor of {{Zeerust}}, which was entirely intentional on the part of the filmmakers, who wanted to avoid a {{cyberpunk}} image that they felt would date the film in a less flattering way. And within that scene, the '80s-themed café is uncannily prescient about which pieces of pop culture would remain firmly identified with the decade.

* ''Literature/TheBabysittersClub'' began in the late 1980s. Not only does the fashion and technology show its age, but the very premise itself dates it. American parents are much less likely to allow a bunch of middle schoolers to babysit their kids than in the '80s.

* The anti-Apartheid protest song "Sun City" by Artists United Against Apartheid, organized by Steven Van Zandt. While the song's mixture of hip-hop, R&B and hard rock pre-dated the popularity of RapRock and NuMetal, the song itself can be dated to when South Africa's Apartheid regime was still in power and a serious world issue. The line "I, I, I, I, I, I, ain't gonna play Sun City!" became ironic once the Apartheid policies was repealed and Sun City began being used as a concert venue more, and the line bashing then-President Ronald Reagan's policy of "constructive engagement" dates it further.

* ''Series/YouCantDoThatOnTelevision'', certainly during the early 1980s, has references to ''Series/GeneralHospital'' and dated video arcade games (and the occasional period sociopolitical issues) in various episodes. The clothes and hairstyles of the teen cast members often betray their '80s origins almost as much as their accents and certain phrases they use betray their [[CanadaEh Canadian origins]].

** "Go, Cubs, Go", written in 1981 by diehard Cubs fan Music/SteveGoodman, is now the team's official victory song. It contains the line "You can catch it all on WGN." At the time, WGN carried all Cubs games on the radio and most Cubs games on TV. It's not true any longer; WGN's local TV station (not to be confused with WGN America, now a general entertainment cable channel) now carries only 45 Cubs games a year, and WGN-AM no longer carries Cubs games at all.

*** Q: What`s the worst thing about getting AIDS? A: Convincing your parents you're Haitian.

** An early stretch of Creator/EddieMurphy's concert special/album ''Delirious'' pokes fun at the crisis).

* ''Manga/HikariNoDensetsu'' is set during the Olympics. The competing athletes are from countries such as the Soviet Union (Tatiana Elkenya), Yugoslavia (Nelly Szewinska) and East Germany (Sophie Wenzel).

* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainNTheGameMaster'' could only have been made at the height of the Platform/NintendoEntertainmentSystem's popularity and the tail-end of the 8-bit era, with such characters as [[Franchise/{{Castlevania}} Simon Belmont]], VideoGame/MegaMan, and VideoGame/KidIcarus, who's [[IAmNotShazam usually called]] Pit in those games, as part of the core cast, and other period gaming references, such as a sentient Platform/GameBoy in the second season.

* ''Manga/CityHunter'' is definitely set in the eighties. Clothes, hairstyles and technological level all scream The80s. In some stories, [[TheHero Ryo]] imitates Japanese politicians, actors and musicians who were popular when the manga was running. In another story, Ryo compares one of the {{Mook}}s with ''Film/{{Commando}}'' since "''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' is too old now". And in another arc, [[{{Tsundere}} Kaori]] asks a child whether she wants to play with a UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem.

* ''Film/TheWizard'' will forever be a symbol of the time when the UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem was the dominant force in video games, featuring many of the games that were popular at the time, a scene where the kids call the ''Magazine/NintendoPower'' hotline for game tips (''Nintendo Power'' ceased publication in late 2012), and the final challenge of the movie being [[VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3 SUPER! MARIO BROS.! 3!]]

* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainNTheGameMaster'' could only have been made at the height of the UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem's popularity and the tail-end of the 8-bit era, with such characters as [[Franchise/{{Castlevania}} Simon Belmont]], VideoGame/MegaMan, and VideoGame/KidIcarus, who's [[IAmNotShazam usually called]] Pit in those games, as part of the core cast, and other period gaming references, such as a sentient UsefulNotes/GameBoy in the second season.

* Also released in 1990 was ''[[Pinball/DrDude Dr. Dude and His Excellent Ray]]''. Even its name screams out "Film/BillAndTed." It's about a formerly uncool nerd who was into computers, who built a device that could make him cooler, one of the components being ThePowerOfRock. This game has a fascination with strange technology that can impart weird effects onto people. Dr. Dude himself has angular sunglasses, huge EightiesHair, and a leopard-print jacket, and talks like a [[Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles Ninja Turtle]]. The table is covered in '80s slang and the decade's characteristic bright geometric shapes.

* ''[[Film/BillAndTed Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure]]'', in which the far future is based on hair metal that would actually go out of style only a few years after the film's release.

* ''Manga/{{Cipher}}'' is very much a product of the 80s with its fashion and hairstyles, and the OVA features several American songs that were popular at the time. The Twin Towers are also frequently shown in both the manga and the OVA, which dates the series even further.
* ''Literature/DirtyPair'' has become this with Kei's poofy hair, some of the fashions, and music, and the plots are similar to 80s sci-fi/action-adventure. Some say it's the reason there hasn't been a reboot attempted in a long time. The franchise is so quintessentially 80s!

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' enters this starting with ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders Stardust Crusaders]]''. After [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventurePhantomBlood two]] [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureBattleTendency Parts]] set decades before the present, ''Stardust Crusaders'' was set during the time the manga was being released. The following Part, ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable Diamond is Unbreakable]]'', follows the same course, emulating early-90's fashion and trends even when the series was technically set in the then near-future of the late 90s (specifically, 1999).

* ''Anime/MegaZone23'' just screams the 80s, especially Yui's aerobic dance numbers complete with leotards, headbands and legwarmers. Many of the characters display flashy, colorful makeup and hair reminiscent of ''WesternAnimation/JemAndTheHolograms'', with tight jeans and letterman jackets. Most of these exaggerated designs apply to the first OVA; the second is more gritty and realistic, but still features '80s fashions and characters hanging out at the arcade. And the music! One scene from the original is particularly HarsherInHindsight after Japan's Lost Decade of the '90s: [[spoiler:when Shogo asks the Artificial Intelligence Eve why the eponymous GenerationShip was built to emulate Japan, she responds that after analyzing history, it was found to be "the best time to be alive."]]
* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamZZ'' has some unmistakably 80s fashion and hairstyles, despite being set in the future. Special shout-outs to Chara Soon and Elle Vianno, neither of whom would look out of place in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/JemAndTheHolograms''.

* ''Manga/DragonBall'' may be set on a fictional, futuristic version of Earth, but the tech and building designs for the cities are distinctly 80s, as is the fashion. This combines with the WWII-style military tech and the Ancient China locales for a rather unique aesthetic for the world. And, [[Anime/DragonBallSuper as the show evolves]], the tech does too, which itself will fall into this trope as TechnologyMarchesOn.

* ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueInternational'': Fire dresses like a dancer from a Music/MotleyCrue video, while Comicbook/BlackCanary and Ice look like they're on their way to a jazzercise class. Much emphasis is placed on the tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and one of the new members of the League is a proud Russian communist. There are also ''a lot'' of then-contemporary political and pop culture jokes that probably fly over the heads of many modern readers. Like several other examples on this page, most of the attempts at reviving the series since then have proven less successful, partly because of the way it's so tied to the 80s.

* ''WesternAnimation/OliverAndCompany'' is one of the few Disney Animated Canon films set in "present day". It's ''so'' very 80s, to the point where it feels like a period piece rather than a film written about a contemporary era. Even the ''dogs'' have EightiesHair.

** One little detail that can make it easy to identify ''Film/TheBreakfastClub'' as a product of the 80s is when the rich AlphaBitch Claire is eating sushi for lunch and Bender, who comes from a lower class background, has no idea what it is. By the time the 2000s rolled around, most Americans, regardless of economic class, at least knew what sushi was even if they've never eaten it.

* The Creator/AlPacino version of ''Film/{{Scarface|1983}}''. The fashion, the politics and the cocaine explosion all point to an early 80s setting.

* ''Film/RedHeat'' (1988), with its plot [[GoodCopBadCop about a Soviet cop]] [[OddCouple teaming up with]] an American cop to catch a Georgian drug lord that has fled to America, could only have been filmed in the period where Soviet-American relations improved in the late 80s but before the collapse of the USSR. There is a scene that stands out even more than the rest, when we are shown that the Georgians "[[MisterSandmanSequence made it to America]]": they wear American clothes, sit on an American car and American music sounds in the background. Nowadays, this scene feels like "the Georgians made it to ''the '80s''": they wear '80s clothes, sit on an '80s car and '80s music sounds in the background. Even the scenes set in ''the Soviet Union'' look less dated.

* ''Film/BlowOut'', released in 1981, stars a BMovie sound technician who realizes he may have accidentally recorded a political assassination while recording ambient sound and tries to uncover the truth. This partly involves syncing the audio he recorded with photos published of the apparent car accident in a magazine, which are stills from a film that he can replicate (albeit crudely). As he only has early-80s technology, he does this by cutting out the stills and making a film reel using them in his producer's animation studio, and then specially marking sections of his audio tape in his studio so he can match the exact instant the car hits the water with the sound thereof using lots of RewindReplayRepeat [[spoiler:and find where the gunshot came from]]. If the film took place decades later, when the process of film recording and editing became fully digital, all of this would have been much faster and easier to do [[spoiler:and would have made disposing of the evidence impossible]].

* ''Film/WingsOfDesire'' was filmed in the '80s and it shows due to the fashions and hairstyles of the people that appear in the movie. There are other things that date it like the appearance of record players and old cars, but the most notable is that the Berlin Wall prominently appears - the Wall would be demolished in the early 1990's.

* ''Film/BladeRunner'': Although the film represents a futuristic dystopian view of 2019, it's quite evident the era in which the movie itself was made. Its synth-heavy soundtrack, ProductPlacement from companies that have since become obscure or defunct (like Pan Am, Cuisinart, and Creator/{{Atari}}), there still being advertising blimps everywhere (as of 2021, only about a dozen still exist), the idea that JapanTakesOverTheWorld, the computers still being clunky and analog, and [[EverybodySmokes lots of indoor smoking]], all very clearly point to the movie's 80s-era origin (also, [[CaptainObvious of course]], the year 2019 came and went and Los Angeles still doesn't have mile-high ziggurats dominating the skyline).

* ''Literature/AnnieOnMyMind'' has a few elements that date it. It's mentioned that Eliza can't legally drink until she's 18. The book is from 1982 and was written earlier. The year it came out NY's drinking age was upped to 19. In 1985 it was raised again to its current 21. Annie comes from the WrongSideOfTheTracks and, while these sort of situations still exist in modern day NYC, it was more prevalent in the 70s and 80s before the city started cleaning its image up. Eliza uses a payphone a few times and she tries to learn about being lesbian through magazines and encyclopedias, not the internet like a modern teen would (the part about her reading books, however, is still common). To a degree, the amount of ostracism the girls feel due to their relationship also counts. While things like that still happen, overall views towards gay couples are a lot better than they were in the early 80s. The writer has even noted that if the book took place in the 2000s or 2010s, Annie wouldn't have so much distress over being gay and probably would have even headed a GSA at her school. The subplot over [[spoiler:being expelled for being lesbian]] also wouldn't have occurred.
* ''Literature/TheBabysittersClub'' began in the late 1980s. Not only does the fashion and technology show its age, but the very premise itself dates it. American parents are much less likely to allow a bunch of middle schoolers to babysit their kids than in the 80s.

* British sitcoms and sketch shows of the 80s were near-inevitably focused on mocking [[UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher Thatcher's Britain]]; even period-piece comedies like ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' weren't immune.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' tried hard to avoid being an UnintentionalPeriodPiece (the music avoided any style that had been popular since the end of TheJazzAge, for example), but the hairstyles, the spandex costumes ("spacesuits" as the cast called them), the set design (especially the oft-criticized "hotel lobby" look of TheBridge and the infamously bland beige and rust carpeting and wall paneling), the "Dustbuster" phasers and the presence of a psychotherapist as a command-level officer firmly fix the early seasons of the series in the 80s. Later seasons went to a wool gabardine two-piece spacesuit, a more angular and weapon-like phaser and modified Counselor Troi's duties in an effort to try to bring the show out of the 80s, but some of the more aggressively period-fixing design choices were stuck through the entire show.

* [[Music/JethroTull Jethro Tull's]] 1984 album ''Under Wraps'' may count, not only in its ''very'' 1980's production style and sound (most of the album was programmed on a then-state-of-the-art Fairlight CMI sampling workstation, and all of the drum tracks are programmed on a Linndrum drum machine), but due to the songs' then-very relevant UsefulNotes/ColdWar[=/=]espionage themes (Ian Anderson was inspired by the novels of Creator/JohnLeCarre).

* The Music/FaithNoMore song "We Care a Lot" is a jab at 80s charity songs such as "We Are The World" that attempted to bring awareness to global problems such as starvation. The song shows its age by mentioning then-current events such as the ''Challenger'' disaster, as well as toys such as Garbage Pail Kids and Franchise/{{Transformers}} (though the latter would come back in later decades). The chorus, on the other hand, lives on as the theme for ''Series/DirtyJobs''.
* ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ2zeulYjnI Ora Tokyo Sa Iguda]]'' is a Japanese song about how this hillbilly guy wants to get out of his backward village to move to Tokyo. At one point of the song, the singer asks "Who is Laser Disc?" In the 80s, it would've shown just how his village was away from civilization. In the 2010s? It sounds more like WhatAreRecords being played straight.
* Petra's Witch Hunt may be the most 80s Christian rock song ever. The subject matter is about fundamentalists "looking for evil" (still somewhat happening, but not to the extent as in the 80s), the song itself is full of '80s style effects, and there's even a Creator/MrT reference at the end.

* Bob Rivers' "The 12 Pains of Christmas" references popular things about Christmas from years past that aren't as common anymore, like the ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' craze. Though Transformers would make a comeback as a franchise, they have never regained the status as ''the'' hot toy for Christmas that they had in the 80s, particularly since the [[Film/TransformersFilmSeries live-action film series]]' toy lines peak in the summertime, when the films get released.

* In the music video for "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHGyipqYFr8 Stop to Love]]" by Music/LutherVandross, the hairstyles alone would be enough to place it firmly in the 80's, but then we see a gas station in the background priced at ''65 cents a gallon''.[[note]]About $1.50 today, which would ''still'' be a steal by today's standards, and yet this was considered expensive at the time.[[/note]]

* The political references in ''Music/{{War|U2Album}}'' by Music/{{U2}} date itself to the 80s. The opening track, "Sunday Bloody Sunday", is about UsefulNotes/TheTroubles (which are generally accepted to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998), while the second track, "Seconds", mentions both the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn USSR]] and the [[UsefulNotes/EastGermany German Democratic Republic]], both of which no longer exist.

** "Twisting By the Pool" unintentionally dates itself with a line about never being out of reach because of a nearby call box. Call boxes, especially non-emergeny call boxes, largely disappeared in the 00s due to the rising ubiquity of cell phones.

* Also released in 1990 was ''[[Pinball/DrDude Dr. Dude and His Excellent Ray]]''. Even its name screams out "Film/BillAndTed." It's about a formerly uncool nerd who was into computers, who built a device that could make him cooler, one of the components being ThePowerOfRock. This game has a fascination with strange technology that can impart weird effects onto people. Dr. Dude himself has angular sunglasses, huge EightiesHair, and a leopard-print jacket, and talks like a [[Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles Ninja Turtle]]. The table is covered in 80's slang and the decade's characteristic bright geometric shapes.

* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'': While the technology side tends to fall firmly under {{zeerust}}, there's still plenty of other things that remind players that this game is the "future of the 80s."
** For one, artwork from the original sourcebooks depicted outfits and [[EightiesHair hairstyles]] that were firmly rooted in that decade. Artwork for characters in later game eras changed their looks, but new material covering the late Succession Wars (the time period when the game started out) establishes that in the early 31st Century, 80s fashion was definitely in.

* ''TabletopGame/DinosaursAttack'': The series cements itself as an obvious product of the 80s (aside from simply being part of the card-collecting craze of the era), both by the insane levels of {{Gorn}} and its depiction of dinosaurs; the complete absence of [[RaptorAttack raptors]] (and other then-obscure dinosaur species which have since become well established in dinosaur media, like ''Dilophosaurus'' and ''Spinosaurus''), the appearance of the long obsolete ''Trachodon'' (reassigned to ''Edmontosaurus'' in the 90s), and illustrations of dinosaurs as [[ArtisticLicensePaleontology grotesque, upright lizard-beasts]] makes it clear it was made before ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' revolutionized the popular image of dinosaurs (indeed, the release of ''Film/JurassicPark1993'' killed a film adaptation of ''Dinosaurs Attack!'').

* The entire genre of stock market simulation games (which only came to the US in the form of ''Wall Street Kid'') is based on the Japanese fantasy that you could become a billionaire by intelligently buying and selling Japanese stocks. The idea will probably not catch on with the newer generation of Japanese that faced the economic downturns throughout 1990 all the way up to the late 2000's.

* ''WesternAnimation/BeverlyHillsTeens''. Five-inch floppies, over-the-top 80s hair, huge (and very seldom used) cell phones...

* ''WesternAnimation/RudeDogAndTheDweebs'', with it's art style and pop culture references, can be dated to the 80s. The show itself is based off a popular character used by Sun Sportswear at the time, and Rude Dog's TotallyRadical way of speaking was akin to slang used at the time.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Jem}}''. Good lord. You can't get any more stereotypically 80s than this. The [[EightiesHair big colorful hair]] and makeup is just the beginning before we go into the music, the cars, the casual fashions, anything and everything about this show is the 1980s! Getting into the music, the whole show is very much a creature of the music video era. Each episode spent considerable time showing music videos for both the Holograms and the Misfits.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'' suffered from this before the TimeSkip. The Autobots' alt-modes were mostly based on cars from the decade (except for Wheeljack who transformed into a 70s Lancia Stratos). The Decepticons weren't exempt from this either, as the Seekers transformed into F-15 Eagles (a plane that, while still in service today, is no longer considered as cutting-edge as it was in the 80s), Soundwave transformed into a ''cassette player'', and a few others transformed into cassettes. Then there's Megatron, who transformed into a handgun. His toy was rather realistic looking, something that wouldn't fly today.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyAndFriends'', Danny uses a cassette recorder, which was popular in the 80s.

* Some of the pop culture references in ''WesternAnimation/MightyMouseTheNewAdventures'' instantly date it to the late-80s. For example, "Mighty's Benefit Plan" features {{Captain Ersatz}}es of ''Franchise/AlvinAndTheChipmunks'' at a time when [[WesternAnimation/TheChipmunks their most famous animated series]] was on the air.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfTeddyRuxpin'' has a few references to 80's culture in it:

** The music in "The Surf Grunges" mirrors the music that was popular in the 80's.

** As it was made in 1985, the ending of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet A Little Peace and Quiet]]" is dated to the time of the pre-glasnost, pre-fall of the Berlin Wall cultural fear of a nuclear WorldWarIII between NATO and the Warsaw Pact[[note]]While this year marked the beginning of Gorbachev’s presidency of the Soviet Union, which focused on de-escalation, it would take until a few years where de-escalation really came to fruition[[/note]]. The same is true of the [[spoiler:apparent]] outbreak of World War III in "Shelter Skelter".
** In "Aqua Vita", which was made in 1986, the television anchor Christie Copperfield reports on anti-apartheid demonstrations in Cape Town, the US government considering imposing further economic sanctions on UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica and fighting between Sandinistas and Contras outside UsefulNotes/{{Nicaragua}}'s capital Managua.
** In "Private Channel", which was made in 1987, Mr. Williams is able to smuggle a bomb aboard the plane under his shirt. The airport clerk also asks Keith Barnes, who gains his telepathic powers from a Walkman, if he has a smoking or a non-smoking seat.

* ''Literature/TheNewDinosaursAnAlternativeEvolution'', by Creator/DougalDixon, despite being about an alternative world where dinosaurs never became extinct, is more or less a time capsule of how dinosaurs were seen in the late 1980s. For example, dromaeosaurs/"raptors" have only two species shown, whereas they would almost certainly have had a much bigger role in the post-''Jurassic Park'' 1990s. Special mention, however, goes to the Gourmand, which is a tyrannosaur that is a specialized scavenger. This firmly dates the book's publication to the late 1980s or early 1990s, when the "Was ''T. rex'' a predator or a scavenger?" debate was a big deal in pop culture, and was inevitably brought up in discussions of the animal. Additionally, the connection between dinosaurs and birds (even at the time, it was increasingly clear that birds had evolved from them, and by the 2000s, it was widely accepted that birds functionally ''are'' dinosaurs) is barely acknowledged; best shown by the fact that the book features dinosaurs evolving ''hair'' rather than feathers.

* ''Manga/CityHunter'' is definitely set in the eighties. Clothes, hairstyles and technological level all scream TheEighties. In some stories, [[TheHero Ryo]] imitates Japanese politicians, actors and musicians who were popular when the manga was running. In another story, Ryo compares one of the {{Mook}}s with ''Film/{{Commando}}'' since "''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' is too old now". And in another arc, [[{{Tsundere}} Kaori]] asks a child whether she wants to play with a UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem.

* ''Manga/KimagureOrangeRoad'': ''Everything'' in this show -the fashions, the hairstyles, the music, even the video games the characters play in the arcade- shows it was made in TheEighties.

* ''Film/FrightNight1985''. Beyond just the obvious fashions, there's also its meta-comedic portrayal of the horror genre, especially vampire films, with its reference point being the Film/HammerHorror films of The60s rather than Creator/AnneRice, ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', or ''Literature/TheTwilightSaga''. Peter Vincent is a former BMovie star (his name a portmanteau of Creator/PeterCushing and Creator/VincentPrice) turned late-night HorrorHost, and he is portrayed as a relic of an earlier age in the genre, his show struggling to stay relevant in the face of the new wave of violent {{Slasher Movie}}s. For modern audiences, shows like Peter's haven't been popular since The90s (with Joe Bob Briggs probably the last big-name horror host), while the films he starred in and featured on his show have gone from "retro" in TheEighties to "classic" (or simply "old") today, hence why the film's [[Film/FrightNight2011 2011 remake]] updated the character to a StageMagician based on Criss Angel. Likewise, the villainous Jerry Dandridge is an old-fashioned ClassicalMovieVampire (albeit one dressed in contemporary '80s clothes) rather than a more modern take on the idea, hence why Charley turns to Peter for help in fighting him.

* Creator/KimNewman has acknowledged that his Sally Rhodes stories have become unintentional period pieces; the character is just as tied to TheEighties (or ''very'' early nineties) as Edwin Winthrop (an ''intentional'' period piece) is to TheRoaring20s. "Organ Donors" features references to the poll tax, seven satellite TV channels, the Creator/{{ITV}} bidding war, and a "portable phone" as being a big deal.

* ''Film/BackToTheFuture1'' is very strongly '80s, to the point where the sequence introducing the "present day" of 1985 is now counted as an unintentional MisterSandmanSequence like the introductions to [[TheFifties 1955]] later in the film, [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture 2015]] in [[Film/BackToTheFuturePartII the second]], and [[TheWildWest 1885]] in [[Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII the third]]. The over-the-top portrayal of 2015 in the second film also demonstrates a particularly '80s flavor of {{Zeerust}}, which was entirely intentional on the part of the filmmakers, who wanted to avoid a {{cyberpunk}} image that they felt would date the film in a less flattering way. And within that scene, the '80s-themed café is uncannily prescient about which pieces of pop culture would remain firmly identified with the decade.

* ''Film/RedDawn1984'' could only have been filmed during the period of staunch anti-Communist rhetoric in the early [[UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan Reagan]] administration, between the détente of [[TheSeventies the 1970s]] and the final thaw of Soviet-American relations in the late Reagan and [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush Bush Sr.]]'s administrations.

** ''Film/RamboFirstBloodPartII'' (1985) showcases the resurgence of militarism and anticommunism in the early Reagan years. The Vietnam War is no longer something to be ashamed of (this was a year before Creator/OliverStone's ''Film/{{Platoon}}'') and the American soldiers are heroes and victims, not nutbags and baby killers as in TheSeventies. Rambo's rescue of the enslaved servicemen left behind - actually an UrbanLegend that the film [[TropeMaker popularized]] - serves as a proxy way for America to win the war retroactively. It's been said that ''Rambo II'' was the movie America needed to watch to finally get over Vietnam.

* ''Film/RunningScared1986'' features two thugs who drive a pristine muscle car but can only scrounge up a .22-caliber revolver and a zip gun to do their muggings. The heroes even mock their lousy guns. Since TheNineties, the streets have been flooded with cheap, quality firearms. There's also a scene in a bar prior to the climax where Gregory Hines laments that the state of UsefulNotes/{{Florida}} doesn't have any baseball except during spring training. Creator/BillyCrystal soon retorts that Florida also doesn't have pro basketball either. Eventually, Florida would gain two [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueBaseball professional baseball franchises]] (the UsefulNotes/{{Miami}} Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays) as well as two [[UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation basketball teams]] (the Miami Heat and UsefulNotes/{{Orlando}} Magic).

* ''Film/FrightNight1985''. Beyond just the obvious fashions, there's also its meta-comedic portrayal of the horror genre, especially vampire films, with its reference point being the Film/HammerHorror films of TheSixties rather than Creator/AnneRice, ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', or ''Literature/TheTwilightSaga''. Peter Vincent is a former BMovie star (his name a portmanteau of Creator/PeterCushing and Creator/VincentPrice) turned late-night HorrorHost, and he is portrayed as a relic of an earlier age in the genre, his show struggling to stay relevant in the face of the new wave of violent {{Slasher Movie}}s. For modern audiences, shows like Peter's haven't been popular since TheNineties (with Joe Bob Briggs probably the last big-name horror host), while the films he starred in and featured on his show have gone from "retro" in TheEighties to "classic" (or simply "old") today, hence why the film's [[Film/FrightNight2011 2011 remake]] updated the character to a StageMagician based on Criss Angel. Likewise, the villainous Jerry Dandridge is an old-fashioned ClassicalMovieVampire (albeit one dressed in contemporary '80s clothes) rather than a more modern take on the idea, hence why Charley turns to Peter for help in fighting him.

* Creator/KimNewman has acknowledged that his Sally Rhodes stories have become unintentional period pieces; the character is just as tied to TheEighties (or ''very'' early nineties) as Edwin Winthrop (an ''intentional'' period piece) is to TheRoaringTwenties. "Organ Donors" features references to the poll tax, seven satellite TV channels, the Creator/{{ITV}} bidding war, and a "portable phone" as being a big deal.

* ''Literature/TeaWithTheBlackDragon'', published in 1983, has a plot driven by what was then cutting-edge computer crime. The computer technology is all very much of the time (especially the scene that revolves around starting up a word processor on an 8080 microcomputer with a tape drive). The architecture, interior designs, clothing fashions, and cultural references are also very dated; some of them are exactly the kind of thing a modern writer would add to make sure the reader knew it was Set In The Eighties.

** The first season is set against the backdrop of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession early 1980s recession]] - Norm, an accountant, spends most of the season unemployed, while Cliff, a postal worker, enjoys the kind of job security that could only come in the days before the union-busting of TheEighties and TheNineties, followed by the rise of the internet as an existential threat to the very ''idea'' of postal service.

* Though it was released in 1990, ''Pinball/{{Rollergames}}'' is heavily influenced by its [[TheEighties eighties aesthetics]], particularly the women's use of EightiesHair, animal-skin uniforms for the men, neon and pastel colors everywhere, and, of course, the roller derby fad resurgence.