The 80s Nostalgia Thread

"Eyes without a face" Billy Idol:

A classic Ham and Cheese 80's video.

Hey, does anyone remember a movie called The Mouse and the Motorcycle that came out in 1987?

I see your rodent and raise you:

One of many B-movies that made it fun to own a VCR

Hey guys. Since the summer I've been working, on and off, on a summaray and review for a TV show from the 80's that I grew up with. I'm talking about Captain N (season 2) and The Adventures Of Super Mario Bros 3. If any of you remember these shows, or the related Super Show or Legend of Zelda cartoon, I strongly advise you to stop by and leave a comment. Or just talk about them here. Whatever. I'll update with one episode per day till we're done. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13841235770B61727900&i_id=13841235770I61729200&p=1

NBC was desperately trying to get another sci-fi hit. Star Wars was a pop-culture juggernaut back then and they were kicking themselves for canceling Star Trek back in The '60s.

So they turned to Nintendo. Laser Tag was a flop so maybe two plumbers could save the kiddie demo given that ABC had a lock on Star Wars (no really, the made for TV movies set on Endor were aired on ABC).

It really was a cold corporate cash in. Fox had launched, there was lots more cartoons on Saturdays. And Captain N had (to my 12 year old eyes) all the appeal of a Jerk Jock version of Wesley Crusher.

I can see why NBC moved away from cartoons. The comic book boom was about to hit so more syndicated cartoons started to appear, they ran out of ideas( See Turbo Teen ) since toy based cartoons were verboten. And why see Nintendo characters on TV if you can't play as them.

Supersmash Brothers did it better and without Captain N.

edited 6th Mar '15 8:09:34 AM by TairaMai

Now anime was bubbling up under the pop culture. Robotech was a thing that happened. Tabletop games were big so BattleTech was the sci-fi answer to D&D. Starblazers, Battle of the planets, Ultraforce, Galaxyexpress 999, that weird anime based on the Odyssey....

That was if you could find a UHF station to watch it on. I earliest memories of Robottech include static because the station it was on had barely enough power to reach our town (until 1991 when it went all Fundie and got a marginally bigger transmitter).

This might sound a bit weird, but hurdy gurdy bobbily boo. This will also sound weird:

• There was an educational game for the Apple II that had you mix chemicals to make stuff. The "chemicals" all had meaningful names like "Transpo" (it made things go, I suspect the Pakleds ran out of it). One Running Gag was that two "chemicals" mixed in the wrong order would make a "warm nothing". What the $#@! was it called?

• There was another where you ran a petshop and had to read the pet description (shut up, it was 1982, an Iphone had more power than MIT & Harvard back then) and match owners to pets. I want to find this one as well, it was kinda fun.

• For the PC there was Spacewars (with or without the planet, gravity well, but it was spacewar), Sopwith, MS Flight Simulator, and Sub Battle simulator (I was a huge nerd girl).

• Anyone remember the TRS-80? There were some games for it, but I never really liked it. There was dancing demon and Android Nim, and there were books with programs.

edited 10th Nov '13 6:14:51 PM by TairaMai

The high school I went to had some Trash-80s that I did a little playing around with them using BASIC and touching on Pascal.

No idea on the two games you can't name, though. I do remember playing the hell out of the Apple ][e (yes, I still do the funky "2" ) version of Silent Service (WW 2 sub sim), several times managing to sink more tonnage in one patrol than most subs did in their entire career ^note (including a good bit of work inside Tokyo Bay, where it was all too easy to hit the bottom and not be deep enough to avoid getting rammed by a pissed off Kaibokan or destroyer).

edited 10th Nov '13 7:44:28 PM by Nohbody

And Gato, the WWII American Sub simulator.

I remember a commercial about these cream filled cookies I'd like to eat. They were vanilla and chocolate cream filled cookies, but they were in the shape of fantasy related items, like dragons and knights. I'm sure they weren't Keebler cookies or any well known brand name, at least that I can remember. They may have been around in the 90's instead though. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

I've been re-watching She-Ra: Princess of Power lately. As cheesy as it is, I still don't think it's that bad. What I mean is, I understand why I was so into it as a little girl. I mean, She-Ra was rare among cartoon and tv heroes at the time - she was a WOMAN who kicked tail - and how! I also must say that the hefty helpings of cheese in every episode are delightful.

Which brings me to another thing: They're never going to make Fantasy-genre movies like those that were around in the 80s ever again. There's just this wonderful cheesiness involved... the costumes, the soundtracks, the unreal puppets. There is just something that much more charming for me in watching "The Neverending Story" or, if I'm lucky, finding "Legend" on TV and seeing the Muppet-work over the advanced CGI of today.

The Christmas before last, my guy did something great for me: He got a part he needed and found an old analog TV set and set up his Atari 2600. I think that was *technically* made in the 70s, but I grew up with that system in the 80s and played 80s-made games on it. Dude, back in the 80s, Pac Man was so popular he got his own Christmas special. (I re-watched it some time ago and it was atrocious).

ALF - loved it as a kid, think it's atrocious now... remember there was a cartoon show. Always hated how he ate cats because I am a devotee of Sakaki (she's still in the Trope Pantheons, isn't she?)

Let's see...what else? Back to the Future is still my favorite film trilogy... My sister used to use Aqua Net all the time... My family used to rent VHS tapes from one of the video stores near one of the grocery stores every week or so... Young girls used to have plastic charm-necklaces where I lived...

I'm pretty sure I had the Kool-Aid video game, the one you had to collect a ton of proofs of purchase for...

Daymn... do I have any gray hairs?

You're not alone.

I hated She-Ra because it seemed to be a knock-off of He-Man.

I loved Spiderman and his Amazing Friends...but mostly because I had a girlcrush on Firestar and I liked her powerset (flight, heat rays). Silverhawks, GI Joe, Might Orbots, AdventuresOfTheGalaxyRangers and Go Bots (yes, they had a girl robot) had better female characters.

Jem was So Okay, It's Average, as was the Punky Brewster cartoon.

edited 6th Mar '14 6:14:22 PM by TairaMai

I completely missed most 80s pop culture when it was happening; though I was alive for it, I spent most of that decade living on an island. We didn't have a TV until six months before we moved to the mainland, and that was in '88.

I do remember Top Gun, though. That was the first time I'd ever been to the theater (at least that I remember), and I'd only watched television on a small, flickering B & W screen a handful of times. I got my little-kid mind blown by that movie. All my friends and I wanted to be fighter pilots for at least a year after it came out.

AdventuresOfTheGalaxyRangers and MightyOrbots were teh awesome!

Not much happened to stir me in film aside from Alien series. Daddy had a videodisc player so I gots to watch lots of "classic" films: 2001, Patton, Dr. Strangelove, Dr. Zhivago.

Then Daddy rented Blade Runner and made me watch it. Mind=blown.

My cousins and I rented Creep Show, The Last Starfighter, TheGoonies and Terminator when we stayed with my grandfather and uncles. Coolest vacations evar!

I'll never forget Daddy making me see 2001, Bladerunner and Tron. He even stayed up to watch the second showing of Tron because I was so excited...

Yes I was an odd little girl.....

edited 8th Apr '14 8:19:04 PM by TairaMai

Things to not do as a kid in the 80s: watch Gremlins when only 10 (funny nightmares are still nightmares!). Or Nightmare On Elm Street when 12.

The Sony Betamax has a lot to answer for. Not to mention the older kids who were supposed to be babysitters at braais. Not traumatisers. Meh: standard right of passage: we tried very hard not to tell our parents exactly what we got up to when shoved into the kids' section.

edited 8th Apr '14 9:14:34 PM by Euodiachloris

Ha, yeah, my child self also managed to freak herself out with Gremlins, and also Willow because, ye gods, those trolls... I did this repeatedly, because I'm smart like that.

My shining moment, however, was reading It at age 13, and then spending the next six months jumping at shadows and being unable to go anywhere near storm drains. Guess whose job it was to take the dog for her evening walk? Good times!

I'm always surprised when I'm reminded that the 80s weren't nearly as pastel and insipid as nostalgia would have you believe.

edited 9th Apr '14 5:56:05 AM by Virodhi

Well, it was your own, stupid fault for picking It up. Myself, I had problems opening the photo album for a while.

Storm drains were always scary well before that. Legavaans and other wildlife.

edited 9th Apr '14 9:10:36 AM by Euodiachloris

Be a little girl likeing bunnies and kittehs.

Be a child in The '80s, the era of Moral Guardians and the Newberry medal.

Go to a birthday party with cake, soda and a movie.

The movie is Watership Down.

.......

Bwhahahahaha — at least my mum read that to us. Before traumatising us with the film. <wibble> We (thankfully) knew what were were getting into... (But, ye gads, the bit with the Black Rabbit of Inlé... <shudders> Let alone every damn scene with General Woundwort in it.)

British animation: proud to make you sweat the weird stuff. We don't make a lot of it, but... when we do, it's horribly memorable, dear boy.

edited 9th Apr '14 6:34:14 PM by Euodiachloris

The problem was that every adult was all "What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?"

Cartoon rabbits = kiddie film.

Watership Down + little girl who loves her kitteh = Go Mad from the Revelation.

Almost as much as Dune did to warp my fragile little mind.

Remember Transformers, Thundercats, Ninja Turtles, He-Man and G.I. Joe? Of course you do. But what about the other, less well-known toylines that got made into cartoons?

Gobots, Voltron, Robotech (yes they had toys), Zoids was a thing briefly (if you lost the little rubber grommets that held the 'Zoids together you were screeewed!), Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Rainbow Bright, Sliverhawks,too many stuffed animals to count: all had toys and all had TV shows.

Follow the Leader meets Money, Dear Boy.

Some were good some were flops. And wow there were a ton of knockoffs.

I loved Zoids. The Blue Zoids were cool, but the Red Zoids were way cooler. Baddies always get the best colour schemes.

Yo, my zoids were black and there was the red T-rex that shot the discs that my friend kept losing and the minifigs that fit in the cockpits of transformers...

...Remember when things like the large Barbie playsets and large GI Joe and Transformer toys you had to go to the "special counter" where it was either layaway or you have to take the paper ticket to get the large toy....

...

Goddess I'm old...

edited 28th Apr '14 11:34:38 AM by TairaMai

Yep when I was a kid I kinda figured out early on that a Newberry medal on the cover means depressing stuff is gonna go down before the back cover.