We drove BMX and Kettcar, at first we had 3 TV channels only, later 5 then 6. There were 2 channels that had the coolest cartoons, if you had cable there were 3 more that had cool cartoons. All the kids met at the playground and played together like catching, playing with Transformers, MASK or He-Man, we climbed on trees and built dens in the woods, Michael Jackson was awesome and Prince appeared to be the less popular knock off of Michael Jackson. Action movies were still awesome (less plot, more muscles and thestosteron), challenger exploded on my fifth birthday, Germany was divided in 2 parts which was really weird because you heard of that evil man Adolf Hitler who appeared to a kid more like a movie monster like Godzilla and not a real person, Helmut Kohl was always chancellor of Germany, and 80s mainstream music was way too cheesy. People had funny hair and clothes, big glasses, people started to have two TVs, TVs were much smaller than today but also much thicker, getting catalogs every christmas was awesome, because you got to see all the new things and dreamt about having them, going to the stores was also awesome to see all the new things. Everything that was on TV had to be true Sega and Nintendo was the best, but also ATARI was still around and C64 was the shit and later we saw the rise of the AMIGA which was THE gaming computer at the time, because it had much better sound and graphics then a PC. Which only began to change in the mid 90s, when 80486 CPUs came out and they had SVGA graphics. Well, that's what I remember how the 80s were for a kid
Music was great, hair & fashion was awful, computers games were blocky, getting a soda stream machine was possibly the most exciting thing to happen. You could actually go to a toy shop and see the whole years worth of TFs at once on the shelf.
80s had some of the best songs of all time! Some of the best movies also! Like others said I was a kid so I didn't know about "grownup stuff". I had to worry about school, toys , Atari/ Nintendo, bike riding to the park, (kids could go to the park by themselves in the 80s!) and what went on in the newest episode of knight rider or greatest American hero. If your a kid the 80s were great times. Also kids went out and did things! No ipods here! Kids played with toys! I remember the challenger as well. We watched it in school and the teacher got shocked and started crying. I think most of the schools were watching it live! Also mtv and Vh-1 had music videos, Disney channel had Disney shows, American movie classics had American movie classics and food network had food shows!
Actually, I have a question about the 80s as well: for those who bought it firsthand, how much was the "We Are The World" record? I wanted to donate the price of the record to charity because of my not being there when the record came out.
The 80's - were every big budget action movie had the Commies as the enemies, a time of no zero tolerance rules, and the best cartoons in history were pumping new episodes every week.
HBO had this supremely rockin intro to their features, not this wierd tone thing that they have now. The 80s were probably the height of rated R movies. The gratuitious use of blood squibs was awesome. See the scene of ED-209 turning Mr. Kenney into ground beef in Robocop! Spoiler alert! Commercials were cool too, remember the Mac Tonight commercials for McDonalds? Play grounds were meant to turn you into a man! All wood and steel, none of this plastic and rubber crap. If you wanted to go down the slide on a summer day in shorts it would burn the shit out of your legs, but it was fun damnit! Also if you didn't have at least 3 or 4 splinters by the end of the day you were doing it wrong. Good times.
TV miniseries were Important Events and literally did clear streets as everyone was home watching. There was none of this recording-to-watch later, or streaming, or purchasing movies or TV in any form. You either watched it when it was broadcast or you were SOL. Shows would be re-run months later, movies you had to wait years for an edited broadcast version if you missed them in the theater. And your family had to be rich to have a VCR because they were damned expensive. If you wanted entertainment otherwise, you had to get a book, learn a hobby, or make your own adventures outside. And then there was the whole latchkey kids thing, and divorce was more devastating because there were few fellow kids going through the same thing so there was little understanding of its effects and little support for kids. Today's helicopter parents were probably yesterday's latchkey kids who don't want their kids to grow up feeling abandoned and having to take on adult responsibilities way too early. The 'Generation X' documentary series with Christian Slater narrating can give you a good idea of what it was like to grow up X. --Moony
Ah, my youth. The 80's. The world was filled with neon colors. There was the Cold War. Music was amazing. There was no internet, so if you wanted to find spoilers, you had to actually work really, really hard to ruin surprises for yourself. Good times.
Lets see, cartoons came on every week day in the afternoon on multiple channels, Saturday mornings were awesome. All the major networks were competing for kids attention, so there were a lot of different shows you could watch. They actually put some budget into the shows as well. Toy and cartoon companies were in a period of experimentation then, there was a lot of stuff being offered. If you went to your local store or toys r us the isles were packed Playsets were big Home gaming was becoming big with Nintendo entering the field http://platypuscomix.cartoonsdammit.com/fpo/newspaper/31389toysrus1.JPG But arcades were still a thing Cassetes and Vhs wereletting people record listen and watch what they wanted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3YM9jdgD_Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMrq_-AFlv4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCRXtc6zEp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09q04Dlh7r8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9nQjJ_hLXU
The historic events a lot of witnessed on the news. Reagan almost getting assassinated, Challenger explosion, the fall of the Berlin wall.
The 80's was the greatest decade ever as far as pop culture goes. The best toys, music, movies, and TV shows. It'll never be as good as it was back then.
Kinda the same here, although I didn't see it live. I was in 5th grade at St. Mary's School. Sister Pat got called out of the room and came back in crying, telling us that the Challenger has exploded. I think we all watched it repeatedly for rest of the day on the News in later classes. I'll never forget that.
There was a lot of creativity and little oversight. More throw it at the wall and see what works, rather than decision by board of directors. It truly was survival of the fittest. Even some of the failures are now remembered fondly.
Those toy commercials were on the whole day everyday ensuring the existence of TFW and other 80's cartoon legacy.
