"80" Questions
My father once said that the greatest decade to live through was the 50s.
“Nonsense!”, says I. While I have respect for those that spent their childhoods wearing coonskin caps, listening to Elvis, and enjoying the economic boom of post-WWII America, nothing can replace the years of growing up with “E.T”, “Knight Rider”, hair bands, and stonewashed jeans, while watching Ronnie Reagan dis the Russians every five minutes. You got it…the 80s.
QUESTION: Anyone else ever almost get sick looking at Garbage Pail Kids cards? Ugh, talk about nasty. And that gum could cut a hole through your cheek.
How can you not love this decade? (Did anyone ever actually solve a Rubik’s Cube without peeling off the stickers and moving them around?) 80s fashion may have been pretty crazy, but anything was better than fashion in the 70s! Remember pumped up action shows, like The A-Team and Airwolf?
QUESTION: Anyone remember “Street Hawk”? (a.k.a Knight Rider on a motorcycle)
What other decade could have given us “Return of the Jedi”, “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”, “Back to the Future” and “Beverly Hills Cop”?
QUESTION: Anyone else cry when Optimus Prime died? Really? Well…neither did I!
How about the cartoons that used to rule Saturday mornings? “The Smurfs”, “Fraggle Rock”, “Muppet Babies”…But the cartoon universe really came to life on weekdays, after school. Who doesn’t remember rushing home to watch He-Man, GI Joe, Inspector Gadget and the greatest cartoon ever made, the Transformers? And girls, there was plenty for you, too…My Little Pony, Jem and the Holograms, Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake and She-Ra.
QUESTION: Did anyone watch She-Ra episodes that had a “cross-over” with He-Man? Liars! Come on, She-Ra was one of the first cartoon babes.
QUESTION: Does anyone remember the following cartoons:
Rubik, the Amazing Cube
They made a cartoon out of a puzzle game! When the cube was put together the right way, the thing came to life, and had magic powers. Every episode was the same…”Dear, God, we’re in trouble! Quick, someone, solve the Rubik’s cube!” Subliminal advertising at its best. “Kids, you WILL buy this toy…”
Turbo Teen
The guy turned into a car…a freakin’ car! But only when he got really, really hot. Insert your own sexual joke here.
Danger Mouse and BananaMan
Two cartoons from the UK that would only air on Nickelodeon. A detective mouse and his sidekick hamster, and a superhero who got his powers from eating a banana. If you pitched shows like this to a TV network today, they’d lock you in the nuthouse.
Tranzor Z
Please, please, someone tell me they remember this show! It was another one of those super robot shows, like a bastard cousin of “Voltron.” But I always thought this guy had much cooler weapons. Gotta love that early-80’s “japanimation.”
And how about those video games? Sorry, folks, I know that the graphics in today’s games look unbelievably realistic and contain massive amounts of blood and gore, but I’ll always have a soft spot for Pac-Man and Frogger. When Atari first came out, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. “Pole Position”, “Dacathalon”, “Stampede”, “River Raid”…hours of entertainment for kids, a Godsend for parents who wanted their kids out of their hair for a while. “Pitfall”, anyone? That game was more addictive than cigarettes (not that I’d know…ahem….).
QUESTION: Who remembers Q-bert, the craziest game ever made?
“I got it…we’ll have a big orange guy hopping around on a pyramid of cubes. The object is to change the colors of the tops of the cubes. And he’ll be chased by jumping snakes and purple monsters.” Who dreams up this stuff?
And what child of the 80s didn’t have action figures/Cabbage Patch Kids on his/her Christmas list?
QUESTION (and funny story): Anyone remember the two He-Man action figures that had an odor: Moss Man (spelled like Pine Sol) and Stinkor (smelled like a skunk)?
Sometime, around 1989 or so, my friend Eddie B. packed away all his He-Man action figures, including these two “scented” guys, into this little extra door hidden in his closet. About 5 years later, we were looking for a basketball and he opened that door and found these two guys. Apparently, the two odors of these things mixed together and had five years to…I don’t know, “ferment” or something. We opened the door and got hit in the face with the most disgusting smell known to man. His parents came within an inch of selling the house.
And let’s not forget the sporting highs and lows (mostly lows).
The Patriots getting destroyed by the Bears in the Superbowl. (How times change. Now we’re talking “dynasty.”) The Red Sox and Bill Buckner losing game 6 to the Mets.
QUESTION: Now that the curse is gone, can we all agree that Bill Buckner got a bad wrap all these years? Watch the video some time…the Red Sox pitchers choked big time!
And let’s not forget several other major news events:
The Challenger explosion (Remember where you were when this happened? I was in fourth grade. They interrupted all classes to make the announcement.)
The whole Star Wars missile defense thing
The 84 Olympics & Mary Lou Retton (Was this the start of the whole althetes-on-the-Wheaties-box thing?)
“We are the World”
Fall of the Berlin Wall (got it in just under the wire!)
Whew…what a decade.
QUESTION: You have the 80s, the 90s and now the…um…uh…just what DO we call the decade we’re in now? The “00s”??
“Nonsense!”, says I. While I have respect for those that spent their childhoods wearing coonskin caps, listening to Elvis, and enjoying the economic boom of post-WWII America, nothing can replace the years of growing up with “E.T”, “Knight Rider”, hair bands, and stonewashed jeans, while watching Ronnie Reagan dis the Russians every five minutes. You got it…the 80s.
QUESTION: Anyone else ever almost get sick looking at Garbage Pail Kids cards? Ugh, talk about nasty. And that gum could cut a hole through your cheek.
How can you not love this decade? (Did anyone ever actually solve a Rubik’s Cube without peeling off the stickers and moving them around?) 80s fashion may have been pretty crazy, but anything was better than fashion in the 70s! Remember pumped up action shows, like The A-Team and Airwolf?
QUESTION: Anyone remember “Street Hawk”? (a.k.a Knight Rider on a motorcycle)
What other decade could have given us “Return of the Jedi”, “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”, “Back to the Future” and “Beverly Hills Cop”?
QUESTION: Anyone else cry when Optimus Prime died? Really? Well…neither did I!
How about the cartoons that used to rule Saturday mornings? “The Smurfs”, “Fraggle Rock”, “Muppet Babies”…But the cartoon universe really came to life on weekdays, after school. Who doesn’t remember rushing home to watch He-Man, GI Joe, Inspector Gadget and the greatest cartoon ever made, the Transformers? And girls, there was plenty for you, too…My Little Pony, Jem and the Holograms, Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake and She-Ra.
QUESTION: Did anyone watch She-Ra episodes that had a “cross-over” with He-Man? Liars! Come on, She-Ra was one of the first cartoon babes.
QUESTION: Does anyone remember the following cartoons:
Rubik, the Amazing Cube
They made a cartoon out of a puzzle game! When the cube was put together the right way, the thing came to life, and had magic powers. Every episode was the same…”Dear, God, we’re in trouble! Quick, someone, solve the Rubik’s cube!” Subliminal advertising at its best. “Kids, you WILL buy this toy…”
Turbo Teen
The guy turned into a car…a freakin’ car! But only when he got really, really hot. Insert your own sexual joke here.
Danger Mouse and BananaMan
Two cartoons from the UK that would only air on Nickelodeon. A detective mouse and his sidekick hamster, and a superhero who got his powers from eating a banana. If you pitched shows like this to a TV network today, they’d lock you in the nuthouse.
Tranzor Z
Please, please, someone tell me they remember this show! It was another one of those super robot shows, like a bastard cousin of “Voltron.” But I always thought this guy had much cooler weapons. Gotta love that early-80’s “japanimation.”
And how about those video games? Sorry, folks, I know that the graphics in today’s games look unbelievably realistic and contain massive amounts of blood and gore, but I’ll always have a soft spot for Pac-Man and Frogger. When Atari first came out, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. “Pole Position”, “Dacathalon”, “Stampede”, “River Raid”…hours of entertainment for kids, a Godsend for parents who wanted their kids out of their hair for a while. “Pitfall”, anyone? That game was more addictive than cigarettes (not that I’d know…ahem….).
QUESTION: Who remembers Q-bert, the craziest game ever made?
“I got it…we’ll have a big orange guy hopping around on a pyramid of cubes. The object is to change the colors of the tops of the cubes. And he’ll be chased by jumping snakes and purple monsters.” Who dreams up this stuff?
And what child of the 80s didn’t have action figures/Cabbage Patch Kids on his/her Christmas list?
QUESTION (and funny story): Anyone remember the two He-Man action figures that had an odor: Moss Man (spelled like Pine Sol) and Stinkor (smelled like a skunk)?
Sometime, around 1989 or so, my friend Eddie B. packed away all his He-Man action figures, including these two “scented” guys, into this little extra door hidden in his closet. About 5 years later, we were looking for a basketball and he opened that door and found these two guys. Apparently, the two odors of these things mixed together and had five years to…I don’t know, “ferment” or something. We opened the door and got hit in the face with the most disgusting smell known to man. His parents came within an inch of selling the house.
And let’s not forget the sporting highs and lows (mostly lows).
The Patriots getting destroyed by the Bears in the Superbowl. (How times change. Now we’re talking “dynasty.”) The Red Sox and Bill Buckner losing game 6 to the Mets.
QUESTION: Now that the curse is gone, can we all agree that Bill Buckner got a bad wrap all these years? Watch the video some time…the Red Sox pitchers choked big time!
And let’s not forget several other major news events:
The Challenger explosion (Remember where you were when this happened? I was in fourth grade. They interrupted all classes to make the announcement.)
The whole Star Wars missile defense thing
The 84 Olympics & Mary Lou Retton (Was this the start of the whole althetes-on-the-Wheaties-box thing?)
“We are the World”
Fall of the Berlin Wall (got it in just under the wire!)
Whew…what a decade.
QUESTION: You have the 80s, the 90s and now the…um…uh…just what DO we call the decade we’re in now? The “00s”??
posted by Glenn at 1:58 PM
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