By virtue of being born in 1971, I guess my childhood overlaps a bit. I remember the 1976 Bicentennial, the Presidential election of 1976, Jimmy Carter, Disco, The Six Million Dollar Man, Star Wars' premiere, etc. My childhood nostalgia extends from 1976 to roughly 1985, when I realized things weren't like they "used to be." My memories from the late 1970s are quite vivid, but I can't really consider myself a 1970s kid, can I? I essentially "grew up" being fully aware of the 1980s, though I like to make the argument that the eighties didn't really begin until 1981; 1980 still seemed like the seventies to me. But then every decade has stylistic and cultural overlap, doesn't it? The seventies didn't truly begin until 1975 in some ways...but that's grist for another thread...
Awesome thread, Canyon, thanks for having this one!! I'm an 80's kid too (born in 1971). Man, lots of memories:
Knight Rider
The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi
The Great Space Coaster
C-3POs Cereal
Indy Trilogy (obviously!)
Van Halen (favorite songs to this day are "Jump" and "Dreams" among others)
Max Headroom
Saturday morning cartoons (why don't they have these for kids anymore???)
Boston:Third Stage
I could name a whole lot more but I won't. I loved the eighties, it was such a simpler time to me, and the world wasn't quite like it is now. I miss it. But at least we all have our memories.
This might severely damage my subsequent "hipness quotient", but Summertime and comic books reminds me of the early 1980s and so does the music of Duran Duran. There's an Indy connection of sorts, as a few of the band's videos were filmed in Sri Lanka and their song, "Hungry Like the Wolf" has some Raiders-esque scenery, especially the cantina when Duran singer Simon LeBon tips a table over. It looks just like the Cairo bar where Indy and Belloq have their face to face. But anytime I hear Duran Duran songs, I think of my childhood days in those long-ago early eighties, especially the songs from their RIO album. Believe it or not, but in 1983-84, Duran Duran were second in popularity only to Michael Jackson in his Thriller period. The girls went crazy for them, and we guys thought the songs and videos were cool.
I can't really say that I grew up in the eighties because I was born in 1988, yet I can say that being a child of the nineties I experienced things that grew out of the eighties such as SEGA Genesis and TMNT's.
I was born in 75... so I am a product of the eighties..
And I find it funny that you started this thread out by referring to the VCR... that is actually why i became such a huge Indy nerd from back in the day... when we got our first VCR my parents only bought one VHS tape.. ( John Wayne's The Green Berets.. and I wanna say they paid like 60 bucks just for the friggin movie... movies were outrageously expensive back then)... so what we did is rent a bunch of movies and go to my uncle's house.. he had two VCRs linked up and could dub off movies.... ( I am pretty sure the statute of limitations has run out on this by now !!) ..anyway, Dad dubbed off a copy of Raiders because he thought I would like it.. and boy did I ! My brother would get so pissed at me because I watched that movie EVERY day one summer... next thing you know I was running all over the neighborhood in an old beat up and tattered felt hat my father dug out from the back of the closet... good times...
Other fun memories :
Kenner's Mask toy line
saturday morning cartoons
3 3/4" GI Joes
Friday night videos ( for those of us that did not have cable and MTV)
Trips to the comic book store ( I collected the Indy comics, my brother always got the GI Joe comics.. we both still have all of them in mint condition)
Location: midlothian Illinois just south of chicago
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i was a child of the 70's and 80's in 77 i was 11 when star wars came out and in 81 i was 15 when raiders came out. so for me a big movie and comic book nerd i was having the time of my life , i read comics of spiderman when he was meeting the black cat for the first time , and the xmen were being written and drawn by claremont and byrne. then of course i had the greatest of movies , from star wars to return of the jedi , indy trilogy , back to the future , and bladerunner , and then there was movies like rambo and conan the barbarian. so it was a fun time , listening to great music and watching mtv( when they actually played videos all day) it was a great time .
Location: The sun is shining a little stronger. Time to hit the road and drift southbound.
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I was born in late '81. Most of my early memories revolve around the 80s and early 90s. I remember He-man, GI Joe, Transformers, the rise of Pac-Man, Q-Bert and Zaxxon. The Ataro 2600, NES, and the SNES.
I remember Saturday morning cartoons, and prizes in cereal boxes. Jelly shoes, big hair, glam metal, and slap bracelets. Cool velcro binders, the start of The Simpsons, TMNT, and ABC's TGIF.
Those were the good ol' days.
Location: In the Map Room playing with a laser pointer
Posts: 2,923
Quote:
Originally Posted by sandiegojones
The 80's were great! Much more optimistic times than now (at least in Southern California). I think it was the last great time to be a kid. We still went outside an played back then, even if we did have an NES or Atari system. Saturday mornings were fun! I'd have a bowl of Fruit Loops or Trix (maybe some Mr. T cereal too).
I agree, I walked half a mile to school for 8 years, and once I got a skateboard at age 13, the entire city of Aurora, Illinois became my playground. The information age has kind of ruined it for kids. All these horrible man-bites-dog stories of serial killers and child molesters that we have such easy access to have made parents paranoid that there is an abductor hiding in every bush and around every corner. Gone are the days where it was normal to go home from your baseball game without a trophy...because you LOST. Commercials were a way of life, and you had to wait a whole week to watch your favorite cartoons! I still remember waking up before everyone else to get myself a bowl of cereal and watch the cartoons on saturday morning! I also remember sunday sucking badly because of it, too. After all, in comparison, waking up early to go be bored to tears in a stuffy church was a real let-down.
Bump. Any other relics of the 80's wish to chime in?
Are we really considered relics now? Probably... I find it hard to connect with teens nowadays. Sigh... I am getting old.
Anyway, I'm a child of the eighties. Born in 1977.
I remember our first PC was an Apple IIe. I did find an old Coleco pong game and Sinclair in our house that looks like have never been used, but never got them to really work.
As for home video, we had a betamax... It would be years before we shifted to VHS.
I remember recording Raiders from a local channel that aired it around the time LC was going to come out. I'd stop recording when the commercials aired and record again a few seconds before they finish... And I did that manually!
Anybody here remember the Game n Watch fad of that era? Now those were the first handheld videogames! We had 3 when I was a kid... I actually still have one of 'em... And it's still working!
I was born in 1983.I guess that would make an 80's kid?I remember some shows from the 80's like:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,Heath Cliff(though I've seen it in reruns), and Garfield.I'm sure there are more,but I have a hard time thinking back that far.
I'm 40, and back in the 80s, I was the tv remote. "Hey, change it to 4." Wasn't a tough job since we only had three channels. That was country life in the 80s, unless you had a satellite dish the size of the Death Star's superlaser.
And forget about cable boxes with twist dials. We had a dial that rotated the tv antennae on the roof.
My first Indy hat was a grey cowboy hat I buried in a pile of coal for a few days. And I got my parents to make me treasure maps and leave clues all over the house, so I could have Indy adventures inside and outside.
Recently I saw a truck go by with a full size Pac Man in the back. I said to my son, "Hey, check it out, Pac Man." His response: "What's that?" Somehow he didn't seem too impressed by my description of the game.
I remember our first microwave, first CD player, first VCR, and trips over and over to the video store to rent Back to the Future. My dad was a computer programmer, so I also remember when his office was the computer, which took up about 500 square feet. Punch cards and those giant metal disc things.
Nostalgic '80's kid here. Here are some completely random memories:
- Saturday Morning cartoons, including Thundarr the Barbarian & Goldie Gold/Action Jack (who else remembers these?! LOL)
-After school cartoons, including Masters of the Universe & Super Friends, and Thundercats.
- Garbage Pail Kids stickers
- Renting VHS tapes at early video rental stores; sometimes waiting years before a movie made it's way onto VHS after it hit theatres; a good example was Return of the Jedi (1983), which didn't get released onto VHS until 1986.
- Primitive (by today's standards) home video game platforms, i.e. Atari 2600 - I have fond memories of playing Pitfall, Pac Man, Donkey Kong, etc.
- Masters of the Universe, Star Wars, and G.I. Joe toys.
- Great pop/rock music, including The Police, Men at Work (RIP G. Hamm, 2012), U2, & INXS (among others).
-Great movies, including obviously the IJ films, ESB & ROTJ, The Breakfast Club, Aliens, Beverly Hills Cop I & II, Predator, Terminator, Batman (1989), Ghostbusters, etc.
- Great TV shows, including Knight Rider, Street Hawk (I'm probably one of 5 people who remembers that show - LOL), Bring 'Em Back Alive, Tales of the Gold Monkey, the '80's Twilight Zone, the '80's Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Amazing Stories, Simon & Simon, etc.
In regards to TV in the '80's, one of the things I don't miss about that time period is dealing with the stupid rabbit ear antennae on top of the TV (we never had cable during that time).
I remember:
* seeing ToD in the theater.
* blowing on my nintendo games in hopes they would work, which they often did.
* playing zelda, mario, metriod, mike tyson's punch out.
* seeing LC at the drive in.
* playing with star wars figures.
* watching saved by the bell.
The list goes on and on. Good times. Definitely different than todays "give me maximum enjoyment, right now" attitude.
And on the subject of Molly Ringwald, I still have a softspot for the movie Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phantom train
- Great TV shows, including ...Street Hawk (I'm probably one of 5 people who remembers that show - LOL)...
I remember it - but back then there seemed to be a show for every mode of transport: Knight Rider, Street Hawk, Air Wolf.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phantom train
Tales of the Gold Monkey
I wish I remembered that one better.
Sadly I remember Manimal much more clearly. At the time the transformations looked cutting edge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phantom train
In regards to TV in the '80's, one of the things I don't miss about that time period is dealing with the stupid rabbit ear antennae on top of the TV (we never had cable during that time).
Or mobile telephones that were as expensive as cars and almost as big!
That's one form of technology that really dates a film - when the characters had to stop and find a telephone box to call for help.
And on the subject of Molly Ringwald, I still have a softspot for the movie Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone.
Sadly I remember Manimal much more clearly. At the time the transformations looked cutting edge.
Or mobile telephones that were as expensive as cars and almost as big!
That's one form of technology that really dates a film - when the characters had to stop and find a telephone box to call for help.
IMHO The Breakfast Club, in addition to being a great film, was spot-on in depicting what it was like to go to a suburban high school in the '80's (at least in the U.S., not sure what it was like in other countries). Obviously, the other films by John Hughes were classic as well, i.e. Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day off, etc. And, St. Elmo's Fire was another '80's classic.
Here's a link to a great article on John Hughes & his films; this was written shortly after Hughes passed in 2009:
Re: Molly R., I also really enjoyed Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, though I didn't see the film until the 2000's.
Manimal was a great show! I remember seeing this back in the day, though it's probably been 30 years. I agree, excellent human/animal transformations. This is one of the many '80's shows I wish would finally get released to DVD (I also include the '80's version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents on this list).
Speaking of Manimal, this reminded me of the transformation(s) in the iconic 1981 film, American Werewolf in London - great horror movie, and this really terrified me as a kid when I caught parts of this back in the '80's (on VHS tape). And, I would have to say that the werewolf transformation scene in this is just as good (if not better) than anything CGI has come up with in the past 20+ years....
Oddly enough, I wasn't even aware of cell phones/mobile phones back in the '80's, though my understanding was that they had very limited usage at that time.
Re: payphones, you're hard pressed these days to find them anywhere. These are another thing I really don't miss about that time period....Everyone these days is so used to cell phones, it's hard to remember a time period without them & how inconvenient it was not to have one....
Last edited by phantom train : 06-12-2012 at 01:27 PM.
