What Did They Call the Funny Moment in the Background of the Old 70s Movies
1980-1989, what a glorious time.
If y'all grew up in this decade yous know what a great time it was to be alive. If you're from a younger generation you might be curious
The 1980s were a time of great pop culture including some of the all-time movies, music, Television receiver shows, and toys of all time. It is the decade most oft associated with nostalgia and the style, and memories of the decade, continue to alive on.
You can listen to the podcast version or read on…
I was born in the late '70s and like to anyone who was built-in so we weren't a child of the '70s but ane of the '80s. We were just getting old enough to embrace everything the '80s would have to offer. This isn't to say that if you lot were older in the '80s that you lot didn't appreciate it but your primary, and fondest, memories are usually based on when you were a kid.
Call it "golden historic period thinking" or looking dorsum with rose colored glasses just most things seemed amend when you were a kid. Ask anyone who grew upwardly in any decade, they will tell yous that'southward when things were the best, sports were better, music and movies were better, and it was just a better fourth dimension to be alive.
We wait back fondly and every bit time goes by merely nosotros don't think almost all the crap that was happening. We tend to remember the final time nosotros had a retentivity of it and over time this filters out any of the garbage and you're left with pure nostalgia.
And so allow's expect at 12 things that made the '80s the greatest decade. These are of class from my vantage point so feel free to scream at me in any way you feel fit. (in no detail club)
1. The Movies
Was the '80s the gilded age of movies? It might exist hard to argue that. It gave the states some of the biggest movies and trilogies of all time and gave rise to the blockbuster. Star Wars would go the ball rolling when it was released in 1977 but the momentum and the fandom really took shape in the '80s with the Empire Strikes Dorsum and Render of the Jedi.
This could likewise be called the Spielberg era as you'five got the classics like East.T (which was actually the highest money maker of the '80s) The Goonies, and the monumental Indiana Jones movies. (luckily The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was long afterward the '80s and information technology tin rot in hell)
This is the era that brought us the PG-thirteen rating which was the perfect moving-picture show classification. It allows things to not be so family friendly but didn't push it also far and so that younger people were isolated from information technology. It was actually Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that would atomic number 82 to the first PG-thirteen rating and set the tone for this awesome genre of movies.
You likewise have my favorite of all time; Back To The Hereafter and the epic sequel that combined all the best elements of time travel. With BTTF ii you had a look into the past, the future and and so it acted as a sort of prequel taking us dorsum into the original picture.
We can go on and on about all these glorious movies and some other notables that circular out the decade are
- Ghostbusters
- Beverly Hills Cop
- Top Gun
- Crocodile Dundee
- 3 Men And A Baby
- Gremlins
- Batman (people think of information technology in the '90s but it makes the cut)
2. G.I Joe
G.I Joe is one of a scattering of iconic toys and cartoons from the '80s. If you were a child growing upwards in this decade M.I Joe was one of the biggest parts of your life. Your mean solar day would be centered around getting abode intime to lookout it on T.5. Birthdays and Christmas would be based around request for, and hopefully getting, any of the toys.
I'm still going on 30 years of not getting the aircraft carrier for Christmas…
Grand.I Joe was created by Hasbro and had existed for decades in a larger form. During the Vietnam state of war, any war based toys took a massive hit in the sales department and were really difficult to market and sell. Thanks to the success of the Star Wars toyline G.I Joe was now introduced in 1982 as a 3.75-inch version as opposed to its one-time 12-inch size.
The too created one of the first marketing approaches by using a cartoon show as basically a 30-minute commercial to sell the new toys. Making the figures smaller also immune for Hasbro to make a ton of vehicles they could sell with them that wouldn't be gigantic. They would end up making over 250 different vehicles, and I wanted every unmarried one.
The large matter they did with the cartoon, that other toy companies would before long follow, was they gave K.I Joe a backstory. Up until then, he had just been an ground forces human. At present he had an enemy in COBRA and a existent mission to follow.
When you combine this with traditional marketing it was like crack for a ten yr onetime child. There was no way to resist the allure of G.I Joe and it makes it one of the best toys and cartoons of all time.
three. The Music
The '80s brought us so much new variety when information technology came to music along with some brand new genres. Up until then, everything had been pretty much rock-based. Heavy metallic was becoming more prominent in the '70s and pop music has always been in the mix just the '80s brought us some new categories and variations we hadn't heard before.
Information technology's obviously impossible to cover this gigantic topic in a few paragraphs but when you lot think of the '80s you lot think of Michael Jackson who ruled over information technology all. You think of Madonna and U2 and it was the era where we were introduced to a new fine art form called Hip-Hop (which I'll cover more in a 2d.
Information technology gave u.s. New Wave music and Devo, we started seeing more than house music and a growth of punk rock. Death Metallic and Metallica emerged in the '80s. Disco was thankfully long expressionless but we were hearing more synthesizer-based music and more electronic production.
The '80s still featured some archetype bands like the Rolling Stones and Queen who found a whole new generation of fans. MTV would launch in 1981 and would forever alter the way we consumed music. Bands and artists had to acquire this new fashion to present themselves in this new visual medium.
This is a time when album sales meant everything and it'south where the existent money was fabricated, unlike today.
Here were the top-selling albums by year:
- 1980- Pink Floyd "The Wall"
- 1981- REO Speedwagon "Howdy Infidelity"
- 1982- Asia "Asia"
- 1983- Michael Jackson "Thriller"
- 1984- Thriller again
- 1985- Bruce Springsteen "Born In The USA"
- 1986- Whitney Houston "Whitney Houston
- 1987- Bon Jovi "Slippery When Wet"
- 1988- George Michael "Faith"
- 1989- Bobby Brownish "Don't Be Cruel"
Besides, here were the year-end Billboard # 1 songs of the '80southward:
- 1980: "Telephone call Me" – Blondie
- 1981: "Bette Davis Eyes" – Kim Carnes
- 1982: "Physical" – Olivia Newton John
- 1983: "Every Jiff You Take" – The Police
- 1984: "When Doves Cry" – Prince
- 1985: "Careless Whisper" – Wham!
- 1986: "That'due south What Friends Are For" – Dionne & Friends
- 1987: "Walk Like An Egyption" – The Bangles
- 1988: "Faith" – George Michael
- 1989: "Look Abroad" – Chicago
Any surprises here? I don't remember Chicago being at the tiptop of the charts and definitely not Dionne and Friends, though that was my grade 8 graduation song that we had to sing in front of actual human beings.
If you want to get a bit deeper on 80s music, check out my article about the twenty best bands of the decade.
There'south a practiced chance you owned a bulk of those albums and it'due south almost notably a decade where you would sit with your tape deck listening to the radio-fix to jump on the song you were waiting to record. Except the DJ would discuss nearly of the intro…
Which leads usa to…
four. The Mix Tape
If yous want to put the '80s, in a nutshell, it may be the mixtape. There was no such thing equally MP3, Apple Music or Spotify. If y'all wanted to capture music you would have to sit down diligently by your record deck merely waiting for whatever vocal you wanted to hear. You lot would remember radio stations to request it and but promise y'all had a good trigger finger.
This was also the era of the dual cassette tape deck which meant you could copy tapes and put together your own mixes. If someone you knew had a tape you wanted yous could copy it over on to a blank one and it was magically yours! A nifty advent was "high speed dubbing" which would transfer that tape over even faster.
At present with your collection of cassettes, you could brand your own compilations and the mixtape was born. This was the '80s version of a love letter as you could put together all the meaningful songs to give to the person you liked. Spotify has allowed us to practise that today but that's merely a matter of a few quick taps. The mix tap took Piece of work and commitment. That was half of what made a mixtape so special, the effort.
So now you lot've got a killer mixtape that you painstakingly put together, what were you going to listen to information technology on? The first is checking out this astonishing Bluetooth Ghetto Equalizer y'all can get on Amazon.
The other is…
v. The Walkman
The Walkman changed the way we consumed music. It allowed u.s. to take it on the go and information technology was also a style statement. Portable music and transistor radios have existed for years just you were forced to listen to whatever the radio station was playing. With the Walkman, you now had something that was catered to you.
Every tape you put in was your option and it revolved around your lifestyle. Sony invented the Walkman in 1980 and it was well-nigh chosen the "Audio-About". It was created considering the possessor of Sony at the fourth dimension wanted to be able to listen to his music while traveling. They had portable tape players but they were likewise large and bulky and not convenient at all.
The forefather of the Walkman was called the "Pressman" and was a mono cassette recorder. The owner of Sony wanted this just shrunken downwardly and to use just for playback. When the Walkman was released Sony was hoping they could sell five,000 units a month. In the first 2
If you want to learn more about the amazing story of the Walkman bank check out my blog on its history. (check out this sweet modern Walkman on Amazon)
It became a flake of argument wearing that yellow case and earphones. This became similar an accessory the same way the white earbuds would exist when the iPod was first introduced. And so now yous had your own personal listening device that you could mind to your favorite type of music. And for a lot of people in the '80s that would be….
5. Hip-Hop
Hip Hop has
People loved dancing to these "breakbeats" and he establish that if he had two of the same tape he could play the breakbeat back to back for an extended catamenia of time. This leads to more dancing and also "break dancers".
So whenever there would exist a political party or event the DJ would have a master of ceremonies, or Yard.C, who would brand announcements. They would keep the music going but use the break portion of the records and so the M.C's announcements wouldn't get mixed up with the song lyrics.
Over time the Chiliad.C would use this time to announce when the side by side gig or party was going to be and since they were in the spotlight they would embellish things a bit. This turned into bragging, then boasting, then rhyming to not only inform merely entertain.
The Thousand.C'southward would then outset to showcase their skills against other M.C's and that lead to battling and full rhymes they would put together. People wanted to hear more and they would showtime recording these rhymes that they performed over some funky beats.
This is the birth of hip-hop and it would explode during the 1980s.
Over the '80s we would become legends like Grandmaster Flash, Rakim, LL Absurd J, Run DMC, Nas, A Tribe Called Quest. And then things would move west and it brought us the early days of Gangster rap including Northward.W.A with Dr Dre, Ice Cube and Eazy E, along with Ice T, and Snoop Dogg.
There's also the story of the Boombox or Ghetto Blaster, and how it helped pave the style for hip hop. Check out my article on that right hither!
6. The Clothes
Is there any other decade that gets as mocked as much equally the '80s do for the fashion? When you think of the '80s it may conjure upwardly images of a lot of fluorescent pinks and greens, like that paradigm above… At that place were a lot of velvet scrunchies and crimped pilus that was existence held by them besides.
Converse high tops were all the same big but and then were whatever type of white high top basketball sneakers. Yous had the epic acrid launder jeans movement and information technology seems like everyone was wearing a belt pack of some sort.
Y'all had leg warmers, bicycle shorts and just a whole lot of spandex. Amorphous dress were still popular and groups similar RUN DMC would popularize big gold chains and white Adidas shoes.
The punk mode pb by people like Cyndi Lauper would be popular and it seemed similar anybody was wearing blazers and blouses with giant shoulder pads in them.
The "Memphis Style" was a big influence behind the blueprint and aesthetic of the 80s. Check out my blog on the importance of the Memphis Grouping and Memphis style.
Some of this might make a comeback merely it'southward even so hard to look back on your quondam school pictures…
vii. Transformers
Arguably the best toy and cartoon of the '80s. If information technology's not and then information technology is at least right up there. The Transformers toys, made by Hasbro, were a rip off the Diaclone toys made in Japan. Hasbro basically took them straight upwardly and changed around some
Only they saw the success that happened with M.I Joe and created a 3-role TV series in 1984 that were used to launch the toys. I don't know a unmarried kid my historic period who wasn't obsessed with transformers. You had characters like Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee, Starscream, Soundwave, the Dinobots and a ton more.
Like M.I Joe, you were watching 30-minute commercials where they were introducing the backstory of the Transformers along with characters and vehicles. We didn't care though, they were amazing. I still remember beingness crushed one Christmas certain I was getting Soundwave based on the box I saw wrapped under the tree. It turned out to exist a multipack of Life Savers.
Transformers would lead to
And I'thou however not over the decease of Optimus Prime. Lamentable for the spoiler alarm…
While you're at it, take a look at my tiptop x cartoons from the 80s!
8. The Tv set Shows
A bunch of classic sitcoms came our way in the '80s and would eventually lead to the appearance of "Must Meet Boob tube". Certain nights like Th and Friday would get
Some of the notable shows in the '80s were Growing Pains, Who'southward The Boss, Family unit Ties, Webster, Full Business firm, Cheers, ALF, The Wonder Years, The A-Team, The Dukes Of Hazzard, Knight Passenger, honestly, there are so many beauties from this fourth dimension period.
The number one show actually from 1985-ninety every single yr was the Cosby Testify. Here's a sample of the pinnacle 10 highest-rated shows from right in the eye of the decade and the ratings they got:
- The Cosby Bear witness – 33.7
- Family Ties – xxx.0
- Murder, She Wrote – 25.iii
- 60 Minutes – 23.ix
- Cheers – 23.7
- Dallas – 21.9
- Dynasty – 21.8
- The Gold Girls – 21.viii
- Miami Vice – 21.3
- Who's The Boss – 21.i
The very highest-rated sitcoms today volition exercise, at their very best, 15-eighteen million viewers which wouldn't even put them in the acme 30 in the '80s. Nearly shows average around iv-6 one thousand thousand viewers these days but there are patently a lot more than networks, channels and streaming services vying for
eight. The Breakfast Cereals
What a time to be alive. If you were a kid in the '80s breakfasts could be an event. There were and so many over the top, sugar-laden cereals with intensive marketing that y'all couldn't resist. They were colourful, novel and probably had some sort of free toy inside.
This was a big era for interactive cereal boxes and y'all probably spent your whole breakfast totally engaged in the back of the box. To a kid, this was similar their daily newspaper or iPhone.
Cereal commercials were basically low-level cartoon shows with characters that made you instantly identify that production. Diet was out the window and the idea of being able to eat cookies for breakfast was mind-bravado.
Here are a few notable cereals from the 1980s:
- Cookie Crisp
- Pac Man Cereal
- C3P0'due south
- Ice Cream Cones Cereal
- Smurf Berry Crisis
- Pro Stars
- E.T Cereal
- Marshmallow Krispies
- Mr. T Cereal
- Southward'mores Crisis
I become A LOT deeper on breakfast cereals from the 80s in this article.
x. Saved By The Bell
Saved By The Bell would carry over into the '90s simply it is all '80s at its core. The story of Zack, Lisa, Kelly, Jesse, Slater and Screech would show us the magical globe of Bayside Loftier in California.
Saved By The Bell started every bit a bear witness chosen Good Morning, Miss Bliss. They knew the focus of the Miss Elation character wasn't going to steer the management of the prove but instead a character named Zack Morris would.
Played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Zack Morris was a pupil at John F. Kennedy Jr Loftier in Indianapolis, Indiana. It started in 1988 and would just last one season earlier existence retooled every bit Saved By The Bong.
The characters of Zack, Screech, Lisa, and Principal Belding were brought over from Good Morning, Miss Bliss to Saved By The Bell. The transition had them "moving" to the fictional town of Bayside.
Y'all could nigh think of this equally Saved By The Bell: The Junior Loftier Years but the character of Zack Morris would change a lot. He could now basically get away with everything, while too playing every sport and getting an impossible 1502 Saturday score.
The goal was to create 1 of the only live-action Saturday morn Goggle box shows. Saturday mornings were primetime for cartoons and doing a alive-action show gave them the chance to stand out. It besides catered to
The first show would be called "Dancing To The Max" and the Saved By The Bell era began on August 20, 1989.
Fun Fact: Ane of the original producers HATED the proper name Saved By The Bell and disallowed it to be used in whatever of the theme songs. Four dissimilar themes were made and only i contained the words saved by the bong. He had to cave to the one we know at present as it had sounded the best by far.
xi. The Video Games
In example you're non enlightened of this in that location was a time in the early '80s where video games died and no ane wanted to be involved in their production ever again. Atari ruled the roost going into the early '80s just that lead to the nifty video game crash of 1983.
Some people chalk this upwards to the awful E.T video game only the writing had been on the wall for a bit. Atari had no control over the video games that were beingness released and this resulted in a ton of crap that flooded the market. These atrocious games turned off kids from playing them and they were condign more than interested in the new home reckoner striking the market such as the Commodore 64.
And then, within a few short years, the video game manufacture went from making around 2 billion dollars down to just 100 million. This caused the crash and companies distanced themselves from anything video game-related.
Until an upstart company from Nippon chosen Nintendo came on the scene. Nintendo had started as a trading bill of fare company in 1889 and had moved into electronics and so into video games. The released the Nintendo Amusement System in 1986 and it would become the all-time selling console of its time and changed the manufacture forever.
We would too go the Sega and Sega Genesis and some astonishing games. Here'due south a list of the peak 10 selling video games of the 1980s.
- Super Mario Bros: 1985 – 40.24 meg units
- Tetris: 84-89 – thirty.26
- Duck Hunt: 1984 – 28.31
- Super Mario Country: 1989 – 18.14
- Super Mario Bros 3: 1988 – 17.28
- Super Mario Bros 2: 1988 – 7.46
- Pac-Homo: 1982 – seven.00
- The Legend of Zelda: 1986 – 6.51
- Zelda II: The Hazard of Link: 1987 – iv.38
- Excitebike and Pitfall: 1984/1982 – iv.sixteen
You might be interested in the mini Atari you lot can get on Amazon.
Or the incredible SNES Nintendo Classic Mini.
12. Deregulation
Await, what the hell is deregulation? Well, information technology's responsible for a huge amount of the popular culture we experienced in the '80s.
Up until this point, the human activity of advertising to children was heavily regulated. Through a lot of inquiry and study it was concluded that a immature child could not differentiate betwixt a TV testify and an advertizement. It also showed the harm that happened from targeting youngsters and exposing them to and then much promotion.
This severely limited the number of toys and products that could be straight targeted to children. And this is where Ronald Reagan comes into play. I of the start things Reagan does after becoming president is appoint a new head of the Federal Communications Commission in 1981.
His name was Mark Fowler and the first matter he did was lift the ban on advertising to kids and said that children's boob tube should be dictated past the marketplace. This is why you saw an explosion of cartoons and related toys in the '80s. At that place was cypher holding manufacturers back from pushing anything they wanted and Information technology's what leads to things similar:
- Thousand.I Joe
- Transformers
- My Picayune Pony
- He-Man
- Strawberry Shortcake
- M.A.S.Thousand
- Voltron
- She-Ra
A lot of work had been washed to stop toy-inspired programs and this is why you saw shows like Transformers and Thou.I Joe be able to basically be ½ hour commercials.
It's also why y'all see a huge amount of junk food and cereal releases in the '80s along with commercials that await a lot like cartoons. It was besides huge for fast food companies and they could brand their commercials more child-friendly and it'south why companies similar McDonald'southward used so many cartoon based characters. They also would release the Happy Meal in the '80s by using this same approach.
And so the intentions were ever commercial only it gave us some of our most honey shows nosotros know today. Despite the commercial aspects, many of the creators would all the same focus on inventiveness and story to help create more than of an attachment to the shows.
Wrapping Information technology Up
It's funny to think about how nosotros have Ronald Reagan to thank for a lot of our most dearest toys and cartoons. They said that kids would dictate the market place and I guess we did. If something was crappy enough you only wouldn't exist interested but then much of the '80s was able to tap into our sense of wonder.
A lot of things concord up, especially the movies, and some went downwards in flames, like the fashion. Even some of the cartoons expect a lot crappier than you may recollect them being. The music seems even ameliorate than you call up and information technology felt like a time where the focus was on the art as we weren't oversaturated with so much content from every management.
I realize this barely skims the surface of the '80s only hopefully, I captured some good highlights. And since yous're a fan of this decade, check out my listing of 80s items and products you can still get now!
Tell 'em Large Marge sent ya!
P.S. If you lot desire to be kept up to date with everything to exercise with the 80s, just sign up for the Everything 80s newsletter below, it'due south a good i!
Source: https://www.everything80spodcast.com/12-things-that-made-the-80s-the-greatest-decade/
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