What were the 80s like?

[BogusMeatFactory]

Null, that is a very great point on skating and... well any fandom. Brilliantly put!

[mas]

I’ll throw in my life in the 80’s. Like everyone else said was mostly true.

Watched early morning cartoons and afternoon when I got home from school and Saturday morning cartoons until 11:00am

Played with action toys like transformers and thunder cats and wwf Ljn wrestlers.

Went to arcades on Saturday. Either silverball downtown or dream machine in the mall or playoff we’re the big three.

Use to go and ride my bike everywhere with my friends or hang out in the neighborhood and only came home for lunch and dinner. 1230 and 430 then go back out till lights outside came on.
Friday nights Dad would bring Home elios pizza and we would go to applause video and get vhs movies and I could rent a game till Saturday night for 3.99 lol.

Remember playing and buying def leopard hysteria on my tape deck or Walkman all the time also.
Going to Boy Scouts for once a week and the scouts were pretty much a lot of the neighborhood kids so it was fun.
Watching action tv shows like a team where no one got killed but bullets everywhere lol

I just feel the 80’s also was still around families still getting together for movie nights and my dad was always at work but the weekends with him, watching cartoons then wwf superstars of wrestling and wwf challenge on sundays, having him make grilled cheese or boiled hot dogs watching the Red Sox afterwards were biggest memories of my childhood. Ohh he freaking loved Zelda and always got scared of the bats. He called it the gold game. I traded it once and he was pissed I got the game back with another trade lol.

Also garbage pail Kids we’re huge. They were the 80’s baseball cards to collect lol

[samsonlonghair]

Also, there was a lot of cocaine.

Like a LOT of cocaine.

Dude...

So much cocaine...

Dude, you're geekin' out!

Ack, how old where you in the 1980s? Seven? Eight? How many lines were you snorting during recess?

Seriously though, I'm glad you mentioned this because it makes a nice segue. Anti-Drug culture was absolutely flipping HUGE in the 1980s. Null mentioned the "moral majority" backlash against D&D, but the big backlash that I remember was the War on Drugs. The Anti-drug hysteria was probably a reaction to Crack Cocaine. In the 1980s, some diabolical bastard figured out that you could freebase crystallized cocaine and sell it to addicts for double the profit. That shit sold on faster than Return of the Jedi merchandise in the 1980s. Naturally, a bunch of movie stars and celebrities got caught with drugs. America gasped at the notion that Rock stars do drugs! Won't somebody please think of the Children! Celebrities didn't actually go to jail back then. They just starred in Anti-Drug public service announcements. Like this one with Pee-Wee Herman. Look at that stupid, fear-mongering nonsense!

Drug dealers were practically demonic. This was the era of Nancy Reagan's "Just say no" campaign. I believe this was also the time when the police launched the D.A.R.E. program to send cops into schools to lecture kids about the evils of drug use. I got a free T-Shirt that I wore in a completely non-ironic fashion after being taught about those evil drugs.

I remember a lot of drug scares. There were stories on the news that indicated to parents that evil drug dealers were conspiring to hypnotize their innocent little angels with the evil of drugs.

True anecdote: My second grade teacher gave all the kids some dinosaur stickers. When I got home, my Mom took them away because she heard a story on the news that drug dealers were planting LSD on stickers and slipping them to kids. Really. A grown darn woman actually believed that story. She believed it so strongly that she grew paranoid about dinosaur stickers from an elementary school teacher.

Some years later, South Park would satirize all this nonsense in the "Drugs are bad...Mmmmkay?" line that gave everyone some much-needed relief from the "War on Drugs" madness.

[Sarge]

Drugs are bad, but that's just me. I definitely remember the push as well, including the arcade splash screens stating "Winners Don't Do Drugs!" And they were right.

My experience was probably slightly different in some regards because of where I grew up. A tiny little town, mostly among my cousins. If not for some of the technology, my childhood could have been somewhat normal for the '50s. Saturday morning cartoons were definitely a thing; my brother and I would get to go down to the local convenience store and purchase exactly $1.00 of candy for Saturday mornings. We'd have it figured up, sales tax and all.

Cartoons were pretty good overall, although I really didn't get to watch much Transformers or G.I. Joe. Those were still my absolute favorite toys, though.

We would ride bikes everywhere. We were absolutely bonkers on those things. I'd set up ramps and stuff, so much fun.

The real irony of all this, though, is that while Nintendo might have been part of everyone else's '80s experience, I didn't get one until Christmas of 1990. None of my memories revolve around the NES other than the couple of times I'd see one at a friend's house, and even then, I barely got to play. I was mesmerized, regardless. Arcade games did the same to me. I rarely had money for them, but I'd just sit there and watch them on attract mode.

Along the lines of being a bit isolated from a lot of the culture, I didn't even get into rock music until I hit college. I was a weird kid that listened to classical, Southern gospel, and old pop hits. I still don't like the rock culture, but I love my wailing electric guitars.

[Segata]

Like being wrapped in pure joy. It was like the coziest warmest most comfortable blanket of pure happiness and joy. Dr. Feelgood was in the house that decade.

[Anayo]

Did any of you 80's kids see the Star Wars Holiday special when it aired on TV? How about one of the bootleg VHS tapes that kept it from disappearing over the airwaves? I didn't see it until 2015. I laughed my ass off when I did, though.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Did any of you 80's kids see the Star Wars Holiday special when it aired on TV? How about one of the bootleg VHS tapes that kept it from disappearing over the airwaves? I didn't see it until 2015. I laughed my ass off when I did, though.

The Christmas special was long gone and none of my older brothers remember it.

Speaking star wars... the toys were huge! We had an at-st and the giant rancor with chomping mouth. I can not tell you how many star wars characters I tried to jam down his throat.

Also, I had this he-man toy that literally shot sparks out of its mouth. I would just put my finger to its mouth and char it... good times!!!!

[nullPointer]

Speaking star wars... the toys were huge! We had an at-st and the giant rancor with chomping mouth. I can not tell you how many star wars characters I tried to jam down his throat.

Also, I had this he-man toy that literally shot sparks out of its mouth. I would just put my finger to its mouth and char it... good times!!!!

Oh man I remember these toys quite clearly, and doing these exact things, lol! Speaking of 'big toys' my best friend at the time had the G.I. Joe aircraft carrier set (the USS Flagg). That thing was absolutely massive. We had to ask special permission from his Mom whenever we wanted to set it up due to the sheer floor space it occupied. GI Joe was a huge part of my 80s experience, and even to this day when I think of 'badass ninjas', Storm Shadow is probably the first one that comes to mind.

Did anyone else do "GI Joe x Star Wars crossover events' with their toys? The scales of these toys were close enough that they went together fairly well. If you've never landed a Y-Wing fighter on the deck of the USS Flagg, it's an experience I highly recommend.

[BogusMeatFactory]

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Did anyone else do "GI Joe x Star Wars crossover events' with their toys? The scales of these toys were close enough that they went together fairly well. If you've never landed a Y-Wing fighter on the deck of the USS Flagg, it's an experience I highly recommend.

This is the greatest thing I have read in a long time! You are a visionary!!!

[Gunstar Green]

My action figures were nothing but a huge, non-sensical crossover event.

Can the Ghostbusters take down Skeletor? In my five year old mind, yes they could.