Do you miss the '80s?

I was just sitting here listening to track after track of songs from the 80s.

I close my eyes and see the 80s flash before me, so close, so vibrant; I can feel the 80s sunshine on my face, I can almost touch it.

Then it dawned on me.

I miss the 80s.

I don't miss it because I think or I know I miss it.

I feel that I miss the 80s.

Maybe its because like Randall said in Clerks II, 'it was a simpler time, it was a time when I know that I still had the world ahead of me'; or maybe it's because things were so much better.

I feel I share a bond with people who grew up in the 80s, a bond like no other, because of the things, songs, TV, cartoons that only we experienced back then - He-Man, MASK, Centurions, Ghostbusters, Spiral Zone, Transformers, Silver Hawks, Visionaries, Ninja Turtles, Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs, Galaxy Rangers, GI Joe and more (this just off the top of my head).

No, things are in no way bad now; and I still have the world ahead of me (I'd hope); but, I just miss the '80s. :o

Everything began or ended in the 80's...

Robotech, Starblazers, Astro Boy, Transformers, Patlabor... Anime came crashing into my life and allot of my time is still spent around the legacies of 80's anime.

Music - Joy Division/New Order, The Cure, REM, The Smiths, Depeche Mode... The 80s started with electronic music and ended with Rap, possibly the last true creative venture into new musical territories.

Movies - Star Wars trilogy, Blade Runner, Alien, Betty Blue, Terminator... Star Wars opened the door for no-brainer Sci-fi/fantasy action movies. Conan, Rocky, Predator, Rambo, Excalibur, Bloodsport, Back to the Future... TnA movies... 80s schlock.

Technology - Internet became publicly available, color TV, VHS/Beta machines, IBM, Macintosh, 3D gaming, printers, Microsoft, Apple, Atari, Commodore 64/Amiga, 2D/3D apps.

Dungeons & Dragons, my Indy 500 Mountain bike, model kits and Star Wars, Transformers and MASK toys.

It's like everything since has just been a tribute. I hear Lady GaGa is touring here soon...

Yeah, Star Wars and allot of 80s new wave and goth started in the late 70's... but that was kinda like pre-80s to me.:cool:

I wish I was back in the 80's. I have very fond memories of growing up - my house, my friends, my family, the music, toys I played with, and movies I liked to watch.

One of my favourite times was going to see my God Parents and playing Transformers with their son while the 'grown-ups' played cards in the dinning room. After we had finished playing, we would sit and watch The Last Starfighter over, and over, again.

*sigh*

There's always something I hear or see that makes me feel 'homesick' for the 80's.

Surely some government somewhere has invented time travel by now??

Yes I miss the 80's. A simplier, happier time of cartoons and toys before life got ruined by the rampant hormones of teenage years.

I was too young to remember the 80's :(

Rainbow Brite FTW!

The 80s was great because back then they weren't afraid of trying out new things. There was a massive explosion of creativity which they have continuously been exploiting to this day.

The 90s was more like a progression of the 80s. Many awesome concepts introduced in 80s such as cartoons were refined in the 90s with more mature and wide reaching stories and better developed characters. 80s cartoons suffered from having very kiddy and formulaic stories despite the excellent character concepts and awesome worlds they inhabited.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tober

Music - Joy Division/New Order, The Cure, REM, The Smiths, Depeche Mode... The 80s started with electronic music and ended with Rap, possibly the last true creative venture into new musical territories.

---

... and Guns n' Roses, Metallica, Pet Shop Boys, Milli Vanilli, New Kids on the Block, Kris Kross... and Boy Meets Girl (woohoo)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tober

Movies - Star Wars trilogy, Blade Runner, Alien, Betty Blue, Terminator... Star Wars opened the door for no-brainer Sci-fi/fantasy action movies. Conan, Rocky, Predator, Rambo, Excalibur, Bloodsport, Back to the Future... TnA movies... 80s schlock.

---

Completely agree with you there. Man, you even mentioned Bloodsport, that's a classic in its own league. heh. And the Tim Burton Batman movies too I'd add.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tober

Dungeons & Dragons, my Indy 500 Mountain bike, model kits and Star Wars, Transformers and MASK toys.

---

Robotech RPG, Battletech, Marvel Super Heroes RPG;
stunt bikes, roller blades (ok, this was pushing 90s), basketball, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Charles Barkeley...; F1 - Ayrton Sena; Tennis - John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dirge

Rainbow Brite FTW!

---

Strawberry Shotcake, Cabbage Patch Kids, Teddy Ruxpin...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tober

Everything began or ended in the 80's...

---

Amen.

Ahh the 80s...

What would you do if I sang out of tune,
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...th_g1_1986.jpg
Would you stand up and walk out on me?

Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...th_g1_1988.jpg
And I'll try not to sing out of key.

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...th_g1_1989.jpg
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dirge

Rainbow Brite FTW!

---

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...inbowbrite.jpg

Yeah the 80's had their moments, but a lot of that love for the 80's is just nostalgia.

I remember fondly all those 80's cartoons, but looking back some are pretty crap. The truth is back in the 80's I was watching them for the first time, and everything was new and exciting. Had I grown up in the 90's I'm pretty sure I would have the same fondness for the nuances of that period. Now I'm older and have seen more, heard more, read more It's harder to find something new and fresh.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kup

The 80s was great because back then they weren't afraid of trying out new things. There was a massive explosion of creativity which they have continuously been exploiting to this day.

The 90s was more like a progression of the 80s. Many awesome concepts introduced in 80s such as cartoons were refined in the 90s with more mature and wide reaching stories and better developed characters. 80s cartoons suffered from having very kiddy and formulaic stories despite the excellent character concepts and awesome worlds they inhabited.

---

There was a massive explosion of creativity, but also the a surge in capitalism, greed, mass consumption culture pretty much starts in the 80's (although Star Wars Helps kick it off in the 70's). Everything had to be flashy and showy. Cartoons were churned out by the numbers to sell toys to kids. The idea of soulless Holywood Blockbuster (as continued today by movies like ROTF) appears in the 80's. And let's not forget that Wall Street film and Gordon Gecko's enduring utterance "Greed is good"

I think there was a bit of a backlash in the 90's where everyone said the 80's were to bright, flashy and shallow, so they said lets make things dark and more mature.

I admit there's something really appealing about that vibrancy of the 80's though, everything is full of life if perhaps empty of mind. I mean it all looks a bit tacky these days and it's as if I long for the days that I could enjoy corny 80's shows, movies and music without feeling somehow guilty.

And so far no one has mentioned 80's cop shows. Pretty much every show involved car chases, shoot outs more car chases and guys with indestructible hair. Hardly any of that investigation stuff that modern shows all seem to be about.

I can't help but think a lot of the 80's can be described as so bad it was good!

And what's with that hair? :p

I'm sure it's just nostalgia... but I totally agree - the 80s were the best decade (of my life anyway)!! They were full of so much creativity and classic movies/TV shows/songs/comics. I even still have many crushes on female actresses and singers from the 80s who are just simply gorgeous, but probably wouldn't be "accepted" these days cause they don't have that fake "Hollywood" look about them.

Still, I'm sure many people think the 60s (Beatles, JFK, Moon Landing, Woodstock, Pscho) and the 70s (Space Invaders, Godfather, Star Wars, Disco, and me being born :D) were pretty cool too!

I was a kid in the 80s and I often wonder what it would be like to be back in that decade as a twenty-something.

80s FTW!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Robzy

I was a kid in the 80s and I often wonder what it would be like to be back in that decade as a twenty-something.
80s FTW!

---

kinda scary I imagine with all that big hair. :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lord_Zed

kinda scary I imagine with all that big hair. :D

---

Gotta have a mullet! :p

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lord_Zed

And so far no one has mentioned 80's cop shows. Pretty much every show involved car chases, shoot outs more car chases and guys with indestructible hair. Hardly any of that investigation stuff that modern shows all seem to be about.

---

no one does indestructible like this guy

I thought the 90s were more 60s and 70s orientated. Revivals of ABBA, Aerosmith, movies of The Bradey Bunch etc. The biggest bands were Nirvanna and Oasis which have their influences in Neil Young and The Who and The Beatles, The Jam and The Sex Pistols.

The 80s improved into the 90s with Nine Inch Nails, Tool, Bjork, Radiohead... The Simpsons and South Park are the only genre defying shows I can think of. Akira paved the way for the more intelligent anime such as Ghost in the Shell... Pixar had completed their first fully 3D animated shorts paving the way for Toy Story.

Take a look at the last decade and now... Transformers 2007, Rise of Cobra, The A-Team, the 8-bit music scene, Neverwinter Nights* and World of Warcraft, Macross: Frontier, Doctor Who**, Rambo 2008, Rocky Balboa, Aliens Vs Predator...

It's hard not to miss the 80s when we can't escape being reminded of it.


*Yeah D&D started in the mid 70's, but I played it throughout the 80s. **I'm claiming Dr. Who too, Tom Baker was the REAL Doctor.

And after the 70s just about any decade is going to look good... :D Remember the Bay City Rollers? Neither do I.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lord_Zed

And so far no one has mentioned 80's cop shows. Pretty much every show involved car chases, shoot outs more car chases and guys with indestructible hair. Hardly any of that investigation stuff that modern shows all seem to be about.

---

You forgot to mention that the guns didn't need to be reloaded in the 80's either:D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by heroic_decepticon

Maybe its because like Randall said in Clerks II, 'it was a simpler time, it was a time when I know that I still had the world ahead of me'; or maybe it's because things were so much better.

I feel I share a bond with people who grew up in the 80s, a bond like no other, because of the things, songs, TV, cartoons that only we experienced back then - He-Man, MASK, Centurions, Ghostbusters, Spiral Zone, Transformers, Silver Hawks, Visionaries, Ninja Turtles, Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs, Galaxy Rangers, GI Joe and more (this just off the top of my head).

---

Yup, everything was so simpler, there isnt much stress, no rush like today.

There's also Smurfs, Blackstarr, Thundercats, Fraggle rock, Voltron, She-ra, Superfriends and all them Saturday morning toons!

But when I think of it I have veeeeeeery little to none when it comes to TF toys :(:(:( and playing with my Paper TFs instead coz of it.... ah well, at least I was still patient enough and creative enough back then.:) NOw Im just lazy hehehe

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tober

**I'm claiming Dr. Who too, Tom Baker was the REAL Doctor.

---

I'm with you on this one :D

I dreamt last night that I could relive the eighties, knowing everything I know now.

I'd gladly do that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sky Shadow

I dreamt last night that I could relive the eighties, knowing everything I know now.

I'd gladly do that.

---

Especially if you had a copy of the Sports Almanac :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 5FDP

Especially if you had a copy of the Sports Almanac :D

---

Or a vague memory of which horses won the Melbourne Cup. ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sky Shadow

Or a vague memory of which horses won the Melbourne Cup. ;)

---

just make sure you don't have a friend called Biff

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tober

I thought the 90s were more 60s and 70s orientated. Revivals of ABBA, Aerosmith, movies of The Bradey Bunch etc. The biggest bands were Nirvanna and Oasis which have their influences in Neil Young and The Who and The Beatles, The Jam and The Sex Pistols.

The 80s improved into the 90s with Nine Inch Nails, Tool, Bjork, Radiohead... The Simpsons and South Park are the only genre defying shows I can think of. Akira paved the way for the more intelligent anime such as Ghost in the Shell... Pixar had completed their first fully 3D animated shorts paving the way for Toy Story.

Take a look at the last decade and now... Transformers 2007, Rise of Cobra, The A-Team, the 8-bit music scene, Neverwinter Nights* and World of Warcraft, Macross: Frontier, Doctor Who**, Rambo 2008, Rocky Balboa, Aliens Vs Predator...

It's hard not to miss the 80s when we can't escape being reminded of it.


*Yeah D&D started in the mid 70's, but I played it throughout the 80s. **I'm claiming Dr. Who too, Tom Baker was the REAL Doctor.

And after the 70s just about any decade is going to look good... :D Remember the Bay City Rollers? Neither do I.

---

I think there were more Genre defying shows than that in the 90's However a lot of them were relegated to cult followings. MTV's various cartoon series Beavis and Butthead, The Head, Liquid Television, Aeon Fluxx and the Maxx all come to mind. Also Klasky Csupo's Duckman although not as popular and mainstream as the big 2, I thought they were in a genre of there own. There are probaly some regular TV shows too, but I've always been more animation oreintated.

But then I wouldn't say the 80's were genre defying at all, rather they were genre defining.

So if we've come full circle with the 80's revival is the 90's revival about to start now?

This thread made me want to go on youtube to watch 80's cartoon intros

http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...pe=&aq=8&oq=80

I really enjoyed the 80s, the cartoons (and anime), the toys (especially the LEGO my dad used to buy for me), and generally living a stress-free existence.