While I enjoyed both Merlin and Quiz Whiz, I was usually happier with low-tech toys like my Shogun Warriors and Micronauts. And who could forget the Six Million Dollar Man doll? He had a glass eye you could look through from the back of his head and a detachable plate on his wrist where you could see the bionics underneath. That was cool.
Vietnam: Yup, ancient history
Broken record: Hey, I had a huge record collection, for playing on my BeeGees record player.
Beatles and Elvis: Nope…but I listen to the Beatles all the time.
Garter Belts: wouldn’t know…I’m a guy.
Carbon Paper: Of course. But I’d think that even people born in 1985 would know carbon paper…it’s still used for some credit card receipts, (the manually swiped ones).
Oh, and Madonna’s American Pie is absolutely horrible. Ugh. When it first came out, I said “what is this crap…Don McLean must be freaking.”
Jman (alive and kicking since 1977)
Let’s see…I was born in '76, so I’m not quite a child of the 80’s, but I’m already starting to feel old. Like, when I see TV ads for cheesy 80s compilation CDs…and I WANT THEM because I listened to that stuff as a kid!
I believe the first time I used a computer was in 2nd grade at school, an Apple IIE. We used to argue over who would get the one with the snazzy color monitor. And the first computer we OWNED was a Commodore 64. I wish I still had that thing. I did learn to type on an actual typewriter, though.
We had an Atari, the Sears knock-off version. I still remember buying it. WOOHOO! I was very very good at Laser Blast, for a little kid. And I loved Pitfall. My mom never did get the trick of jumping on the crocodile heads. Me? A few years back my brother rented a SNES version of Pitfall and hidden in it was the old game. After more than ten years I could still jump on the heads, and my mom still couldn’t. Boy was she pissed.
Um…I remember the Challenger disaster quite well, as it was the day before I had some major surgery. 
I do remember records. And I think I was eight when we got our first VCR, it wasn’t a top-loader but it was a big clunky Panasonic.
One of my favorite shows as a youngster was You Can’t Do That On Television. I feel bad for the current generation of kids who have no idea where Nickelodeon’s green slime came from. Even my own brother doesn’t remember that one.
I remember quite clearly being depressed after the Muppet Show went off the air, and I couldn’t have been more than four.
I remember being terribly impressed and horrified when I was about sixteen and my dad told me about one morning when he was my age he was listening to the radio and for some reason the announcer said, “The war began today!” and he thought that nukes were on the way and he was going to die. I still don’t understand the whole Communists-are-evil outlook. (It was the anniversary of some war, apparently.)
I barely remember Reagan because I paid no attention to him. I do remember Bush.
Um…I could probably keep going, but I won’t.
AIEEEEEE! Talk about a flashback!
I loved Donny & Marie. But Battlestar Galactica was IT for me. Oh yeah.
Oh, does anyone here remember the Raggedy Ann & Andy movie? The one with the Camel With The Wrinkled Knees? I’ve got stuffed Camel. I love him. 
Betcha anything what you are seeing is the “carbonless” copy paper. 
The last time I saw a credit card receipt that use the old black carbon paper was about 6/7 years ago. The old carbons were so messy! Glad that they are gone.
*May tomorrow be a perfect day
May you find love and laughter along the way
May God keep you in his tender (special?) care
'Til He brings us together again…
Good night, everybody!"
What was the name of the TV show that you could buy the video tapes for and play along like you were the main hero? Captain Universe, or something? It had some really awful computer animation, but I loved it!
83 baby here. And I knew almost all of those “blasts from the past” in the OP. Then again, almost everyone I talk to says they think I’m in my 20’s until I tell them my age…
shrug
I loved that camel, I am so jelous! I had the dolls and they had the little hearts on the butts.
Speaking of dolls, I also have a Cabbage Patch Kid from the first year. I noticed the other day that I think those things are getting uglier.
I also had a whole collection of Garbage Pail Kids cards. I bet I still have them somewhere around here.
And some one gag Dark Lord Davidson for that “blast from the past” comment.
Wavedancer, my dad still has his old top load vcr, and it still works too.
He also had one of the first disk movie players. Big huge disks like albums!
And my kids do still have one of the original Ataris.
I thought you can’t do that on television was pretty cool, but as I sat here tonight and watched Electric Company I realised that I still remembered alot of it, but I had forgotten that it was a pretty cool show for it’s time. The bad thing is that I can only seem to catch it at midnight on Noggin. Of course it is followed by Seasame Street.
More flashbacks…
THE ELECTRIC COMPANY - Now that was a great show. I can’t understand why it never gets rerun anymore, unless it’s just too set in the 1970’s, which it is but c’mon, people still need to learn about Silent ‘E’ and road signs and “N apostrophe N apostrophe N apostrophe T!”
Plus, it featured Rita Morena and Morgan Freeman!
I have much more vaguer recollections of another cool educational show - “ZOOM”. I remember the roll out the barrell song, and the orange and purple striped shirts, but that’s about it. Still, I hear that’s been revived for the 1990’s/2000’s.
As for that venerable institution, SESAME STREET, I fondly remember Mr. Hooper, but must have missed the episode when he died, as the next time I saw it, he was already gone. Now that’s an episode I would love to see again someday. It used to really irritate me though that no one could see Mr. Snuffleupagus, so I’m glad that they finally made him visible to all.
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA - I almost have to avoid this show in reruns on Sci-Fi Channel, because it doesn’t live up to my memories. Then again, I think I was mainly watching it for the cool trip down the tunnel they would take whenever launching their ships. And though GALACTICA 1980 was supposedly even worse, I preferred it because they had cool futuristic flying motorcycles, and I could recreate that experience on my own bike.
Yeah, I feel the same about Space: 1999 (now considered an alternative history show).
Anybody else notice the only things they got right in their vision of the year 1999 are flare pants, platform shoes, and New Age mysticism?
I loved that show! The guy who always put the hamburgers in his armpits to keep them warm was so gross but I found him hilarious.
I remember the Muppet Show and I wasn’t born until ’82 so either you got the date wrong or I was watching the reruns. Another of my fave shows as a kid was Fraggle Rock… I wonder if there is anywhere you can buy videos of them? I’ll have to go looking…
My Grandma likes to say those things are so ugly their cute. I still have mine and I could have gotten a first edition one but Grandma didn’t think I’d want it (this was just before they caught on) Then she couldn’t find any. I still have a couple of mine. One even sleeps on my bed during the day.
Here’s something that was ubiquitous in my generation, but merely inspires a look of blank oblivion in the current post-82 set:
LUNCH BOXES!
Remember? Those clunky, metallic thinga-majigs you lugged with you everywhere, sporting a picture of your favorite cartoon character or celeb? My Mom, being basically unhip, got me a Hollie Hobbie and Friends lunchbox. (Hollie Hobbie– now there’s a name you don’t hear everyday.) For some reason, when I recall lunchboxes, I keep remembering this cool yellow one one of my classmates had of the Bee Gees, but maybe because it was the only lunchbox I ever saw at the time that was made out of plastic :eek:!
Here’s another nightmare from my youth that Generation Y luckily escaped-- Trapper Keepers, or “Trapper Johns,” as my seventh grade math teacher facetiously called them. What was the point of these things, anyway? They were big, bulky and cumbersome!
One last thing that Generation Y is probably clueless about-- the “Afterschool Special,” one of those maudlin, moralistic telepics that often pre-empted some really cool show in the hopes of saving youth from personal downfall :rolleyes:. Want to know how old I am? Afterschool specials dealt with such shocking, new topics as-- “gasp!”-- teen pregnancy, shudder divorce and wow * drug use* (usually marijuana drug use). Needless to say, these AS’s didn’t persuade America’s youth from wrongdoing-- if anything, they most likely enticed them!