What were the 80s like?

[Beldarna]

We had a witch too! A scary looking house across from the kindergarten.

See?? Every town! Always. It's just how it was.

We had a spooky house, a scary wood AND a witch! In a town populated by 1000 people. It was awesome! We also had a yucky man (an old man who smelled so bad you could follow his smell trace). It became a sport to get as close as you could without gagging. Now in an adult mindset I know he had some mental ilness and needed help, but as a kid he was just an old man who smelled yuck.

When it comes to anime, we had tons of it. I watched Silver Fang at age four. It was at the kids section in the rental shelf at the gastation. We also saw sabre rider and the star sheriffs, Lady Lady, Candy Candy and a ton of others. We didn't know what it was called but they were there.

[Nebula Light]

This thread is really interesting! Ya'll are answering all the questions I wish I could ask my G1 ponies, they are older then me! 

My mother loooved the 80's, it was her favorite era, so the shoulder pads, accessories and music were very much alive when I was a kid in the 90's. She has always told me it was a time of partying, big hair, dancing, drugs, fashion and music.I'll ask her more of what it was like sometime. From the way everyone is describing their childhoods, the only difference is that I watched shows like Rocko's Modern Life, Doug, Ren N Stimpy, and the Power Puff Girls.

 Personally, 80's fashion sense is my least favorite, but I love to learn about it.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

Music videos were originally known as "Promotional Films of the Single '_____'"!  That was before we had Music TeleVision... aka MTV.

this song sums it up i think
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeEWtNaW6KE
i cried when i first herd this as i just wished i could go back in time and live the good times again
most of the refs are british though

Spot on!  I am familiar with quite a bit of those things despite being on the other side of the pond. 

Music I most remember: 

Michael Jackson
Madonna
Heart
Foreigner !!!<3<3<3!!! Still looooove them!   
Eagles
Sting
Dire Straits

[slyons]

In the early 80s, video rental stores didn't exist.  In fact, the first time someone "rented" a VHS tape was some guy who rented his videos to his friends and neighbors for $10/night.  And people paid it because it was still cheaper than buying a VHS tape from the store.  We used to wait YEARS, not weeks (or days), for movies to be available on VHS so we could watch them a second time.  There was NO Netflix.  There was NO Pay-Per-View.  There was NO TiVo.  There was no rewinding the channel you're watching.  If you missed it, you had to hope there was going to be a rerun sometime before your friends spoiled the whole episode.  If you wanted to know what was going to be on television, you had to read a little magazine called the TV Guide.

Cassette tapes were the "in" way to listen to music but records were still widely available during the first part of the decade.  Boom boxes, high top sneakers, leg warmers, crimped hair and off the shoulder shirts were fashionable.  The bigger your bangs the cooler you were.

If the phone rang, you had to answer it to find out who it was.  Answering machines used tapes that had to be erased.  If it was full, nobody could leave you a message. 

There was no such thing as "bored."  If you were "bored" it was because you were boring.  Kids learned to use their imaginations instead of a tablet to entertain themselves.  If you threw a tantrum your parents smacked your butt and sent you to the corner and nobody called the cops because they weren't abusing you, they were being responsible parents and you were being a little *&^% that needed discipline. 

It was also the age of the Music Video.  No YouTube.  You had to wait for hours to see the new Janet Jackson video on MTV (if your parents even let you watch that channel) and if you were lucky enough to tape it, you watched it over and over for hours to learn the new dance moves.  Heavy metal music and big hair bands like Twisted Sister burst onto the scene.  Songs like "We're Not Gonna Take It" battled it out with soft rock hits like "Every Step You Take". 

Kids played OUTSIDE without worrying about being kidnapped.  We played on wooden jungle gyms.  We drank out of the hose.  We scraped our knees and threw mud at each other. 

Saturday mornings were reserved for watching cartoons and eating cereal in front of the TV.  None of that Dora the Explorer garbage.  We watched shows like Fat Albert that dealt with issues like drug use, teen pregnancy, stealing, alcoholism, adoption, and bullying.  There was a special episode that they wanted us to watch with our parents because the Cosby Kids ended up getting in trouble and the cops scared them straight by taking them to the jail to see what it was like in there.  All kids get now is "Swiper, no swiping!"  Punky Brewster was abandoned by her mom at a grocery store and she was adopted by a man old enough to be her grandfather.  She taught us not to play in old refrigerators and how important learning first aid and CPR was.  The Fraggles explored and sang while the Doozers built. 

There were consequences for bad behavior and not everyone got a trophy.

  You summed it up so beautifully

[scarletjul]

Fun thread! 

I was born in '83, so I just recall the tail end of the 80's.  I do remember getting up early for Saturday morning cartoons; I used to get up as early as 6 am and watch until eleven or noon to catch them all.  I have a very clear memory of being four and trying to convince my parents to let me watch Jem on Christmas morning, which I couldn't because it was Christmas morning and nobody was up yet. 

Technology was sort of exciting.  We had a VCR early on; a huge one with buttons on the top that lasted a decade (we upgraded but the thing lived on.)  VHS movies were super expensive and nobody owned them.  We had cable off and on; I would get super excited whenever we had a Disney channel preview weekend because Kids Incorporated was awesome.  My sister recorded movies and shows off the tv.  We also had a Warehouse rental store that we'd get to go to as a treat once every few months.

We also had a computer; a Coleco that was set up in the family room.  The hard drive attached to our big screen television.  Programs were set up on cartridges and cassette tapes instead of disks, although IIRC, there was an attachment for 5" floppy disks.  I always thought the cassette cartridges were odd.  You couldn't save your games and all of the games were very similar to arcade games.  We had Pac Man and Burger Time and Buck Rogers.  I think there was also a way to copy games.

My dad briefly worked for Worlds of Wonder, so I had a lot of the Teddy Ruxpin toys.  They all essentially did the same thing, which was to tell stories via cassette tapes (tapes were big in the eighties.)  Their mouths and eyes moved while they told the story.  I loved all of them. 
 

[Taffeta]

A lot of these things have probably already been mentioned, but I was born in 82 and I have a lot of memories of the 1980s from a UK perspective.

I remember the mutated dandelions that cropped up in our greenfields towards the latter post Chernobyl years, and we all knew they came from that but none of us really as kids understood what Chernobyl was until we got older.

We had a rented TV set and we all watched it as a family. We didn't get a VCR till the end of the 1980s, also rented. The UK had three TV channels that I remember...BBC1, BBC2 and ITV (Central/Granada/whatever it regionalised as, I can't remember!) Kids TV was a slot between 3 and 5 in the afternoon (give or take) and on a weekend from about 6am through to midday. Little kids shows often ran in the mid morning too.

My Little Pony was not on TV here. But HeMan and SheRa were. Also Thundercats. I grew up as well watching Words and Pictures, Bod and other beautiful 1980s/earlier TV shows.

There was a recession in the mid 1980s. My Dad lost his job. This meant a big change for us that wasn't related to the 1980s because his next job moved us out of Birmingham and into the Welsh Borders. My Dad ran a stately home for a year and a half and we lived inside it. I was four and I used to go round with him on a Wednesday morning, watching him wind all the old clocks. I was fascinated by them

Our school computers were black screened BBCB computers that ran awesome programs like folio and the thing with the turtle you put directions into and it went mad. We had a real version of this at one point too. We played with it a lot.  The school had maybe four computers, total. The first PC didn't appear till the early 1990s. We wrote a pamphlet to save the Mammoth on the old BBCB computers. I still have mine somewhere, with its bitty Arial font.

I remember a lot of school events, too - fetes, parties, and the pretty frilly dresses that went with. I don't remember the stereotype for 1980s fashion.

On UK Television, Sinn Fein representatives were dubbed over whenever they appeared. I used to think Jerry Adams had a really weird voice problem. IRA bombing threats were real, especially in big cities like London, Manchester and Birmingham. I didn't learn all the ins and outs of that political situation until much much later at school in the 1990s...at the time it just seemed to be on the news a lot.

Kids TV wasn't as muted, banal or censored as it is today. There were a lot of jokes in UK kids TV too, for the adults watching with. Shows like Jimbo and the Jet Set and Bertha both invoked political comment (Jimbo about the change in size regs from Imperial to Metric and Bertha had a union strike). I think both these episodes are on Youtube actually. TV shows were not afraid to let kids see all kinds of things - some good, some bad. Kids weren't as patronised as they are today, nor as kid gloved. If you fell off a wall and broke your leg, it was your fault, not the local Council's or some nasty person who put the wall there in the first place.

I remember a girl got abducted out of a caravan window on a summer holiday and it made me scared of caravans. For years we went on holidays to Wales but not caravans because I was so afraid of them! We spent our first North Wales holidays in Dyffryn Ardudwy and Morfa Nefyn in rented houses. I watched Smot (Spot) on TV in Welsh.

We went for walks a lot. Reading was also a big deal. I read all the time, and went to the library whenever possible. The buses that ran on our bus route were little breadvan buses, and they used to go right into the supermarket carpark. Dad used to drive an old yellow Datsun, which was 3 years old already when I was born. It had weird back windows, no suspension and the petrol gauge didn't work right. We always carried petrol as a result. It somehow made it through the Welsh mountains!

There was no national curriculum in UK schools. This will only have resonance for UK people, but when I started school we still had a system of infants and juniors. I went from being a first year junior to year 4 and I remember how odd I thought it was. There were no exams in primary school, either. Just spelling tests.

Ponies cost £2-3 on average. I've got plenty of pages from Argos showing them priced at £2.89 or £2.99 for an adult pony in the middle 1980s. They came with a brush, ribbon and sticker, plus an insert and a card story (in most cases).

The UK sometimes won at Eurovision. But usually it was Ireland.

The USSR was still extant, so was Yugoslavia, and the Berlin wall was still up. My childhood Atlas (actually 1990) shows a ton of countries and borders which within a very short time disappeared. The world changed significantly in the early 1990s.

The UK was also governed by its first and only ever female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. I am making no political comments on that

Phones were mostly attached to walls. Cordless phones were rare, new, and often huge. Most people didn't have computers. Some had games systems (but not us). Schools used to send their computers home with teachers over the holidays for security reasons, because of the expense involved in leaving them in the school building. My Dad often had to take custody of one of the school computers when he was teaching, over the break.

Smoking was still legal on trains, and they had smoking sections. British Rail ruled the rail routes and public transport was genuinely public, rather than privatised companies. I used to think Coventry was in London because we only went through it when going to visit my grandfather in London xD. They even sent Intercity trains up to North Wales, which never happens now. There was also a lot of excitement about the 125mph trains (I think that was late 1980s, maybe early 1990s).

[Hervoyel]

The big thing that I always think of is the international travel: Crossing the Canadian/US border was less serious in the 80s - you didn't even need a passport most of the time unless you had an obviously non-North American accent.  And on the flip side, the border crossings in pre-EU Western Europe were taken more seriously (my dad worked in Switzerland for a few years in the mid-80s, and when we used to drive up to Belgium for family events there was this one crossing into France where the guards used to regularly ask ridiculous questions).

This is probably silly, but in Canadian Girl Guides in the 80s there used to be a pledge to "God, the Queen and my country" - I was looking at my niece's handbook recently and now they have one that's about being true to yourself instead. I suppose the old one does sound very pseudo-military when you think about it!

Oh, also anime was unknown.   I think the first time anime entered into the American consciousness was when Pokemon was dubbed, which was the 90s I think?

Astro Boy wasn't shown in the US? It was definitely on TV in Canada in the 80s.

[LadyMoondancer]

Oh, another thing was that most restaurants allowed smoking.  They had a "smoking" section and a "non-smoking" section, but of course the smoke wafted over to the non-smoking section because the two weren't walled off.  IIRC, cigarette vending machines were still around in the 80s too.

The War on Drugs was going strong and we had to sit through D.A.R.E. programs ("to keep kids off drugs!") in school.  But the stoner kids loved to wear the D.A.R.E. t-shirts for the irony.

There were a lot more station wagons around in the 80s, or so it seemed.  My parents had a white one, and later a maroon one.  The maroon one also had a terrible maroon interior that heated up in the summer.  I remember the vinyl seats would burn my bare skin if I was wearing shorts.

Both station wagons had three rows of seats: front seats, back seats, and very-back seats that folded up.  I much prefered the white station wagon's very-back seats because they faced backwards and I could stick my feet out the window.

[Skeen]

Some of these might be 90's but I was really young so I don't remember years.

I remember back when we had to rent the VCR to go with the rented videos, and you had to give them your driver's license number.  To this day I know my mother's number, lol! 

You were either Nintendo or Sega and you defended your choice to the death.  Even if the kid you were fighting was bigger than you. 

Saturday morning cartoons weren't a privilege, they were a right!

Toy R Us was a magical, mystical place that you occasionally got to go to, if you were good.  It wasn't a place for you to waste some time in.

McDonald's was a treat only and not a usual weeknight meal. 

Chuck E. Cheese/Showbiz Pizza was THE BOMB.  You were the cool kid at school if you had a party there.

McDonald's toys were really cool.  Does anyone else remember the transforming food toys?  Like, the hotcakes toy was a pterodactyl or something?  Geez, I want a set of those like burning even now.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Pee Wee's Playhouse warped a generation.

Super Mario Brothers Super Show!  Friday was Zelda Day! 

Smoking was legal practically everywhere.  The office I work at now was smoker-friendly until the 90's, and then they replaced all the carpets/cubes/wallpaper to get rid of the stink. 

[LadyMoondancer]

YES.  I had the transforming double-cheeseburger!

The GameBoy was the first handheld (popular) console . . . and the graphics were all monochrome.  I spent hours playing Zelda and Tetris on it.  I had kind of a love-hate relationship with Tetris because it was so boring, yet so addictive.

At the very end of the 80s The Simpsons debuted and all the parents hated it because it was going to corrupt the youth.

[Pokeyonekenobie]

Toy R Us was a magical, mystical place that you occasionally got to go to, if you were good.  It wasn't a place for you to waste some time in.

Anybody remember when Nickelodeon would do contests for kids to win a chance to run through Toys R Us and fill as many shopping carts with stuff as they could?  I always thought those must be rigged because nobody you knew ever won.  (It was kind of like that Supermarket Sweep game show, except with toys.)

[Tak]

Bad hair, great comedy, the rise of rap, and a whole lot of awesome people born.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

Toy R Us was a magical, mystical place that you occasionally got to go to, if you were good.  It wasn't a place for you to waste some time in.

Anybody remember when Nickelodeon would do contests for kids to win a chance to run through Toys R Us and fill as many shopping carts with stuff as they could?  I always thought those must be rigged because nobody you knew ever won.  (It was kind of like that Supermarket Sweep game show, except with toys.)

I remember... it was like an Ultimate Prize Package on Kids Incorporated or something... 

[Tak]

How about getting slimed on Nickelodeon... ew.

[Ponyfan]

Toy R Us was a magical, mystical place that you occasionally got to go to, if you were good.  It wasn't a place for you to waste some time in.

Anybody remember when Nickelodeon would do contests for kids to win a chance to run through Toys R Us and fill as many shopping carts with stuff as they could?  I always thought those must be rigged because nobody you knew ever won.  (It was kind of like that Supermarket Sweep game show, except with toys.)

I remember... it was like an Ultimate Prize Package on Kids Incorporated or something... 

I remember the Toys R Us contests too and so many other things that others have mentioned included the transforming McDonald's food Happy Meal toys, Coleco Vison and Atari, the old cartoons  and shows Nickelodeon used to run like David the Gnome, the Little Prince, etc... I also remember when it was a big deal to rent a movie from the video/grocery store and if you could afford a VCR and also afford to buy a tape for your home that was also a big thing. I also remember watching Muppet Babies on Saturday mornings and getting up early to watch cartoons.

One thing I don't thin anyone has mentioned yet was the Read-a-long books were pretty popular during the 80's. It was basically a short book and a tape that read you the story (complete with different voices, sound effects and usually a song ) I had  a lot of those.


Ponyfan