What Do You Miss Most About The 1980's ?

[THUNDER HANDS]

Poll question: What Do You Miss Most About The 1980's ?

Ah, the 1980's - my tender growing-up years. Ages 2-12 for me.

I know what I miss, how about you?

The music - synth pop, bombastic rock, Michael Jackson, ect.

The movies - Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's Fire, any teen movie.

The clothes - tight jeans, day-glo socks, scrunched up jackets.

The hairstyles - Big, teased hair, mullets, big bangs.

The tv shows - Facts of Life, Family Ties, Diff'rent Strokes.

The good sports teams - Celtics, Reds, 49ers, Islanders, Oilers.

Video games - Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Asteroid.

[Cush]

1. Cartoons

80's cartoons rocked.

[7th_Sephiroth]

9. hellz yeah

transformers, G.I. Joe, an some of the first anime to hit the airwaves.

[Deja Q]

28. They rocked when I was 12 at the time.

Looking back, the Smurfs would do better than castor oil for inducing vomiting, ESPECIALLY the later episodes when they added 4 smurf children...

Garfield hasn't aged well either. :cry:

I do want to check out the Transformers again, though I knew at the time the "Go-Bots" were complete crap. But Tranformers before they added new characters and different scenarios. They were the original Power Rangers. Once interest began to wane, they'd change the whole freakin' series...

But Thundercats and He-Man were just downright awful!

[Nikia]

73. Yep

The eighties were the height of my cartoon watching years as I am the same age as MagicRat. I've seen carttons now and they just aren't as good. Children of my friend enjoy watching 80's cartoons on the cartoon network.

[goobergunch]

2. I was 0-3 years old.... (n/t)

[leftist_rebel1569]

3. 0-2 here

n/t

[THUNDER HANDS]

5. wow

Now I feel old. And I'm usually the one making other people feel old.

*sigh*

[JohnKleeb]

66. yeah I am in between those two

Younger than Goob but older than Lefty. What I miss most about the 80's? :evilgrin: being the only child of course. Aye those were the days.

[SmileyBoy]

19. I was 0 to 8 years old.

Well, technically 7 1/2.

[short bus president]

4. black Michael Jackson

and Prince, before he became "the artist now known as Prince who was formerly known as Prince, also, but in the intervening years was known as the artist formerly known as Prince."

[LouKYDem]

14. Not to forget

His days as The Artist Formerly Known as..., The Artist, and that symbol that was his name for a while... those were the days! Now he is going door to door trying to convert people to Jehovah's Witnesses!

[Feanorcurufinwe]

6. Dead tour WITH Jerry Garcia

[11 Bravo]

7. I had never even heard of George W. Bush.

n/t

[eauclaireliberal]

8. Cheap hairspray

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

10. Ah, yes, the 80's the height of the War on some Drugs

I was there, deep in the trenches. The last decade where you had to worry about anyone being able to watch anything you did, said, or went.
PC's were hobbists toys, and 5meg HD's cost over 1k$. Over that decade I went from an TRS-80, to an Osborne1, to an IBM-XT skipping 286, a 386-16 and of course the powerhouse of 1989 or so, the mighty 386-40 with 32meg RAM and a huge 20meg HD.

What simps we were.

[Philostopher]

11. I'll make y'all feel young again, especially you, Magic Rat.

I got my driver's license in 1980. I don't miss a goddamned thing about the '80s. The worst of it is back -- rising interest rates, high unemployment, inflated fuel prices, religious wingnuts setting the tone for the dialogue in society ... the only thing I miss about the '80s is being in my twenties.

[sistersofmercy]

12. Music but not the rosy stuff ...

Violent Femmes, the Smiths, Dead Kennedys, of course, Sisters of Mercy, etc.

[MrsMatt]

37. Amen to that

Although I do have some fond memories of the MTV video "Fish Heads" as well. "Fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads, fish heads, fish heads, eat them up, yum"

[DBoon]

98. Missed post-punk music

X, The Minutemen, Wall of Voodoo, Birthday Party, Einsturzende Neubaten, Test Department, Savage Republic, Suicidal Tendencies...

And the Los Angeles clubs:
Club Lingerie, Anti-Club, Lhasa Club, Music Machine, Al's Bar

[Sean Reynolds]

13. Ronald Reagan.

A truly great leader.

[SmileyBoy]

16. Riiiiiight. We know where you stand, Sean.

;-)

[sistersofmercy]

17. Huh?

[youngred]

31. It's Sarcasm

;-)

[sistersofmercy]

34. That's...

what I thought!;)

[SmileyBoy]

15. Born in 1982, but I remember enough of the 80's to want to forget it.

Thank GOD I spent a majority of my pre-18 years in the 1990's.

[MaidinVermont]

18. I miss my best friend the most

God rest his soul.

[sistersofmercy]

21. I'm sorry for your loss.

[LuLu550]

22. sorry

It is hard thinking about certain times in our lives if there is someone missing. I'm sorry.

[LuLu550]

20. I miss my toddler

he was so sweet...I called him my "little pal." We had so much fun together and I understood how deep a mother's love could be. I miss him so much...
cuz now he is 20, in college, spends my money like it is going out of style, goes "off-roading" in a vehicle that is newer and better than mine, drinks, smokes pot and has sex with all kinds of girls.
I wish he was "my little pal" again...cuz now all I want to do is strangle him! hahaha! :evilgrin:

[kcwayne]

23. It was the beginning of the end of freedom in America

what's to miss about that?

First we got tired of LSD, then we tired of Disco, so then we turned to Ronald Reagan? Ugh. It was the start of a culture in which no crime, no moral outrage, no hideous expression of racism, and no retraction of freedoms are considered a problem as long as a conservative is attached to it.

How ironic that the President that ushered in the start of the 80's (Carter) is one of the most visible participants in global efforts to help those in need, and the other (Reagan) is a vegetable. Of course Reagan was a vegetable when he was in office too. To me, it is symbolic of the huge difference between the eras.

[Speck Tater]

24. Anything I might have missed about the eighties...

... I kept so I can go right on enjoying it now.

Now ask me what I mist about the forties. ;)

(edit typo)

[sistersofmercy]

30. Ha Ha!

What dd you miss about the forties? ;)

[youngred]

25. The Cartoons and TOYS

The Smurfs
Rainbrow Bright
Bright Lite
The Gummi Bears
Seasame Street and Mr Rogers (ok longer than the 80s but good years there)
Rubik's Cube
mario brothers

Good Stuff!

Ok so I was in second grade when they ended sue me.

Everything else frum the 80's...well... :shudder:

[SmileyBoy]

42. Hey, you're my age!!!

The last sub-generation to grow up without Barney as little kids.

[youngred]

56. For which I thank the lucky stars

Just say no to Barney

Ridiculous DARE programs in school

[joeybee12]

26. Don't miss anything--sorry

Reagan, Dumbo's Daddy. That wipes out anything good.

Disco had died--very sad.

[jus_the_facts]

27. voted for the clothes...but could vote for the music and hairstyles too...

.....which were ALL better than the crappy that's come since!!:)

[arcane1]

29. when MTV was brand-new

and legit

[LuLu550]

32. yeah

It actually had music videos on!

[jus_the_facts]

33. Yeah Man.....sure did loved Headbanger's Ball.....

...but even the earlier years kicked ass too...I was an addict....had a library of videos at one time all HEAVY METAL o'course!! :evilgrin:

[Spirochete]

35. Being Younger

That's about it.

[jafap]

64. that's the main thing

along with having my dad paying my bills for half of the decade.
But there is more to miss than that.
In the 1980s there was no Clear Channel, no Rush Limbaugh, and no Fox news.
For me, the music and the movies are certainly not gone since they are all on CDs and DVDs.
I think I liked the fashion better then without all the tatoos and body piercings of today. Also I feel like today's hairstyles are in the 1950s - buzz cuts, even on women. Also, I think tiny glasses look stupid.

[Whitacre D_WI]

36. Voodoo Economics...

Uh... no, wait... there it is.

[scarlet_owl]

38. Back then, MTV actually played music.

I also miss old Nickelodeon kids shows, like "You Can't Do That on Television". That's about it. I'm glad the eighties are over. On Edit: other posters brought up the above fact. I should read before I post. My bad.

[NoPasaran]

39. Not a thing

Morning in America? It all sucked.

[Kat45]

40. Hanging out in the rock scene in the hair metal days...

Such a great time! And never seen as many gorgeous men in my life as I did back then. :D

[ScreamingMeemie]

41. 10 to 19 for me...I guess I would say it was the irresponsibility of

youth. Spending my paychecks on concert tickets (cheap trick) and being free and unencumbered...ahhhh sweet youth.

[NightTrain]

43. The '80s sucked!

On January 1, 1980, I was 13 years old. The Iranians were holding dozens of American citizens hostage. Later that winter, President Carter ordered a rescue mission, which failed because of a sandstorm.

The GOP--and, more specifically, Ronald Reagan--used the Iranian hostage crisis to great advantage, so much so that the Gipper defeated Carter in a landslide that November. The writing was on the wall: the '80s were going to be a rotten decade. And so they were!

Anyone--younger folks in particular--who either has fond memories or romantic illusions about the 1980s should read Paul Slansky's book, THE CLOTHES HAVE NO EMPEROR: A CHRONICLE OF THE AMERICAN '80s. It will quickly cure you of your misguided romanticism and nostalgia!

[Seneca]

65. one of the greatest books ever

I treasure my copy like gold. It is long out of print now. But damn, is it the best summation of just how dumb this country was becoming. The entire celebrity superficial voyeur culture was coming of age. We live with its rotten fruit now.

For heavier reading, but still highly readable and accessible, I highly recommend Haynes Johnson's "Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years".

[Cat Atomic]

44. The Chile Peppers didn't annoy me in the 80's.

I miss that feeling of not being annoyed by the Chili Peppers.

Apart from that... not much.

[ACK]

45. Duh people!!! I miss a Democratic congress! Tip O' fuckin' Neil

This is the problem with many Dems. Too damn focused on the white house. Till we take back the Congress we are screwed to the wall by the numbnut repukes. They keep any Dem Prez hung up for years with useless investigations while still ramming shit laws through. Even better the repukes get to point and say how ineffective a Dem Prez is.

The Congress is at least as important as the Presidency. The only thing that prevented Reagan and his cronies from being even worse than the shrub was the strong Dems in Congress. Remember the investigations? Remember Iran/Contra? He was just as bad as Bushie but did not have the wiggle room of a Repub Congress.

[ACK]

46. Postpunk -- Husker Du, the Replacements, Firehose and the Minutemen

Come on, that was good shit.

[Raenelle]

47. Niners, and just about nothing else.

[no_arbusto]

48. The 80's?

"The clothes - tight jeans, day-glo socks, scrunched up jackets.

The hairstyles - Big, teased hair, mullets, big bangs."

That sounds like the parking lot before a Steelers game now!!!! I could point you in the direction of a couple of bars as well; in case you're feeling nostalgic!

[Ilsa]

49. I miss being twenty-something.

Don't miss much of anything else. Don't miss Reagan or Bush, high interest rates, bank failures, mullets.

Awww yes, Celtics.

[ACK]

50. Ok the 40 watt club in Athens and this...

Watching the Killkeney Kats and the BBQ killers
sitting back with the short black hair
soon to be goth
Spiked hair soon to be punk again
and of course that the kids forget
where 90's came
There in the late eighties where
Mike Watt born out of a Thunder Broom
birthed a Flea
We slam danced not moshed and
we wored flannel and combat boots
not Docs.
and nobody cares
they don't remember the Husker Du
and flyin' the flannel
just the parachute pants
and the big hair that was
redneck even back then
They don't remember the real
new wave just the shit from
the radio set.
U2 and REM are just those old
guys still making albums like
the Stones in the eighties
were to us.
Yeah I got online on a 900 baud
modem hooked to a Atari 800
programming in BASIC
10 PRINT "HOME SWEET HOME"
20 GOTO 10
blah..blah..blah.

And somewhere out there
my image of myself lies
out in the eighties of the guy
in 1989
with blue jeans and worn flannels and
black ripped t-shirts combat boots and
old red chucks ... smoking a cig ...
listening to the SST sets
sitting around the other
tapping my feet.

[mitchum]

54. I left the 40 Watt twenty minutes ago

(cue spooky music)

[cosmicdot]

51. Peoples Express cheap fares to London

all aboard the cattle car

it was more of a fleeting moment

[dofus]

52. I still had brown hair then.

Now it's silver gray if I don't dye it.

[Redneck Socialist]

53. Seeing the Red Sox in the World Series.

Crap.

[hooligan]

55. Not a damn thing

What a crappy decade: Ronald Reagan, cold war, nuke paranoia, AIDS paranoia, yuppies, Alex P. Keaton, greed is good, just say no, baby on board, big hair, mullets, bad clothes, leg warmers, we are the world, you look mahvelous, cabbage patch dolls...

I feel cursed to have grown up in the 80s.

[bluestateguy]

57. Given the idiocy of our current White House occupant,

even Reagan would be an improvement.

[Zero Gravitas]

81. True

I never thought I would have preferd to have reagan as a President. The 80s sucked. I was very happy on Jan 1 1990 for that crappy decade to be over.

[Fuzz]

58. My youth

[populistmom]

59. Options! nt

[soleft]

60. I miss the Yankees sucking

cause I didn't have to listen to so many malcontents whining.

[xJlM]

61. Stevie Ray Vaughn

He died in September of 1990, just when his album Family Style with his brother Jimmy was starting to get some airplay. Last artist I ever listened to the radio for. I'll listen to classic rock stations now, but to hell with the new music coming out. I'll turn it to an old country station first.

[baby_bear]

62. casual sex

seemed pretty neat at the time.

s_m

[eauclaireliberal]

76. Oh yeah-I forgot about that one...

The gals I went to school with sure seemed kinda open about it...at least that was MY impression about it.

*GRINNING*

[SOteric]

63. My innocence and idealism.

[Clete]

67. Nothing absolutely nothing.

I don't even remember them other than the fact I aged ten years. That's how dreary they were to me.

[TrogL]

68. Wife swapping

[SPICYHOT]

69. i was a very shy teenager

and the music that i liked of that time was the metal that were coming from the late 70's. iron maiden AC/DC.. then at 80's appears all this pop music that made me so ungry, that i didn't like the music of that time, but the video games were very nice! pacman still kicks ass!
:thumbsup:

[boilerbabe]

70. I was 19-29... had the big hair!! n/t

[rucky]

71. Space Invaders...

Pac-Man
Centipede
Defender
Dig-Dug

Atari 2600

[Hubert Flottz]

72. Ronnie Reagan Cheese!

Bush is too cheap to give the cheeze away! I guess Kenny Boy sold it all!

[emad]

74. The 6am dope busts....

The police raided our goddawful noisy quarrelsome disgusting neighbours - whose dog always shat in the all the neighbouring carports - in a drugs bust and found a whole lot of ammo and terrorist literature and did them for being members of the IRA!

Those were the days! Now all we get is Neighbourhood Watch and West Hampstead Good Neighbours Scheme - neither of which does anything about the local crack dealers or the IRA terrorists masquerading as upright North London citizens...

[It was not a pretzel]

75. Childhood & youth

I know it's a cliche but it really is the best time of your life.

[Dead_Parrot]

77. The music...

...I'm still wearing the clothes and the hairstyle. :smoke:

[WoodrowFan]

78. MTV had groups I had heard of! (nt)

[LTR]

79. My hair (nm)

[trogdor]

80. The 80's sucked.

The music - MTV and the death of rock. Pling, pling, pling tinny musak masquerading as pop. Michael Jackson. No thanks.

The movies - Come on. I can spot an '80's movie a mile away, and it's not a good thing. Most of them were big-screen versions of Miami Vice.

The clothes - Most '80's fashion was a violent reaction to godawful '70's fashion. I can't decide which was worse - leisure suits and platform shoes, or skinny leather ties.

The hairstyles - Men. Big hair. Ugh.

The tv shows - Facts of Life, Family Ties, Diff'rent Strokes. These were good shows? :puke:

The good sports teams - Who had time to watch sports?

Video games - Quaint quarter-eaters. If that's the legacy of the '80's, then I'm glad that was over 13 years ago.

[RogueTrooper]

82. Voted for the TV

Oh yes, Oh yes.

[Love Bug]

83. My youth!

[MrBenchley]

84. Not a fucking thing...

One of the lowest points in American history....having a brain-dead piece of shit like Reagan put a wreath on SS graves at Bitburg and then publicly lie about it.

Another low point...invading the tiny Carribbean country of Grenada (which did not have a standing army) to divert public attention from 270 Marines killed in Lebanon (by folks Reagan was secretly selling arms to)...then having the media crow about "victory" as if we had just won World War 2.

[commander bunnypants]

85. Big Hair

DDQM

[Spider Jerusalem]

86. Fuck the '80's...

The '80's were, overall, a decade of suck. The lingering threat of mutual assured destruction, totally fucked economy complete with massive layoffs and plant closings, constant military adventurism, popular culture taken over by brainless feel-good movies and no-talent pop singers...the '80's were sort of like today.

I miss the NINETIES.

[kmla]

87. What do I miss about the 80's most?

My hair.

What I don't miss -

Members Only jackets
parachute pants
Laura Branigan
Reaganomics
Iran-Contra.

[TXlib]

88. How can you miss 80s music if it won't go away?

Doesn't every city have at least one 80s radio station?

[mr blur]

89. Nothing

It was the greediest, most self-indulgent, nastiest, taste-free decade I 've lived through. Crap music, appalling politics, yuppies, lousy people, threat of Reagan and Thatcher deciding to wipe out Russia (and thus the rest of us) ar any moment. "Greed Is Good" just about sums it up.

[RetroLounge]

90. I miss the anonymous sex without fear of dying

oh, yeah, and the rampant drug use...

The music was pretty good too.

on edit: I was 19 yrs old in 1980, so I got to experience the best of the era at an age that I could enjoy it...

on edit again: on second thought, I *was* nearly dead by 1990.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

91. The Soviet Union.We were a lot safer when we all risked being annihilated

[Aristus]

92. Believe it or not, I miss the clothes.

Back then, the preppie look could be seen everywhere in the schools. Sweater vests, neckties, Bass Weejuns. Smooth. Lot of people took pride in their appearance. In the '90's, everyone was trying to look like a gangsta rapper. What looks good on Flavor Flav and LL Cool J doesn't necessarily look good on an attitudinal white boy from the 'burbs. Everyone looked so skanky. Say what you will about the '80's fashions. At least they were fashions, instead of rags.

*old fuddy-duddy rant in honor of my 35th birthday.*

[ForrestGump]

93. Of the choices you posted

it would be the movies - some great movies made during the '80s, including some of my all-time favorites. And, no, I'm not talking about all those cookie-cutter teen movies, though some were good.

But what I miss most about the '80s is perhaps not so much the world as it was - we're talking Reagan-Thatcher here, after all - but as it looked and seemed through my mid-teen to mid-20s eyes. If I could go back to the '80s there'd be a couple of branches in my personal highway through life that I might forsake in favor of trying other directions.

[LynneSin]

94. The Reds were good in the 80's but that was the 70's when they dominated

Not sure where you got your information from but the Reds made nary a playoff appearance in the 1980's.

:shrug:

[DoNotRefill]

95. Reagan...

I had this SUPER T-shirt, of Reagan at the press conference where he stuck his fingers in his ears and made a "Moose-head" kind of thing. It had been photoshopped so that he had a spiked mohawk, and lots of makeup and pretty earrings.

He was so much fun to make fun of....

[alwynsw]

96. Absolutely NOTHING

Tom and Jerry and THE pink Panther started talking - SACRILEGE!!!
Xerographycontinued the trend started by the creators (or xerographers) of Scooby Doo and made virtually ALL cartoons even worse. Anime invaded, the most horrific slap in the face true animation I've witnessed.


....and WHATINTHEHECK is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle??? Give me talking animals any day. Next thing, we'll be eating Daffy with a ginger glaze in a Youghio (sp?) episode.

Give me 6-36 hand drawn frames per second, please.

[Jonte_1979]

97. I miss my childhood

Playing with my "Masters of the Universe" and "Transformers".:(

[cepsi86]

99. what i miss most

my virginity... lol

[CBHagman]

100. Only the music, plus...

...the traveling I did.

I do not miss most aspects of the 1980s, because they were horrible: Reaganomics, hijackings, kidnappings in Lebanon, war in Central America, etc.