As I wrote last night in Part 1 of my 80’s series about the phone and shopping in the 80’s, I’d like to continue our journey so grab my hand, show me the way, darlin….do you feel my heart beating (Bangals circa some year in the 80’s).
I Love the 80’s- Entertainment
Movies
Do you remember how we would have to find out what time the movie was playing? We had 3 ways:
- go to the theater and hope your arrival coincides with the movie you want to see.
- check the newspaper if you get it delivered and if your dad hasn’t thrown it out. Or, pedal to the gas station and pick up a paper just to see the movie times.
- call and endure the entire recording of times. Of course the one you would want to hear was the last one because it was the most popular. If everyone was calling you’d get a busy signal and the worst thing? When your times would come on but then someone is calling you and the call waiting beep, beeps out the movie time. You must now repeat the process.
80’s Television
Are you as amazed as I am that we can record (I almost said taped, not going to date myself) several programs at once then binge watch? Listen up youngins’, we had to put a VCR tape into the VCR and hit record. I can’t remember, could we set a timer to record if we weren’t home? Anyone? Bueller? We would amass tapes upon tapes, some labeled, some not so you had to pop it in the VCR and hit play to make sure you weren’t recording over your dad’s favorite show.
I think it was a pissing match for some families to show off their extensive VCR tape collection. I would walk into a friend’s den and gasp, looking at an entire wall of VCR tapes. And they weren’t recorded from Sunday night movies on NBC. No, the jacket were the real deal. Indiana Jones, The Money Pit, Alien….these were purchased at Blockbuster and should be displayed proudly.
I Love the 80’s- Research
Children born in the 90’s, would you like to see my Google growing up? Ok, here it is:
Yes, we had just a few options when working on a book report or wanting to learn more about a particular topic:
- the encyclopedias you may have at home. My mom bought ours from an end cap at the grocery store.
- you had to drive to the library and go through books that were potentially decades old to learn about the topic you were researching.
So there is my list! I will be creating a third and final installment but I haven’t decided the final topics. I’m open to suggestions!
If you leave out fashion and/or beauty, we can’t be friends. SIDE PONYTAILS! Sweet Jesus, what were we thinking? Jelly bracelets? Leg warmers!
Also: Strawberry Shortcake. Remember her? Nobody does, and it makes me sad. I begged my parents for the cereal, and then refused to eat it because it was disgusting, but continued to ask for it every time we went to the store. This is the story I tell people who think they want children; they never listen.
Consider it done! Fashion will be one of the 2 topics. I’ll even link to your blog since it was off your suggestion! And I totally remember Strawberry Shortcake! In fact, that is how my room was decorated as a child. My sister got the shaft though, she got Strawberry’s sidekick.
YAY! Someone else remembers! I’ve had to google her to prove she was real. That one and Rose Petal Place, which even fewer people remember, but I had all the dolls AND the car so I’ll never forget.
Was Rose Petal Place little houses made out of a gigantic flower? IDK. I vaguely remember that one.
And the flower princesses. Nowhere near as popular as it should have been… maybe they needed a vile cereal to complete the marketing campaign?
Do you remember She-ra or Jem?
OMG JEM!!!! I felt Jem, you know? She was so awesome and self-possessed and she had everything, but you still couldn’t bring her to a Barbie party because she was too big and it was awkward and I was the tall girl, never the teeny dainty one… It was like they made a doll just for me.
LOL!!! Love it! That’s so true!!
I had Strawberry Shortcake sheets!! I remember ??
Ok, I’m technically not an 80’s child (I was born in ’89), but THE MUSIC! And yes, the hair! When I was younger and didn’t know how to control my curly hair, I always wished I’d grown up in the 80’s so I could wear it big and curly like my mom did. And I rocked a side pony well into the 2000’s, just sayin’.
I once took a picture of Olivia Newton John in Grease (bad Sandy, not good Sandy) to the JC Penny salon and demanded they make my hair look like that. The result? A French poodle.
Omg yes!! Is there photographic evidence?!
No, I burnt it all up in my Easy Bake Oven.
Dammit! It probably took 6 hours to burn.
10 actually and I had to replace the light bulb once.
As a child of the 70s, the 80s was my jam 😉
We didn’t have a VCR that could be set to record; you had to sit and wait for the program to start, then hit record. If you wanted to be particularly flash, you’d pause it when then ads came on … thus creating a program with no ads … the envy of all your friends LOL.
OMG…I totally forgot about this ability. I just remember flipping out when it wouldn’t unpause thus causing us to miss a few minutes of the next segment.
Haha … yes that too!! But I was the bees knees for awhile, so that made up for it!
I was born in ’83, so I was only seven once the 90s hit, so I consider myself more of a 90s kid, but 100% of this post applies. I remember calling to see when the movie times were and it was EXCRUCIATING! Also, those encyclopedias! Those.exact.encyclopedias.
I hated it! Absolutely hated going through the recording. It was even worse if for some reason the movie theater employee was talking extremely fast or slurring their words or something. Can you imagine having to record that EVERY WEEK? No thank you!
Haha! Right?! And they were probably idiot teenagers making the recording ??
Ooo the kids I nanny for have a full encyclodeia Britannica at their house! 1st spent an entire evening giggling over the 17 page entry for “sex” lol!!
Have you done music? With taping songs off the radio and trying not to get the host talking at the end of it? Hehe
That’s a good one! I may have to do that! I totally did the same thing with our encyclopedias. Guess that makes it all the more scarier of what kids can find now online.
Again, I’m a 90s kid and remember the hassle of calling in for show times. I thought it was kind of fun though. Does that make me less cool…? And I remember having to do book reports in my early years of school using encyclopedias and then using Google soon after memorizing which alphabetical section was in which number encyclopedia book.
Also, my parents still have a vault of VHS tapes stashed away. It’s a nice mix of Disney movies and home videos that aren’t labeled.
Yes to all of this. And speaking of movies….I remember a time when we didn’t have a REMOTE CONTROL. You had to GET UP to change the channel. IN AMERICA.
For VCR tapes: Be Kind, Please Rewind. lol