Everything 80s

They were two legendary toy car companies that were a part of growing up for millions of kids. But behind the scenes, it was a cutthroat battle for our brand allegiance. Matchbox and Hot Wheels had been fighting it out since the late 1960s, and even though both brands went through tumultuous times in the 70s and into the 80s, the toys stayed strong and even grew in popularity. The die-cast toy car...

Unsolved Mysteries was one of the scariest TV shows in the 80s, especially if you were a younger viewer... But it was also one of the most-watched shows of the decade.  Its roots go back to the early 80s, and the show went through several iterations and hosts, including Perry Mason himself. But eventually came the host with one of the most distinctive voices in television history: Robert Stack. Yo...

It felt like a true golden age. An era that gave us multiple sports dynasties and individual athletes that seemed larger than life. The 1980s weren't just a historic era for the Big Four North American sports, but it led to some generational rivalries. Rivalries that included a changing of the guard in the NHL and NFL, and an on-court rivalry between the bad boys of the NBA and the future of the l...

It's been called the "Spotify of the 80s," and if you grew up back then, you know The Columbia House Record and Tape Club was not only your access to a vast world of music, but it also seemed too good to be true... Twelve albums for a penny? Who could resist? It turns out, not a lot, but little did we know that by sending that penny in, we were committing to a years-long fulfillment obligation. To...

Peter Cullen was not just the iconic voice of Optimus Prime on the Transformers, but was also a part of more 1980s cartoon shows than you may realize. Today we look back at the remarkable career of the man who became one of the defining voices for an entire generation. His work spanned an incredible six decades, including hundreds of animated characters. He also created sound effects for two of th...

The early 1980s were a golden age for video games. From iconic arcade games like Space Invaders and Pac-Man to the growth of home consoles like the Atari 2600, it felt like a magical time for kids and video game lovers. But all of that almost came to an abrupt end... In the early 80s, video games — specifically arcade games—had caught on so quickly and spread so far that many wondered whether it w...

A lot of us grew up in the 1980s with Flinstone vitamins. Or you may have had one of the many other kids' chewable vitamins endorsed by cartoon characters and other famous figures. This was a time when kids' health products, vitamin supplements, and some medicines had become indistinguishable from candy -- and that had created a lot of issues... Children overconsuming these great-tasting products...

Welcome to a free preview of the Everything 80s Movie Review Podcast that you can find at Patreon.com . This is a previous episode devoted to one of the defining movies of the entire 1980s: The Karate Kid. In this episode, we do a full plot recap, then look at what went into making this era-defining movie. That includes taking the direction of the original Rocky, but honing the themes to younger v...

Unbeknownst to us at the time, the three-year stretch from 1983 to 1986 may have been among the most dangerous years in human history. Cold War tension looked to be at its peak, but how close did the world actually come to nuclear war? It may have been a lot closer than we realized... With the Cold War reaching a fever pitch, along came a TV movie that terrified millions -- including President Ron...

If you grew up watching TV in the 80s, you only knew the 'Big Three' networks: ABC, NBC, and CBS. But in 1986 came something we hadn't seen in thirty years: a legitimate fourth network. Welcome to the final episode of a three-part mini-series that looks back on the rapidly changing world of television in the 1980s. In part three, we look at the creation and launch of Fox, a network that started fr...

People in the industry said it wouldn't even last six months... but somehow, CNN, a station devoted to the unorthodox concept of 24-hour news, not only survived, but changed the face of cable TV in the 80s. This is part 2 of a three-part mini-series looking back at the rapidly changing world of television in the 1980s. In this episode, we look at another huge risk by Ted Turner, and the technical...

Welcome to Part 1 of a three-part miniseries that looks back on the rapidly changing world of television in the 1980s. In part one, we look back on the groundbreaking moment when Ted Turner -- via satellite -- took his local Atlanta TV station to a nationwide audience. The rise and success of WTBS in the 80s would forever change the way we consumed television. By combining Atlanta Braves baseball...

In 1986, Halley's Comet made its famous once-in-a-lifetime return -- and revealed just how much progress had come since its last appearance in 1910. In this episode, we look back at Halley's Comet over the previous centuries, our new world of 1986, and how its return was bookended by two of the worst disasters of the 20th Century.  But, depending on your age back in 1986, Halley's Comet could actu...

To many, the summer of 1986 may have been peak 1980s. Because of the music, neon fashion, and a rapidly changing culture, this is when the 80s may have felt the most '80s.' Today, we look back on the era-defining movies, decade-defining music, fashion, and the peak of mall culture -- all of which were a huge part of the summer of '86. But this was also the time of some huge technological innovatio...

Take more than a hundred lions, tigers, and other unpredictable jungle cats, mix them in with an inexperienced movie crew, and you've got the makings for a disaster. Today, we look back on the movie Roar from 1981, a film that began with good intentions but, because of all these dangerous animals, became one of the most infamous movie productions of all time.  It's the movie where no animals were...

Was 1986 one of the biggest years for music ever? If it wasn't, it sure was close, as it's the year that gave us a defining heavy metal album, two defining hip-hop albums, a pop standout, and one of the last albums from a jazz legend. But there was so much more: two breakaway solo artists, two huge soundtracks, and the era-defining album that gave us two of the biggest songs of all time. 1986 had...

Before "Zelda" became a household name, it began as "Adventure Mario," a game that started out as giant sketches on long pieces of draft paper. But things quickly changed... This new video game would be nothing like Super Mario Bros. It would be a vast and seemingly limitless world. A world based around a legend, and a world filled with fantasy and adventure -- a world based on the childhood of it...

VHS and Beta weren't the only ones trying to capture our loyalty in the 1980s; the same thing was happening in the world of... bubblegum. Heading into the 80s, bubblegum -- an industry that didn't even really exist five years earlier -- turned into a full-on battleground. The target? Kids everywhere... But now, led by the Big Three bubblegum brands, variety stores everywhere were about to get fill...

Before the first ball was even kicked, World Cup '86 had faced a massive uphill battle. A change of venue, a struggling economy, and then a massive earthquake set to derail what was one of the most anticipated World Cups of all time. But World Cup 1986 eventually kicked off, and now, all eyes were on the greatest football in the world -- and specifically, Argentina and their phenom, Diego Maradona...

In this episode, we look at some notable Canadian events and people from the 1980s, but this show is all about the world of pop culture. And when it comes to 1980s pop culture, Canada contributed a lot more than you may realize. From the music, movies, TV shows, kids' shows, and massive celebrities, Canada was at the forefront of 1980s pop culture. From Saturday morning cartoons, chart topping son...

Not every kids' show from the 1980s could be an era-defining and long-lasting one. Some, for various reasons, just couldn't break through. But that doesn't mean they weren't any good. Today, we look back at ten live-action 1980s kids' shows that just weren't able to reach the heights of shows like Fraggle Rock or You Can't Do That on Television. Some of these shows may ring a bell, some may be bra...

From an experiment in the 1970s to a global phenomenon, the story of Nickelodeon is one that includes Walter Cronkite, satellites, and some simple hand puppets. But it was in the 1980s when the kids-only network really took off. With a new leader and a new direction, Nickelodeon would soon reach more homes than ever, all because of a low-budget sketch comedy show from Canada. A show that would mak...

In part one, we looked at the origins of stand-up comedy and its evolution through the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Then, as we head into the 1980s, some big things happen. A strike, mainstream exposure, and the rise of comedy clubs everywhere took the industry from smoky clubs to a major part of mainstream entertainment. Today, we look at several of the breakout comedians -- including a few controversial o...

From small, smoky nightclubs to prime time TV and Hollywood, stand-up comedy has gone through many iterations over more than a century. But it was in the 1980s when a true comedy boom took place. In part one of this two-part episode, we look back at the origins of stand-up comedy, going back to the days of Vaudeville, and then into the 50s and 60s when people like Jackie Gleason and Lucille Ball b...

Pac-Man was a solution to a major problem. That problem? The video game industry mainly attracted teenage males; no one else was really setting foot in arcades. Game designer Toru Iwatani believed he had created the right idea to change all that. Not only did he change the world of video games, but his creation ended up creating an absolute pop culture phenomenon. Pac-Man was such a hit when it fi...