Like Totally 80s

What Happened in 1989?

In many ways, 1989 provided the perfect bookend to this decade that saw so much change. It continued the social, political and technological changes that mark the 1980s. The Berlin Wall came down, the first GPS satellite was put into orbit, and the first black governor in the US was elected. Progress indeed. On the darker side, we suffered through Hurricane Hugo, the Tiananmen Square massacre, and the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The music charts were dominated by the likes of Paula Abdul, Richard Marx and Milli Vanilli, each with more than one #1 hit that year. 1989 is the year that brought us “Christmas Vacation,” which if nothing else happened all year would be enough. The big screen was crowded with sequels with new iterations of Lethal Weapon, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, and Karate Kid. The Simpsons made it to the small screen for the first time (and are still going strong) and Daniel Radcliffe was born.

In the words of Bill and Ted, it was “most excellent.”



Jump directly to your area of interest using these links:

History & Politics  .  Music  .  Television  .  Movies  .  Sports  .  People Who Died  .  People Who Were Born
Back to 80s Time Capsules

 


History & Politics

Back to Top  .  Back to 80s Capsules

 


Music

Back to Top  .  Back to 80s Capsules

 


Television

The Simpsons [cartoon]
The Simpsons are very politically incorrect family who live in Springfield. Homer works with pride in a nuclear power plant run with more regard for profit that safety. His wife, Marge, is a kind of supermom. Bart, the oldest of the Simpson kids, is an underachiever and prancster “and proud of it.” Lisa, the middle child, is serious, responsible and the genius of the bunch. Maggie, the baby, can’t talk yet. Together the Simpsons (and other members of the town) get themselves into some crazy adventures.

Saved by the Bell
Starring: Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Mario Lopez, Dustin Diamond, Tiffani Thiessen, Lark Voorhies, & Elizabeth Berkley
Zach Morris is the cool, preppy trouble maker. A.C. Slater is the kind hearted jock. Screech Powers is the smart and funny nerd. Kelly Kapowski is the teen dream with whom Zach is obsessed. Lisa Turtle is the gossiping fashion lover. Jessie Spano is the femenine straight A student. Together they get into mis-adventures at Bayside High School.

Baywatch
Starring: David Hasselhoff
This series follows the adventures of a team of lifeguards on a crowded resort beach. Veteran lifeguard Mitch Buchannon watches over the younger lifeguards as they keep the beaches safe for vacationers. Frequently he must take action to save them from the raging seas and from the raging tempers that sometimes flare up between the young guards in this stressful job.

Family Matters
Starring: Reginald VelJohnson, JoMarie Payton, Kellie Shanygne Williams, Darius McCrary, & Jaleel White
The Winslow family is a pretty normal family except for one thing, their neighbor Stephen Urkel. A genius and klutz, Steve makes some really weird inventions while driving the Winslow’s insane.

American Gladiators
Two teams (one male, one female) compete in games of physical strength against the “Gladiators” – very athletic body builders who attempt to halt the contestants from scoring points in any of the competitions. Events include, The Assault, Joust, The Wall, Breakthrough and Conquer, Hang Tough, Powerball, and many others, all culminating in the final event, “The Eliminator”, a difficult obstacle course race.

MTV Unplugged
In this concert series, major pop music talents play their biggest hits without the benefit of electronic instruments and use only basic acoustic ones. This often produces a dramatically different sound for their songs as they are performed.

Quantum Leap
Starring: Scott Bakula & Dean Stockwell
Doctor Sam Beckett led a group of top scientists into the desert to research his theory that a man could time travel within his own lifetime. Unfortunately, in order to save his funding, he was forced to enter the accelerator prematurely and vanished. He awoke to find himself in someone else’s body with partial amnesia. Sam’s only contact from home is Al, who appears as a holographic image only he can see and hear. Setting right things which once went wrong, Sam leaps from life to life, hoping each time that this is the final leap home.

Tales from the Crypt
Tales of horror based on the gloriously gruesome EC horror comics of the 1950’s, hosted by an animatronic skeleton called The Crypt Keeper.

Coach
Starring: Craig T. Nelson, Jerry Van Dyke, Shelley Fabares, & Bill Fagerbakke
Hayden Fox, head coach of a university football team, eats, sleeps and lives football. His partner Christine, however, does not share his passion for the sport, which frequently causes friction in their relationship. While Hayden often fits the stereotype of dumb jock (as do his co-workers Luther and Dauber), he sincerely cares about his friends and family, and tries his best to make things work out.

Alien Nation
Starring: Gary Graham & Eric Pierpoint
A flying saucer crashed in the Mojave Desert and its inhabitants turned out to be alien slaves, bred to be super intelligent, strong, and controllable by their Overseers. These Tenctonese, or “Newcomers”, have been assimilated (sort of) into the population of Los Angeles. One of them, George Francisco, is a police detective with a human partner, Matthew Sikes. George and Matt fight crime together, while learning to respect the other’s culture, and question his own. They also fight prejudice, as personified by the Purists, and fear, in the form of the unseen Overseers, who seek to regain control over their slaves.

The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! [cartoon]
Mario, his brother Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and her advisor Toad go from land to land try to save it from the sinister Bowser Koopa and his band of goombas, troopas, and other villians from the video game.

Back to Top  .  Back to 80s Capsules

 


Movies

Batman
Starring: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, & Kim Basinger
The Dark Knight of Gotham City begins his war on crime with his first major enemy being the clownishly homicidal Joker.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Starring: Harrison Ford & Sean Connery
When Dr. Henry Jones Sr. suddenly goes missing while pursuing the Holy Grail, eminent archaeologist Indiana Jones must follow in his father’s footsteps and stop the Nazis.

Lethal Weapon 2
Starring: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, & Joe Pesci
Riggs and Murtaugh are on the trail of South African diplomats who are using their immunity to engage in criminal activities.

Look Who’s Talking
Starring: Kirstie Alley, John Travolta, & the voice of Bruce Willis as Mikey
Mollie, a single mom, is searching for the perfect father for her new son, Mikey. Mikey, (unbeknownst to her) seems to have a better idea of the men she should date and who would make a good father figure! If only she could understand him.

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
Starring: Rick Moranis, Marcia Strassman, Matt Frewer, Thomas Wilson Brown, Jared Rushton, Amy O’Neil, Robert Oliveri, & Kristine Sutherland
Wayne Szalinski is a crazy scientist who invents a miniaturizing machine that is so powerful it only blows things up. When the kid next door hits a baseball through the window and it lands in the path of the machine’s laser, it begins working. While retrieving the baseball, the machine accidently shrinks Wayne’s two kids plus the two neighbor kids down to 1/4-inch tall. Not knowing what just happened, Wayne accidentally sweeps them up and puts them out with the garbage. Now the kids must travel through the thick grass back to the house, while braving giant bugs, sprinklers and a lawn mower.

Back to the Future Part II
Starring: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Tea Thompson, Thomas F. Wilson, Elisabeth Shue, & Jeffrey Weissman
Doc, Marty and Jennifer take the time-traveling DeLorean into the year 2015 to straighten out the future of the McFly family. Unfortunately, Biff Tannen steals the time machine and gives his younger self a book containing 50 years of sports statistics, which the young Biff uses to amass an enormous gambling fortune and transform idyllic Hill Valley into a living hell. To restore the present, Doc and Marty must return to the events of their previous adventure in 1955 and retrieve the book.

Ghostbusters II
Starring: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, & Annie Potts
Five years later, the Ghostbusters have been plagued by lawsuits and court orders, and their once-lucrative business is bankrupt. However, when Dana begins to have ghost problems again, the boys come out of retirement only to be promptly arrested. The Ghostbusters discover that New York is once again headed for supernatural doom, with a river of ectoplasmic slime bubbling beneath the city and an ancient sorcerer attempting to possess Dana’s baby and be born anew. Can the Ghostbusters quell the negative emotions feeding the otherworldly threat and stop the world from being slimed?

Driving Miss Daisy
Starring: Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman, & Dan Aykroyd
An old Jewish woman and her African-American chauffeur in the American South have a relationship that grows and improves over the years.

Parenthood
Starring: Steve Martin, Dianne Wiest, Dennis Dugan, Mary Steenburgen, Rick Moranis, Paul Linke, Jason Robards, Tom Hulce, Martha Plimptom, Keanu Reeves, & Joaquin Phoenix
The Buckmans are a midwestern family all dealing with their lives: estranged relatives, raising children, pressures of the job, and learning to be a good parent and spouse.

Dead Poets Society
Starring: Robin Williams, Ethan Hawke, & Robert Sean Leonard
English professor John Keating inspires his students to a love of poetry and to seize the day.

When Harry Met Sally . . .
Starring: Billy Crystal & Meg Ryan
Harry and Sally have known each other for years, and are very good friends, but they fear sex would ruin the friendship.

The War of the Roses
Starring: Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, & Danny DeVito
A married couple try everything to get each other to leave the house in a vicious divorce battle.

The Little Mermaid
Ariel, youngest daughter of King Triton, is dissatisfied with life in the sea. She longs to be with the humans above the surface, and is often caught in arguments with her father over those “barbaric fish-eaters”. She goes to meet Ursula, the Sea Witch, to strike a deal, but Ursula has bigger plans for this mermaid and her father.

Steel Magnolias
Starring: Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis, Julia Roberts, Tom Skerritt, Sam Shepard, & Dylan McDermott
In a small parish in modern-day Louisiana, a close-knit circle of friends’ lives come together at Truvy’s Beauty Parlor.

Christmas Vacation
Starring: Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Juliette Lewis, Johnny Galecki, Randy Quaid, & Miriam Flynn
The Griswold family’s plans for a big family Christmas predictably turn into a big disaster.

Turner & Hooch
Starring: Tom Hanks
A detective must adopt the dog of a dead man to help him find the murderer.
Born on the Fourth of July – Tom Cruise – The biography of Ron Kovic. Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.

Uncle Buck
Starring: John Candy, Jean Louisa Kelly, Gaby Hoffmann, Macaulay Culkin, Amy Madigan, & Laurie Metcalf
Bachelor and all round slob, Buck, babysits his brother’s rebellious teenage daughter and her cute younger brother and sister.

Field of Dreams
Starring: Kevin Costner, Ray Liotta, James Earl Jones, Amy Madigan, & Gaby Hoffmann
An Iowa corn farmer, hearing voices, interprets them as a command to build a baseball diamond in his fields; he does, and the Chicago Black Sox come.

Harlem Nights
Starring: Eddie Murphy & Richard Pryor
“Sugar” Ray is the owner of an illegal casino, who contend with the pressures of vicious gangster and corrupt policemen who want to see him go out of business. In the world of organized crime and police corruption in the 1920s, any dastardly trick is fair!

Pet Sematary
Starring: Dale Midkiff, Fred Gwynne, Denise Crosby, & Brad Breenquist
The Creed family has moved to a nice little community, but shortly after the move, their son is killed. Grief-stricken, the father learns of a cemetery where you can bury your loved ones and then they come back to life. He takes his son to this place, and the boy is revived. It seems all is well again until the son kills a person. That is when the father learns, “Not everything that comes back is the same.” Now, he has to find a way to stop his son before he kills the whole town.

The Abyss
Starring: Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, & Michael Biehn
A civilian diving team are enlisted to search for a lost nuclear submarine and face danger while encountering an alien aquatic species.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Walter Koenig, & Nichelle Nichols
Capt. Kirk and his crew must deal with Mr. Spock’s half brother who hijacks the Enterprise for an obsessive search for God.

Major League
Starring: Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Corbin Bernsen, James Gammon, Wesley snipes, Dennis Haysbert, Rene Russo, & Bob Uecker
The new owner of the Cleveland Indians puts together a purposely horrible team so they’ll lose and she can move the team. But when the plot is uncovered, they start winning just to spite her.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil
Starring: Richard Pryor & Gene Wilder
A man is murdered. Two men witness it. A blind man who hears the killer, and a deaf man who sees her. The police don’t think they’re credible witnesses, but the killers don’t want to take any chances. The two men must now work together to save themselves and bring the killers to justice.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, & George Carlin
Ted “Theodore” Logan and Bill S. Preston esquire won’t graduate if they don’t do well in their history presentation. This would be both bogus and uncool! A dude called Rufus comes from the future in a telephone box to help them, as their lives are apparently rather important to the future of mankind! They travel through time doing some interesting research for their history presentation, and generally being excellent to each other!

The ‘burbs
Starring: Tom Hanks, Carrie Fisher, Bruce Dern, Wendy Schaal, & Corey Feldman
An overstressed suburbanite and his paramilitaric neighbor struggle to prove their paranoid theory that the new family in town is a front for a cannibalistic cult.

License to Kill
Starring: Timothy Dalton, Carey Lowell, Robert Davi, Talisa Soto
James Bond leaves Her Majesty’s Secret Service to stop an evil drug lord and avenge his best friend, Felix Leiter.

Weekend at Bernie’s
Starring: Andrew McCarthy, Johnathan Silverman, & Terry Kiser
A pair of losers try to pretend that their murdered employer is really alive, but the murderer is out to “finish him off.”

Road House
Starring: Patrick Swayze & Sam Elliott
Dalton is the Cooler in bars; He backs up and directs the bouncers. He takes a job in a Road House that has gotten far too rough. His attempts to clean things up put him in conflict with Brad Wesley, the town bully and rich person. Things heat up.

The Dream Team
Starring: Michael Keaton, Christopher Lloyd, Peter Boyle, Stephen Furst, & Dennis Boutsikaris
Dr. Weitzman works with patients in a sanitarium. Convinced that all that his “group” needs is a some fresh air and some time away from the sanitarium, he pursuades the administration to allow him to take them to a ballgame. Unfortunately, he accidentally stumbles across a crime in progress and ends up in hospital. The group are stranded in New York City, forced to cope with a place which is often more bizarre than their sanitarium.

Do the Right Thing
Starring: Ossie Davis, Danny Aiello, Giancarlo Esposito, & Spike Lee
On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone’s hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.

All Dogs Go to Heaven
A dog returns from the dead looking for revenge on his killer using an orphan girl who can talk to animals.

Glory
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, & Cary Elwes
Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War’s first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.

Sex, Lies and Videotape
Starring: James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, & Laura San Giacomo
A sexually repressed woman’s husband is having an affair with her sister. The arrival of a visitor with a rather unusual fetish changes everything.

Lean on Me
Starring: Morgan Freeman
The dedicated, but tyrannical, Joe Clark is appointed as principal of a decaying inner city school and he is determined to improve it.

The Karate Kid Part III
Starring: Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita, Martin Kove, Thomas Ian Griffith, & Robyn Lively
Kreese, his life in tatters after his karate schools was defeated by Daniel and Mr Miyagi, visits Terry, a friend from Vietnam. Terry is a ruthless business man and a martial arts expert, and he vows to help Kresse take revenge on Daniel and Mr Miyagi.

Back to Top  .  Back to 80s Capsules

 


Sports

Back to Top  .  Back to 80s Capsules

 


People Who Died

Back to Top  .  Back to 80s Capsules

 


People Who Were Born

Back to Top  .  Back to 80s Capsules