The 80s Most Famous Feline – Garfield
Think of 80s icons that were so famous, so totally popular, that you know them by just one name. For instance: Madonna, Sting, and Bono. Now think of cartoon cats of the 80s who were so famous they went by just one name – I bet only one comes to mind: this guy here. Garfield was so insanely popular in the 1980s that it was rare to attend a sleepover party where one or all attendees were not accompanied by the fat, orange, big eyed...
Passion for Posters
Walk into any drug store or mall in the 80s (and we spent A LOT of time in malls), and you’d be sure to find one of these bad boys front and center, getting lots of traffic and attention. Remember, these were days before Pottery Barn began designing teenagers’ bedrooms. In the 80s, teen bedroom décor grew organically out of the tastes of the room’s owner. The walls served as a medium for self-expression—no fancy “themes” needed. My...
Interview with Keva Rosenfeld
We recently attended the opening night festivities at the Sidewalk Film Festival in Birmingham on August 22nd, which featured the screening of Keva Rosenfeld’s documentary, All American High Revisited. As an avid 80sophile, I expected to like the film. But, wow, that doesn’t begin to cover how much I loved the film, and I wasn’t alone. The Alabama Theater was packed to the gills with over 2,000 people, and each and every one of them...
The WWF in the 1980s: I Was a Teenage Hulkamaniac
By Lori Ferraro My interest in sports as a young girl was pretty low – I was more of an “indoor” kid. However . . . I do remember a few significant athletic events of the 1980s that got me pretty excited about sports. Like . . . The Chicago Bears peaked my interest in football with that “Superbowl Shuffle” song. Andre Agassi pulled me into the tennis world with his good looks and super sweet mullet. Rocky II and Rocky III made me a...
The 80s Underage Dance Club
Awesome Beats, Smoke Machines, Lip-synch Contests and Mocktails As I entered my teen years in the mid-80s, I was completely obsessed with the following: Boys Music Dancing Fashion Thinking about it, I guess Prince was onto something with DMSR. There was one place and one place only where each of these obsessions could truly be fulfilled – and that place was Faces Teen Night Club in Tampa, Florida. Faces was located in a strip mall by...
The Good, Green Stuff: Hi – C!
By Lori Ferraro In the summertime in the 80s there was one drink of choice that my brother and I drank by the giant tin can-full. With flavors like Cherry, Fruit Punch and my all-time favorite Ecto Cooler, we would come running in from a long day of bike riding with our friends to get a big glass of the good stuff. All hail Hi-C! We drank Hi-C morning, noon, and night . . . Orange in the morning with breakfast . . . Sometimes...
Here in My Car, I Feel Safest of All – 80s Cars
By Lori Ferraro I smile when I think back to my car I drove back in the 1980s; it was my first car, and the only car I’ve ever felt any sort of attachment to. It was brown. It was big. It was a bitchin’ Camaro. I named my first car “Frankie” after Dr. Frank-n-Furter in Rocky Horror Picture Show. You totally named your car too, right? Cars back in the 80s were either big and boxy or sleek and streamlined – my dad had a red convertible...
Musical Theatre Fever – 80s Style
By Lori Ferraro I was/am a musical theatre geek. When I was eight-years -old my mom took me to see Annie (starring Sarah Jessica Parker!) on Broadway and I was hooked from the get go. In high school I was in the drama club and was a thespian. In college I received my Bachelor of Arts degree with a very useful Theatre Arts major. If West Side Story or Funny Girl come on HBO I will always stop and watch them – even if it’s a work night...
What a Splash! Jean Nate’
By Lori Ferraro What’s black and yellow, huge and plastic, with a cap the size of a doorknob? Jean Nate’ after bath splash, of course! I would make excuses to take a shower in my parent’s bathroom, because my mom had a big bottle of the yellow stuff in there. I admired the beautiful women in the commercials who would splash handfuls of that yellow liquid on themselves. They looked so energized and enthused! And they did things like...
The Prom Theme Song
By Lori Ferraro Like many others who graduated high school in the 80s I cannot hear Forever Young by Alphaville without thinking of my senior prom. When I hear that opening, those space age-y chimes, that hollow voice and those dramatic lyrics: “Let’s dance in style, let’s dance for a while Heaven can wait, we’re only watching the skies Hoping for the best but expecting the worst Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?”...
Word Up – 80s Additions to the OED
By Lori Ferraro I was pleased the other day to hear my 8-year-old son come home from school and said that they had been using dictionaries in class – like with cursive handwriting, I wondered if the dictionary would be something of the past. Why look something up in a big ‘ol book when you could just look it up online? I’m pleased to say he’s learning both. I also learned last week through a friend that The Oxford English Dictionary...
Our Most Pinned Stories
Thank you to all our readers that care about the 80s enough to share our site on Pinterest! We love Pinterest too; keep on pinning and spreading the 80s love around. To help you out, we’ve rounded up a list of our most pinned stories from last week to help you find awesome 80s inspiration whether you are planning a party, looking for a costume, trying to find the perfect 80s flick for movie night, or just traveling down memory lane....
Scent of the 80s
By Lori Ferraro Like everything else in the 80s, perfume was also little overboard – at least on this teenage girl it was. Subtlety was not my middle name and a little of anything never seemed to be enough…my signature scent was no exception. Walk down the halls of any high school around 1987 and along with the overpowering manly stink of Polo and Drakkar on the guys you would find a sweet, musky mixture of these legendary...
A Love Letter to a Big Stinker: Polo Cologne
The other day while on my lunch break downtown, I got caught behind a man wearing a cloud of fragrance that sent me screaming back to the eighth grade. This man had apparently just bathed in a bathtub of Polo cologne, and I was hopelessly left in his wake. At first I coughed – and then I smiled, altering my route to follow him an extra block – no joke. There are few things in life as powerful as a sense memory, and smells rank...
8 Bitchin’ 80s Internet Memes
I can haz ‘80s? Indeed! Here are seven totally fun 80s-based memes. We consider all this Internet attention for our beloved 80s well deserved and proof positive that while we may be 30 years out from the decade that brought us mix tapes and neon, the 80s are still alive and kickin’. Which is your favorite meme? Did we miss a great one. If so, send it to us! #1 – How many chewed up mix tapes were brought back to life by number...
