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...
Summer with Snoopy – The Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine
By Lori Ferraro When I think back to summertime from my childhood in the 80s, there are a few key images that pop into my head: my bike with the yellow glitter banana seat, the sandbox in our backyard, my old school cassette player that I used to record songs off of the radio, and this: The Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine. You remember the jingle, don’t you? “You put an ice cubes in and get a sno-cone out, yum-yum fun is what it’s all about!”...
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...
The Original iPad – Invisible Ink Books
By Lori Ferraro When I was a little girl, and we were going on a loooong road trip to visit my grandparents in Rochester (a six hour drive), there were a handful of essentials that were must haves in the backseat of our car: My crocheted afghan that grandma had made me. My never-ending ribbon of cheese and crackers thanks to Kraft Handi-Snacks My Invisible Ink Game & Quiz Books! Who knew a book and a pen could lead to hours and...
Stuck on You – The 80s Sticker Album
By Lori Ferraro I’m thankful I managed to hang onto as many keepsakes from my childhood as I did – old diaries, cassette and VHS tapes and tons of photo albums all make me nostalgic and happy. But there’s one album I can’t believe I got rid of. My sticker album! In the 80s photo albums weren’t just for pictures of your friends and family, they were a safe place to display your collection of carefully selected rainbow,...
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...
Hungry Hungry Hippos Madness
There are certain commercial theme songs from the ‘80s that are permanently embedded in my brain – especially the ones revolving around food. Like whenever I know we are having chicken for dinner I silently sing the “I feel like Chicken Tonight” song. I still drink Crystal Light lemonade and you better believe that “I believe in Crystal Light ‘cuz I believe in ME!” plays when I’m mixing up a big pitcher of the yellow stuff. And when...
Round and Round ~ My Love of the Spirograph
By Lori Ferraro Who knew a box full of plastic circles could make a little kid so happy? Spirograph was the closest I ever got to doing well in math – put out by Hasbro it is a “geometric drawing toy that produces mathematical roulette curves.” Huh. I don’t know about that, but I do know that by spinning my colored pens around and around inside the circular guides, I was able to create the most intricate, artistic, beautiful designs....
The Ring’s the Thing: Waterful Ring Toss Game
By Lori Ferraro So many toys from the 80s that I loved so much…board games, (Trouble!, Trivial Pursuit) electronic games, (Speak & Spell, Merlin), and video games (anything you could play on the Atari), but there’s one game that stands out for its simplicity, its one-player challenge and for its use of water. The Waterful Ring-Toss by TOMY. I was obsessed with this game – can we even call it a game? More like a test of your...
Top 8 Retro Game Remakes
By Jake Rock Classic Frogger vs. Frogger: Hyper Arcade Edition Remakes of our favorite 80s movies and re-masters of our favorite 80s albums have been all the rage for quite some time. The videogame industry has noticed this trend and as a result many reboots of our favorite games have been released. So many, in fact, that it can be confusing for fans looking to get a nostalgic kick along with a new thrill. Don’t fret, I am here to...
The 80s Signoff
By Lori Ferraro Browse through the back pages of any autograph book or yearbook from the 80s and you will find a variety of letters, numbers, periods and slash marks that may not make much sense to you unless you were a teenage girl of the decade. See, you couldn’t just write “Love, Lori” after you signed someone’s yearbook telling them how much you’re going to miss them, to have a good summer, see you next year, etc. You had to use...
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?”...
Sea Wees
By Alli Denning Kenner first introduced the Sea Wee dolls in 1979, offering “Oceans of Fun.” But, it wasn’t until Christmas of 1980 that they came into my life. Initially, there were three dolls, Sandy, Coral, and Shelly (see what they did with the nautical naming). Each doll came with its own comb and a lily-pad sponge. The sponge had a convenient hole in the middle so that the doll could sit in the sponge. That way, she could float...
