Taking the Plunge
By Julie Anderson The NESTEA plunge, that is. The hugely successful Take the Plunge commercial campaign for Nestea began in the 70s, so our older siblings and cousins knew all about it. (Random trivia – from 1978-1980, Six Flags St. Louis’s Log Flume ride was called the Nestea Plunge!) However, we 80s kids sure loved it as well. Taking the Nestea plunge was a favorite pool and lake game when I was growing up. The commercial campaign’s...
Handclap Games of the Eighties
By Julie Anderson Brrrrrrrrinnnggg!!! You close your fuzzy-kitten Trapper Keeper and stow it under your desk. Your second grade class lines up and thunders outside for playtime. The boys head directly toward the sharp steel seesaws, tetherball, and merry-go-round, those wildly unsafe and now-defunct playground structures we adored. And sure, dizzying centrifugal force and strangulation hazards were exciting, but if you were a girl,...
8-Bit Art
By Tibs Many art movements have come and gone through the years, most of which have been intentional, reflecting messages of the times. However, one movement stands out, for me, above all others. This movement was, until recently, not a movement at all. Simply, it was a representation of the limitations of technology at the time. I am referring, of course, to 8-Bit. 8-Bit arguably became famous with the introduction of third...
Double Dutch Much?
By Julie Anderson Double Dutch jump roping was totally cool in the early eighties. The basic idea is pretty simple: it involves two turners who hold one jumprope in each hand and get them swinging in opposite directions. The jumper then hops in the middle of the two swinging ropes and jumps both. According to skill level, the jumper might do tricksy foot moves or feats of gymnastics while simultaneously dodging and hopping the ropes....
Make it a Totally Awesome 80s Summer
Don’t let this be a cruel summer; be sure to embrace and enjoy all the things that made summertime in the 80s so fun and you’ll be walking on sunshine in no time. From decking out in your Wayfarers and Jams to rocking out to great 80s summertime songs, our guide to the perfect 80s-inspired summer will have you enjoying the hot, hot, hot weather, like totally. Dig out your Op t-shirt and grab some friends; school’s almost out,...
Interview With Jeff Tompkins, Author of 49 Mix Tapes
We just finished the novel, 49 Mix Tapes, by Jeff Tompkins and had the pleasure to talk with him about the book and its 80s context. Set between 1985 and 1989, this is the story of Will and Abby. Will wants more, but Abby has him stuck in the “just friends” zone. It is a fun story about not just their relationship, but coming of age in the late 80s and all the culture that goes with it. The book is loaded with the music, movies and TV...
Dr. Ruth
By Julie Anderson There’s a whole lot to love and admire about Dr. Ruth. The pint-sized sex therapist (she’s 4’7”) unblushingly goes there – YOU know where – time and time again. Dr. Ruth became the go-to resource for Americans’ most private questions, and she never made us feel dirty or shameful for wanting to know the answers. We might have had fun with her accent (which the Wall Street Journal has described as “a cross between...
Time for Timer!
By Julie Anderson Saturday mornings – ahhhhh! Back in the 80s, we didn’t have, like, entire television channels devoted to cartoons, much less Netflix and Hulu to give us cartoons on demand. Puh-leeze. We had a few precious hours of cartoon time once a week on network TV, and, man, did we love them. With a captive audience of roughly a bazillion-and-a-half American kids, health minded network execs decided to impart some useful...
Slim Goodbody
By Julie Anderson Recognize the guy in the flesh-colored, internal-organ-decorated unitard? Yup, that’s Slim Goodbody, all right. Confession: He totally creeped me out. I think it was all about the visible intestines, to tell you the truth. He reminded me of my brother’s Pulsar, which ALSO creeped me out. Organs, blood flow, view-beneath-the-skin? Totally grody. A little background info about Slim: The “Superhero of Health” was...
Metal Lunchboxes
By Julie Anderson For many of us, back-to-school shopping wasn’t just about wheedling our parents into springing for Nikes, Trapper Keepers, and a couple of new pairs of jeans. We also needed a brand new metal lunchbox (with coordinating Thermos) imprinted with our favorite TV characters. Check out these me-and-my-new-lunchbox pics and prepare for an uncontrollable case of the awwwww’s when you see these totally cute eighties kids: I...
Little Professor
How a Generation Learned Their Multiplication Tables Those of us who came of age in the 80s were little kids in the 70s; and one of the coolest toys of the late 70s was the Little Professor handheld reverse calculator. It was the first electronic educational toy developed by Texas Instruments (which later went on to develop the immensely popular Speak & Spell series). Little Professor was first introduced in 1976, and kids were so...
The Clapper
By Julie Anderson C’mon, sing along! Clap on! (CLAP, CLAP) Clap off! (CLAP, CLAP) Clap on, Clap off – The Clapper! The Clapper was the modern eighties way to turn your electronic devices on or off without the hassle of getting off the couch. The switch was designed to respond to a specific acoustic signal: two claps. Joseph Pedott, founder of Joseph Enterprises, Inc., began selling the Clapper in 1985. (You’ve probably heard of Joseph...
Test Your 80s Country Music Knowledge
By Julie Anderson Before Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum made country cool for city kids, it was thriving in, like, the country. We had bodacious country superstars in the eighties, as well as a few crossover artists who tried rad rhinestone cowboy hats on for size. Test your eighties country music knowledge with our Like Totally 80s quiz: 1. Who said, “I’m not offended by dumb blonde jokes because I know that I’m not dumb. Also, I...
Test Your Hair Band I.Q.
Hair Bands were totally awesome and so totally 80s. Dudes in glam rock bands grew their hair out long, and then permed, colored, and teased it within an inch of its life. Many wore heavy makeup to complete the look. We loved the jarring effect of dudes in quasi-drag who were singing hard rock music. Bitchin’! But how well do you know your eighties glam metal? Take our Like Totally 80s quiz to find out! 1. Beavis wore a Metallica...
Test Your Eighties New Wave Knowledge
So, you enjoyed music in the eighties, huh? Consider yourself somewhat of an expert on Depeche Mode and the Thompson Twins? Are you, like, the go-to person for 80s musical trivia in your circle of friends? Test your knowledge with our radical New Wave quiz. Answer key is below. (Duh!) 1. Siouxie and the Banshee’s song “Peek-a-boo” was on the 1988 album called: A. Peepshow B. Peek-a-boo C. Hyaena D. Kaleidoscope 2. In what video were...
