Welcome to my 80's and Arcade Games Page
To quote Tony Carey's song..."It's a fine, fine day for a reunion", an 80's reunion!
2/11/2000: FLASH: For the person that e-mailed me yesterday, A Perfect Way was sang by Scritti Politti. Thanks for your kind note.
8/20/98: FLASH: Culture Club is on tour again with The Human League and Howard Jones! I did not get a chance to go, but I just got the new Culture Club VH1 Storytellers CD and it is great!
Click on the tour logo for details.
And speaking of reunions, my college buddies from the 80's and myself had a reunion of epic proportions, of what I could remember of it. Below is the link to the reunion page.
First, before we get to the links, here is some commentary about the best block of years in human history.
Yes, I am talking about the early to mid 1980's, roughly 1982-1987. My goal in having people read this is
for them raise their hand and say, "Hey, I remember that!" or "Yep, that was me."
I believe that the music of this time period is what defined "The 80's". When the New Wave bands, such as Culture Club,
Duran Duran, Howard Jones, Scritti Politti, Level 42, Simply Red, Big Country, Madness, Wham, ABC and OMD blasted the MTV scene. Along with the videos from Madonna and Whitney Houston, when they were cool. (For those too young to remember, MTV used to play videos all day, all night, with no dippy shows, dating
games, or repeats of the latest Rock-n-Jock game. Names such as J.J. Jackson, Nina Blackwood, Adam Curry, Mark Goodman
and Martha Quinn were people that you woke up with and kept you abreast of all the latest music. Also, their theme
music sounded more like the SportsCenter theme, and not like the angst-ridden self-absorbed music of today.)
The videos were so vibrant with color and action using such happy/peppy fun music, you could not help but
to roll up the collar of your Polo shirt along with the cuffs of your jeans and make them stay rolled with safety pins
and bounce gleefully on the dance floor. Basically, the music of this time was positive, fun and very easy to dance to.
Alternative music. Nowadays, this term has been beaten to death. Originally, alternate music was pretty much only heard on college campuses. An authority in the field of alternative music, who would only reveal his name as "Mac", said that alternative music described two bands....The Cure of course, and R.E.M. way before their music turned into pop, which really was not their fault.
So please, in the future, keep alternative music alternative.
Soap Operas. Who remembers when Santa Barbara first started and Joe and Kelly were so much in love and
everytime they were together you heard Peabo Bryson's "If ever you're in my arms again, this time I'll
love you much better..." . The awful bad people were Lionel and Augusta Lockridge. For those of you that already
guessed, Kelly's parents were C.C. and Sophia Capwell.
Music Television. Five words...MTV and Friday Night Videos.
Candy. The best all time candy bar was the Marathon Bar. I hope that there are some people who remember it.
The best way to explain a Marathon bar is, it was about the size of a Charlston Chew, but flatter. The only
ingredients were braided caramel dipped in chocolate and when you bit into it, the caramel stretched like
cheese on a pizza. Unfortunately, they are not made anymore in the U.S.
Pop. Remember the short lived Pepsi product cans that had the two buttons on them, one big to drink out of and
the other for air? You had to push both of them down to drink the can of pop? Also, who could forget RONDO!
Expressions: Face, Psych, etc. Help me with more.
Hacky-Sack. This was a time when hack started to gain popularity and there was only one style, the two
panelled one that looked like a small baseball. Then when the eight panelled one came out, I remember a
mass hysteria to get them.
Hair. To feather or not to feather, that was the question. In addition, I know everyone during this time had a
big thick plastic comb with a four inch handle poking out of their back pocket that caught on every chair you sat in.
Who else had a rat tail; braided, un-braided, colored, etc.
How soon we forget...
I was at a music superstore recently looking for a '45' adapter for my record player. The young man who helped
me was probably 17 years old. At length, I explained the diferrence between the '33' records that were big in size
but had a small hole to go onto the record player, and the '45' record is small in size and has a big hole on it
for which you need the '45' adapter to play the record. The young man continued to blankly nod his head during my
lengthly description, and said this, "Well sir, we do not have anything here like that, maybe if you go to an antique
store, you can fine one of those '45' things." Needless to say, I said to myself, "ANTIQUE STORE? You gotta be kidding me!."
But to end this tragic story on a good note, another associate at the store, who was in his early 30's like myself, helped
me out go get my '45' adapter and promised to take care of my little "antique store" friend.
Video Games. I spent many a day and night playing great games such as Defender, Mr. Do, Joust, Tempest, Dig Dug,
Dragon's Lair, Q*Bert, Tetris, and Centipede. These games were much more fun that the games now, that are either
fighting games like Mortal Kombat, Virtual Fighter, Killer Instinct or driving games. What ever happened to the
cute and relatively non-violent Bubble Bobble starring Bub and Bob, now that was fun. Don't you get that special
type of feeling when you go into an arcade and in the back you find one of these classic games and remember within
10,000 to 50,000 points of what your old high score used to be and try to claim it once again?
This time was also the time when I started college and made many great friends and had lots of fun. So
much fun, that I am still going to school now to get my degree. But, I would not trade my time in the
early to mid-eighties for anything.
You may be asking yourself, "I loved the 80's, how to I keep the 80's reunion going?" The answer is to be proactive and request 80's songs at your radio stations
and dance clubs. Ask managers at nightclubs and bars to
sponsor an 80's night, with dress up contests and 80's music all night long. If the demand is there, these people will listen and soon enough, with everyone's help, the 80's will return!
Finally, here is the keyhole of the entrance to my 80's and Arcade Games Links, thanks for your patience...
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