Don’t Remember the 80s? Frankie Say Relax!

From the Other Side, from the Manotick Messenger

For those of you who were around to remember the 1980s, how do you explain it to your kids?

Of course, those of us who are considered Gen Xers had the hippie movement, pot smoking, freedom, peace, love and the Woodstock album shoved down our throats by the Baby Boomers.

So the 1980s was our way of taking pop culture in a new direction.

The 1980s had a distinct, well, everything. There was a definitive 80s look, sound and language. The 1990s had New Kids on the Block, the Spice Girls, grunge music and Seinfeld. The 2000s, or the “zeroties” (should be a word), had Harry Potter, MySpace, Facebook and Lost. The 2010s gave us Netflix. The 2020s gave us a pandemic and what looks like the beginning of World War III.

So why is there still such an obsession with the 1980s? Were the 80s that good? In ways, yes. But in other ways, not really. There was no internet then. There was no DVR or Fibe TV or high speed cable. Nothing was on demand. Instead of subscribing to Netflix we had to venture out to a video rental store and bring home our favourite movies on VHS tapes. Watch out for that fine if you don’t rewind it before returning it.

So here are the things that stand out to me about what I consider the greatest decade of all time. If you were around, maybe this will bring up some happy memories for you.

Do you remember all of the hype around the Charles and Di Royal Wedding? If only we could go back in time and bring a VHS copy of Netflix’ The Crown with us.

Do you remember Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope? The 1980s kicked off with the greatest Canadian hero of all time.

Do you remember that window of a couple of years when rugby pants or rugger pants or whatever they called them dominated men’s casual fashion? If you don’t know what they are, picture khakis with a draw string. The Adidas ones even had stripes down the side. Imagine if Adidas made khakis and put three stripes down the side? Sounds dumb. I’d be all over it and buy the first pair.

Do you remember when we were obsessed with music videos?  We all mindlessly stared at music videos on MTV. Two years later, we finally got a Canadian channel, MuchMusic. If you were around for that, you will remember the videos for Billie Jean, Thriller, Don’t You Forget About Me, Pride (In the Name of Love), Come on Eileen, Walk Like an Egyptian, What’s Love Got To Do With It, Careless Whisper, Shout, Safety Dance, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Jump (Van Halen, not Kriss Kross), Relax (the song that inspired the Frankie Say Relax t-shirts), Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go (the song that inspired the Choose Life t-shirts), and so many more.

Do you remember joining the Columbia Record House and getting 10 cassettes free and you only had to buy six over the next three years? Am I the only one who forgot to send the thing saying I didn’t want a cassette one month and ended up with a Boz Skaggs tape?

Do you remember popping open a Jolt Cola at 6:30 a.m. and watching 20 Minute Workout?

Do you remember people saying things like “gnarly”, “rad”, and how about this one, “Gag me with a spoon”?

Do you remember keeping a Rubik’s Cube in the bathroom so that you could frustrate yourself while sitting on the loo?

Do you remember buying the rainbow colour box of 10 floppy disks and thinking you were such a tech savant?

Do you remember going to the arcade with a pocket full of quarters to play Pac-Man, Asteroids, Galaxian, Jungle King, Donkey Kong or Space Invaders?

Do you remember how frustrating it was when your favourite home made Maxell 90-minute mix tape would get tangled in the cassette recorder and it took forever to delicately pull it out and wind the tape back into the cassette?

Do you remember when we all said things we heard on sitcoms and walked around saying things like, “Hey Willie, you kill me!”, or “Watchu talkin’ ‘bout Willis?”, or “Norm!”?

Do you remember getting your first Sony Walkman?

Do you remember spending extra money at the photo lab to get your prints back in an hour instead of a week when you brought your rolls of Fuji or Kodak film in?

Do you remember when everyone wanted to be able to moon walk like Michael Jackson?

Do you remember watching He-Man and the Masters of the universe on Saturday mornings?

Do you remember thinking you were all that and a bag of chips because you were wearing a Swatch around your wrist?

Do you remember who you most identified with when you watched the Breakfast Club?

Do you remember how many times you watched 16 Candles?

Do you remember how your mind was blown when you found out Darth Vader was really Luke Skywalker’s dad?

Do you remember sitting in the theatre on two dollar Tuesdays and watching Highlander, the Terminator, or Alien?

Do you remember cheering when Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux led Team Canada to victory in the Canada Cup?

And most of all, do you remember when we all thought there would be flying cars by 2024?