Fun fact: Max Headroom also had his own talk show.
It was the '80s, man. We didn't know any better.
Without saying your age, what's something from your childhood that a younger person wouldn't understand?
- Thread starter CastletonSnob
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It was the '80s, man. We didn't know any better.
I'm aware he had the show; I just thought it was weird his pushing Coke. But yeah, '80s is basically carte blanche for oddities and absurdities.
Roll up windows. Having to rewind a cassette tape to listen to the music again.
And having to replace the tape because you played your favorite song so many times that the tape warped.
Depends which variant of coke he was pushing.
I think it was a tongue-in-cheek nod to the fact that Max Headroom was basically a cocaine-sweat nightmare of a character. If that guy, real or fictional, wasn't on cocaine, then nobody was. Thankfully, that was during my youth and innocence, and I was too young to appreciate it for what it was.
I want to say the '80s get a bad rap, but yeah, most of it was pitched on cocaine (or crack, depending on which side of the tracks you were fortunate/unfortunate enough to grow up on.)
Back when I was a kid, my parents made enough that we were upper middle class. That's also something that children today might not understand.
But we travelled a few times a year. I remember the first trip I took to Florida where I realized their Fox Kids station wasn't on Channel Five like at home. It was in the 30's or something weird like that. Also, the cartoon line up was different than at home. With some cartoons I never heard of or haven't seen for a while.
We we travelled, I couldn't wait to see what cartoons awaited me. Was it going to be funny? Pure action? That anime thing that was like Voltron but different? It was the only time I looked forward to commercials to get an idea of what we were working with. And they always have a different way of ending their self promoting commercials with a cheesy identifier and announcer voice. I loved it.
Do kids even have cartoon blocks on regular tv any more?
(also, if you're into toys or old cartoons, this youtube channel is a goldmine)
But we travelled a few times a year. I remember the first trip I took to Florida where I realized their Fox Kids station wasn't on Channel Five like at home. It was in the 30's or something weird like that. Also, the cartoon line up was different than at home. With some cartoons I never heard of or haven't seen for a while.
We we travelled, I couldn't wait to see what cartoons awaited me. Was it going to be funny? Pure action? That anime thing that was like Voltron but different? It was the only time I looked forward to commercials to get an idea of what we were working with. And they always have a different way of ending their self promoting commercials with a cheesy identifier and announcer voice. I loved it.
Do kids even have cartoon blocks on regular tv any more?
(also, if you're into toys or old cartoons, this youtube channel is a goldmine)
VHS tapes in general, but also those oddly specific VHS tapes. I had several about toy trains and a couple about large construction equipment.
Oh man, those were the best weekends! Having friends over for a sleepover, and my parents took us to Blockbuster to rent the latest movies or latest [cartridge] videogames, the utter devastation of seeing their shelves lined with the boxes, but none of the rentable blue boxes behind them, etc. Lots of good memories. I think the statute of limitations is up, so I'll openly I recall one year my buddies and I pulled a whole "Ocean's 11" deal and stole a copy of a Sega Genesis game (can't remember which) from Blockbuster. It's took us an HOUR because we thought we were being clever whilst at the same time being mortified at the idea of getting caught.
OT, I'm old enough to remember the first live-action Ninja Turtles movie and the promotion they did in concert with Pizza Hut (I think.) I bought a tape (yes, TAPE) of original Ninja Turtles music that included none other than the classic ballad sung by Splinter himself, "Skipping Stones." God it was all awful, but I listened to it hundreds of times for my love of TMNT.
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Yes. Disney XD, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon still do them. Though it's not as big as it used to be. Saturday morning cartoons on local channels have been dead for years though. That pretty much went away by 2011. Only 4Kids TV remained at that point, and even they didn't last long afterward.
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Depends on where you are. Some of the arcades in downtown Detroit have different methods. They either have tokens, or it's free play. If it's free play, you either called next or place a quarter down symbolically. If you're out of Dave and Busters, you place your card down.
Physical photo albums that you could flip through.
Disposable cameras.
Disposable cameras.
TBS Superstation would air old MGM and Warner Bros cartoons early in the morning or sometimes in the middle of the afternoon.
They've actually showed a couple of anime movies during the mid-90s too.
They've actually showed a couple of anime movies during the mid-90s too.
It was Cartoon Network for me. Would come home from school and there would be a dedicated few hours to old cartoons, either Looney Tunes or Tom & Jerry.
EDIT: Toys sold, not on how fun they were, but on how much they would gross out your sisters/parents.
Same. This was before we got Cartoon Network at the time, and before they really started taking off. Before that point it was either USA channel, TBS Superstation, or some local TV channels that would air old Warner Bros cartoons. Or a bunch of tapes from the dollar store that had various cartoons put on it. Nickelodeon would sometimes air Warner Brothers cartoons as well, but it was usually because Tiny Toons was really popular on there at the time.