Minute44 - Dan Schonhaar

Weren’t the 80’s fucking amazing? I remember that in the 90’s we hated the 80’s and the style and still to this day I think a lot of the 80’s style still sucks a fat one. However, how awesome was it living back then. I was born in ‘83 so was only really conscious of the last half of the great decade but what a decade!! Let’s first talk about the TV shows… You have your obvious ones… Ghostbusters, Transformers, He-Man and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but if I think back there were some really great obscure ones too. I’m talking about M.A.S.K, Dino-Riders and Captain Power. These made up my after-school viewing and made me the uber-geek I am today! I’m not just talking about cartoons either. What about Doogie Howser MD and The Twilight Zone… All great stuff.

I hear you say it now! “You’re only saying it because you grew up then!” and you might be right about that… I mean, what’s to say that in 10 years time we won’t have a bunch of 20 somethings going around talking about how good Pokemon was and how they don’t make cartoons like they used to? It’ll probably happen.

But OK, what’s brought this on? Well, this picture (Click for larger image):

I know 99% of you will be like…. “what? What the fuck are you on?” But let me assure you, when you used to watch that cartoon and had all the action figures it puts a massive smile on your face. That’s Dino Riders! “Harness the Power of Dinosaurs!”. The basic, albeit ridiculous, premise was futuristic, telepathic humans called the Valorians who use their telepathic abilities to tame Dinosaurs for domestic use as well as military use against their enemies the Rulons who had also taken control of dinosaurs, by using brain boxes – big bulky mind control helmets. Only 14 episodes were ever made because the series was simply a vehicle for Tyco’s toy line. Come on, what kid wouldn’t think that an armoured T-rex with more guns than a small army was wicked awesome!!??

It basically got me thinking of the other kids shows I loved back then. Take M.A.S.K for example. It was a fairly low quality hybrid of two very successful cartoons of the era, GI Joe and the Transformers. It’s slogan forms the title of this very post. Illusion is the ultimate weapon. Like I said, this TV show wasn’t the best quality but the Toys made it. I personally had a fair few, including the great big Gas Station play set:

That was awesome!

Another one I used to love was Captain Power. This was an odd ball. It ran for 22 episodes which each contained a segment of audio and visual material intended for interaction with the toys. You could buy the toys and actually “interact” with the TV show and play a kind of video game. I never had any of the toys but if I remember rightly, a couple of friends did and I remember the video game being kinda fun The main Toy was supposed to be a kind of space ship with a pistol grip that blew apart when it sensed a certain signal from the TV show.

If that nostalgia trip wasn’t enough for you let’s talk about movies. The 80’s were the golden age of cinema in my opinion and I think I know why. The 80’s were about the first time special effects became good enough and cheap enough for smaller studios to make films that maybe wouldn’t have gotten the green light in previous years due to cost. Combined with the fact that this also meant that film ideas we’d just never seen before were now possible.

We got so, so many classics. The Goonies, Back to the future, Ghostbusters, Aliens, Robocop, Terminator, Indiana Jones, Predator, ET, Die Hard and Beetlejuice to name but a few! I watch these movies over and over to this very day!

As annoying as he is, Calvin Harris is quite right to have love for you if you were born in the 80’s.