Ultimate 80's Memories Thread - Part 2 - The 80s Strikes Back

[taurus]

M
Parents had no idea where their kids were most of the time and it worked out just fine.

I was talking about this with my wife the other day. We were walking around my neighborhood, but on trails i'd go on with my childhood friends. I never took her (or the kids) there. I remember just walking out of the house in the morning, coming home for lunch, and immediately going back out, then coming home for dinner. Exploring abandoned factories, picking fruit from the trees, stealing corn from the fields, gasoline/firecrackers pranks etc. Nothing unusual, no one worried, no one calling the cops or anything. If i find out my kids went there (several km from the house) in a few years (when they will be my age when i did that), or did just 10% of the stuff we did, i'd probably lose it. Different times, i guess...

Another one I like to point to is cartoons. Cartoons in the 80's were fucking AMAZING! Cartoons today are gay as shit.

Memory bias I say.

I watch an unhealthy dose of cartoons with my kids and don't necessarily agree. While i did enjoy my time with He-man (i still get the chills when i hear the theme music), TMNT, Snorks, Danger mouse, Alf, BraveStarr, Dino Raiders, etc, cartoons nowdays are not as bad. Lot of the cartoons nowdays have a (relatively) good sense of PC, are non violent and have an interesting learning/teaching topic. As a parent, i appreciate that. I have two girls, and I'm glad there's Princess Sofia, Doc McStuffins, Superwings etc for them to watch (as a reward for good behavior).

When they grow up (slightly), there's stuff like Trollhunters, Star war rebels, Samurai Jack, etc. Superb animated shows. There is crap out there, but so was in the 80s.

 

[Adamant]

Memory bias I say.

I watch an unhealthy dose of cartoons with my kids and don't necessarily agree. While i did enjoy my time with He-man (i still get the chills when i hear the theme music), TMNT, Snorks, Danger mouse, Alf, BraveStarr, Dino Raiders, etc, cartoons nowdays are not as bad. Lot of the cartoons nowdays have a (relatively) good sense of PC, are non violent and have an interesting learning/teaching topic. As a parent, i appreciate that. I have two girls, and I'm glad there's Princess Sofia, Doc McStuffins, Superwings etc for them to watch (as a reward for good behavior).

When they grow up (slightly), there's stuff like Trollhunters, Star war rebels, Samurai Jack, etc. Superb animated shows. There is crap out there, but so was in the 80s.

The way cartoons were drawn back then (60s-90s) was so much better than they're drawn now. Nowadays everything is just done so lazily.

Example:

vs

The modern one looks terrible.

Then we could get into the musical score and general music of cartoons back then vs now and the intros, music, score, etc was infinitely better then.

As for being PC.... I hate PC, but everything I remember from those oldschool cartoons was never degrading towards females or colored people. At least nothing that I remember seeing. After all, you had tons of female characters (for example) that were treated as equals, if not better than a lot of the males. (She-Ra, Teela, Allura, Cheetara, Pumyra, April O'Neal, Wonder Woman, Smurfette, Penny, Daphne, Velma, Batgirl, Chipettes, PowerPuff Girls, etc. etc. etc. The list literally goes on and on and on and on). So PC was never really an issue.

I've watched a fair share of modern cartoons and probably the best one I've ever seen was the cartoon Avengers series. That one actually had a pretty great story, though was lazily drawn. (Though I have to admit that the actual animation -character movement/scene movement- is generally better nowadays than 80s and before.....as in more fluid)

Even to this day I can still go back and check out old cartoons from the 60s-90s and it's definitely not memory bias -not any more memory bias than saying Die Hard is infinitely better than Skyscraper- a vast majority of 60s-90s cartoons are incalculably better than modern ones. I can still get into old cartoons and enjoy the hell out of them. But 99% of the modern cartoons I see nowadays do absolutely nothing for me. As a whole they're a shell of what they used to be. The sense of excitement and wonder is almost totally dead. (I say that not just from personal experience, but also from watching the reaction of my young family members watching modern cartoons vs oldschool cartoons..... and generally the older toons seem to elicit more engagement and more overall excitement)

Perhaps you have biased from seeing your children get enjoyment out of the modern cartoons? It makes them happy so it makes you happy.

 

[MacDuffle]

The way cartoons were drawn back then (60s-90s) was so much better than they're drawn now. Nowadays everything is just done so lazily.

everything I remember from those oldschool cartoons was never degrading towards females or colored people. At least nothing that I remember seeing. After all, you had tons of female characters (for example) that were treated as equals, if not better than a lot of the males. (She-Ra, Teela, Allura, Cheetara, Pumyra, April, O'Neal, Wonder Woman, Smurfette, Penny, Daphne, Velma, Batgirl, Chipettes, PowerPuff Girls, etc. etc. etc. The list literally goes on and on and on and on). So PC was never really an issue.

extremely well said

 

[taurus]

The way cartoons were drawn back then (60s-90s) was so much better than they're drawn now. Nowadays everything is just done so lazily.

Example:

vs

The modern one looks terrible.

Then we could get into the musical score and general music of cartoons back then vs now and the intros, music, score, etc was infinitely better then.

As for being PC.... I hate PC, but everything I remember from those oldschool cartoons was never degrading towards females or colored people. At least nothing that I remember seeing. After all, you had tons of female characters (for example) that were treated as equals, if not better than a lot of the males. (She-Ra, Teela, Allura, Cheetara, Pumyra, April, O'Neal, Wonder Woman, Smurfette, Penny, Daphne, Velma, Batgirl, Chipettes, PowerPuff Girls, etc. etc. etc. The list literally goes on and on and on and on). So PC was never really an issue.

I've watched a fair share of modern cartoons and probably the best one I've ever seen was the cartoon Avengers series. That one actually had a pretty great story, though was lazily drawn. (Though I have to admit that the actual animation -character movement/scene movement- is generally better nowadays than 80s and before.....as in more fluid)

Even to this day I can still go back and check out old cartoons from the 60s-90s and it's definitely not memory bias -not any more memory bias than saying Die Hard is infinitely better than Skyscraper- a vast majority of 60s-90s cartoons are incalculably better than modern ones. I can still get into old cartoons and enjoy the hell out of them. But 99% of the modern cartoons I see nowadays do absolutely nothing for me. As a whole they're a shell of what they used to be (cartoons). The sense of excitement and wonder is almost totally dead. (I say that not just from personal experience, but also from watching the reaction of my young family members watching modern cartoons vs oldschool cartoons..... and generally the older toons seem to elicit more engagement and more overall excitement)

Perhaps you have biased from seeing your children get enjoyment out of the modern cartoons? It makes them happy so it makes you happy.

Some great points indeed.

As i previously said, there is crap now, as there was crap then. Generalization leads to oversimplification, and direct comparisons are pointless. Of course, the anime/japanese animation influence is undeniable. I dislike the oversimplified lines and exaggerated eyes (especially on female characters) as much as the next guy, but i simply refuse to accept that all modern cartoons look like crap.

Case in point:

It certainly looks better than... what shall we take as an example...Oh, i remember.

OK, maybe that was below the belt. But you get my point.
Am I saying all nowdays cartoons have better animation/look? Definitely not (apart from what you said about the character/scene movement, that is incomparable as most of the 80's cartoons didn't even have scene movement).

The score/music, you're completely right. Guess it was due to involvement of several highly experienced music composers.

As far as excitement and enjoyment goes, i'm torn. On one hand, I agree with you, on the other, i do believe accessibility/over-saturation has a major influence in it. We had 20min cartoons after dinner and for an hour/two on Saturday morning. Only on TV in the living room, lucky ones had a TV in their room. Saturday was the big thing, we got excited like little ki... we got excited to watch them and that was it. Now, with Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, torrents, DVD/Bluray stuff accessible everywhere (on TV, laptop, phone, tablet) anytime you want, of course it's not as special as it used to be.

Am I enjoying my kids enjoying themselves? Hell yes. When i see them mesmerized by watching educational cartoons, i don't feel as bad for letting them watch TV and "rewarding" them if they behaved. Did I try to persuade them to watch The Little Flying Bears, and some older animated movies? Yes I did, sadly it didn't work...

 

[bushman505]

Jessica Hahn in Wild Thing




When Elizabeth Shue showed teh Boobs for the first time in Cocktail...

That movie is awesome, that part where he barebacks her in a Jamaican waterfall is cool too.

 

[Adamant]

I've never seen this video before or heard the song before that I can remember, but it's pretty badass. I like how the video is similar to a Twisted Sister video.

 

[lostdog000]

 

[Adamant]

I remember this was the one where Motley Crue felt like they played horrible and they wanted everything about this basically erased, but it turned out the people loved the hell out of it. So it ended up working out for them and ultimately helped to explode their popularity.

 

[Adamant]

I haven't heard this song before today, but I like how the first half of the video shows a highlight of their reign in the 80s.

 

[Adamant]

I love watching these old commercials.

 

[Adamant]

 

[Joe_Armstrong]

 

[Philo-Publius]

I had no memory of this. I had to look it up on Wikipedia.

 

[Adamant]

Holy hell, that was awesome! Christ, I feel sorry for kids today. They just have no clue how great things used to be.

 

[Deleted member 245586]

 

[Philo-Publius]

Does anyone remember these things...

Boppers from Nature Valley

I had completely forgotten about them until I saw an image of them tonight.

 

[Philo-Publius]

Here is another one I was just reminded of today. These would probably make me sick now, but I remember being into them as a kid...

Nabisco Giggles

 

[Jay Valero 1]

80s horror movies were great.

 

[Philo-Publius]

Anyone remember "choose your own adventure" books?

 

[Philo-Publius]

80's Friday night starter pack.