The Great Retro Thread

This will hopefully be a combination of a trip down memory lane for some readers, a peek into what makes certain generations tick for other readers, and likely a facepalm and shake of the "what were they thinking?" head for still other readers. One thing about living in the era we all live in is that it is truly the Utopia of retro. Youtube has provided us with the magic of the television, even advertisements and something as simple as intro themes, that many of us grew up with. Ebay and Amazon have provided us with the easiest way to re-collect the toys, games, and even dinnerware you remember from your childhood. What has always amazed me about all of this is how amazing nostalgic value is. I sometimes will watch a string of 80's shows on Youtube and when I'm done, there's a huge part of me that feels like I'm a little kid again. I find it to be a very healthy stress buster.

Without further babbling from me... here are a few personal blasts from the past:

The Great Space Coaster
This was actually the driving force behind this thread, believe it or not. I have, for as long as I can remember, proudly said "No news is good news with Gary Gnu" whenever anyone said "No news is good news" around me. Since college I have never ran into another person who knows that reference or remembers that show. It was like somebody too Sesame Street, the Muppets, the Bloodhound Gang, and a space version of Land of the Lost and threw it into a blender, resulting in pure viewing pleasure.


(Search youtube if you were a fan! They have whole episodes complete with commercials. It's TGSC nirvana.)

Land of the Lost
Oh yeah, anybody who wants to know where the vision for Jurassic Park came from, look no further than LotL. I got these on their second run in the 80s on Saturday Morning cartoons (there's a whole block of goodness which today's programming can't even come close to, IMO). I found this out when my late-teens cousins watched with me and commented on how they remembered the episodes form when they were little. All I can say is "Sleestaks FTW." I also remember waiting for "Marshall Bill" for awhile before finally wrapping my young head around the fact that the song was Marshall, Bill, and Holly.


Wrestling and Commercials
Guess what? I was a big pro wrestling fan when I was a kid. (I plead the 5th on whether I still watch it, Cena Sucks ) So it's no surprise I remember the commercials involving wrestlers...





The Secret World of OG (and the ABC Weekend Specials)
I don't really know why I love this episode... in hindsight it isn't overly great (my children got bored with it when I tried to get them to watch with me), but I love it. Just of note, the CBS Storyline vibe on this hyperlink is from the Youtube user. I've thrown on an ABC Weekend Special Intro just for giggles.



Toys
My God we had the best toys. I look at the crap that passes for toys today and, with the exception of LEGOS. nothing today is cooler than toys in the 80s.
Transformers were frickin amazing!


G.I. Joe!



Videogames
(My dad was an early adopter of the Odyssey 2 system. It took a very long time for me to get an NES.)

but, eventually...


That's enough reminiscing from me for now, but I'd love to see the memories of others in this thread. I'd also love to know I'm not the only person with fond memories of these shows and ads.

a reply to: burdman30ott6
Great thread!!

Can't really say much about the commercials and tv shows as we in Europe had other stuff but your last video triggered a memory I completely forgot...



Lost a lot of time on that one!!

Some Tv series we had in my childhood coming from your side of the pond were

The A-team
McGyver
Cosby show
Alf
Growing pains
The wonder years
perfect strangers
Beauty and the beast

Oh man that list could get very long...

Thanks for putting up this thread.

Peace

Thundercats
Jason and the wheeled warriors
Mysterious city of gold

a reply to: Denoli

Oh man if we are going to start with the cartoons it will take some time!!

Remember this one?



Made a small collage of the tv-series that had me glued to the television in those days..



Peace

The sheer genius of Gerry Anderson got me hooked from a very early age.

The music in the intro is key to Gerrys success.

The trigger in my memory has fired a favourite cartoon show called Samurai Pizza Cats. It has a brilliant opening theme song that sticks in your head like a determined meme.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

I distinctly remember driving my parents crazy because I had to have one of these:



Peace

a reply to: Tindalos2013

Yeah that was awesome!!



This one was equally cool though..



Peace

a reply to: burdman30ott6
I cannot manage with my Mac to do the linkage, every time I try it all gets lost so have quietly given up, but for those in the UK Do you remember:Muffin the Mule, the The FlowerPot Men and then much later on, The Magic Roundabout.

The Sci Fi was just coming in with the BBC's Quatermass and the Pit - which frightened the living daylights out of all those who watched it. Fabulously talented the BBC was then.

I could go on for hours about the tv programmes such as Fabian of Scotland Yard - but what made that era so fantastic was the tv music - it created such moods and had lots of saxaphone and harmonica that you rarely hear today and of course the USA Highway Patrol with Brode3rick Crawford and the Munsters? A friend of ours said she modelled her goth look on Lilly and thought she Yvonne (whoever) was the best looking woman in the world. (Only to be eclipsed in taste of course by the 1980's which were another great era).

I loved wincklepicker shoes and the trainers that they are wearing again today with the canvas side coming up to cover your anklebone in great colours and of course the phaze of the red duffle coat - every kid had one - boy did we like to herd with them, until the 1960's when suddenly we were all individuals and doing our own crazy thing. The freedom was fabulous and once one was earning - and there were jobs for everyone then, you could afford to fund your fashion craze cos things weren't so exploited and expensive. I could go on all day.

Great stuff.

You really have hit on something with the "Nostalgic Value" comment.

I am a product of 80's/90's upbringing, we had such great cartoons and shows. There was something kooky but innocent about their humor. I'm at work, so I can't embed a bunch of stuff, but I miss being able to watch some good Saturday morning shows.

EEK the Cat was one of my personal favorites.

There was no better way for me to wind down after my shift during my early years of employment in retail than by going home and watching Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Of course, a few know my rabid fandom by my avatar.

Nostalgia applies to so much more than entertainment though. I love old cars, old gadgets, chemistry sets, electronics kits, and toys that actually promoted learning.

I'm the only person I know that wakes up every day and drives a 71 Torino for a daily driver. People look down at it parked in the store parking lot and it puts a smile on their faces. It doesn't matter that it's not remotely close to a show quality car. People still love it. People generally long for the past, or the pieces of the past that they remember with fondness.

I got my old NES working the other day and played Contra with my little brother while we drank and felt 8 years old all over again.

Good thread.

My childhood favorites

I was a huge fan of wrestling, until it got too full of drama and became more like a soap opera. jake the Snake, Rowdy Roddy piper, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Ultimate Warrior, The Rockers, The Hart Foundation...and Undertaker, all favorites. I don't watch anymore.
Time warp back to childhood, and for the 1970's I was truly a sci fi geek...
Dr. who, Buck Rogers, Battlestar Gallactica, Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic woman, space 1999..etc...
As for the 80's aside from Saturday morning cartoons, I was usually outside riding around on the electric blue supercycle...

a reply to: burdman30ott6

I remember when I was growing up in the 80's and early 90's, collecting a bunch of a type of toy was possible. My friend had a collection of Batman toys and I had Mighty Maxes.

youtu.be... Anton Lirnyk:
 I had the best childhood,
I dragged the apricots in the yard next door.
Pull the braids Otlichnitsa Zoya,
And breakfast at "Pioneer Zorka".

And on Sundays under the "Visiting Fairy Tales"
I sewed cotton-gauze dressings.
I palil dymovuhu and threw them from the balcony,
I have on the wall was a poster Stallone.

I did not carry to Europe for the summer,
I did not buy a Playstation third.
But, on the other hand

I had a childhood,
I had a childhood,
I had a childhood,
I had the best childhood.

I was forty-liners Turbo,
I tore thread baby teeth.
When I was sick, I put banks
Plantains me heals wounds.

I proudly walked with a diplomat in school,
I kept a bottle of Pepsi-Cola.
My teacher was working with another planet
And my dvuhkassetnik chewed cassette.

I have not played in Counter-Strike on the grid,
At Kazantip not eat pills
But, on the other hand

I had a childhood,
I had a childhood,
I had a childhood,
I had the best childhood.

We had a childhood that is necessary,
Let us not wearing Gucci and Prada,
What is the iPhone we do not know
We are a wolf and eggs for years played.

Parents did not give us a mobile,
We went hiking backpacks.
We slept in tents instead of bungalow
And they did not cereals, and potatoes with bacon.

We wore mittens with elastic,
We saw Barbie once in the picture.
We knocked nunchaku chandeliers in the hall,
When he died, Bremen, we all wept.

"Slave Izaura", "Commissioner Cattani"
"Good night" with Aunt Tanya.
Elephant, parrot, boa, monkey,
Kefir in bottles with green cover.

"Morning Post", "ABVGDeyki"
One dollar - 63 kopecks.
Baker, square, gum salochki,
Meatballs in dough, corn sticks.

Water with syrup, chocolate "Alenka"
Shampoo "quack-quack" pyramid Varenkov.
Car-Man, Technology, Dune, Na-Na,
Camera "Zenit" bicycle "Desna".

We had no cottages in Cyprus somewhere,
There was no diapers and the Internet,
But, on the other hand

We had a childhood,
We had a childhood,
We had a childhood,
We had the best childhood.

Give us a childhood!

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Nerdgasm achieved!

But... I hate it that corporations are trying to capitalize on our nostalgia to sell cars and other junk. Who are they to spoil my childhood with capitalism?

I grew up in the 90's:

Teenage mutant ninja turtles
Power Rangers
Double Dare
Legend of the Hidden Temple
Pirates of Dark Water
S.W.A.T. Katz
2Stupid Dogs

But naturally I liked the 80's stuff to:

Transformers
G.I JOE
Thundercats
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
Dungeons and Dragons

Plus all the Hannah Barbara stuff:

Herculoids
Thundaar
Space Ghost
Birdman
Scooby-Doo

...

*sigh*

Damn, I'm old. I grew up with at first, no TV, just a radio (tube type). We got our first TV when I was 5 (B&W).

I watched Captain Kangaroo, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Sky King, Rin Tin Tin and some cartoons. I don't remember many cartoons until the sixties, but Huckleberry Hound and Astro Boy come to mind.

Toys, for me, were erector sets, electric trains, lincoln logs, Remco seemed to make everything from crystal radios to van de graff generators as well as A C Gilbert. I had a Gilbert microscope, telescope and chemistry set.

Since it was the cold war and WW2 had ended just 15 years earlier, I received and glued together lots and lots of aircraft, military and automobile models. Painted them, too, with testors paint. That paint wouldn't come off of anything it got on. Probably had lead in it, also. You haven't finessed something until you could successfully apply a decal to a P-38!

Ah, the memories!

Yeah I've "heard" about this retro stuff, otherwise I'm too young to take pleasure in reliving…errr seeing these videos.

I'll leave this one here. I miss being young in the 90s.

This one as well, for the retro gamer.

Great thread OP, thanks

link

a reply to: burdman30ott6

About a year ago, we unplugged from cable and sat TV and went with a digital antenna. I still get some regular TV and all, but the best is the old stuff they recycle. I found Land of the Lost on a Saturday morning and was instantly transformed into a 10 year old. I used to love that show. And watching it now, makes me think two things, first, the special affects really, REALLY, sucked, and the story line was way ahead of it's time. I think today's audience could enjoy it all again. (given that they could overlook the fakeness)

Great idea for a thread.