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HaplessChild Was A Happy Child in the 80’s. (Cheekyred23’s w/o)May 06 '06 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Disclaimer:
Hopefully I am not crashing Cheekyred23’s write off. I didn’t see a “No Hapless” sign on her profile, though, so I might be ok.
It is my birthday in a few days, and while I was waxing nostalgic about where I am now and where I have been, I thought it perfect timing to reminisce about my life in the 80’s with Cheekyred23’s write-off. I have already written about the movie that turned me into a vampire lover, and what I did for fun as a child, so I will elaborate on some other significant memories, and the objects or people attached to them. The thing I found most interesting when comprising this list is that the things that stick out in my mind from the 80’s are significant because they lead me to other areas of exploration, or they set off a fascination or interest with something. Except for Fabuland and Pudding Pops, but hey, I was a child of the 80’s. Nostalgia In No Significant Order: The Pirate Movie. I am not being vague with this title. There is a movie called The Pirate Movie that appeared in 1982 staring Kristy McNichol and Christopher Atkins. It was a spoof of The Pirates Of Penzance, and featured bad 80’s music, terrible jokes, and references to Star Wars. I once watched this movie five times in one day. The only other movie I viewed that profusely was Legend. I honestly wanted to be abducted by a pirate when I was eight years old, because I thought the job included signing and dancing with hot guys. I watched The Pirate Movie last year for my birthday and laughed at the frizzy hair, the costuming, and the acting, but I will still get the Tarantara song stuck in my head and smile fondly on this movie. The Last Unicorn When I wasn't aspiring to be a pirate I was longing to be a unicorn. I wanted to be turned into a waif-like blond girl so I could scream, “What have you done to me? I’m a unicorn! I’m a unicorn.” I still scream that actually. This movie is gorgeously animated, and the voice talent Alan Arkin, Jeff Bridges, and Mia Farrow brings the characters to life. While I am not too keen on the songs, I will still place this movie high on a throne. Going back and reviewing it I realize that it was not really aimed at children. It is funny how many of the 1980’s movies like The Last Unicorn, The Dark Crystal, and even The Secret Of Nihm carried such weight to them when compared to today’s children’s movies where it is signing and dancing every 15 minutes, and you would never see a skeleton begging for a bottle of wine in Land Before Time #15. Adventure You know the Atari game with the little square guy and you need to get him to get the key to unlock the castle and so on? When I was growing up my uncle, who was also great at impersonating Muppets and Fraggles galore, got this game and I would watch him play it obsessively. To make the game more interesting for me, however, he created this fantastic back-story that involved selling things on the black market and the dynamic between the bat that would steal your key and the hero. Only later when I played it on one of those 㦀-games-in-a-controller” gizmos did I understand his genius and realize that Adventure is your simple, standard Atari game. Poison I once wore Poison’s “Talk Dirty To Me” t-shirt to school when I was in the fifth grade. The teacher didn’t handle it very well. I didn’t care; Bret Michaels was the hottest person I had ever seen in my nine years on the planet. You might think of Poison as my gateway drug band, because by the time the decade flipped over, I had taken my love of long-haired men screaming with loud guitar and discovered bands like Guns & Roses, Tesla, and Slaughter. I can’t imagine what atrocities my hair would have further suffered had grunge not come along to replace my need for hairspray and pink eye shadow, The HBO Short That Doesn’t Exist I loved watching MTV and cable in general when I was younger, but the one vivid memory I have was this short film on HBO. Basically this guy is editing film in some kind of movie archive and the film comes to life and chases him before completely covering and suffocating him. The whole thing must have taken forever to make since the evil film was animated by stop motion. I remember waiting to watch whatever movie would be coming on, and I would see this starting and I would be instantly afraid, yet I would force myself to watch it. To this day I have only met one other person that remembers it and was as horrified by it as I was. Fabuland Fabuland was created by Lego. It is this town you can build, but animals populate it instead of people. Each animal had his own job such as police man, photographer, or baker, and he or she would come with a car or house. Collect the entire set and you have a pretty big town, but I was never able to convince my mom that Fabuland was more important than paying bills. The animals are kind of a cross between Richard Scary characters and some kind of totem creation because the figures are basically a big cartoon animal head on the basic Lego human body. I would collect these things every chance I got, and would spend hours constructing additional housing out of whatever boxes I could find so none of my Fabuland guys were homeless. I loved my Rainbow Bright and my She-rah, but I always went back to the Fabuland guys. Fangoria Magazine My mom was close with a woman that had three sons who were two, four, and six years older than me. Beyond baby-sitting and entertaining me with games like hide-and-seek in the dark, and light as a feather/stiff as a board, they also introduced me to the world of horror movies. The eldest of the boys collected Fangoria Magazine and he would have me look at it before we watched a scary movie. Back in the 80’s, Fangoria was heavily concentrated on the special effects aspect of gore, so instead of being creeped out when having marathon viewings of Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th, I would instead recognize how they were able to create so much blood and simply enjoy the movies for the campy fright fests they were. Pudding Pops Yeah, they brought these back, but Bill Cosby can go to hell if he thinks they taste the same. Growing up in Las Vegas there was nothing better than hanging out at the pool all day long and being handed a Pudding Pop. Cool chocolaty goodness. The return of the impostor Pudding Pop made me realize how many good junk foods were altered for whatever reasons and now they taste horrid. The Oreo Cookies of the 80’s were not the ones we eat today, and I would possibly sell my soul to have Girl Scout Cookie Thin Mints with the actual thin layer of mint at the top as opposed to the chocolate covered mint cracker they sell today. I realize that sounds crotchety, but when you have those odd food cravings you want things to taste how you remember them tasting. The Challenger Disaster I was in the second grade when this happened. We had been writing letters to Christa McAuliffe, the teacher, and we were going to turn on a re-broadcast of the take-off later in the day. Our school councilor walked in crying and said that we had to turn on the tv. I don’t thing we did anything else that day except for watch the tragic replay of the explosion. One week later I would write a poem about it that would be placed in the local paper. It was the first time I had written something that made my mother cry. The Jack The Ripper Specials In 1988 the television networks went crazy with Jack The Ripper specials for the 100th anniversary of the murders. I loved every minute of them. I still have the two part mini series with Michael Caine on tape and I will watch it every once in a while. Just as Poison guided me into rock music, Jack the Ripper guided me into serial killers. By the sixth grade I was flinging red paint onto paper to create blood splatter for my report on Jack, and I used to hold myself to some bizarre standard that I had to have all of his victim’s names memorized. V While Unsolved Mysteries introduced me to the paranormal, I need to single out the television show about lizard alien invaders covered in waxy human skin as the number one show I was watching in the 80’s. The silliest thing ever was convincing my grandparents that the news segment they aired at the beginning of the show was not a real newscast, and we hadn’t actually been invaded. My mom and I would make some popcorn and watch this show religiously. In a way it was my first X-Files. In closing, I would like to thank Cheekyred23 for this great write off idea. I think it is always good to once in a while remember where we came from and what influenced us to become the people we are today!  |
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