I Love The 80s

I grew up in the 80s and this is what I remember.

The 80s was an age of sitcoms that were respectable, wholesome and taught me life lessons. Some of the top sitcoms were the Cosby Show, Perfect Strangers, Growing Pains, Who’s the Boss, Alf and yes the Golden Girls. Now you have shows like Two and a Half Men.

Some of the cars of the 80s were shitty like the Station Wagon. One game is when you see and call beaver wagon first, you get to punch whoever else is in the car. Except for the driver. My dad had a Fiero just like the sister in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  It is currently parked at my bros apartment in his spot and he uses the visitors spot for his jeep. My dad wants $3000 for it but I highly doubt anyone would want it. I rather have a Delorean.

My dad listened to ACDC, Madonna and Beach Boys. So I pretty much listened to whatever he listened to. I also liked new wave and electronica. But not so much the music of the late child molester that is Michael Jackson.  Some of my favorite movies were the Goonies, Indiana Jones, the Great Outdoors, Ghostbusters, Batteries Not Included and Short Circuit. I like robots. I liked the comedies at the time but I hardly watch anything made before the 90s or even 00s.

I noticed that 80s fashion is back. You know with bright florescent colors and even the whole one shoulder thing that chicks do. Now my clothes seem bland and my pants baggy. Nobody wears cargo pants or carpenter jeans anymore. Now the jeans are really tight. That’s too bad for fat people. Sure I have a sexy ass but I just don’t like tight jeans. I feel like those old people with their pants up to their necks that will never change their style that they grew up with. Even my mom had those shoulder pad tops. And of course people in the 80s wore those short shorts that are shorter than my boxers. And my uncle still does wear them.

Kids today are spoiled with these high tech video games. Back in the early 80s you hit the arcade and spent your allowance there. And you had to have quarters ready in time for that damn continue screen that counts down after you died. The enemies were a couple of pixels so you had to use your imagination. The thing about 80s is that most games were the same screen each level; such as Qubert, Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Frogger.

I had an Atari that my dad spent a fortune on. It came with awkward joysticks with one, maybe two buttons. The only two good games I liked were Moon Patrol and Asteroids. Games that were fun at the arcade were boring at home on the Atari. Take Pac Man, all you do is try to eat cookies and get to the next stage just to do it all over again. Very frustrating. I always wondered how many levels there are. Today I have no desire to play them. But every once in a while I like to get out the old NES and play some hit games like Punch Out, Super Mario, and Zelda.

Now the kids have X-Box 360s and Sony 3s with super realistic graphics and controllers with like twelve buttons and two control sticks. These kids don’t appreciate older video games. Sometimes I feel game developers spend too much time making awesome graphics and not enough on gameplay and content. That’s why I enjoy my DS with strategy and role playing games over my X-Box.

So without any decent video games, kids in the 80s played a lot of board games. I already wrote about board games in one of my first blogs; so check it out in the archive. So here are some popular 80s board games that I haven’t already written about.

Rubik’s Cube

I realize it’s not a board game but fuck it. One of the most iconic things from the 80s is the Rubik’s Cube. Unless you’re Rain Man or a robot, it’s impossible to solve and just plain frustrating. My brother finally took the stickers off and then stuck them back the right way. I think it would be a good idea to make a new Rubik’s Cube with different colored lights, sound effects and the ability to reset it.

Sorry

I use the word sorry so many times it has lost all meaning. “Greg stop saying sorry all the damn time.” “Sorry.” This has happened many of times. As you know in Sorry you must move your guys around the board, collect cards and at the same time mess with other players. I think they should make a drinking game called “Screw You” where you fuck with other players, say “my bad” and take shots accordingly.

Ewoks

I loved Ewoks and I always wanted a stuffed animal Wicket. Jub, jub. They first appeared in Return of the Jedi as the lovable native creatures of the moon of Endor. The baby was so cute. I loved their hut village high up in the trees and always wanted to live there. The original ending was the whole gang in the village partying it up with Dak and the ghosts of an old Anakin, OB1 and Yoda with some funky Ewok music. Then they changed the ending in the newer and “better” edition. Anyway there was a really simple board game where you hang glide around the board and collect fruit.

Battleships

Battleship is where you and the other player hide your ships on a grid. Then you guess the coordinates of your enemy’s ships. If your ship gets hit you say “hit” and if it gets sunk you have to say “you sunk my Destroyer.” And then they made Electronic Battleship because you know it was too difficult to say “hit” or that “your ship has sunk.” Or maybe people might lie. My strategy was to put them all in one spot.

Operation

Operation is a game where you operate on some naked dude that has no penis. You have to remove shit from his body like butterflies in his stomach, shrapnel in his leg or a dildo up his ass. You use a scalpel to remove objects, like a kidney for a transplant, without hitting the edges. If you do this his nose glows or he bleeds to death. I could never operate on him because of my shaky hands. I think they should make 50 cent Operation edition where you have to remove bullets from his body and if you slip he disses you or pops a cap at your ass.