People have mentioned most things I remember, but here's one: the pro wrestling explosion. Vince McMahon Jr. bought the World Wrestling Federation from his father, and, with the help of celebrities like Cyndi Lauper and the A-Team's Mr. T, brought the one-time carnival attraction and smoky bingo room entertainment into the mainstream, beginning with the first Wrestlemania in 1985. The culmination came in 1987, when 93,000 fans sold out the Silverdome in Detroit (technically in Pontiac) to watch Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania III.

Lol my mum had soem old videos of those mario ones and they were terrible. They disgrace mario, the zelda ones were so much worse though.

If you grew up on the high tech games like the N64/PS1 generation and up, yes, they might be terrible. But the original Mario and Zelda were true breakthroughs in the gaming industry. The only thing lately that has been a real break through in the gaming industry was the Wii's motion sensor controls. Everything else has essentially been done before just with better graphics and a different plot. The original Zelda was the first game ever to have a memory chip inside the game itself, not requiring a password (that was often 32 characters long). It was also the first non-linear game, in which you could choose where to go. This was a truly a stand-out feature that made Zelda into the franchise that it is now. Yes, the games have greatly been improved since, but to the older generations, these were big things.

ILF, to build upon what Fencer has already said, many of these games were groundbreaking upon release...not only did the original Legend of Zelda have a battery backup for savegames, but it also allowed up to 3 different players to play on the same cartridge! This was unheard of on consoles of the time...most cartridges had an archaic system where you'd have to enter this alpha-numeric code and that code would allow you to pick up from various points in the game (keeping track of them was horrible..one missed letter or number and you'd have to start all over again...argh!).

The original Final Fantasy had a similar system if I recall, but on that kind of game it'd pretty much have to. I'm no Mario game fan by any stretch of the imagination, but even I have to admit how important the original SMB was in defining the "platformer" genre on consoles. Sega created its own iconic platformer (Sonic the Hedgehog) in direct response to the crazy popularity of Mario.

I never could find the stupid Minus Zone.

We had a 80's state of the art computer as a kid: an Apple II GS. Back in those days, graphics were very cheap and basic. The II GS did have color and sound, but internet did not exist back then. E-mail did not exist back then. It used the old 5 1/2 in floppy disks (the real reason they were called floppy) and we later added the 3 in 'floppy' disks that had plastic casings. This computer was a step ahead of DOS, the old operating system in which you typed every one of your commands. Ah, the good old days.

Other movies have come to mind of the 80's. The only movie I have seen with Matthew Broderick that I liked was Glory. Excellent depiction of the Civil War and the 54 Mass. Infantry. Also either very late 80's or early 90's, was an excellent comedy called What about Bob? with Richard Dryffus and Bill Murray.

Several other movies with well known actors when they were young were War Games with Tom Cruise. Ferris Beuller's Day Off with Matthew Broderick. Tom Hanks had two interesting films: Big and The Burbs. Big was rebooted with 13 Going on 30 and The Burbs is a downright hilarious film about a guy who spends his week on vacation at home doing nothing (and investigating his new neighbors).

Excellent opening post, SL!

Girls do many strange fashion-related things, but two of the strangest are Jellies shoes (a plastic shoe with glitter mixed in) which makes their feet sweat a lot

Ha! When I was really little (so, not 80's but actually early 90's) I remember reallllllly wanting a pair of Jellies. I distincly recall two sisters in my Sunday School class who has pink ones with sparkles. I was dying for a pair, but my sensable mother of course told me my feet with just sweat a lot. I never got a pair of Jellies... *sniffle* :'(

I didn't mean the games were terrible. I meant the tv show. You might of got mixed up when i said video(vcr), you probalay thought i meant video game.

here is a picture of the vcr cover.

I just read that Corey Haim passed away today. Haim was one of the more popular child actors of the 80's, featured in a number of cinematic hits. He's known as one of the two "Coreys", the other being Corey Feldman, and the two collaborated on a couple of popular 80's flicks together (and a few in the 90's, although those largely weren't as good). License to Drive and The Lost Boys come immediately to mind. I'm still trying to figure out how it was that he missed the lead role in The Goonies and Sean Astin got it, not that Astin did a bad job or anything, but the power of the Two Coreys was just guaranteed movie gold back in the day...

I wasn't born until '91, so I missed out (or fortunately escaped? Depends on how you look at it) on the 80s. However, a lot of my favorite movies were made in the 80s. Seriously, some really great classics came out of that era.... the list is almost too long to even put together, but Indiana Jones and The Goonies come to mind.
And we can't forget the original Super Mario Bros.... or how about Kid Icarus? *believes Kid Icarus came out in the 80s, anyway...*

Ah, yes...Thundarr the Barbarian. The memories! It, along with He-Man and She-Ra, formed the basis of Saturday morning cartoons I watched with my first roommate after graduating university (a guilty pleasure, perhaps, after a long week at work ).

Then, a little later on Saturday afternoons, he'd watch All-Star Wrestling - I couldn't stand that show, and we had a number of good-natured conversations about how much of it was staged.

(But that exposure allowed me to better appreciate good spoofs on the genre, such as the Avatar: The Last Airbender episode "The Blind Bandit" that aired decades later).

A big TV show from the 80's that was a huge hit was MacGuyver. Genius theme of a guy that could make just about anything with whatever he had around him, but in a way, a few of his stunts were pretty far fectched as the MythBusters have shown. But the concept behind them was pretty spot on. I remember watching that show often growing up.

WOW! Great opening post Shadow . So much to remember, so little space to post in. Your fingers must have carpal tunnel by now.

Good catch on McGuyver Fencer. I can't believe no-one's mentioned Terminator yet though, the role that made Arnie a Star.

And no 80's Music list is complete without Blondie:

or Gary Numan:

or DEVO:

GB

Actually what made Arnie a star was Connan the Barbarian. Terminator was right in there (and that actually the only one in the series I haven't seen), but Connan was the one that really gave Arnie that image of a super body builder.

Of course you don't want to even think about Connan the Destroyer or Red Sonja (movie I intend to avoid).

Another Christian band that was hot in the 80's was Petra. They were my brother's favorite growing up, even though most of the albums I know of are from the 90's.

And as for toys, I'm suprised no one has mentioned the increase in popularity of the LEGO. Of course they didn't have the variety of pieces, colors, or designs that we have today but the design of the interlocking pieces extended beyond fadhood into a tool of creativity and ingenuity. And seeing what's out there now, I ask 'where were those when I was a kid?'

True, Conan the Barbarian put Arnie on the map, but Terminator made him a household name.

How about this one:

which includes this guy :

and this guy: (Liam Neeson on the left )

GB

Of course you don't want to even think about Connan the Destroyer or Red Sonja (movie I intend to avoid).

Ahhh, Conan the Barbarian was the best one (the soundtrack alone makes me feel like a ripped barbarian madman), but I can't say the same for Destroyer, even if it does have Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain in it. And that evil woman from Superman II too. Red Sonja was bad, and yet at the same time, kind of good. It's one of those guilty pleasure movies you can watch at 2am and enjoy as long as you know no one else knows about it.

How about a little fantasy flim that came out in the 80's that everyone knows about and has watched. I speak of course of the immortal....Beastmaster! It was on TBS so much that it became known affectionately as "The Beastmaster Station" . Marc Singer, Rip Torn, and Tanya Roberts. If it's on I will always stop what I'm doing and watch it.

GB, Krull was a great film, wasn't it? There were lots of fine fantasy films in the 80's....it was a good decade for the genre. Dragonslayer, Krull, Legend, Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, the Conans, etc. I wonder why the swords and sorcery thing was so popular? Well, either way we were a fortunate bunch, weren't we?