DBWI: What was your favorite part of the 1980s?

glenn67

The rise in popularity of Bruce Lee during that decade.

After establishing himself as a martial arts movie star during the 70s, Lee would be part of the ensemble cast of The Cannonball Run movie making good use of his karate and kung fu moves in the few minutes he was seen in the film.

That movie also starred Clint Eastwood as Seymour Goldfarb Jr., a wealthy Jewish playboy so obsessed with Clint Eastwood that he had plastic surgery to look like him and pointed a toy gun at his mother while uttering "Go ahead, make my day"; Sally Field, as Burt Reynold's on-screen romantic interest; Charo and Farrah Fawcett as the femme fatale racing team; and an airplane-like car driven by Leslie Nielsen and then-little known David Hasselhoff.

In sports, hands down it was the New York Mets dynasty with their World Series championships in 1982, 1984, 1986, 1987 and 1989.
 

overoceans

Cyndi Lauper's rise as the pre-eminent, hegemonic pop siren. Might be a bit petty to admit this, but I absolutely loved the way she overtook Madonna almost right from the get-go, and there was no looking back.
 

Amadeus

Maeglin said:
Politically, the nuclear reduction deal between Dukakis and Romanov massively defused tensions.
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Dukakis wasn't my favorite President but that was most definitely a great accomplishment.

I think another high point of the 1980s was Raging Bull winning Best Picture in 1981.
 
Neoteros

Neoteros

overoceans said:
Cyndi Lauper's rise as the pre-eminent, hegemonic pop siren. Might be a bit petty to admit this, but I absolutely loved the way she overtook Madonna almost right from the get-go, and there was no looking back.
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Madonna's barely ethical antics as a billionaire CEO though, maybe if she'd kept being a musician we would've been spared those - even back then, she had a rather vicious side to her. You have to be truly terrifying to make Michael Jackson fear you - and, speaking of Michael, I wonder what would've happened to him hadn't his mother divorced Joe back in 1973; even in OTL he's had quite a few issues due to his fucked up past, but if he'd stayed under Joe's thumb, rather than becoming the King of Pop and a role model for child abuse victims and sufferers of vitiligo everywhere, well... fuck.
 

kmmontandon

Watching Christa McAuliffe floating around in orbit on the Challenger. I was 8 years old at the time, and science was already kind of my thing, but more focused on dinosaurs and geology - that was when I first got my almost obsessive interest in spaceflight. The launch of the Hubble a few years later (and, alas, it's need to be repaired a year or two after that) was so damned exciting. It's a bit outside the '80s, but I think the expansion and replacement of the first generation shuttle fleet, the current lunar base, and the building of the Freedom and Liberty space stations, and the huge crop of Martian and smaller herd of Venusian & Europan landers/rovers, using money from the post-Cold War peace dividend really had their roots in the Teacher In Space program. It really connected NASA and the space program in general to the common American, and the Students In Space program flights sealed the deal. Some people bitched about how expensive they all were (and still do), but it was worth it. I don't want to live in a world that doesn't have a webcam on Ceres.
 

Byzantion

glenn67 said:
The rise in popularity of Bruce Lee during that decade.

After establishing himself as a martial arts movie star during the 70s, Lee would be part of the ensemble cast of The Cannonball Run movie making good use of his karate and kung fu moves in the few minutes he was seen in the film.

That movie also starred Clint Eastwood as Seymour Goldfarb Jr., a wealthy Jewish playboy so obsessed with Clint Eastwood that he had plastic surgery to look like him and pointed a toy gun at his mother while uttering "Go ahead, make my day"; Sally Field, as Burt Reynold's on-screen romantic interest; Charo and Farrah Fawcett as the femme fatale racing team; and an airplane-like car driven by Leslie Nielsen and then-little known David Hasselhoff.

In sports, hands down it was the New York Mets dynasty with their World Series championships in 1982, 1984, 1986, 1987 and 1989.
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The peaceful demonstrations in 1989 all over Spain which led to the end of the last Junta of Francoquists, who against all odds gained power in the 1981 coup. The second Spanish Republic had hard work to do to overcome the economic struggeles to keep Up with the Rest of Western Europe but eventually joined the Maastricht treaty.
 
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Unknown

In wrestling, after Hulk Hogan's career came to an end at the hands of Paul Orndorff (thanks to a botched piledriver; Hogan would be temporarily paralyzed, but would walk again--he would also never wrestle again, though he would eventually become a commentator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the WWF) and Ken Patera died in a fight with police (and, please, no comments about how it was excessive force, which should be reserved for Chat--Patera was literally beating up police officers; can't say I blame Vince for unpersoning him from the WWF until the early 2010s (1)), the eventual rise of Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat and his dominance of the late 1980s and early 1990s WWF; there were a number of four- and five-star matches by Steamboat in that era (my favorite is him vs. Ted DiBiase in a steel cage at Summerslam 1988, especially the high-cross body off the top of the steel cage that allowed Steamboat to win)...

(1) This arguably also led to Snuka's leaving, as there was a widespread suspicion that he'd murdered his then-girlfriend, Nancy Argentino (and still-unproven rumors of a coverup around that death--there likely was insufficient evidence to prosecute at the time, IMO; he would be indicted in 2013); after Patera's death, Vince decided to cut ties with Snuka...
 

pattersonautobody

On a more positive note, I hated the Beatles reunion. Their 80s albums are arena rock bull crap. Lennon was totally on H and was just doing it for the money. Jeff Lynn and George Harrison were pretty much running the whole show. I cannot help but laugh at their 89 album, which had neither Ringo nor McCartney but it was a "Beatles" album. Their 93 album is totally pathetic, trend hopping excrement. If George Harrison did not get stabbed to death in his house, it would have kept going I think. John Lennon, three scabs, and Jeff Lynn did record a few songs before it got scrapped for the release of the Anthologies and a world tour with McCartney and Ringo rejoining. It's a shame Lennon OD'd shortly afterwards.

Sadly, I think the direction they should have went with was McCartney's solo album he did with Sammy Hagar in 1988. If Hagar did not join Van Halen, I think they would have formed Chickenfoot in the 80s instead of the 2000s.

The Beatles' remake of Live and Let Die was pretty awesome though.
 
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Mysterion

kmmontandon said:
Watching Christa McAuliffe floating around in orbit on the Challenger.
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Yep, that was almost as good as Walter Cronkite's flight a year of so later as part of the Journalist in Space program. Not only did he file some great stories for CBS, it was just fun to watch how much damn fun he was having.
 
Calcaterra

Calcaterra

The Giants ending the Browns dynasty and then repeating was awesome. Can’t help but think Lawrence Taylor is probably the greatest defensive player of all time.
 

James Ricker

Ronald Reagan's impeachment over Iran Contra. The way everyone in his administration turned on each other, Tip O'Neill wound up becoming president from 86 to 88 he chose not to run for president in 88 and endorsed Mike Dukakis.
Donald Rumsfeld ratting everyone out before Congress because the administration was trying to make him the fall guy was the highlight of the impeachment hearings.
 
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SavoyTruffle

SavoyTruffle

My favorite part was when Genesis, of all bands, reunited their quintet lineup and stole the show at the Philadelphia leg of Live Aid. Queen of course ruled Wembley, for sure.
 
HeX

HeX

I really enjoyed the ascendancy of video games into the mainstream. I remember when having an Atari was a social death sentence at school, and when the games industry crashed in '83, everyone agreed it was nothing more than a fad. But then, the NES came out and sold a bazillion units, and suddenly, everyone--and I mean everyone, my middle school principal had a console in his office he'd play during breaks--was playing Mario and Zelda and Metroid. When the Sega Genesis came out in '89, everyone lost their shit over how much better the graphics were, and the next year was even nuttier, with the arrival of Sega's killer app, Sonic The Hedgehog, the Super Nintendo, the long-awaited suitor to the NES's throne, and the play-it-anywhere Game Boy.

Disney's Back to the Future, still one of their best live-action movies, is also pretty high up on my list, though LucasFilm's Empire Strikes Back and Revenge of the Jedi still beat Future in quality, IMO. RotJ's final battle on Endor with the army of Wookies storming the Imperial base was probably the best moment of the entire Star Wars franchise.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
pattersonautobody said:
That was sorely needed after that massive nuclear exchange. I'm from NY and I'm just happy I got out of the 80s alive.
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I don’t know what the Gang of Four were thinking. And who knew those lunatics could strike the east coast? Best part of the 1980s for me was not being in L.A. when it was hit.
 

Sam R.

Probably when dental got rolled into Medicare, or the failure to deregister the BLF leading to the left unions breaking the Accord.
 
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