by Dave (Twitter - @80sReboot)
Managing the podcast for over a year I noticed we have amassed quite a bit of content that can be grouped together in such a way that can serve as a mini time capsule for specific years of the 80's decade. I'll attempt using this blog to group some of our shows together that can spotlight either a year or some pop culture item or event to ease our listeners to find past shows that might be of interest. In the case of looking at a specific year I will also share some iconic videos that would spotlight news, TV shows, and cartoons that were on for that specific year. First up is the year 1980. Oddly enough this was the last year we covered for our movie review podcast series, as the summer of 1982 was such an iconic movie year that was our jump in point and we worked our way up from their before covering 1981 and then wrapping with 1980. Some of our co-hosts are also revisiting each year in either music or Oscar nominated movies and these 3 podcasts will be the beginning of this time capsule blog entry.
1980 Movie Review - Dave, Nick, Scott, and Jesse talk about the wonderful movies of 1980. Tweet to @80sReboot or email 80sReboot@gmail.com to join in the conversation.
Heavy Metal and Hard Rock Albums of 1980 - Scott and Tim start a new series on heavy metal and hard rock albums of the 80’s. This episode they start with the general definition of “heavy metal/hard rock” and then they talk about their favorite "heavy metal/hard rock" albums from the year 1980.
Oscar Movies of 1980 - Jesse and Matt discuss the Oscar nominated movies of the year 1980. They discuss on whether the selected Best Movie of the year for that year should have won.
1980 News Headlines
1980 Television Shows
1980 Cartoons
Personally speaking as this was the first year of the decade and I was 9 years old for the majority of it, I don't remember a lot of the significance of the news items or the TV shows or cartoons being memorable. A 9 year old boy may not have had a huge stake in the game on the election of Ronald Reagan, having geeky/nerdy interests the Olympic boycott didn't even hit my kid radar, and John Lennon being shot was definitely notable at the tail end of the year but took me years later to really understand the impact John had on music to appreciate the significance of that loss in December of 1980.
This being the first year of the decade and it still needed to identify itself to the world, for me it was a lot of the same old thing from the latter years of the 70's. Evidence of that can clearly be seen looking at these clips of That's Incredible or Thundarr the Barbarian, not bad in their own right but not significantly different than content that had already been out there. Nothing that really would blow the socks off a 9 year old boy with geek tendencies. That feeling would definitely change as the decade moved forward. Also note, I was hesitant to include Scrappy-Doo in this entry ... not a fan ... Scooby rocked ... but Scrappy ... really? What were they thinking with that one?
Let us know how you like this time capsule entry and our podcast contributions that highlighted the beginning what would become a wonderful decade in the comments below.