Eighties Blog – 1980s Retro Movies Fashion Music

The BBC car lovers tv series began in 1977 as a somewhat conventional and short 30 minute motoring magazine program that evolved over time to incorporate it’s present funny and off beat longer format. Being a big fan I was happy to find this mid 80s Top Gear video online. Although there’s no Stig and it is sadly lacking in high speed drifting and rare supercars there are some cool parts and it gives a taste of the European 1980s automotive scene. Check out their high tech computer graphic titles!

In this first episode of 1986 presenter Chris Goffey cruises in to the mid 80s with style in a sweet BMW 7-series while Sue Baker takes an exciting look at the second-hand tire market. William Woollard gives a cold war examination of cheap but cute Eastern-European Cars: the Skoda 105 S, the FSO 1500, the Yugo 45A and the Lada Riva 1300SL and sees if you could do better buying a second-hand West-European car. The Best part is when Chris Goffey asks the popular 80s reggae band UB40 why they sponsor rally-driver James Prochowski and interviews the driver.

The heart warming story of when swell folks go punk and how their family learns a valuable lesson in understanding and bla bla bla fake but funny! Look for familiar seventies and eighties stars Jay Underwood (Uncle Buck,Fantastic Four), Bernie Kopell (The Love Boat) and James Noble (Benson) in this corny After School Special. Some of the 80s values expressed here include the value of conformity, selling out for cash and big hair.

(Sorry, YouTube deleted the video)

Don’t worry, no one was falling for that family friendly slop except naive parents – real punk rock thrived in the 80s and there was no love for the phony suburban posers that became punk overnight in appearance but not attitude. Here are some punks that weren’t faking it – The Dead Kennedys with their hit Holiday in Cambodia performed live!

Max Headroom was a computer generated smart ass 80s icon with funny satirical opinions about media, politics and pop culture – a sort of John Stewart of the eighties. In an age of blocky low-resolution computer graphics Max appeared to be a huge advance in lifelike 3D rendering. Eventually the high tech secret was revealed – it was a guy in a mask!

Here’s a video of Max Headroom on 80s style:

Max also appeared in the track Paranomia by Art of Noise as seen in this 80s classic music video:

New Max 80s Tees from Insomniak Apparel:

An icon of the 1980s Max Headroom T-Shirts with very tasteful neon green and orange tiger stripes.

Recent news reports from CNN have narrowed the location of Osama Bin Laden down to two possible scenarios as determined by experts…

We at the Eighties Blog are shocked by the implications….

You just never know who’s a terrorist anymore!

Music Videos were a big part of 80s culture with the birth of MTV and music video TV shows on local stations. The video format also provided new opportunities for creative experimentation. While in the past we listened to lyrics for the story we could now also see the song interpreted on video. Now what if we flipped things around and had the singer literally interpret the video instead? Watch these re-made eighties videos to see the hilarious results!

Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version

Tears for Fears – Head Over Heels: Literal Video Version

Billy Idol – White Wedding: Literal Video Version

These creative 80s parodies are the work of Dustin McLean of Dust Films. Dustin is an award winning animator, film maker and musician whos comedy and viral videos have been featured on G4, Bravo, BBC, MSNBC and RollingStone.com. So what do you think? Is there a classic 80s video you would like to see re-recorded literally?