NOSTALGIA: The Arcades

The best place to be in the decade of the eighties was, of course, at the arcades. A room full of dozens of oversized cabinets, portals to different realities,  each one making its own beeping sounds. Some of them were crowded with people, some of then were abandoned showing an endless loop of a gaming demo, but they all offered hours and hours of entertainment for just a token (or a quarter, depending where you live) every minute.

The advantage arcade games had over home consoles was that they usually featured improved graphics and more characters on screen, and the games were more action, fighting or racing oriented instead of exploration. If playing a NES game was like curling up with an award-winning novel, the arcade experience was like watching a big-budget action film… loud, colorful, and defiantly unrepentant about its brainlessness.

Sadly, this places are on the verge of extinction, current consoles are as powerful as any cabinet now and people just prefer playing with strangers online than in person. So lets take a nostalgic look at some of the greatest arcade game two decades ago.

PACMAN (Namco 1980)

Without a shadow of a doubt, Pacman is the world's most famous arcade game and character, spawning hundreths of classic eighties memorabilia (which will be furtherly discussed here in a future post). As videogame historians should all know, Pacman was going to be originally called PuckMan (because he is a puck) but vandals can easily change a P for an F so the name was changed. 

DONKEY KONG (Nintendo 1981)

In this game you control a carpenter called Jumpman (yes, he would become a plumber and change his name to Mario later) that had to jump barrels and evade other obstacles in order to save a girl kidnapped by one King Kong's descendants called Donkey. Many people thought, including me, that the original name was Monkey Kong, but that someone misspelled it or something but further investigation showed that Shigeru Miyamoto, his creator, thought Donkey meant "silly" or "stupid" so he went with that name.

The obsession Donkey Kong caused in some players to beat the highest score has been documented by the 2007 film The King of Kong, which I found a little bit boring, but interesting nonetheless. 

YIE AR KUNG FU (Konami 1985)

Many supposed experts consider Street Fighter as the first popular one on one fighting game but as you can see now that's not the case. In Yie Ar Kung Fu you control Oolong, a martial arts experts, facing challengers from all over China, each one with its own special weapon. The best parts were the sound effects when you punched or kicked (ppptoooo, ptooooo) and when your opponent fell down on his back when you defeated him with his legs pointing up in a rather humourous manner.

STREET FIGHTER (Capcom 1987)

Although not as famous as its sequel, the original Street Fighter introduced elements that would become fundamental in fighting games, like special moves triggered by button combinations (down, downright, right and punch to throw a fireball being the most famous). In this game you could only choose between Ryu and Ken, though.

DOUBLE DRAGON (Technos 1987)

The original side scrolling beat em up, this game was about two brothers fighting in the streets to find their kidnapped girlfriend. The best part was that if the game was finished with two players, they would have to fight each other to the death and the winner would receive a kiss from the girl!

ALTERED BEAST (Sega 1987)

I really liked this game (and its later Genesis/Mega Drive adaptation) because your hero started as this skinny guy, then after taking a power-up you became pumped with steroids and if you kept getting power-ups you would become a werewolf and then a dragon, really cool stuff. I later learned that when you finished the game, which sadly I never did, the ending would reveal that everything was just a movie and that all the characters were actors in costumes and you could see them laughing together on the set.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA (HEROES in UK) TURTLES (Konami 1989)

When the Ninja Turtles mania began in the late eighties everybody wanted to have all their toys, watch their cartoons, play their games, or even be them (yeah, like me). Since kids were always playing it, I didn't see the first level of the game until months later (you could join the game at any time when someone else was playing). The NES version of this game was the first time I realised how weak the console was compared with the arcades.

And why did they censor "Ninjas" in the UK, what's wrong about them?

NOTE: I didn't play all this games the year they came out, but played them on an arcade later nonetheless

ETERNAL CLASSICS: Labyrinth

In 1986 Jim Henson, creator of The Muppet Show, teamed up with George Lucas to create one of the most fascinating fantasy worlds ever created for the big screen. This was no mere maze, this was Labyrinth, the greatest puppet movie ever done.  Unfortunately, this was Jim Henson's last movie before he suddenly died in 1990 of pneumonia at age 53. 

Labyrinth tells us the story of a young teenage girl who enters a fantasy realm to conquer her fears of growing up and facing reality, a theme used often by writers like Lewis Carrol in the classic Alice in Wonderland and, most recently, by Hayao Miyazaki, creator of anime classics like Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle. In this case, the girl has to find her way to the center of the Labyrinth in order to save his baby brother from Jareth, the Goblin King, after she wishes for him to take his brother.  But, what exactly makes Labyrinth stand out from the rest?

No, it's not Tina Turner. David Bowie, as the Goblin King, stares at the back of a young Jennifer Connelly (who would later star in Dark City and Requiem for a Dream).

VISUAL EFFECTS

In these days where every visual effect is done by computer it's remarkable to go back and see how real craftmen created a breathtaking story using puppetry, make up, and even magic. For instance, there is a part in the movie where the Goblin King twirls a crystal ball down his arm and around his palm, a juggler had to hide behind him and substitute his arm for the character’s in the shot and then do the trick without watching his hand. Today, the effects team would just figure out how to do it with a computer, but in 1986, you needed magicians who could figure out how to do it for real. 

Hairy thing riding a dog, Hoggle and Ludo

FANTASY CREATURES

Both simple and complex puppets were used to create the vast variety of creatures that inhabit the labyrinth. I remember being really impressed by the plant with eyes and almost scared by the tunnel full of hands that made faces when I saw the movie for the first time back when I was still young and innocent. And what about the hairy thing riding the dog? Simply adorable.

The amazing talking hands.

ART DIRECTION

Taking elements from Henson's previous fantasy movie The Dark Crystal, The Wizard of Oz and even from M. C. Escher's famous logic defying rooms, Labyrinth features a visually rich world whose parts are very different from each other yet they remain coherent with the general aesthethic of the film. 

This part of Jareth's castle is inspired by Escher's Relativity, painting that appears in Sarah's room back in the real world. This is a clue that reveals us that this fantasy world exists only in her mind based on the things she sees in real life. 

DAVID BOWIE

After considering offering the part of Jareth, the Goblin King to Michael Jackson, Jim Henson finally decided to cast pop music sensation David Bowie. The addition of this rockstar brought a very interesting look for the villian few times seen before: a metrosexual-punk-TinaTurner lookalike, singing superstar who really is not that evil. Bowie contributed with 5 songs for the movie, some of them cheesy, some of them catchy. Some people really hated his songs, but I think they helped setting the tone for the movie.

Jareth and his goblins sing to his terrified  prisioner.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

At the end of the movie, Sarah finally saves his baby brother from the clutches of Jareth and takes him back home, where the good goblins appear on a mirror waving goodbye.  Sarah is ready now to leave her fantasy world behind and become a mature woman... 

... But what about Toby the baby? Well, as the Return to Labyrinth manga tells us, Jareth and the goblins become his secret guardians thoughout his whole childhood granting him wishes until he reaches puberty and has to go back to the Labyrinth, chasing a goblin that steals his homework. This manga was published in 2006 by TokyoPop and promises to be as fun as the movie although the artwork is not as detailed as I would have hoped. Check it out!

TOP 7: Vince Clarke

Few people have actually been able to be successful as member of two different music bands, British synth pop legend Vince Clarke is one them. Always flamboyant in his music style and appearance, Clarke was the original song writer for Depeche Mode's very succesful premiere album Speak & Spell in 1981. After having a few creative differences with the other members of the band, he left the group leaving the no less talented Martin L. Gore as their official songwriter. 

After forming other minor groups, Vince Clarke finally teamed up with the even more flamboyant Andy Bell to  form Erasure, another legendary pop group that scored a lot of hits in the eighties and early nineties. They still keep on popping hard these days.

To celebrate the illustrious career of this master of eighties music the editorial staff of 1980 Me are showing the definite list of the best songs from this decade written and  performed by him. Tell us what you think!

1. JUST CANT GET ENOUGH

This was the song that sent Depeche Mode to superstardom back in 1981 and has been covered by many other groups since then. 

2. A LITTLE RESPECT

Erasure's greatest hit was written in 1988 for the album The Innocents featuring Andy Bell's signature falsetto in the chorus.

3. WHAT'S YOUR NAME

"Hey you are such a pretty boy!"

4. NEW LIFE

Depeche Mode's second single ever.

5. SHIP OF FOOLS

This song from 1988 was Erasure's first ballad. This performance is from a concert in 2005 and features Clarke playing the guitar.

6. PHOTOGRAPHIC

This is rumoured to be DM's first song ever but was never released as a single although it has a music video.

7. WHO NEEDS LOVE LIKE THAT

Scenes from Erasure's classic concert in 1992 performing their 1985 song Who Needs Love Like That where Andy Bell  wore an unbelievably ultra mega flamboyant cowboy outfit.  Vince Clarke later appears showing his peculiar taste in fashion. 

NEW OLD GAMES: Retro Game Challenge

Way before the release and success of MegaMan 9, a game made in 2008 that looked like something from the 1980s, Bandai Namco presented a title for the Nintendo DS based on the obscure Japanese game show Retro Game Master. Game Center CX, as the game was known in Japan, featured a compilation of classic 8-Bit games where the player had to beat various challenges following the spirit of the TV show. But these were not really classic games from the eighties... they were all brand new!

After an ardous process of localization the game was finally released in 2009 in the Americas and Europe. XSEED Games did a terrific job getting rid of the numerous TV show references and setting the vibe of playing video games as a kid with things like talking about rumours heard at school, listening to the mother complaining about their excessive gaming habits, looking in videogame magazines for cheat codes and news about upcoming games and... well, lots of little details that people growing up in that decade will definitely appreciate.

You start with only one game, Cosmic Gate, but once you beat the Game Master's four challenges you get a new one and so on.  There are a total of nine games divided in four genres:

COSMIC GATE/ STAR PRINCE

The first one is almost exactly like Space Invaders but with warp zones as asteroid fields, a good introduction for what Retro Game Challenge is all about. The second one is a really fun shooter with cool power ups and bosses.

ROBOT NINJA HAGGLEMAN 1-3

Haggle Man 1 is a basic sidescroller where you have to use doors and ninja stars to kill all the enemies on a stage and  the sequel is just the sa

me but with bigger stages. Haggle Man 3, on the other side, is the best game of all, changing radically from its predecessors and presenting a more action oriented gameplay more similar to games like Ninja Gaiden.

RALLY KING/RALLY KING SP

This one is basically your average top view racer but with a "boost drift" that is common in today's racers but not so much in those of two decades ago. Rally King SP is just the same but with chicken noodle advertisements and different track colours, a parody of those "special edition" games that did just that.

GUADIA QUEST

Following the spirit of classic RPGs like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, this game tells the usual story of three brave warriors fighting against dark forces in a medieval kingdom. The only new thing is  that you can actually pact with some of the monsters and make them your allies and you can fight your battles in automatic. Although I'm really a fan of post 90s RPGs this was my least favorite game of all, the battle scene graphics were unnecesarily ugly and the menu user interface is horrible, even for an eighties game.

VERDICT:  Back in my NES gaming days I had a friend who used to have this crazy Famicom (the Japanese NES) cartridges with over 100 games on them. Most of them were crap, some were copies of Joust, and others were actually fun but seemed a little bit rushed. Playing these retro games made me relive the same feeling I had playing the fun games with my friend.  This game is a must for anyone who grew up playing in the eighties.

SEQUEL: Game Center CX 2 has just been released in Japan featuring Game Boy and Super NES games as well as the normal NES ones. Lets hope they can localise in less than two years like the first one did!

ALTERNATE 80S: Watchmen

“To paint comic books as childish and illiterate is lazy.

 A lot of comic books are very literate - unlike most films.” 

-Alan Moore

Differences between the movie and the comic book. Doctor Manhattan, Rorschach and Nite Owl

The most acclaimed graphic novel, not only of the eighties but of all time, has finally arrived to the big screen in a way not everyone has praised as much. Created in 1986 by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen depicts and alternate reality in the eighties where Richard Nixon is still President, the United States is edging closer to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, freelance costumed vigilantes have been outlawed and traditional superheroes are in retirement or working for the government. Watchmen was among the first superhero stories that required an adult's point of view for full appreciation. 

Both the comic book and the movie succeed in showing various eighties themed memorabilia such as songs like 99 Luftballoons and Everybody Wants to Rule the World as well as those classic wooden TV sets that, as you may already know, are very cherrished here in 1980 Me.

Silk Spectre, Ozymandias and The Comedian.

Iconic comic book writer Alan Moore has been famously known for his position against adapting his creations to the big screen arguing that his stories are not intended to be told in just two hours due to their complexity and storytelling structure. "My stories were meant to be read sitting confortably in your favorite chair before a fireplace, not in the middle of a crowded movie theater" declared Moore. Both V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen were significantly altered to change the sense of their stories and many people felt that a much more intricate story like Watchmen would suffer even more.  

Here are some of the most important changes made:

-Tales of the Black Freighter

Adding subtext and allegory to the main Watchmen story is a pirate themed comic book a kid reads within the comic. Although it had to be omitted from the movie for obvious time reasons an animation about it is going to be released on DVD.

-Different ending

The comic book ending where a weird looking alien squid destroys major cities around the world was changed to Ozymandias making it appear that Doc Manhattan had destroyed them with a big blue ray. The squid just didn't fit the movie's simplified storyline.

-Doctor Manhattan's penis

Many people insist that changing Doc Manhattan's penis from its "Michaelangelo's David" small uncut form in the comic book to a much more bigger apparently circumcised one in the movie goes against what the creators intended: showing the fragility of an all powerful being in devastated society (as oxymoronic as that may sound).  But, come on, if someone that can transform matter in any way he wants already has body of a steroid fueled body builder why wouldn't he make his genitalia a little bit more imposing?

-Other changes

Some scenes on the book are just slightly referenced in the movie, like young Silk Spectre dropping a snow globe, or NiteOwl's ship Archie attacking with its ear-piercing Screechers. Other subplots were obmitted like Rorschach causing his shrink to fall into his own downward spiral and some issues between The Comedian and his daughter Silk Spectre

Verdict

Taking in account all the omissions and changes done I can say this 162 minute long Watchmen movie is a very good and entertaining advertisement for its source material. The sales of the graphic novel have increased drastically thanks to the film and that should be good enough for Alan Moore, getting more people to read his books. 

  

Condoms celebrating Doc Manhattan's penis popularity (left), Alan Moore's worst nightmare as seen in The Simpsons(right)

1980 ME: The official theme music!

For ages (a little bit more than a month) people have wondered where the name 1980 Me comes from. Well, it first appeared in the song Crush (1980 Me) by pretty boy Darren Hayes on his 2002 album Spin. Since the music video features cool eighties memorabilia, like arcades and break dancing, the 1980 Me editorial staff has unanimously decided to establish it as our new official theme song!   Enjoy!

TV SITCOM STARS: The Face-off

Besides playing Atari or doing the moonwalk, there was almost nothing better in the eighties than watching your favorite sitcom in front of one of those classic wooden tv sets.  Important and careful decisions about what channel you were going to watch had to be taken before you could actually sit down and chill, since not all TVs came packed with a remote so if you weren't lucky to have one you had to stand up and walk all the way to the tv if you wanted to change the channel at any given time.

Eighties sitcoms sometimes featured similar themes, so knowing which show was better was a crucial thing to know.   Coming up next, a series of face offs between similar sitcom superstars! Who will win?

-FAVOURITE BLACK MIDGET KID RAISED BY WHITE PARENTS

ARNOLD JACKSON (Gary Coleman in Diff'rent Strokes, 1978-1986) VS. WEBSTER LONG (Emmanuel Lewis in Webster, 1983-1987)

Two of the most succesful sitcom in the eighties featured young black males that were adopted into largely white households. Critics at the time howled that these shows were Hollywood's attempts to show whites as saviors to a parentless black youth, while shows depicting the black family were largely absent, with the exception of the Cosby Show, of course. These shows did attempt to address the problems affecting the class and cultural differences within biracial families, albeit with comedic touches. 

But which one was the funniest show? Arnold had his patented catchphrase "Whatchoo talkin' bout, Willis?" and Webster had a pretty rad house with hidden stairs and tunnels where he could jump and climb around like a cute little monkey, but in this case the winner is....

... ARNOLD JACKSON!

-FAVOURITE STUFFED ANIMAL

GORDON "ALF" SHUMWAY (ALF, 1986-1990) VS. KERMIT THE FROG (The Muppet Show, 1976-1981)

In one corner we have the world's favorite alien living secretly with a family who starred in one of the most succesful shows of the late eighties, loosely expanding the premise set by E.T.  On the other one we have the leader of the world's most important band of performing puppets, but who was the absolute favorite? Alf loved to eat cats, Kermit loved to kiss pigs, and we all loved their shows but taking in account that Alf was the carrying around his show by himself and Kermit had a whole cast of  crazy colleagues and guest stars we have to say that our favorite stuffed animal in the eighties is....

...ALF!

-FAVOURITE LIBERAL/CONSERVATIVE  HEARTTHROB

MIKE SEAVER (Kirk Cameron in Growing Pains, 1985-1992) VS. ALEX P. KEATON (Michael J. Fox in Family Ties, 1982-1989)

This face-off is actually about opposite, yet symetrical in a way, characters. Mike Seaver was a liberal cool kid played by a conservative actor and Alex P. Keaton was a conservative yuppie played by a liberal actor. But, who was our favourite?

Kirk Cameron, a Christian Evangelist, often demanded that entire episodes be re-written when he objected to content, normally when sexual behaviour was involved and even forced the producers to fire the actress playing her girlfriend just because she appeared nude on Playboy.

 
On the other hand Michael J. Fox played  a prototypical Young Republican during the Reagan era. His popularity was the result of Fox's comedic talents and charm, which made the character endearing to fans. As we all know, Fox unfortunately later developed Parkinson's Disease and has become since then one of the biggest supporters of stem cell research, something conservatives like Cameron oppose and ridiculously describe as "harvesting babies for their organs".

The winner is, of course...

... Alex P. Keaton

-FAVOURITE DOCTOR

DR. HEATHCLIFF "CLIFF" HUXTABLE (Bill Cosby in The Cosby Show, 1984-1992) VS. DR. DOUGLAS "DOOGIE" HOWSER (Neil Patrick Harris in Doogie Howser, M. D. 1989-1993)

Comedian Bill Cosby starred as Dr. Cliff Huxtable in one of the first primetime sitcoms that showed African Americans as intelligent, witty, and competent and not butlers or chauffeurs. Some critics said it "failed to address significant problems such as racism and created a fantasy world in which these problems were no longer an issue in the black community", an idea that "contradicted reality for Black America during the 1980s as it struggled with the problems of police brutality and crime". But, come on, it was just a sitcom, not a social studies documentary!

Doogie Howser was a horny genious kid that became a doctor at the age of 14 and how he seeks acceptance by both others his age and his professional colleagues. The series dealt with wider social problems like AIDS awareness, racism, sexism, homophobia, gang violence, access to quality medical care, and losing one's virginity. 

This one is a tough one... but the winner is....

...Dr. Cliff Huxtable

Be sure to come back again soon for more face-offs!

SCHOOL CLASSICS: The Trapper Keeper

Back in the next to last decade of the 20th century, the crown jewel of every cool kid's school supply shopping list was a binder called the Trapper Keeper. It was mainly a large, state of the art vinyl/plastic holder that folded open to reveal several pockets, a clipboard/penholder, several colorful folders and a revolutionary "slider" style plastic 3-hole binding system to hold everything together. A the whole unit folded over and sealed up securely via the adhesive choice of the decade: Velcro.  

I remember being awestruck at first with the almost limitless possibilities a device like this could offer. I could have a different folder (or trapper) for each subject, and what about that clipboard thing? You could put your note paper there, or keep it in that ultra-cool sliding binder system. Yet, what I found most appealing about the Trapper Keeper was the ultra modern designs each folder featured. Although the first ones were just one plain color or had girlie pictures like horses or flowers, the Designer's Series line up featured colourful neon fluorescent patterns with dots, squares and other cool geometric figures. Computer generated graphics were becoming popular at the time and everyone was drooling over those incredible landscapes with cubes, pyramids and spheres.

Rad Dog was such a cool word back then...

The Trapper Keeper finally was forgotten in the early 90s when everyone realised how useless it really is and its short durability due to the poor quality plastic materials it used. However, the visual style of the Designer's Series designs will always remain in my memory as the ultimate 80s look. You can see some influences of it in this blog's logo.