Question of the Day 6.21.12

Name the music video!

Answer to yesterday’s QOTD: It’s Garry Shandling’s Show. Congrats to Carey, @booner1972, and @returntothe80s for guessing correctly.

Married… with Children

“It’s not that I couldn’t be happy without you, Peg. It’s just that I couldn’t be happy. Perhaps that is the true Bundy Legacy…”

On April 5, 1987, the world was introduced to the Bundys. Loud, crass, often disgusting, and always funny, the Bundys were unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. Sure, All in the Family had come close, but even THAT was tame by comparison.

Married… with Children started innocently enough–– with the dulcet tones of Ol’ Blue Eyes and the lovely shot of Chicago’s Buckingham Fountain. But as soon as the green slime oozed down the face of ‘MARRIED’ on the opening title card, well… we all knew we were in for a treat.

Hapless Al spent his days touching women’s feet in his shoe store, only to come home to Peg (she of the leopard print spandex and BIG hair), daughter Kelly (‘bimbo’ and ‘tramp’ seems unfair to bimbos and tramps), and son Bud (loveable loser, without the ‘loveable’ part).

And then there were the neighbors. Steve and Marcy (and, later, Jefferson) may have seemed all picket fences and dimpled smiles, but that quickly disappeared when they found out who their neighbors were.

Suddenly we had an anti-Cosby family on our TVs each week (the working title of the show was actually Not the Cosbys). Jokes abounded about the damage Al inflicted on the family’s toilet, the skimpy outfits (and even skimpier morals) Kelly had, and poor Bud’s hapless attempts to even been NOTICED by the opposite sex.

As much as they picked on each other, though, pity the fool who said or did something against one of the Bundys while another member of the family was around. Despite all the internal strife, they were still a family at heart, and no one (NO ONE!) picks on the Bundys… except the Bundys.

From Kelly’s opening line in the pilot (“Let go of my hair, you little psychopath!”) all the way through to calling off her wedding to Lonnie in the series finale ten years later, Married… with Children was as funny and irreverent as a TV show could be in our favorite decade.

Suck it, Cos’.

We ♥ Married… with Children.

Question of the Day 6.20.12

Name the TV show!

Answer to yesterday’s QOTD: All of Me. Congrats to Taps, @MrsSweatheifer, and @returntothe80s for guessing correctly.

Only in My Dreams

“Everytime I’m tellin’ secrets, I remember how it used to be…”

What were you doing when you were 13 years old?

Well, if your name was Debbie Gibson, and it was 1984, you were sitting in your parents’ house on Long Island writing a song that would go on to become a huge hit single, be the opening shot in a battle that shook the teen pop world, and be instrumental in proving that the genre was a force to be reckoned with.

The song was “Only in My Dreams”, and when it was released two years later, in December 1986, well… 80s music changed a little that day.

Between the techno days of the early 80s and the hair metal of the late 80s, we had Debbie Vs. Tiffany right smack in the middle (well, 1987-on, really).

Gibson’s album Out of the Blue was still eight months away, but already we knew she was the real deal. Not only could she sing, but she wrote and produced her music, too. And from the opening ‘Ah ah’s we were hooked.

“Only in My Dreams” would hang out on the Billboard charts for 28 weeks, and though it would never hit #1 (it peaked at #4 in September 1987), it officially introduced the world to the adorable and talented Miss Gibson.

Nice to meet you, Debbie.

We ♥ Only in My Dreams.

Question of the Day 6.19.12

Name the movie!

Answer to yesterday’s QOTD: Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam’s “All Cried Out”. Congrats to Carey, @RICANROLL, @booner1972, and @TheNuHotness for guessing correctly.

Barnyard Commandos

“The R.A.M.S. are on the move, led by Major Legger Mutton…”

If nothing else (and often there WAS nothing else), the people who created toys in the 80s had a knack for naming. From Starriors’ “Slaughter Steelgrave” to Rock Lords’ “Pulver Eyes”, there was quite a bit of creativity (or late-night, drug-fueled brainstorming sessions) happening in our favorite decade.

But it was perhaps those crazy Barnyard Commandos who took the cake. The R.A.M.S. (Rebel Army of Military Sheep) gave us not only one of the decade’s better acronyms, was also got pun-tastic characters like Commodore Fleece Cardigan, Pilot Fluff Pendleton, and Major Legger Mutton.

Seriously. Does it get any better than that?

Barnyard Commandos hit shelves in 1989 thanks to Playmates Toys, and though they fizzled rather quickly, the toys were still around long enough for us to take credit for them as a true 80s gem.

Made of soft, squeezable plastic (think ‘rubber duckie’) and sold with a rather yawn-worthy accessory (Fluff’s airplane fuselage helmet), Backyard Commandos didn’t really DO much, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying them for hours on end.

Plus, with an enemy like P.O.R.K.S. (Platoon of Rebel Killer Swine), how could we not?

In 1990, Legger and the gang scored their own animated cartoon (though it only merited four episodes), and a second series of Commandos were created, too. Not too bad for a bunch of farm animals who ate radioactive feed and turned into the meanest pigs and sheep since Animal Farm.

Seriously, how could you not love a toy line that included a Pork-a-Pult?

We ♥ Barnyard Commandos.

Question of the Day 6.18.12

Name the music video!

Answer to Friday’s QOTD: Top Gun. Congrats to Carey and @returntothe80s for guessing correctly.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

“Germany has declared war on the Jones boys…”

Five years after Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (and JUST sneaking in under the wire as an 80s film), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade hit theaters in May 1989 with a whole lot of expectations and fanfare.

And it worked. Last Crusade not only remains one of our favorite movies from the 80s, it’s arguably even better than Raiders of the Lost Ark. (Hey, we said arguably…)

Why?

Sean Connery.

Casting James Bond as the father of Indiana (make that “Junior”) was a stroke of genius. And putting them both on a quest to find (and/or protect) the Holy Grail? Well… that was just pure awesome.

Sure we had to put up with Alison Doody as Elsa (“All I have to do is scream.”), but the third Indiana Jones film made up for it in so many other ways. With stops in Venice, Germany, and the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, Last Crusade was chock-ful of hilarious lines (“We named the DOG Indiana…”), familiar faces (Sallah and Brody), and memorable moments (Henry’s umbrella-fueled seagull attack on the beach).

Plus we had the requisite booby traps (including the ‘penitent man’ and the ‘leap of faith’)–– all so Indy could finally come face to face with the last Knight of the Grail. (“I knew you’d come.”)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade made an absolute killing at the box office, bringing in just under $200 million in the U.S. (#2 in 1989 to Batman) and $474 million worldwide (#1 for the year).

If only Spielberg and company had paid more attention to the title and actually LET it be the ‘last’ one, well… we would have all been spared …Crystal Skull, and the last image we ever had of Indy would have been him, his dad, Sallah, and Brody riding off into the sunset. While Elsa lay dead at the bottom of the abyss.

If only.

“You have chosen wisely…”

We ♥ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Question of the Day 6.15.12

Name the movie!

Answer to yesterday’s QOTD: Bangles’ “Walk Like and Egyptian”. Congrats to Jeffrey Scott, robinjuste, Emma, @EricMatthewLima, @buttercup081474, Carey, and Vanessa for guessing correctly.

Suzuki Samurai

It was the next hot thing to hit the road in the 80s. The Suzuki Samurai arrived on the scene in 1985 (for the 1986 model year), and from sea to shining sea it sold like hotcakes.

Chances are if you were old enough to drive in the late 80s you had a friend who owned one or (dude!) owned one yourself.

It was so huge, actually, that John Hughes made it Shayne’s car of choice in Some Kind of Wonderful (remember when Keith hopped in the back to catch a ride home from school?)

But this is not a happy story, friends, for within just three short years, the Suzuki Samurai would become the Edsel of our generation–– a lemon that no one would touch, because… why?

That’s right… because it rolled over too easily.

A 1988 report by Consumer Reports declared the Samurai was ‘not acceptable’ for road use due to its propensity to go belly-up in crash maneuver scenarios.

And after selling 150,000 Samurais in just three years, Suzuki watched in horror as its sales dropped 70%. POOF. Just like that, the Samurai was done.

Turns out, though, that Consumer Reports may not have been telling the truth (but we never heard THAT part of the story, did we?). Suzuki actually sued them for the false report, and in 2004 the sides settled out of court.

The Samurai did manage to hold on until 1995, but the fun, sporty little guy never recovered. You can still buy its grandkid (in the form of the Suzuki Jimny) pretty much all around the world… but not here in America.

We’re sure, though, that Shayne only remembers the happy times. Just like us.

We ♥ the Suzuki Samurai.