Weird shit from an 80s childhood

[CandidFruit]

Reading through the retro sweets thread reminded me of some other random stuff from growing up in the early 80s.

Who else remembers the garbage pail kids? (I mean, Cabbage patch kids was bad enough!)
Now that is some seriously weird shit!

Mind you, I bet anything if you have the full set, you’ll probably be able to pay off your mortgage 😂

There was a brilliant cartoon strip, only about 6 frames, that I wish I'd kept, that I think you'd like:

A youngish woman is at a supermarket conveyor belt with a few items, including a bottle.

The cashier asks if she has ID. The customer says "Er, no, sorry, I just came out on my lunch hour."

So the cashier apologises and the customer says something like:
"What, seriously? Look at me. I'm wearing a cagoule! It isn't even raining!"

Cashier: "That's hardly relevant, Madam."

Customer, sheepishly: "Can I at least by the toilet roll and the ryvitas?"

Tammy Girl 😍 After a lifetime of C&A, Kays Catalogue and my brothers hand me downs, graduating to Tammy Girl felt like the height of fashion and sophistication!

Really scary as a kid to get stuck in it when you've outgrown it! We had royal blue ones with white plastic toggles.
Cagouls and wellies, neither were exactly waterproof!
We did everything in really uncomfortable cheap slippy wellies and our socks would always disappear and form a wedge down the ends...
Just remembered roller skates that fitted over the shoes and had adjustable wing nuts and ball bearings. I got some for my birthday and in my head I was going to be athletically flying around the neighbourhood in my neons, probably with matching sweatbands. Very leapy and dancey, like something out of Fame...😬 In reality I remember going out the front door, down the path and slamming straight on to my back. They were so dangerous, heavy and really, really shit!

Someone at swimming stole my Joe cool tee shirt 🤬🤬

Oh sweet Valley!
I'd forgotten about those books
The memories of reading those in bed
My mother found a whole box at a car boot and bought them for me-a whole series of them
It keep me going for weeks

I found a copy of 'where they are now' years later in asda and bought it

Utter drivel

One married Bruce the other married Todd (who was her sisters high-school boyfriend,someone got big headed and died,the sisters fell out but had the same hair cut (which amazed them both) and the brother was gay

The author didn't seem to have a clue about modern life and seemed to shoehorn bits in

Two hours of my life that I won't get back

@Threewheeler1 my dear dad, who had a tummy on him, looked like a boa constrictor that had eaten a sheep.

Viewfinders

I loved Sweet valley books too, also happy memories of lying in bed on a Saturday morning reading

Um bongo.

I wore my black ski pants with a black batwing jumper featuring a neon fruit pattern. There were different fruit patterns but I think mine was yellow pineapples. My sister had bright pink apples.

Our mum was very sniffy about fashion and kept trying to dress us like 1950s secretaries. She made most of our clothes (she was very good dressmaker but she always chose such old fashioned patterns). She did start giving in to the begging for "shop clothes " eventually and the black ski pants and fruity batwing jumpers were our first victory!

I had the Lady Diana haircut along with over half the class. It looked awful on me as I have a big angular face. I grew it out a bit and mum suggested softening it with waves. I eagerly agreed ... then came out of the hairdressers with a tight bubble perm that looked even worse! Most people had big hair though - permed or crimped or styled/backcombed with a ton of mousse and hairspray. We must have been very flammable.

My sister had the Flintstone printed jeans that someone mentioned, and the reversible Disney sweatshirt that sort of felt like a duvet. I had become a goth by then. I still massively favour black clothes and have had long straight hair for about 35 years, the 80s styles put me off that much!

Fuzzy Felt
Sticklebricks
The squeezy chocolate glaze for ice cream that hardened when it hit the cold
Dandelion and burdock (Brandylion and birdmuck) in the glass bottles that looked large, but turned out not to be.
K9 ice lollies
Little monkey things with long arms - Suck-a-thumbs?

Ooh the nit nurse coming round to school but before that going to the health centre for the same nit nurse to look in your hair. Like she was the font of all knowledge regarding nits, and the only one apparently 🙄

And the school dentist!

Watching the Dark Crystal with my younger cousins- I saw it as an adult and its SO creepy and scary!

Riding our bikes to the shop to buy my aunt and uncle cigarettes- I was about 8, my cousins were 6 and 4!

Place marking

I was round my dad's house recently and randomly found my old Tomytronic 3D in a drawer.

The hours of fun playing with this when essentially all you did was click left or right.

Unfortunately I can't get it to work, so instead of gathering dust in my dad's drawer it's now gathering dust on my shelf instead.

Has anybody mentioned this batshittery yet? (I'm sure they have)

Creepiest. Cartoon. Ever.

@honeylulu

Our mum was very sniffy about fashion and kept trying to dress us like 1950s secretaries. She made most of our clothes (she was very good dressmaker but she always chose such old fashioned patterns). She did start giving in to the begging for "shop clothes " eventually and the black ski pants and fruity batwing jumpers were our first victory!

Do we have the same mum? 🤣
Even legwarmers were frowned upon!

Chickaboos? My favourite toy! I had the girl, you could buy little outfits for them, also had a market version large one and a little one that had arms/legs that were clips clipped to my curtain

There is a family photo somewhere of us all in royal blue and red cagoules on top of the Seaton tram in the pouring rain with the hoods all elasticated up to our faces. I had forgotten how much cagoules were a feature of my life!

Other toys I’ve remembered - there were some cuddly toys which were a mix of two animals. Were they called Wuzzles? I had one that was a mixture of a raccoon and a tiger and its name was Tycoon. It was meant to be really rich, in the toy-universe. I didn’t get the pun until years later!

It wasn’t until the 90s, but I also remember the teeny turtle craze in Kinder Eggs and the craze for collecting Pogs.

I remember so many of these.
Had forgotten about Granny's Garden!

I do remember the white candy cigarettes with the pink end, but how about chocolate cigars? Really cheap shitty 'chocolate' and bigger, like a small cigar. They came wrapped in purple paper printed with (I presume) their brand name etc.

Also chocolate tools – screwdrivers etc – that you could buy as part of a 10p mix.

And sweatshirts in various sickly pastel-ish colours with pictures of animals sort of embossed on them, IYKWIM.

I don’t remember these but you have just reminded me about Popples and Snugglebums!

I remember them! Think I had one called Bumblelion.

I used to play for ages on my Mr Professor feeling like I was Stephen Hawking 😁

I have Granny’s Garden as an app on my phone, I bought it about 10 years ago when DC were in primary school. I remember playing it at school but we didn’t have to do any writing, although our teacher made us swap of the witch came which was pretty mean as it made it hard to learn from our mistakes