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 😂

We had the clear sandwich bags too, the ones which had the small plastic bit at the end to secure them.

We used to get Monster Munch, Penguins or Club biscuits in them as well as sandwiches (cheese and cucumber usually) and a tangerine or apple and Um Bongo. I recall being jealous on a coach trip to France seeing other kids having Wagon Wheels or Golden Wonder crisps (which we were allowed too) and fish paste or sandwich spread sandwiches.

I remember going to parties (70s and 80s) and the buttercream in the birthday cake tasted amazing, nothing like what you get now, maybe it was because the cake had been chilled.

When I was 11 (not sure if I've said this here) it was my birthday and I had no idea what to wear to my birthday party, I'd probably grown out of most things. We had the DD of a family friend who was over for the party who was a year or 2 older than us and she persuaded me, DM and my best friend to drive the 15-20 minutes to the nearest town with a big clothes shop, Che Guevara, and the DD of the family friend then picked out a Banarama type short sleeved top/t-shirt with turned back sleeves, a sort of vest over it and a short belted (about 3-4 skinny belts around the top waist area) skirt, all in very light baby blue and with white too (maybe the skirt was white), plus a pair of baby blue suede loafers with tassels on them and some clip on earrings and a headscarf. My DM almost had a heart attack writing out the cheque and she'd already bought me a birthday present so this was in addition to that. But I looked great at my party/disco which was probably the last one I had!

Hell yes!

Anyone remember the coin operated chocolate bar machines on stations and in Tube stations which sold Dairy Crunch?

That’s so weird because I was as well and it’s an odd thing to want. And no she didn’t ever buy it.
“ Dooo the shake and vac and put the freshness baack!”

We didn't have a TV at all until Christmas 1986. Therefore there's a load of cultural references I just don't really get.

Very tattered copies of Lace and Flowers in the Attic got passed round at school. Our headmaster confiscated a copy of Judy Blume's Forever (with Ralph) when he caught us reading it in the playground age 12.

Loved the 80s! Still have a box of smash hits some with the badges still on them. I had a tressie doll, she had a wind up button her back and a hole in the top of her head so you could pull her hair out of her head and then wind it back in again if you wanted it shorter! Still have a choose your own adventure, the horror of high ridge. Loved that we got stationery sets for Christmas and my great aunt used to buy me and my dsis an avon pomander every year!

Yes!!! No one I know ever remembers it. I remember it being scary when you got something wrong and the witch appeared on the screen. I also remember a green plastic tortoise that had a pen underneath it and you controlled from the school computer to draw a picture. So if you wanted to draw a square, you’d type something like
forward 10. Right turn 90

Danger mouse
chuckle Vision

Star Trek, everything stopped for that a family favourite. 6pm on a Thursday.

My partner actually collects garbage pail kids cards!! 🤦🏻‍♀️😳Never knew about them when I was a child but I can tell you I sure do now 😂

Rod Hull & Emu were weird shit. I was scared to death of Emu.

Orville was seriously creepy.

I liked Nookie Bear.

A Team
Knight Rider
Stig of the dump
He man
Scooby doo

My brother had a talking knight rider car . I think the car itself had a name like Nigel.

Rolf Harris had two shows in the eighties 🙈

Guinness book of records with Roy Castle.

Ghetto blasters had a yellow one. Which I found on EBAY recently.

This is such an excellent thread, I’ve gone right down memory lane this evening reading it ❤️ I have such fond and nostalgic memories of a brilliant, and innocent, time!

Fashion: black velour knickbockers and ruffly white shirt with permed (at home!) hair, reversible Snoopy jumpers, leggings & leg warmers, back-combed hair, crimped hair, blue eyeshadow and fruit lip gloss, jelly shoes and jelly bags, ra-ra skirts, the list goes on

Films: ET, Goonies, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, The Lost Boys, Stand By Me ❤️, Ghostbusters and Back to the Future - still love them all.

Food: Smash makes Mash (the ad!), Findus Crispy Pancakes, Creamola Foam (cola flavour!), Soda Stream homemade fizzy drinks, the mini mousse in a plastic tub, Vienetta, pacers mint chews, Ki-Ora, Trios, party food such as a hedgehog (half an orange with cubes of cheese on cocktail sticks), chocolate cigarettes with edible paper, Angel Delight ❤️

Toys: I had Fashion Wheel, Sindy (not Barbie!), Cadburys choc mini vending machine, Nintendo Game & Watch (Donkey Kong and the Mario Bros ones), Commodore 64, the big Green Tree House, Fisher Price train with plastic records playing in it, Weeble wobble, but was never allowed Girls’s World or Mr Frosty ☹️. I had Butterscotch, the 1st Gen of My Little Pony (I ended buying the other 5 of 1st Gen MLP a few years back off EBay in a fit of nostalgia). Also Hello Kitty, Little Twin Stars, My Melody, Tuxedo Sam, Strawberry Shortcake and Holly Hobby - characters, stationery, dolls, handbags etc.

But the one thing I haven’t seen mentioned here yet, and of which I was obsessed with, are the scratch & sniff stickers from USA! I had loads of them and my mum chucked out my sticker album with them all 😭😢 Photos attached!

Was Cresta 70s or 80s? “It’s frothy maaan.” It was a rare treat, the only time I ever had a fizzy drink in a flavour that wasn’t orangeade or lemonade (except for if I was off colour, in which case Lucozade was the order of the day).

I bet kids don’t get pink custard with school dinners anymore!

We also covered all our school books, including every copy book, in wallpaper. Thick embossed wallpaper.

We thought we were the shit until the 90s rolled in with transparent sticky film.

I’ve just remembered that a few years ago there used to be a brilliant nostalgia website that had A-Z lists and descriptions of lots of old 70s and 80s stuff. I think it started off as TV shows with sound files of their theme tunes, and then expanded to cover sweets / snacks, and possibly magazines too. It seems to have long gone (googling doesn’t bring up anything I recognise) but can anyone remember what it was called? The little sections of blurb about each entry were written in quite a humorous, if occasionally sarcastic way. I used to read through different sections occasionally if I were at a loose end - this would have been in the early 2000s - but I can’t for the life of me remember the website name and it’s driving me mad!

Yep, the clown. Played by Tim curry in the mini series. Terrifying!

Ooh cream soda hubba bubba. That was awesome.
Rainbow drops were dull but you got a lot for 5p!
Didn’t like sherbet fountains but sherbet dibdabs were good. Except the time I left the lolly in an eggcup of water to stop it getting sticky! Liquid lolly was pretty gross!

They sell them at Butlins!
Pretty sure I've seen them in either B&M, or Home Bargains too

I still have my glow worm. It’s still works but needs pressing quite firmly! Lol.

And the safety videos and magazines. I have a fear of train tracks now due to those. There were videos about kids getting run over or electrocuted on the tracks. Kids running through glass was another. Flying kites near pylons and getting electrocuted. And kids accidentally eating medicine tablets that looked like sweets. A whole magazine of them we got one year for the summer break.

I collected the garbage pail kids. I thought they were cards not stickers but don’t fully recall. Remember the gum as my parents never allowed us to buy gum. Those and a screwball ice cream were the only way!!

She’ll suits may have been late 80s early 90s. We also had a market where you bought knock offs or dupes. So the naff co 54 jackets for those who couldn’t afford naff naff. And the market did T-shirts with bands on but you picked your picture from a file and watched it get ironed on.

10p mix ups that had at least 20 sweets on as a lot were 1/2p.

Twinkle magazine with Nancy the little nurses then as we got older more like look in or beano then eventually Jackie magazine or Just 17 for the problem pages.

You could join a fan club for all kinds of things and got sent regular envelopes of posters and stickers etc.

The little professor and the major Morgan in younger days before my sister eventually got a game boy and I got my Sony Walkman (or probably a cheaper Alba one 😂😂😂).

We used to play on building sites after the builders left as we lived on a new build estate. We would be covered in orange sand and sometimes would build actual little walls if we could fine some wet cement and bricks. We would go sit on the night foreman’s portacabain chatting to him and his dog. We used to make dens in the hedges/trees that were not being ripped down for the new houses.

Oh ans roller skating for hours thinking we were Olivia Newton John from Xanadu complete with climbing over school fences to use their smooth yards.

We did this used wrapping paper or wallpaper the thick kind. But I’m sure we also had transparent coloured sticky cellophane or film to cover our books too but it wasn’t widely used, maybe in the science lab and certainly not in our cheapskate private convent, though we did have IT lessons with computers and a younger teacher who was male and loads of girls (not me I was Protestant and had lost my virginity at 14 🫣😱!) fancied him. But they also fancied the ancient groundsman, odd job and repair man and caretaker and even the old ancient priests.

And stickers! So many stickers! Stuck everywhere.

The highlight of my week was Saturday. I’d get the bus about 20 mins away to Streatham. Met my best friend E who looked like a blonde Barbie somewhere… we went to the little gift shop by the ABC Cinema which sold postcards of Garfield, Snoopy etc and plush toys of the same characters, posters (Athena), and T-shirts and sweatshirts with snoopy and Garfield on and greetings cards. Then it was onto the main drag, so past all the other shops which we didn’t really go into, past the Odeon to compare what was on there to what was on at ABC, then into Stirling Cooper (clothes but a bit more trendy and grown up) and then into Che Guevara which was a huge clothes shop selling the most trendy clothes, shoes and accessories and then into Abraxus which was a little hippy shop which sold toys, postcards, handmade jewellery and nick nacks. Then we went to McDonalds for our Big Mac Meals with milkshakes or in my case a cheese quarter pounder meal. Then it was over the road to Benetton where we’d buy clothes and perfume and maybe a quick browse in Pratts (John Lewis) where my mum stopped and then past there to Lilly and Skinner or Freeman Hardy Willis for shoes. We also went into WH Smith’s or Our Price further down or Woolworths, the latter was where we bought pick n mix sweets but bought records. Then it was into the cinema to watch the film but flirt with boys of course. Later I met friends and did the same walk down the long high street to the ice rink which had a disco every Saturday afternoon where I got really good at ice skating (I’d been going on and off since I was 9 though) and again that was a boy meeting place. Sometimes I’d go and see my auntie and uncle (auntie was at least 15 years younger than my mum and lived off the high street/road). Outfits were short or knee length (above knee) denim skirts or a sort of pink canvas material button up front skirt, bought from Bay Trading in nearby Croydon as it had a tiny fault in it so got money off it with a bright fuschia pink broad horizontal print baggy tshirt which me and E both bought matching ones of in Croydon. And worn with white stilettos with bows on the side in my case and pastel pink high stilettos in her case. We both wore our hair in high ponytails but she had a sunbed tan as her parents rented a sunbed. Ah the memories!

I had Twinkie (twinkle?) comic when I was about up to 8 or 9 when I changed to Girl and then Just 17 all ordered for and paid for by my nana locally to her and then when I got older she switched the payments to my local newsagents.

Did someone say hymn practice?

Yes to fan clubs! I remember joining those.