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 😂

I think bath pearls and Global Hyper Colour tshirts are more of a 90s thing 🤔

Yes! What was it all about? I don't fully remember?
Anyone else get addicted to Encarta on the school library computer? There was also a golf game where you hit the space bar to do your swing, picked your club etc and a poker game which you could play against a bulldog who's eyebrows waggled 😅

Ah yes, you're right they were more early 90's I think. Well done for remembering the name!

I think my school only had 1 BBC computer and the whole class had to sit round it. There were no graphics, only text. Every so often a kid was called up to press a button or two. I've no idea what the purpose of this exercise was.

I can never forget them after I was accused of having sweaty tits and never wore it outside again 😄

I've just googled Encarta and it was 93 so I'm merging the late 80's and early 90's - sorry!

I was desperate to get a Fashion Wheel 😭

I really wanted those but we weren't allowed bubble gum as children. They looked so cool though!

I always wanted the A La Carte kitchen because the girl in the advert made baked beans for her Dad and I was convinced it was a real cooker.

I wasn’t allowed either! I am so jealous that you got all the care bear stickers. Had the same album but no staying power.

Me too! Baked beans and Swiss roll - yum

Sanitary towels 3 inches thick and tampons were very much discouraged.

Dogs roaming free, no one cared if dogs were taking themselves for walks.

No such thing as SEN kids, they were just the 'stupid' disruptive kids regularly assaulted and dragged around by teachers.

No one had a mastectomy, everyone just knew 'Wee Jeanie' down the road had a 'whisper whisper (points to chest with finger) off'.

And was the sort of thing you had to type:
ch."Chuckie_Egg" (return)?

My Dad was instrumental in writing a lot of the manual of BBC micro computing 'educational games' for schools. I can see it now, it was a shiny black covered and chunky spiral bound book. I will probably remember its title in about 2 days.
Sadly for me, he was all about the love of the Logo programme and not about the love of Frak, Chuckie Egg, and so on... even Gumshoe Logic, come on - which I appreciate but cannot warm to.

I wasn't allowed gum either Disco! That's reminded me my friend used to be allowed some gum that tasted medicinal to help her clean her teeth after lunch! It came in a pale pink and green flip top box (think the name began with E) and I was very jealous she was allowed to chew gum in primary school, even if it did taste disgusting.

I always also wanted a Mr Frostee. And one of the Post Office kits.

I bloody loved growing up in the 80s...so much so that I have two of my original Glo Worms on the top of the clock in our bedroom!! Sadly they don't glow so much any more, and one has it's tail bitten off (must've been hungry).
The unicorn is not from the 80s, I have a 3 yo daughter so that's my (poor) excuse for that!
Husband thinks I'm barking but I think I'm cool! 😆

Yes, the DoS programming wasn't it? I think you had to use a command at the end like "run"

I can't remember. I don't recall being lucky enough to ever be called up to press a button and it only got wheeled out once in a blue moon.

Luckily we had an Atari and then a Commodore 16 at home to keep us entertained.

My children play with my A La Carte kitchen from the 80s - they absolutely love it and it still looks great. My mum found it in the loft! So much better than the wooden kitchens- much more fun!

In terms of weird stuff, dummys on necklaces and t shirts that change colour when you get sweaty. Pogo disco balls, that Return to Oz was actually a kids film (still really scary!). I can actually still smell those scratch and sniff stickers in my mind’s eye!

The earlier home computers used BASIC. It was something like:

10 print dad stinks
20 change colour blue
30 go to 10
Run

We had a creepy Girl’s World head, funnily enough my parents didn’t keep that, but I still have many other 80s airlooms including all my My Little Ponies, Care Bears, Globug, Cabbage Patch kid and Rainbow Brite. I even have a Neighbours magazine from 1987 somewhere. I did not get an A La Cart Kitchen or Mr Frosty, and I only played Ghost Castle at friends’ houses sadly. We only had Sindy, who was middle class 😉

Yes, although there were other things if it didn't boot first time around if I remember, as well.

There is a brilliant entry describing a kind of timeline between the Bletchley era and the '80s computing era that imagines what would have happened to programming languages if the UK had stayed on top of the computing game in this book amazon.co.uk/Bollocks-Alton-Towers-Uncommonly-British/dp/0141021209

It goes something like:
Compute MARTIN IS ACE
GoTo10.
ThankYou.

I just love the 'Thank You' as shadow programming that never was.

Return to Oz was properly creepy…

Yes! I had a Sesame Street scratch and sniff book! I got really protective of it because if you scratched too hard it would come off. Talk about bringing books to life! Also loads of pop-up books. I was always pulling a strip of cardboard to have a flap lift...robot books, robots in general really!

@Sooooootired01 I also have two mini original gloworms displayed in my house 😂

I loved my glo-worm. I had 1 that was plastic and you held it to the light to 'charge it' so it would glow in the dark and I had a plush toy one that had batteries inside and it's plastic head glowed up when you squeezed its tummy.

Garbage pail kids - hilariously horrifying!

Round the twist - a bit scary.

Going Live when the phone number was 01-811-81-81 or something like that!!