The Ring’s the Thing: Waterful Ring Toss Game
By Lori Ferraro So many toys from the 80s that I loved so much…board games, (Trouble!, Trivial Pursuit) electronic games, (Speak & Spell, Merlin), and video games (anything you could play on the Atari), but there’s one game that stands out for its simplicity, its one-player challenge and for its use of water. The Waterful Ring-Toss by TOMY. I was obsessed with this game – can we even call it a game? More like a test of your...
Just Dippity Do It!
By Lori Ferraro Back in the day our hair gel options were endless…tubes of Dep, L’oreal Studio Fix and LA Looks covered drug store shelves. I was a certified gel junkie, and only one reigned supreme due to its glue-like texture. Two words: DIPPITY-DO. My ‘do needed some Do…that’s fer sure. “For all the crazy looks inside of you, Dippity-Do it!” That commercial brings back huge memories of huge hair — the jingle will...
The 80s Signoff
By Lori Ferraro Browse through the back pages of any autograph book or yearbook from the 80s and you will find a variety of letters, numbers, periods and slash marks that may not make much sense to you unless you were a teenage girl of the decade. See, you couldn’t just write “Love, Lori” after you signed someone’s yearbook telling them how much you’re going to miss them, to have a good summer, see you next year, etc. You had to use...
The Prom Theme Song
By Lori Ferraro Like many others who graduated high school in the 80s I cannot hear Forever Young by Alphaville without thinking of my senior prom. When I hear that opening, those space age-y chimes, that hollow voice and those dramatic lyrics: “Let’s dance in style, let’s dance for a while Heaven can wait, we’re only watching the skies Hoping for the best but expecting the worst Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?”...
The Video Store
Oh, please . . . say it ain’t so . . . yet another thing from my childhood doomed to the 80s graveyard? Not my awesome, big, boxy VHS tapes! I’m not ready for VHS to RIP just yet. Beta, sure, I’m fine with Beta . . . but not my tapes. My first two jobs ever were at video stores so I feel a real affinity toward VHS tapes. From the giant cardboard boxes displayed on the shelves, to the clear plastic boxes I would snap the tapes into for...
