Some toys & gadgets of the Eighties
Yo-yos Yo-yos often come and go as a fad and every generation experiences these wonderful toys at some point. However, they were a particularly massive fad in the 80s. We had the light-up yo-yos that looked great but were too heavy to use properly. However we also had a Coca-Cola branded yo-yo with silver and gold collectable yo-yos that took the country by storm!
Walkman
It’s amazing just how much ahead of its time the Walkman seemed in the 1980s. It was literally like you were owning a little bit of the future right there in your hand! Being able to go out and take your music with you was awesome and didn’t seem quite real at the time, but it really makes you realise how much we take it for granted now when we can have thousands of songs at hand in our pockets.
Finger Monsters
These little critters were cute and very cool. It was impossible not to smile at someone when they showed you their hand with several of these on their fingers! Even the hardest heart would melt – do you remember them? How many of these did you and your friends have between you? Did you swap and change, or did you have a particular favourite which you simply wouldn’t let out of your sight?
Cabbage Patch Dolls
We’ll be totally honest here – we have never been able to understand this particular fad. What were the Cabbage Patch Dolls all about?
Cabbage Patch Dolls were not attractive toys, they didn’t look nice and they didn’t look friendly. In fact, these things looked creepy as hell! And yet they were incredibly popular at the time and sold in the millions. Each to their own!
M.U.S.C.L.E. Men
These things were totally bizarre. However, they were cool, collectible and extremely popular in the 80s. Everywhere you looked in a school playground there would be M.U.S.C.L.E Men, and some people would have dozens in their pockets every day! Did you have these? Did you try and stick to the relatively “normal” looking ones, or was it all about the more unique designs, with multiple limbs, block-shaped heads and random body parts sticking out in every direction? Whatever the case, they looked good, and had that particular smell of rubbery-plastic that takes you instantly back to your childhood days!
Micro Machines
Coming along in the late 80s, these took the world by storm and were a massive hit on both sides of the Atlantic! They were so easy to collect and would usually come in packs of 3 or 5. Micro Machines were also great to swap with mates if they had a particular one you desperately wanted. There was one draw back with Micro Machines, though. They were so small, and people had so many of them, and they had wheels… meaning that accidents could very easily ensue if an unsuspecting parent walked in and didn’t look at where they were standing!
Some of the things that happened in the Eighties….
1980 • Mount St. Helens erupts. • In Washington state John Lennon is shot and dies. • The popular video arcade game "Pac-Man" is released. • The United States boycotts the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
1982 • Japan begins selling the first CD players. • Late Rock n' Roll star Elvis Presley's home "Graceland" is opened to the public as an attraction.
1984 • Band Aid records "Do They Know It's Christmas?" a charity single to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. • The Soviet Union boycotts the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Summer Games.
1986 • The Chernobyl nuclear reactor explodes in the USSR. • The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster takes place when the space shuttle disintegrates after being launched, killing all on board. • Spain and Portugal are added to the EEC. • Mad Cow Disease (BSE - Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) is identified in Britain for the first time. • The first triple organ transplant is performed.
1988 • The Soviet Union withdraws their troops from Afghanistan. • George H.W. Bush is elected as the U.S. President after defeating Michael Dukakis. • Two years after the Challenger Disaster, NASA's Space Shuttle program resumes. • The site of the original Globe Theater is discovered by archaeologists in London. • The Iran-Iraq war ends.
1989 • The Berlin Wall is torn down at the end of the Cold War. • Pro-Democracy protests take place at Tiananmen Square in China. • The Exxon Valdez oil tanker spills 240,000 barrels of oil in the Prince William Sound in Alaska. • The Nintendo Game Boy portable video game system is released. • NASA launches the Galileo spacecraft.