Tag Archives: 1983

07/14/2016 · 4:33 pm

Monchhichi

Like the lawn dart, a true line of demarcation between Then and Now is the Thumbsucking Baby. In cartoons and comic strips of the 20th century, if there was a baby, it was depicted with a thumb in its mouth. Maggie Simpson delivered the combo breaker, in the form of a pacifier, doing infants the world over a huge favor.

Suck this.

A pacifier has the advantage of being unattached to a heavy arm, which slowly pulls at the front teeth and palate, resulting in buck teeth. Buck teeth tell the world you suck dick like a champion. Depending on who you are, that can be inconvenient. Most people correct it with braces, to prevent this assumption. Continue reading →

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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions

Tagged as 1974, 1980s, 1983, Barbie, Dr. Spock, Ewoks, fellatio, Japan, Mattel, Monchhichi, Raising Arizona, Rich Vos, Saturday morning cartoons, Star Wars, The Simpsons, toys

06/23/2016 · 1:29 pm

“Rappin’ Rodney”

You can offend a rapper the same way you can offend a cartoonist; by implying that their career “looks easy”. Cartoonists must compete in the public eye with Internet doodlers who draw in their ample free time, and rappers have to battle the false impression that they’re just boopity-bopping over a beat loop.

Before hip-hop and rap were widely understood, they were exploited as “novelty” records; a passing trend, not something that would dominate and rend asunder every other type of fucking music on earth. Rap was not a “lifestyle”. It was a fad, like the hula hoop and the Twist. So, like many other musical fads before it, rap became a haven for bad comedy.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Worst Of All

Tagged as #fbf, #tbt, 1980s, 1983, Bill Saluga, Buckner & Garcia, Caddyshack, comedy, disco, fake rap, Fat Boys, Freddy Krueger, Gwar, Kurtis Blow, MTV, music, New Jersey, Pat Boone, rap, Rodney Dangerfield, sellouts, stand-up comedy, The Gong Show, vinyl, white rap

01/18/2016 · 2:07 pm

I Never Liked You: INXS

Within my vast and dubious knowledge of music, there are holes. Some are tiny, like my ignorance of sex droid Taylor Swift. Others are much larger; one is the relative size of six Australians. I have never cared for INXS.

Nearly indistinguishable from Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam.

The closest I got was “The One Thing”, which saw heavy rotation on MTV in the early 1980s. The band benefited from a visual similarity to other groups, like U2, UB40 and the B-52s, and this sameness ensured my future confusion. I just never found INXS that memorable. Continue reading →

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Filed under Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Worst Of All

Tagged as 1980, 1980s, 1983, 1987, 1990s, 1993, alternative music, autoerotic asphyxiation, Boston (band), depression, INXS, Jim Carrey, Joel Schumacher, Led Zeppelin, Michael Hutchence, music, Robert Palmer, Robert Plant, sellouts, suicide, The B-52s, The Power Station, U2, UB40

01/17/2016 · 11:24 pm

Hate Proof: Vengaboys’ “We Like To Party”

hateproof2
Imagine yourself sprawled on a nameless battlefield, exhausted, gasping your final breaths into the mud. The air is thick with the scorched smell of spent artillery and the moans of the dying. How long before help arrives? Is it even coming? All you hear is the distant whistle of a locomotive, as it slowly approaches with detached menace.

toot toooooooooot

They’re coming to round up the survivors, you think as you squint into the hazy distance. The end is near. Best hope that it’s merciful when it comes. Surely this must be the onset of madness, brought on by impending extinction. The stench of carnage gives way to the comforting scent of… cheese pizza? Ice cream sundaes? Funnel cake? Continue reading →

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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Late To The Party, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club, Worst Of All

Tagged as 1980s, 1983, 1990s, 1998, corporate crap, electronica, funk, Implied Sound Theory, Kool & The Gang, laughter, Madonna, MC Miker G & DJ Sven, Mr. Six, music, New Jersey, party music, Ray Parker Jr., Raydio, Six Flags, sugar, Vengaboys

12/27/2015 · 2:09 am

Tracey Ullman

Fame is a funny thing. When it gets too big, it works against you, and you become overexposed. You’ve seen it time and time again; a company pushes a performer or a movie so hard, you can’t recall a time when you weren’t sick of them. Even their positive qualities become tiresome.

Then eventually, we acknowledge their talents, allowing that they were revealed during a time of intense corporate saturation.

Before 1986, there were three television networks; CBS, NBC, and ABC. Then in October of that year, Fox became the fourth, co-founded by the tyrant Rupert Murdoch. Fox would introduce a slate of unusual programming over the following two years, which included Married… With Children, The Arsenio Hall Show, 21 Jump Street, and a variety program (with animated bumpers) called The Tracey Ullman Show.

tracey1 Continue reading →