Boombox: 9 Wild Facts About the 80s Ghetto Blaster
The boombox ruled the 1980s — from the JVC RC-M90 to hip-hop park jams. 9 wild facts about the ghetto blaster and why it never really died.
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Game Boy: 9 Wild Facts About Nintendo’s 1989 Icon
Quick Answer: The Game Boy was Nintendo’s 8-bit handheld console, released in Japan in April 1989 and in North America that summer. It won the handheld war not with power but with a cheap price, a monochrome screen sipping just four AA batteries, and Tetris in the box. Roughly 118 million units later, it remains…
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Knight Rider: 9 Wild Facts About the 80s TV Hit
KITT, the talking Pontiac Trans Am, made Knight Rider an 80s icon. 9 wild facts about David Hasselhoff, the scanner light, KARR, and the Hoff’s rise.
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On This Day: July 2, 1982 — Lawn Chair Larry’s Wild Flight
Quick Answer: On July 2, 1982, a 33-year-old truck driver named Larry Walters — soon nicknamed Lawn Chair Larry — tied 42 helium weather balloons to an aluminum patio chair and floated 16,000 feet over Los Angeles. He carried a pellet gun, a CB radio, sandwiches and a six-pack, drifted into the flight path of…
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How Old School Hip-Hop Took Over the World, 1979–1989
Old school hip-hop went from Bronx block parties to the Billboard charts in ten short years. Here’s how two turntables and a microphone changed everything.
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Trapper Keeper Mead: 7 Reasons This 80s Binder Ruled
The Trapper Keeper Mead sold 75 million units between 1978 and the late 90s. Here’s why this 80s binder ruled every locker, hallway, and lunch table.
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Garbage Pail Kids History: 7 Reasons These 1985 Cards Won
How Topps’ 1985 Garbage Pail Kids cards turned a Cabbage Patch parody into a school-banned, court-stopped, $25K-rated cultural rebellion.
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Pour Some Sugar on Me: The Unlikely Anthem That Saved Def Leppard
By the spring of 1987, Def Leppard had spent more than three years, somewhere north of four and a half million dollars, and the better part of their twenties trying to finish a single record. The band had survived a drummer losing his left arm, a producer abandoning the project mid-sessions, a near-fatal car crash…
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Mr T A-Team: 7 Reasons BA Baracus Owned the 1980s
How Laurence Tureaud became Mr. T — Rocky III, The A-Team, the mohawk, the gold chains, and the cultural takeover of the 1980s.
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Miami Vice: 9 Reasons the 1984 Show Defined 80s Cool
Miami Vice premiered Sep 16, 1984 and rewired 80s style, music, and TV. Inside Crockett, Tubbs, the Ferrari, and why it still pops.
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Purple Rain: How Prince Bent the 80s Into a Single Color
For one impossible summer in 1984, Prince owned the No. 1 movie, album, and single in America at the same time. Forty years later, Purple Rain still hasn’t loosened its grip on pop culture.
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On This Day: May 25, 1983 — Return of the Jedi Premieres
On May 25, 1983, Return of the Jedi opened in 1,002 theaters and broke every box-office record on the books. Inside the secret production, the Ewok backlash, and how George Lucas closed the original Star Wars trilogy.
