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The Care Bears were one of the most popular girls toys of the 1980’s. They went on to spawn the inevitable cartoon and even three films, but in toy form they were available in two different forms, plush teddy bears that were around 10″ high, and smaller plastic poseable action figures around 4″ high. However, they were initially devised for use on greetings cards back in 1981, with the toys, made by Kenner, not appearing until 1983.
Your basic Care Bear was a friendly teddy bear with brightly coloured fur and a big round white belly, and a little red heart on it’s backside! Each Care Bear was designed to represent a particular emotion, activity or sentiment, and this was represented by the emblem on it’s stomach. For example, Tenderheart Bear (the unofficial leader it seemed) had orange fur and a big red heart on his belly, whilst Grumpy Bear had blue fur and a picture of a rain cloud. As such, the toys were all pretty much identical to look at apart from their colour and emblem, which might lead a cynic to believe that they nothing more than an opportunity to make a quick buck. However, taking into account their origins as a greetings card range, this is perhaps a bit of a harsh criticism.
Looking back now at the title sequence description of The A Team things were a bit laughable. They were a crack unit of commandos who were wrongly sent to prison for some crime that was never made clear. They escaped from prison to become soldiers of fortune living in the underground of LA. Yeah right! To me, that description sounds more like a group of over tattooed, leather clad hard nuts in dark glasses than the amiable bunch of guys they actually were. Don’t get me wrong, I loved watching the A Team as much as the next man, but you’ve got to admit that the description doesn’t quite match the reality.
Who is this superhero? Sarge? No. Rosemary, the telephone operator? No. Penry, the mild mannered janitor? Could be!
Originally released in 1982, E.T. is still a much loved and respected film from the prolific Steven Spielberg. Since the story is about a young boy and the alien he encounters it is generally classified as a kids film, but really it is a film that appeals to people of all ages.
You don’t get TV shows like this any more, though whether that’s a good thing or not I’m not quite sure! Emu’s Pink Windmill Show was aired during the 1980’s and in it’s prime pulled in millions of eager kids. It also appealed to those kids parents who boosted the viewing figures further, as Rod Hull and Emu had been around when they were growing up too!
OK, when was the last time you got a soft drink and were given a paper straw to drink it with? Thought so. You can’t remember can you? These days all straws are plastic, but I remember the time that whenever you were given a drink as a child, you also got a paper straw to sup it up with.
It’s surprising how many games that first appeared in the late 70’s and early 80’s are still available today, and also how many of those haven’t really been updated over the years. A good example of this is Perfection, which apart from a change in the colour of the plastic looks identical today to the version I had in the 80’s. I guess part of the reason for this is that those games appealed to and could be played by people of all ages, from grandfather to grandson.
Foamy and jelly penny sweets came in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and flavours. They were also the type of sweet that had the most variety in price, mainly due to the fact that they came in so many different sizes. For example, nondescript jelly shapes might be one pence, ranging through jelly cherries at two pence to long jelly snakes at five pence. If you were really lucky you might even get some of the smaller sweets, such as midget gems, for half a pence each (when the half penny still existed) or two for a penny (once the half penny had been phased out).