’80s T-Shirts That Are Totally, Awesomely Tubular

For those of you who regularly read my blogs, it should come as no surprise that I’m a big fan of the 1980s. I’m often blogging about the ’80s movies and ’80s music. It’s probably because it was the decade I grew up in (but don’t worry, I’ve moved on, somewhat), and I have great feelings of nostalgia when looking back at it.

I’m sure with most decades, we don’t recall too much about politics and world events (though The Reagans and fear of nuclear war are embedded in my memories). It’s more the pop culture that sticks with us.

I admit, when it comes to music, it’s difficult for me to like something that does not sound like it’s from the 1980s, like Depeche Mode and U2. But the ’80s were a very interesting time musically. There was a mix of everything: new wave, punk, rock, heavy metal, pop, r&b and the early days of rap, to name just a few. Few people just stuck to liking one genre. This is probably due to the advent of MTV.

The album of the decade is still the best selling album of all time: Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

It was the decade of Prince and David Bowie both still going strong since the ’70s. Who else remembers Bowie’s 20 minute Blue Jeans video.

Here are a few other albums that were the soundtracks for the 1980s.

And no 80s wardrobe was complete without this:

Though the 1970s may have produced some of the most powerful movies of all-time, the 1980s produced pop culture masterpieces are so memorable, they’re still being getting sequels and reboots today. Granted, The Empire Strikes Back was right at the end of that (1980) but the original trilogy completed in 1983 with The Return of the Jedi.

Where Lucas’ reign was wrapping up, Steven Spielberg’s was just beginning. Featuring what was for many years, the biggest movie in the world, E.T.

And when Lucas and Spielberg combined forces, we got the amazing Raiders of the Lost Ark.

In the ’80s, Harrison Ford could do no wrong.

And he may not have had as large a budget as the above mentioned duo, but John Carpenter was the lower-budget king of 80s cinema.

And I hesitate to call John Hughes a king, because he was more like a big kid. Nobody understood the teenagers of the time more than John Hughes.

The 80s were filled with many exciting adventures. Like The Goonies!

We went to the past to play matchmaker, the future to fight aliens and stayed right in NYC to prove were weren’t ‘fraid of no ghosts.

And after Gremlins, Christmas, the rating system and stories about father’s dressing up as Santa, would never be the same.

We may be living in the golden age of television, but in a world where there were only three networks and a couple of independent stations (cable was just becoming a thing), we were still able to take off on weekly adventures.

The mini-series was also just becoming popular. As a kid, I didn’t care about the cheating priest in The Thorn Birds, but I did care about the Visitors from another planet.

I guess there was this guy, too.

Before every home in America had multiple gaming devices, you had to go to an actual arcade to play video games. Unless your parents were cool enough to get you an Atari 2600. Still, there was nothing like the sights and sounds of a 1980’s arcade. So many hard earned quarters shoved into these machines. And the king of them all was a man named Pac.

But he had some fierce competition with Donkey Kong.

I hope you enjoyed my totally radical trip down electric avenue though ’80s t-shirts. But now I gotta motor!