The 1980's... it's baaaaaack....

In music, movies and on television, the 80's are back in a big way. Let's not let nostalgia cloud our judgment... here's a rundown of some of the good and the bad of the 1980's:


Why the 80's (in the US) sucked;

Unchecked avarice
Rock and Roll took the decade off
Yuppies
Michael Douglas
Michael Jackson
Cartoons were really, really bad
Mindless action flicks
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Pop music
The 70's had to end for it to start
Ronald Reagan
The whole fucking Police Academy franchise
Madonna
Joe Camel
DayGlo
Women's shoulder pads
Perms
Nuclear proliferation and the threat of global nuclear war
That solid white, black and red art print of that asian woman with the ruby red lipstick and heavy eye makeup
Smoking in restaurants
High school cliques were really, really important
Word processors and dot matrix printers
The NES control pad (ouch)
MOTHERFUCKING Metroid passwords
Car phones
Pink neon, pink neon everywhere
Tom Cruise... HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE TOM CRUISE.
Teen Wolf (what the hell?)
Swatch watches
Alf
Suburbs/suburban life
Sexual repression
Homophobia
Film colorization
The original Star Wars trilogy ended with an audible fart and a bunch of Ewoks
Ewoks
Televangelism
Leftover hippies
Dan Quayle


Why the 80's (in the US) were cool:

New Wave
The origins of Rap
Arcades
Typewriters existed
Pirate radio stations
Bloom County/Berkeley Breathed
The Far Side
Nerds (candy)
The Brat Pack movies (yeah, I said it)
RoboCop
Watchably bad B movies in theaters and worse ones that went direct to video (which were AWESOME!!!)
Local video stores/rental places and that mysterious back room
Spree violence was less common than during the decades that preceded or followed
Sushi
The end of the idealized "nuclear family"
Boom-boxes
B Boys
Street Art
The Neverending Story
Ice cream trucks
Akira
Cheers
The original Apple Macintosh with the entire OS loaded onto a single 3.5" floppy and some shareware games on another
Dan Quayle jokes


Overall analysis: 1980's = inadequate decade.