📼 1980s

1980s 1980

Ski Sunday And The Theme Tune

A BBC Sunday afternoon fixture with a theme tune more famous than the sport it introduced.

⚽ Sport📺 Telly

1980s 1980

Space Dust / Popping Candy

Carbonated sugar crystals that crackled and fizzed, accompanied by an urban legend about a child who drank cola afterwards.

🍬 Sweets & Chocolate

1980s 1980

The Rubik's Cube

A Hungarian architecture professor's teaching aid became the fastest-selling toy in the world.

🧸 Toys & Games

1980s 1981

The Sony Walkman

A cassette player with headphones and no speaker, which sounded absurd until everybody had one.

🎵 Music📟 Tech & Gadgets

1980s 1982

Kerplunk

Thread the straws, tip in the marbles, then pull them out one at a time and try not to be the one who drops the lot.

🧸 Toys & Games

1980s 1982

The BBC Micro At School

Acorn's machine for the BBC Computer Literacy Project, which ended up in nearly every school in Britain.

✏️ School📟 Tech & Gadgets

1980s 1982

ZX Spectrum 48K

Sinclair's £175 home computer put programming into British bedrooms and created an entire games industry.

📟 Tech & Gadgets🕹️ Video Games

1980s 1983

He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe Figures

Mattel's line of chunky figures, sold alongside a cartoon that existed mainly to advertise them.

🧸 Toys & Games

1980s 1983

The Betamax Machine In The Corner

Sony's superior video format lost the war to VHS, leaving a small number of very smug and very stranded households.

🎬 Film📟 Tech & Gadgets

1980s 1983

The Commodore 64

The best-selling home computer of all time, and the other half of every argument in every British school in 1985.

📟 Tech & Gadgets🕹️ Video Games

1980s 1983

Wham Bars

A ten-pence chew bar with a raspberry flavour that does not exist anywhere in nature and sherbet pieces embedded in it.

🍬 Sweets & Chocolate

1980s 1984

Choose Your Own Adventure Books

Fighting Fantasy and its imitators: gamebooks where you rolled dice, kept score, and cheated constantly.

📰 Comics & Magazines✏️ School

1980s 1984

Shell Petrol Station Free Gifts

Petrol brands gave away tumblers, coins and football badges to keep families coming back to the same forecourt.

🚗 Cars & Transport📣 Adverts

1980s 1984

Video Rental Shops

Friday night, a wall of big plastic cases, and the film you actually wanted already out.

🎬 Film🏬 Shops & High Street

1980s 1985

Blue Riband And The Lunchbox

A thin chocolate wafer in a red wrapper, permanently at the bottom of the biscuit tin.

🍬 Sweets & Chocolate✏️ School

1980s 1985

Findus Crispy Pancake Adverts And The Freezer Centre

The freezer centre was a whole shop of frozen food, and going there meant a chest freezer in the garage.

🏬 Shops & High Street🍽️ Food & Drink

1980s 1986

Mr Frosty

A plastic snowman with a hand crank that was meant to crush ice into perfect slush. It did not.

🧸 Toys & Games

1980s 1986

Panini Sticker Album: Mexico 86

The album everyone remembers, from the World Cup everyone remembers, with a hand-based controversy in the middle of it.

⚽ Sport

1980s 1986

Woolworths Pick 'n' Mix

The greatest confectionery format ever devised, weighed at the till and eaten before you got to the bus stop.

🍬 Sweets & Chocolate🏬 Shops & High Street

1980s 1987

The Argos Catalogue Christmas Wishlist

The Christmas edition landed in autumn and the toy section was destroyed by December.

🏬 Shops & High Street🧸 Toys & Games

1980s 1987

The Sega Master System

Sega's 8-bit console flopped in Japan and America but did unusually well in Britain, Europe and Brazil.

🕹️ Video Games

1980s 1988

The Ceefax Football Vidiprinter Saturday

The vidiprinter on Grandstand, spelling out scores slowly enough that you could feel the result arriving.

⚽ Sport📺 Telly

1980s 1989

Shell Suits

Full nylon tracksuits in colour combinations that should have required a licence.

👖 Fashion

1980s 1989

Teletext Holidays On Page 260

A generation booked its holidays off the telly, writing phone numbers down as the pages rotated.

📺 Telly📟 Tech & Gadgets