Sailing Away to The Summer of 1980

Carolyn Cochrane 0:00

I'm just pee-oed at you. I'm glad I didn't see that with you. My gosh, even with through my 2026 eyes, or whatever, cut me a break. There's drama.

Speaker 1 0:10

Hello, there's a song that we're singing. Come on, get happy. Whole lot of logging is what we'll be bringing will make you happy.

Carolyn Cochrane 0:25

Welcome to the Pop Culture Preservation Society, the podcast for people born in the big wheel generation who spent the entire summer with a Kool-Aid mustache.

Kristin Nilsen 0:36

We believe our Gen X childhoods gave us unforgettable songs, stories, characters, and images, and if we don't talk about them, they'll disappear, like Marshall will and Holly on a routine expedition.

Michelle Newman 0:46

And today we're kicking off season 19 and summer by saving the summer when the galaxy got a lot darker, the music got a lot smoother, and we wore out our Rubik's cubes waiting to find out who shot JR. It's the summer of 1980 I'm Carolyn, I'm Kristen, and I'm Michelle, and we are your pop culture preservationists.

Speaker 2 1:10

What's the matter with the clothes I'm wearing? Can't you tell that your tie is too wide? Maybe I should buy some full tab collars. Welcome back to the Age of Jive. Where have you been? Hot

Michelle Newman 1:25

out. Was there anything better than the summers of our youth?

Kristin Nilsen 1:30

No, not at all. Honestly, I

Michelle Newman 1:31

put the summers of the 70s and the 80s up against any decade and I'd win. Yeah, I'd win, and

Kristin Nilsen 1:40

I'm always trying to recapture it every summer. I'm trying to recapture it, and it's still some points. Yeah,

Michelle Newman 1:44

still, yeah. No, we were free, and I think that is the best way to describe it. We were free. We'd leave the house in the morning, usually on our Schwinn banana seat bike, maybe pop in for some Kool-Aid and a bologna sandwich during the day, and not return until dinnertime. Then, after finishing our Swanson's TV dinner, we were right back outside until the streetlights came on, probably covered in deep, right? We chased the ice cream truck, spent the hottest days inside the mall, or the movie theater, or maybe at the local pool. We played Charlie's Angels or Star Wars with the neighbor kids, we choreographed elaborate shows to the soundtracks of Grease or Sound of Music or Annie. Went on road trips and got to spend our allowance at truck stop gift shops and swim and indoor pools. Summers of our childhoods were the best, and I miss them

Kristin Nilsen 2:38

all the

Michelle Newman 2:40

time. I don't know how to recreate that feeling, Kristen. I don't know what we do.

Kristin Nilsen 2:45

Yeah, it's not possible, because, because we're grown-ups, and we don't really have summer, especially now when you have grown, when your own children are grown-ups, we don't have a school schedule anymore. What does summer even mean, besides weather? Anything

Michelle Newman 3:00

I know. Well, today we're kicking off summer by celebrating the biggest pop culture moments of the summer of 1980 that borderline between the decades that hit hard no matter what age we all were. So, let's set the scene. Who were you, and what were you doing in the summer of 1980 Carolyn,

Carolyn Cochrane 3:22

I Alrighty, you guys, I was 14, almost 15, and had just finished my freshman year of high school, and to be honest, this was probably the true, true last carefree summer of my life. Okay, because no boyfriend drama, I hadn't gotten into that high school kind of drama, yet really no job except for babysitting. I spent the days just swimming and sunning in the country club pool, and I was old enough, you know, at that point you're old enough to go to the pool without your parents. But did you guys.. I don't know about you, but we had to earn a band to wear on our wrists to show that we could go on the deep end by ourselves, so always the beginning of every summer season, even when my parent, my mom was there with us, or whatever. But you had to do the swimming test, and then if you passed the swimming test, you got the special band, and then you were allowed to go off the diving boards, and all that good stuff. So I was doing that. Most likely we rode our bikes, much like you said, Michelle, like riding our Schwinns. I was probably my free spirit, three speed, just going on trying to keep up with my cool friends, but I was also traveling on the back of many a moped, and this would have been, yes, I know, does Lillian

Michelle Newman 4:33

know this

Carolyn Cochrane 4:33

well? She probably, she did figure it out after the muffler incident of the summer of 1980 you guys, those heads, those mufflers were so effing hot, and they were positioned so poorly that when you got off and you're wearing shorts, it's the summer, leaned your little calf against there. Oh my gosh, have a scar to this day. So, if Lillian didn't know prior to that, she's. Certainly, knew when I came home with this blistering, ugly, bubbling wound, so yeah, that was no fun, and that's definitely a memory from that summer, as well as a week's vacation down at the Jersey Shore, Ocean City, New Jersey, for those of you who are familiar with the shore, and so much fun because we rented a duplex with my best friend Debbie's family, they were on the bottom, my family on the top. Our parents would just play bridge every night, and we would go cruise the ocean city boardwalk, and you were 14. Yes,

Michelle Newman 5:30

that's like the perfect age, like you're so big. Yes,

Carolyn Cochrane 5:38

so we had, like, the, you know, photo booths, and the sugar, the taffy, and the pier that had the face wheel on, and the boys, just the summer boys, were just like, I don't want to say throwaway boys, but the boys you would meet like for those little vacations, literally, yeah, they don't

Kristin Nilsen 5:54

count, they were from elsewhere. It was so interesting, it was like being on the prowl for something that I don't even know how to describe it. People that you didn't already know were far more interesting. Oh, that's why you didn't know them. I can just

Michelle Newman 6:07

remember even when my sister and I would be at my dad's house way before, like I was little, like too little to be crushing on boys, but we had these two boys who were like our friends there that we would be kind of flirty with, but we knew nothing about them. We didn't go to school with them. We knew their, we didn't know their backstories. We knew nothing. There's a little bit of intrigue in that. I can't even imagine the way you just set that scene, though. How thrilling that must have been for you and Debbie.

Carolyn Cochrane 6:33

Oh, I mean, it was. How could it not be? It was just freedom. It was because it was safe, you know. You don't even think twice about that, and your parents were just, you know, few streets down, or whatever, and

Kristin Nilsen 6:44

playing bridge,

Carolyn Cochrane 6:45

yeah, playing bridge,

Kristin Nilsen 6:46

as,

Carolyn Cochrane 6:46

as you do, drinking whatever,

Kristin Nilsen 6:48

possibly drunk,

Carolyn Cochrane 6:49

yeah, you know, tipsy at the least,

Kristin Nilsen 6:51

tipsy, yeah,

Carolyn Cochrane 6:52

and but it was, it was so free, yet safe, and you just, you know, all those like kitschy little souvenir shops, and again, those, the photo booths, and the candy, like the funnel cakes, is

Kristin Nilsen 7:04

a movie, Carolyn, it

Carolyn Cochrane 7:06

really was kind of idyllic in a way, and you know, so much of a generation, well, Gen X at that period of time in that part of the country had the same experiences, like you just passed other groups, you know, walking with their friends, and sometimes you know, you get talking, or the arcades, I mean, those were a big part, and all that. So, yes, that was again, like, I think my truly last carefree summer, because I think after that I'm old enough to have a more of a steady job, like at Burger King, and so you have a little more responsibility, and a little less of just like, see you later, Mom. I'm just gone for the day. So, yes, so that was a very special summer for me, and it will never happen again. I can never recreate that. So special. What about you, Kristen?

Kristin Nilsen 7:55

So, the summer of 1980 for me was between sixth and seventh grade. I was 12 years old. It is possibly my most awkward summer. I had only been in this new town for sixth grade and part of fifth grade, and I still didn't. It was out in the suburbs. I had moved from the city to the suburbs, and I still did not really feel like I belonged in any way. It was, it was like being a funky shaped puzzle piece, and there were just no openings that were the same shape as me, and so then you just sit in the box waiting for somebody to notice you. It was, yeah, it was not hard. Yeah, and making matters even worse, there was something looming over me the entire summer, because this was the summer before starting junior high. It would be the first summer in my entire academic career that I was not looking forward to the first day of school, and I remember this specifically because I literally said those words out loud, and that was a radical statement for me. I loved school, and when it was time for seventh grade, like the summer before seventh grade, I'm like, that's the first time in my whole life I don't want to go to school. It was just radical. It was very radical, and it was because I was terrified. My junior high was the former high school, meaning it was huge. It was ginormous, and the student body was also bigger than most high schools at the time. It was 1000s of kids, and so you're switching classes in that huge building with like wings and stuff like that, and you have A and B days, and on some days there'll be gym, and then other days they'll be choir, and then other days there will be art, and which day is which, and you're supposed to keep track of it, and nobody's telling you when or where you're supposed to be, and you only have five minutes between your classes to get through that huge building, and then I'm riding the bus, I'd never ridden the bus in my whole life, and I was heading into all of that with very few friends, none of whom rode my bus, so it was a very lonely time. So that summer felt very frozen in time for me, like I was willing it to stop, like, please don't make me go in there, please. But there was one thing that happened in sixth grade that would have a huge impact on my. Summer, and that was that. I had become friends with drum roll, please. I know,

Michelle Newman 10:08

yes, everybody listen. Let's give it up for stealing VPs of this

Kristin Nilsen 10:13

podcast. This is the origin of the Stein girl, so I was not friendless, and they came with an older sister, very permissive parents, there was always a new record on the turntable in their bedroom, and they went to the movies, like my parents went to the movies, like once a year, they went like every weekend, and they went to R movies, their parents let them see R-rated movies, they knew about Endless Love and the Amityville Horror books, before the movies came out, they had the books, so they knew what anal sex was, because that was in that was in Endless Love, the book, not in the movie, only in the book. I'm like, what are they talking about? So they had to tell me. I clung to these girls like they were the life preservers on the Titanic, basically. So our vacation that year was to California to see family, because that's what vacation was in those days. You went to see family, so we either went to see family on the West Coast or we went to see family on the East Coast, and you usually drove. And that summer I was, let's see, I think we went to Crater Lake with family, and we, and we enrolled in a program with Woodsy the Owl, where you would walk around the national park with a big garbage bag, and you would pick up trash, and then you would bring your trash bag into the junior ranger station, and they would take your trash, and then give you a patch. And so my brother and I collected, we were like obsessed with garbage, we were like, who cares about the bear or the wild animals or the scenery? We're just looking at the ground the whole time, looking for cigarette butts. Yes, totally. We were so obsessed with garbage and getting those patches for our jean jacket. Thank you, Woodsy Owl. We gave a hoot. We totally gave a hoot, and we did not pollute. We were like anti-polluting. We were picking up the pollution, and we were so proud of it that summer I was also really into rainbows. It was sort of like my personal branding, my personal logo was a rainbow, and I bought rainbow things wherever we went. I wore them on my clothes. I'm actually, see what I'm wearing today is my.. I had.. I had a rainbow sweatshirt. This is.. and I can't find a rainbow sweatshirt that is the same as the one I had, but this is as close as I get. I have a sweatshirt with, like, rainbow shoulders, like little shoulder epaulets with a rainbow. And at the El Paseo Outdoor Mall in San Jose, which is now torn down, by the way, it's basically like they, they paved Paradise and put up a parking lot. Seriously, it was so beautiful, and it's now gone. So, at the El Paseo Outdoor Mall in San Jose, I bought a poster that would be on my closet doors until I moved out of the house, and it was a unicorn slash Pegasus, both both unicorn and Pegasus flying. I had that too. Yes, because it was like the emblem of the 70s, like the 70s were coming to a close, and we had to bring our unicorns and our rain and our and our Pegasus Pegasi under the rainbow, it's almost like that

Michelle Newman 13:10

one that's on the Trapper Keeper kind of, oh yeah, yes,

Kristin Nilsen 13:14

that's what it is, and I had that on my closet doors, and my mom and dad came home one day with a rainbow sticker for me that they had seen in the window of a head shop, they had to explain to me what a head shop was, and my parents were such goody goodies. They were the most like my mom one time, she got sick smoking guitars, smoking guitars, smoking cigars at camp. That's the naughtiest thing she ever did in her whole life. She's never even been drunk, and so the fact that my Puritan parents went into a pothead store, went into a store for potheads to get me a rainbow sticker. It made me feel so seen by my parents, like, you get me, you totally get me. So that's where it was in the summer of 1980 basically junior high, terrified Stein girls, endless love, anal sex, rainbows needing to be seen, I mean, all those things go together. That was me when I was 12 in the summer of 1912 Yeah,

Michelle Newman 14:10

I was 11. I was finishing fifth grade, and my summer started off with a bang, quite literally, because on Sunday, may 18, 1980 I was living in Ridgefield, Washington, finishing my fifth grade year, which was one of my happiest and most memorable school years. I've talked about mr. Rockefeller before. I loved it. I had just moved there, was a new kid, but met then some of the friends I still have to this day. Anyway, on Sunday, may 18, 1980 as we were driving to church at around 845 that morning, we saw with our very own eyeballs Mount St. Helens erupt.

Kristin Nilsen 14:49

I can't even believe that you were there. It was about

Michelle Newman 14:53

52 miles. Mount St. Helens is about 52 miles from Ridgefield, but you could always see it. So the year that we had lived there prior. Here it was beautiful. It just looked like it was very smooth. It was just this white smooth. It wasn't like the mountain, like the craggy-looking mountain. And on clear days, you could always see Mount St. Helens, and it was just a beautiful view. And that morning, when we were getting on the freeway, we noticed cars were pulled over and stopped, and we had known leading up to it, there was activity, you know, it was all over the news, like the week or two leading up to it, you just didn't expect that to happen though, and when we just remember, we looked to our left and y'all, it looks exactly like all the pictures you have ever seen, my

Kristin Nilsen 15:37

God,

Michelle Newman 15:38

I mean, it was prime erupting, like it was like the ash shooting, however many miles into the sky, it snowed ash later that day. And I'm going to show you right now this little jar I have. This is a jar of my volcanic ash. I've had this since that day, and it says, and you guys, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see this. It's a little old jelly jar. In fact, it would be the cutest little, like, wine glass, wouldn't it? And it has a piece of orange construction paper scotch tape to it. And I wrote on it, Volcanic Ash, Mount St. Helens, eruption, e r u p s t i o n, eruption, may 18, 1980 This ash was found on our driveway, and it was so much more than that, like you could shovel it with snow shovels. Oh my, school was canceled, it was crazy. But yeah, I've had this in my.. I mean, I've had this obviously since then, but that's probably.. it might be worth something, right? It's a lot of ash. I mean, it's probably about half a cup of ash I have in here, and this is volcanic ash, which is actually like little ground up glass, I think. I don't know, don't fact check me, I'm not a scientist, but yeah. So that was crazy, and so that was kind of how my summer started. I mean, like I said, literally with a bang, and it was a crazy thing to watch that, like I said, you guys have all seen the pictures. Oh, yeah, I can't

Carolyn Cochrane 17:05

imagine living that close.

Michelle Newman 17:07

Yeah, so it was really sad. So, in fifth grade, we had gone to this outdoor school called Cispes, and the fifth graders went every year, and then, like, the counselors were the high school kids, and I went.. I probably told this story on this podcast before. It was very soon after I started fifth grade as a new kid, and when mr. Rockefeller read out our cabin assignments, and he said that I was going to be with Lisa Reamer, I was like, that's that girl that doesn't like me, because this was only like two weeks after school started, he was, we were getting ready to go to Cispes, and I'll never forget, Lisa turned around and just gave me this look, and you guys, I was like, "Oh no, I have to go with the girl that doesn't like me, which we laugh about now. I mean, she's still one of my dearest friends to this day. And it was at Cispes that we became like inseparable best friends, and I actually still have little Polaroids from Cispes in my closet right now, of us sitting on.. I'm in a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt, she's in her little Cispes shirt. It's just, you know, they're Polaroids, they're blurry. I wish you could see them better, but I still have my little wood cookies. Think I've told this story, my friend Judy Bolton got the fish hook stuck in her nose. Anyway, back to Mount St. Helens, we're gonna tie this all together. It was so sad, we were the very last class to ever get to go to Cispes, because Cispes was covered, was destroyed, and covered in ash, and you know old Harry Truman. You know, you guys know the story of old Harry Truman. He wouldn't leave his cabin, and he had all these cats and everything, and he refused to leave. You know, the weeks leading up, he refused to leave his cabin, had been there forever. Well, old Harry Truman died in the, so you guys might not have known, like this was all stuff that was, we knew all this stuff.

Carolyn Cochrane 18:47

Backyard, I still like other

Michelle Newman 18:50

little eruptions, you know, over the next few weeks, and depending on which way the wind was blowing, we would either get it sounded like it, and it looked like it was snowing outside, but it was heavy ash, and you couldn't go outside, your pets couldn't go outside, because it's if it gets in your lungs and everything, it's really bad for you. So I spent about a week, you know, I guess in preparation for COVID, wearing masks, you know. We couldn't go outside and breathe, we weren't allowed to go outside. So, like I said, school was canceled and all that kind of stuff.

Kristin Nilsen 19:14

Then the ash went like, I would love to see listeners' hands right now, like raise your hand everybody if you had ash on your car, because I remember somebody like drawing in there. It was just a light film in Minnesota of somebody's car. Yeah, oh my gosh, ash was just floating in the air, and it was not very perceptible, but you could write in your car, like there was a heavy dust on it. We're like, what is this? Oh my god, it's Mount St. Helens.

Michelle Newman 19:39

Yeah, it's crazy. Well, it's yeah, it was only 52 miles, 50 about 50 miles from us. So it was a really big deal, but other than that, that summer I imagine I was crushing on Scott Baio real hard and playing flower shop every chance I got with my friend. My best friend Lisa, who I just told you, that's how you know we then started our flower shop. I should check and see how that's doing these days. Yeah, doing well. Yeah, I bet I was going to the movies a lot. I mean, I'm 11 years old, right? I bet I was playing outside with friends and our neighborhood friends a lot. We had a travel trailer that hooked up to, you know, our car, and it was new, and would take it to the Oregon coast, like to Cannon Beach or to the Rogue River in Oregon, and I got to bring my friends, so the back had two sets of bunk beds, and my mom and my stepfather slept on the, you know, like in a travel trailer or a motor home, you can like pop the table down, and then that makes, like, yeah, like a double bed, they would sleep there, but the back had two sets of bunk beds, so my sister and I always got to take a friend with us. So I either took Lisa or I took my other friend, Kristen, and we would play on the beach, and it was just so much fun. And honestly, I really think that the summer of 1980 was probably one of the last really great summers of actual childhood for me, my home life, too, and you guys, who have been longtime listeners of the podcast, know that it was often chaotic, it was often very unpredictable, but right at that moment it was super harmonious. I mean, relatively speaking, right? Yeah, but like I'm pretty sure that summer was a really level fun time with, like, my stepfather, and I think things were really even for me, and I felt just really happy. I felt happy with my friends and happy where I lived, and so I, while I can't remember specifics other than Mount St. Helens erupting, and things like going to Cannon Beach with a travel trailer, and that I just bet I was having a blast going to the mall with my friends and playing and just feeling really secure in my family and in my life, so

Kristin Nilsen 21:50

and that can be fleeting, that can be so fleeting.

Michelle Newman 21:52

Yeah, so okay, so let's dive into the summer of 1980s biggest pop culture moments. Listeners who were there, we want to take you on a trip back in time, and listeners who weren't born yet or who were too young to remember, we're so sorry, we're really sorry, and we want to give you a taste of what it looked and felt like, and since it's summer, there's no better place to start than the movies, you Well, the summer of 1980 was a massive moment for Hollywood. It was the year that proved the blockbuster wasn't just a fluke, but truly the new blueprint and the Undisputed King,

Kristin Nilsen 22:44

The

Michelle Newman 22:46

Empire Strikes Back spent the entire summer at number one.

Kristin Nilsen 22:52

Isn't that crazy? The whole summer. Well, how many times do you think people saw it? I just kept going back and back. Yeah, because they were,

Carolyn Cochrane 23:00

and it was different experiences, like I know I saw it with my dad, that was like a follow-up to years, yeah, but then I also saw it with friends, and probably multiple times with friends, and so yeah, I'm was part of keeping it at number one, I have no doubt for that summer.

Michelle Newman 23:17

Well, it earned over $200 million domestically on its initial run, which was an astronomical number. Yeah, for 1980 Really, I mean, I've said before, I am not a Star Wars person. I love it and respect it. It's just not for me. But apparently the ending of The Empire Strikes Back is really famous for being one of the most somber and unresolved finales in cinema history. Okay, you got Luke Skywalker, he's reeling from the, you know, pretty traumatic revelation that Dark Darth Vader is his father. Well, while Han Solo remains frozen in carbonite and is carried away by a bounty hunter, that's not coming from memory. I had to ask my husband. I am married to a very giant Star Wars person, and my girls are as big, or you know, I mean, my girls and my husband are huge Star Wars fans, but yeah, so that, that was that was how it ended. So people kept going back, I think, to watching for a kid. If you were a kid in 1980 you had to wait an agonizing three years to find out what happened next. Okay, this is

Kristin Nilsen 24:23

this is seriously helping me, because I had - I had an unfortunate Empire Strikes Back moment. Yeah, I so I am a very proud member of the I Saw Star Wars in the Theater Club, but just like Michelle, as you know, I wasn't a natural Star Wars fan, and I didn't see this at all that summer. I did not see this movie when it came back, when it came out. In fact, I did not see this until just a few years ago, when it came to a revival house in our neighborhood, and I pissed off my family so hard when I laughed at things that were supposed to be serious. My people are Star Wars people, and Star Wars is not fun. Funny, it's not funny, but I was laughing at, like, the 1980 low-tech cardboard special effects, and the extreme melodrama, like you just described, and it came off as funny, and I was laughing out loud, because I was not watching it with my 1980 eyes, I was watching it with my 2025 eyes, or whatever, the walk back to the car was not good. There were feelings that were very hurt, and they were both so there are more serious things that have happened in my family, but I don't recall the two men in my family being that angry with me ever, and I'm very remorseful about it. I'm very, especially after hearing your description of it, like it's serious, and I laughed. Yeah, I should not have done that.

Michelle Newman 25:44

And I think I think it's pretty common that this is a lot of the OG Star Wars people, like we're the Star Wars generation. We are, we own that and are proud of it, regardless of if we're Star Wars people or not. Like I said, even though that type of movie is not for me, and we've all said this time and time again, here we love it and respect it and are in awe of it because of what it means in pop culture history and just how tremendous it was. Yeah, but I will say I feel like Empire Strikes Back is pretty widely the OG people's favorite, and I asked my husband that the other day I was like, 'Is Empire Strike Back, your Empire Strikes Back, your favorite, and he said no, he'll always go with just the original, you know, but, but doesn't have anything bad to say about Empire Strikes. Yeah,

Carolyn Cochrane 26:28

and of course, they're two different experiences. You're only being introduced to everything in the first movie, so you're still trying to get acclimated to the characters and what's happening, and so I feel like at least my memory is, yeah, Kristen, I'm just pied at you. I'm glad I didn't see that. Gosh, even with through my 2026 eyes, or whatever, cut me a break, there's drama, and I remember, like, right now I'm thinking this would be one time back then that I wish there was some social media where I could have kind of fleshed out this Luke, I am your father business, because I don't even think I remember the Han Solo being froze. I'm sure I did then, but I, this just, I still, I can't articulate how I was feeling when that happened, and like, what does that mean, and how does, like, now I go back to the other, the first movie, and how it was a lot, you guys, and it still is like I almost need to go back and watch it, because how traumatic for Luke, and I don't want to spoil it for anybody, but you know,

Michelle Newman 27:31

is I think we can,

Kristin Nilsen 27:34

they've seen it, the statute

Michelle Newman 27:35

of limitations on spoilers for Star Wars, I'm

Carolyn Cochrane 27:39

still at that age, you know, you're in between, you're just still trying things you want them to make sense, yeah. And this just did not make sense to me, and I couldn't wrap my head. It's very dramatic, and yes, I would have also been annoyed with you, Kristen, because this was this was the one that had meat to me, this, the movie of the Star Wars franchise that had a store, had a real story, and trauma, and just cliffhanger, and that's

Michelle Newman 28:07

probably Carolyn, that's probably you, probably just vocalized exactly why I feel like a lot of people love this one the most of any of the movies, I know, like my girls, for instance, they will always love, like the original ones, you know, well, I shouldn't say that. There's a couple of the newer ones they really love, but anyway, let's.. let's.. I'm gonna take you through some more of the summer blockbusters of 1980 and you all just chime in if you have a fun memory about it, or you loved it, you hated it, you didn't see it, whatever, and I'll do the same. Okay, so we have the Blues Brothers, which was released in late June, that was the first major film based on Saturday Night Live characters, and also became a global phenomenon. It earned over 115 million worldwide. I don't remember seeing that, and there you go again. I'm only 11, so I'm not,

Kristin Nilsen 29:00

so I didn't see it because it's rated R, but the Stein girls did, and they told me, yes, I did, of course they did. Yeah,

Carolyn Cochrane 29:05

you know what, I bet you that for me was a, how do I want to say it, just a differentiator when I went, when I went back to school that year, because there were the people that got to see it, and it was rated R, so they could talk about it, and you know, there were like one liners from it, and the songs, and I remember the guy that was my boyfriend. This was like one of his favorite movies of all time. And again, you can't didn't get to just go stream it, like, oh, now I'll watch it, because I missed it last summer. So I, yeah, I didn't see it, but I felt so left out going back to school that fall, because a lot of people did see it. And, of course, Goody Two Shoes, Carolyn, although I did see a rated R movie that summer, and we'll get to that in a bit, but I did not see Blues Brothers, and it's kind of free

Kristin Nilsen 29:49

VCR, I mean, yes, there were VCRs, and there were VHS tapes, but not in every home yet, so you can't even go to the blockbuster and get a VHS tape to watch it, you. Were sol, yeah,

Michelle Newman 30:01

yeah,

Carolyn Cochrane 30:02

so you were out of it when people would refer to it or laugh over, you know, yeah, just pretend.

Kristin Nilsen 30:07

Well, and there's that was more of a phenomenon than it is now. I feel like, how many times will that pop up where we'll say that we didn't see it, but we pretended that we saw it because everybody else had seen it? Yeah,

Michelle Newman 30:19

exactly. Well, the next movie that was a blockbuster in the summer of 1980 I know I saw because I liked part one so much when I was probably only, you know, nine, and it was rated PG, and that's Smokey and the Bandit too.

Carolyn Cochrane 30:34

Yeah,

Michelle Newman 30:35

we love that movie here at the PCPs.

Carolyn Cochrane 30:37

Yes,

Michelle Newman 30:38

I almost watched it the other day.

Kristin Nilsen 30:39

I did not, I did not see any of the Smokey and the Bandit movies, and I think this is probably why, because I love in your right up here it says it was a massive draw for audiences looking for high speed hijinks. I wasn't looking for high speed.

Michelle Newman 30:54

Oh, I wasn't either, but I just loved, like, I love it. Yeah,

Carolyn Cochrane 31:01

I just love that couple. It was just really funny.

Kristin Nilsen 31:06

That's a, that's like a very Gen X couple. We should have an episode about Gen X couples, because that was a good one. I was very invested in their room. I was too, because it seemed

Carolyn Cochrane 31:14

not very, like, very unlikely in a way. Yeah, exactly. And he, but he loved her. Oh man, yeah, yeah, he did, yeah, yeah. That was a good one. Two wasn't as good as one, at least from my memory. Oh, absolutely. Like, I don't really

Michelle Newman 31:29

remember two

Carolyn Cochrane 31:30

right

Michelle Newman 31:30

very much. Okay, now a couple of R-rated movies that I feel like I saw in the summer of 1980 So I'm wondering how, and maybe my memory is just skewed, but you know the Blue Lagoon. You guys know from when we have talked about this, I can quote that movie like I know what happens like every minute of that movie, and I feel like I said this. Did I maybe just see it after on someone's VCR? I don't know. In my memory, I saw it in the theater, so was it the movie theater? Was it just lenient and let little 11 year old girls in? I mean, that

Kristin Nilsen 32:06

was a thing that I could be. Yeah, like somebody's

Carolyn Cochrane 32:10

older sibling was working at the movie theater, and they were like the ticket person. You kind of knew that, or the easy ones. I know for this instance I did see it. I remember my friend Debbie. Her mom bought the tickets for us, but didn't go in with us, so that.. so this is probably my first rated R movie, because the very first one I saw was with Debbie's dad, Amityville Horror. He did go with us, this one, I think, and my mom agreed it was okay. They were all good friends, so Debbie's mom went and bought us the tickets, and we went in by ourselves. So this, to me, was like the first on my own Blue Lagoon thing, and I think I just think if I talked to Debbie, just remember, like, we'd look at each other, like, you know, it was the puppies, it wasn't the

Michelle Newman 33:01

puppies as much as it was all the, you know, we've talked about this, but all the, the silhouettes of Christopher Atkins swimming, and you can see what we like on the pieces, he has to call his puppy, we like to call it his puppy, you could see floating his free range puppy, yeah, I did

Kristin Nilsen 33:17

not see this one, this dying girl certainly saw it, and everything they told me scene by scene, so I feel like I've seen it, but I never saw it until I watched it with you guys.

Carolyn Cochrane 33:30

Wow, yeah. All right. Well,

Michelle Newman 33:32

interestingly, the all the other block real blockbusters of the summer of 1980 were rated R. So let's go down the list and let's see how many we think we saw. All of us under age 17, we've got Caddyshack.

Kristin Nilsen 33:47

Now that was a golf movie. Why I saw

Michelle Newman 33:50

that later, like I've seen

Carolyn Cochrane 33:52

that. What about The

Michelle Newman 33:54

Shining?

Carolyn Cochrane 33:55

I've never seen it.

Kristin Nilsen 33:56

The Shining I did see with The Stein Girls, and I read the book, and I scared the bejesus out of me,

Carolyn Cochrane 34:01

and you saw it that summer,

Kristin Nilsen 34:03

I think. So, I wouldn't, I wouldn't swear to it, but I feel like I did. Okay,

Michelle Newman 34:09

okay. Friday the 13th with.. oh, I would have never seen that. I was scared. I

Carolyn Cochrane 34:15

never liked those. I went on one to one of those, like Friday the 13th or Halloween part, something on a date once, and that was the only one of those slasher-ish kind of movies that is

Kristin Nilsen 34:25

a very coming of age thing, like it is, it is a threshold when you cross the threshold of seeing a slasher movie like that, you are now an adolescent, you are officially an adolescent when you see, and that's what it felt like going to these with the Stein girls, like, oh yeah, girl,

Michelle Newman 34:41

oh yeah. What about interestingly, fame was rated R originally.

Kristin Nilsen 34:46

Okay, well, you know my story about fame. Not allowed to see fame because it's rated R. The Stein girls wanted me to go with them. I cried and threw a fit, literally on the ground crying, and my parents ignored me like a toddler, like they. You could see them having the discussion about how should we handle this. Well, how did we do it when she was two? We walked, we just stepped over her and pretended she wasn't crying, and that's exactly what they did. And eventually I saw it with the Stein girls. I don't recall how that came to be, but we'll talk about this a little bit more in our, in another episode about Gen X parenting, where in order to make me feel better, in order to heal that wound of not allowing me to see the rated R movie dance movie with the Stein girls, they took the whole family to see the jerk Radar. My sister was four or maybe even three, and they didn't, we didn't leave. Like, the whole movie is about his special purpose, which is about his erection, it's a movie about an erection, and we didn't leave. I don't understand.

Carolyn Cochrane 35:46

Oh yeah, doesn't make sense. So that one,

Kristin Nilsen 35:49

too, The Jerk is summer of 1980

Michelle Newman 35:51

Well, I was just trying to look up, like, what were the top PG hits, right? Because what would I have been going to the movies to see, and nothing. The only thing that really comes up is Empire Strikes Back. However, I am going to end the blockbusters with one that I know we all saw, and we're not going to spend too much time on it, because I'm so excited that in another handful of weeks towards the end of this season, we're going to be talking about it in detail, and surely I must be talking about airplane,

Kristin Nilsen 36:21

don't call me Shirley.

Michelle Newman 36:23

Yes, you are Michelle, and don't call me Shirley. I know I've used that joke before, but just wait till the actual episode. Gosh, you guys, this was a sleeper hit. It became one of the highest grossing films of 1980 earning $83 million and more, and it really famously revitalized Leslie Nielsen's career, you know. And then he would go on to do so many spoofy, spoof movies like that, with all the Naked Gun movies and everything, but that movie, at age 11, oh my god, even 12, even 14, Carolyn, it was speaking to us, right?

Carolyn Cochrane 37:01

Yeah, it was so funny, and so it was just clever, too clever. Yeah, and I dared to be childish, essentially. Yeah,

Michelle Newman 37:09

and I think what I think of airplane, and you guys, apologies already, that I'll probably say this again in the, in the airplane episode, but, like, you know how, as we got to be parents and took our kids to like Disney movies, even anime, you know, animated Disney movies or Pixar movies. There were always jokes, like the kids loved it, but there were always parts of that movie that were so just for the adults, like went right over the kids' head, but the kid, but the adults were like, "Okay, I'm entertained too. That was very clever, that was very funny. I feel airplane was a lot like that, it, it had so much for us, 1112, 13 year, 14 year olds, but yet also the adults, there's so much for the adults too, and be from the stars that were in it, that the kids didn't know who they were, but the grown-ups did, or just some of the jokes, or the innuendos, the innuendos for sure were going over my head at age nine, but I didn't care. I just was there for Vicky Stubing, you know, getting her IV knocked out of her by the singing, you know, nun. So I loved it. I, I was.. I just remember being tickled that I loved that movie too, like I felt kind of grown up. Yeah, like that. I probably just to

Carolyn Cochrane 38:18

describe it. Yes, like you were in on something, and you felt kind of grown up that you got it, like it wasn't like you were making it. It was, yeah, I think there's a lot of wordplay in it, you know, me and that. I just think that's so clever, and yeah, well, and

Michelle Newman 38:31

it was a different type of comedy for us too, for the first time, probably. Like, all of a sudden we were graduating from comic books to Mad magazine, right? It was almost like that satire, that tongue in cheek, that spoofy, that all of a sudden we were getting, and we thought was funny, and that was delightful for me. I loved it, and I can't wait to talk with you all more about this coming up. So, yeah, well, well, everybody listening, if you love that movie, stay tuned.

Kristin Nilsen 38:58

Stay tuned.

Speaker 3 38:58

Can you fly this plane and landed, surely you can't be serious. I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.

Kristin Nilsen 39:06

Okay, let's talk about the music of 1980 Yes, until we started researching the summer of 1980 I did not have a real handle, a real firm grip on how transitional this year was for music, something huge was coming to a close, and something truly radical was emerging. I have to wonder if this transition was mirroring my own transition, like my summer of terror into junior high. The thing that was coming to a close was disco. The disco demolition event at Soldier Field had happened not long before the summer of 1980 and suddenly it wasn't cool to like disco anymore, and this hurt my feelings a lot. And there was a very memorable moment that made this very clear to me, that disco was over, it was closing the door, because this was no small thing for me, the fact that disco was over, I was. Disco Queen Donna Summer was my idol. I watched Dance Fever, like it was an instructional video. And then I practiced all the moves with Don Marsalix, older brother, in their basement. And I remember my sixth grade teacher let us bring in records into the classroom, and we could take turns playing them like show and tell style for the class, and somebody brought in a song that made me go, oh my god, it's really over. Disco is really over, and that song was my Sharona. It was ushering in my Sharona was ushering in like a whole new era that would dominate the summer of 1980 It was closing the door on disco. If they made a movie of my life, this moment would be in it, the my Sharona would be like a musical montage of me being introspective and melancholy, and there would be like a flashback of all of my disco moments, but I also really, really liked what was coming, because it was innovative and nerdy and British and Euro, but the kind of nerdy that it was like confident and kind of untouchable and nerdy plus confident plus untouchable equals cool.

Carolyn Cochrane 41:04

Okay, sure. Yeah.

Kristin Nilsen 41:08

Am I nerdy? Okay.

Carolyn Cochrane 41:11

Intellectual, and just like cool, like it was very intellectual.

Kristin Nilsen 41:16

You're right. It was the what was coming was very intellectual and thinky new wave was knocking disco out of the way, and this would be the look of MTV, which was just a year away from launching, and songs like My Sharona, Cars by Gary Newman, Turning Japanese by The Vapors, they all stopped me in my tracks with their newness. Blondie's song Call Me was the biggest single of 1980 and it got heavy airplay that summer, all summer long, and that sound, that kind of like dark driving beat, and it's sort of irreverent. And is it in a minor key? I'm not a music person, I don't know, but I know that it's dark, so it might be minor key. I would call it new wave rock and roll, that like call me as new wave rock and roll, and that spoke to me. Of course, the Stein girls had this album, and Debbie Harry became kind of like this new, this new kind of a woman for us to idolize. She was not conventionally beautiful, that was disco, disco is conventionally beautiful, but she was sexy as hell. She was so sexy, but her look was not designed to be for the pleasure of the male gaze, it was for her, it was like free expression, it was a little bit off, off center, right, and that was fascinating to us. Call me that song, Call Me is the reason that I bought the K-Threl album Rock 80 for my brother for Christmas that year, and it was full of these darker new wave adjacent hits that clearly qualified as rock and rolls. It was like new wave rock and roll. Rock 80 did not have a single disco hit on it, not one. And the last K-Tel album that I had purchased prior to Rock 80 was Hot Nights and City Lights, which was 100% disco. The transition was so fast, it was so swift, and the summer of 1980 could also be called let's just add another genre on top of it, all right, just to show how transitional this summer was. The summer of 1980 could also be called the apex of what would someday be called drum roll yacht rock. Yacht rock is on fire, and its signature song being one of the biggest hits of the summer of 1980 that would be Sailing by Christopher Cross. It is the yacht rock anthem. It's the anthem, really, of our youth. It's very much the anthem of our youth. Other yacht rock songs, other yacht rock highlights from that summer were Steal Away by Robbie Dupree, Give me the night by George Benson, and all of this opened the door for Steely Dan's Hey 19. Hey 19, that was a huge hit in the fall. All of this was like paving the way for Hey 19. It was like the summer of 1980 was genre busting, everything was turning over. So the five biggest songs of that summer, June, July, and August of 1980 were Sailing, which is Yacht Rock, Funky Town, which is like the last gasp of disco, with foreshadowing of the Minneapolis sound that's coming in in the 80s, coming up by Paul McCartney. I love this song, which I would call like pop new wave, it's like a new wave bop. Paul McCartney's answer to new wave, it's still rock and roll to me by Billy Joel, which was actually commentary on those nerdy, cool fashions coming from the new wave movement. Right, what's the matter with the clothes I'm wearing? Can't you tell that your tie's too wide? I never knew that. I didn't know that it was any kind of commentary, and finally Magic by Olivia Newton John, which was like her sultry coming out party after transforming into Carnival Sandy two summers before in Greece. Right, this came magic came from the Xanadu soundtrack, which was not one of the blockbusters. Racers of the summer of 1980 but the soundtrack sure was, and this song, Magic, spent almost the entire month of August in the number one spot. It's such a,

Michelle Newman 45:10

it's such a great potpourri of genres. Like, I love those, I love all those songs you just mentioned, but you remember, you know, a few weeks ago we were talking about our, like, our reset playlist. All those songs would almost go on different types of playlists. They all elicit a different feeling from me, kind of. Yeah, but you love all of them. Yeah,

Carolyn Cochrane 45:30

and there were some great Carol approved, oh yes, of that summer too, because we, we had Lost in Love by Air Support, Supply. I'm like, biggest part of me by Ambrosia, which I guess is kind of yacht rocky, and all that's

Kristin Nilsen 45:47

yacht rock. Air supply is not technically yacht rock, no, no, ambrosia is definitely yacht rock,

Carolyn Cochrane 45:52

and a song that I had kind of forgotten about, but now I want to put it on all my playlists again. Brass in pocket by the pretenders, that's on. I love that song. It's a good

Speaker 4 46:07

song, attend. attention, give it to

Carolyn Cochrane 46:25

me. I forgot how much I loved it, and now I just want to listen to it all the time. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, it's a good summer for music, for sure. Oh my god,

Kristin Nilsen 46:33

it was again until we started researching it. I had no idea how important that summer was for muzhik.

Michelle Newman 46:39

You know, how like I said, go back to earlier. I said go back and whisper in our ears, like, yeah, have no idea what's coming. Think about if you like, we're saying that was a great summer for music, and there's no, no denying that it was, but whisper in our ears, just wait till next summer, and the next summer, and like, think of all the great music that was still to come, that we didn't even know when we were like walking around singing magic, we had no idea. I did not know that there was going to be five British boys just around the corner coming for me. Yeah, like we just didn't know.

Carolyn Cochrane 47:17

Yeah, right. It was all such great stuff. Up, well, while we might be getting a lot of new music and new movies in the summer of 1980 we also, when it comes to television, are getting our fair share of reruns, because back in the day, summer time was rerun time, and that year, that summer of 1980 we were probably watching the top-rated Nielsen shows of the following fall on repeat, so that would have been Dukes of Hazzard, we, which I never liked, so I was not watching that on repeat, not a fan

Kristin Nilsen 48:01

show. We all do. Sorry, listeners

Michelle Newman 48:04

who love it don't come at us. Yeah, we all like things.

Kristin Nilsen 48:07

I hated it then, and my brother loved it, because he loved to pretend he was Roscoe P. Coltrane. He loved to talk like Roscoe P. Coltrane, but it's if you think about it, it's like a throwback to Green Acres and Petticoat Junction. And we were done with that, we were moving on, and I was just angry at the way I liked things to be logical, and I was like, it's faster to open your car door than it is to climb in. It doesn't make sense.

Speaker 5 48:29

Just a good old voice, never meaning no harm means all

Speaker 6 48:36

you never saw been in trouble with the law since the day they was born,

Carolyn Cochrane 48:42

but perhaps the biggest show from 1980 that carried us through the summer was Dallas, and you guys, that last episode of Dallas that spring in March was, you guessed it, the episode where Jr was shot, so we had all summer to wonder what were we wondering, ladies, who

Kristin Nilsen 49:06

shot

Carolyn Cochrane 49:07

you, and something very interesting, because this was also the summer of what I remember as the first, like, actor strike. The fall TV season was going to get pushed, so we did not find out until November, yes.

Kristin Nilsen 49:24

Because of the strike, I always wanted that. Why did we wait? Why couldn't they tell us before November? I thought they were just like playing with

Carolyn Cochrane 49:31

us. Nope, they were not playing, and I'm sure they would have much rather had done it sooner. But yes, because of that strike, which lasted 67 days, by the way, ladies, a lot of TV productions were put, were pushed off until later in the fall, but it's interesting to note that that particular strike was huge for actors, because it was the, they were able to negotiate now going forward, kind of our first look at what technology was going to mean for. Actors, they were able to negotiate pay for when their movies and TV shows went on cable and went on video cables, so yes, so were our VHS tapes that we were talking about. So they kind of saw the writing on the wall, and much like our actors are doing today with, you know, streaming and AI, and all the things they were able to say, okay, I did this, and I need to get paid for it, even though I've already done it, but it's going to live on in perpetuity because of these newfangled technology.

Kristin Nilsen 50:32

Every time it's on HBO, you're going to give me a penny,

Carolyn Cochrane 50:35

exactly, and I can't exactly remember. Oh, here we go, they secured 4.5% of the gross for sales of video cassettes, discs, and pay per view, and then it ultimately forced studios to start recognizing this economic impact of this technology, and how they were going to work that into contracts. So that was kind of our first, you know, our first kind of look at that, but because of that, again things got pushed out, and luckily, though, the strike did not affect all of our TV. Okay, it did not affect reality TV, and you guys, this was our first summer of maybe getting a little bit of a glimpse into what that might look like. We had, we got that's incredible, that was the first time that's incredible, and real people

Michelle Newman 51:22

show in show those were summer releases.

Carolyn Cochrane 51:24

Yes, the summer, yeah, because yes, summer of 1980 saw a surge in real life and competition shows that felt fresh, and that was that's incredible. Real people, and we got the pilot of Solid Gold that would premiere later that fall, and stuff as a series

Kristin Nilsen 51:40

that was, I mean, that was my coming of age. Solid gold was my coming of age. Yeah, completely all

Michelle Newman 51:46

about the like real people type shows. Yeah, see what you know, like the weird things. Oh my god, that man stayed in a box, you know, in a lucite box for 85 hours or whatever

Kristin Nilsen 52:00

last season. This is how Richard Simmons got his start, because they had a segment on Richard Simmons's studio, his Slimmons, his studio in Beverly Hills, called Slimmons, because he was such a figure in Beverly Hills. People were so attracted to his energy, and the fact that he had created this gym for people who weren't already skinny, yeah, every other gym was like, you gotta be skinny to get in the door, and he was like, nope, I want the not skinny people, and so he was on real people, and people saw how he, his personality translated so well on TV, and boom, we get Richard Simmons,

Carolyn Cochrane 52:36

and you know what else, boom, we get summertime, we get two new daytime talk shows, one is going to last for a while, one might not, but it might come back. So we get the summer of 1980 John Davidson brings us his talk show.

Kristin Nilsen 52:53

Oh my god,

Carolyn Cochrane 52:55

because he's also right in the high of that's incredible

Michelle Newman 53:02

that I will also say that I bet it's around that time, 1980 that was just, man, as even 11 year old Michelle had an older man crushed on, he was sure so good looking, and listeners, if you're like going, oh my god, yes, John Davidson, I remember him, oh my gosh, of course he was go way to the Wayback Machine of the Pop Culture Preservation Society, because we have an episode for that, and that episode is us in conversation with John Davidson, who even now, well, it was about five four years ago, even four years ago, John Davidson, charming and delightful and hilarious and just, and a beautiful head of hair, beautiful head of hair, gorgeous.

Carolyn Cochrane 53:42

And just think, if that talk show had never gotten off the ground in the summer of 1980 we would have never probably had Andy Gibb and Victoria Principal.

Kristin Nilsen 53:50

That's right, that's from the John Davidson met on

Michelle Newman 53:54

the John Davidson show. He brought

Kristin Nilsen 53:55

her out, right? Yeah,

Carolyn Cochrane 53:58

yes, yes, had

Michelle Newman 54:00

written a letter to Victoria Principal. Yeah,

Carolyn Cochrane 54:02

crazy. Yeah, he brought them together

Kristin Nilsen 54:04

very much on purpose. It was not like a happenstance, like we're both on the show. No, he brought them together.

Carolyn Cochrane 54:09

We love you, John. Another daytime talk show that premiered in 19 summer 1980 but sadly it went off the air, not, I think, in September of that year, but it was the David Letterman show, that's where David Letterman had his own show for the first time. It was daytime, summer of 1980 only lasted a few months, but we know that it goes on to be something big. He did in this daytime talk show, short-lived series, he had that was where we got the segment, stupid pet tricks. That's where it debuted. So that was really fun too. Yeah, I do. And it was free

Kristin Nilsen 54:47

time, right? It was in the, yes, yes. I remember this, yeah, before he got his late night show, and I don't.. I think that was like around Cheers time or something. I don't.. yeah, I think they were the

Carolyn Cochrane 54:55

gap of time. Yeah, that was a huge gap of time, I guess. He had some kind of. And charisma, I

Kristin Nilsen 55:01

didn't realize it was that short-lived. That's so funny, and that we still remember it.

Carolyn Cochrane 55:05

I know it was after, like,

Kristin Nilsen 55:06

three months, and we remember

Carolyn Cochrane 55:08

it. Okay, luckily for us, you guys, summer of 1980 we're home from school. We've got time during the day, we're watching our soap operas. Yes, we're not affected by the strike. Oh, they

Kristin Nilsen 55:20

weren't,

Carolyn Cochrane 55:20

no, because they all have different kinds of contracts, so yeah, so and so it was soaps and talk shows and game shows, game shows for

Michelle Newman 55:30

sure, yeah.

Carolyn Cochrane 55:30

So I just very quickly want to give you what some of the big storylines were on just a couple of our soaps that we have shared that we enjoy, and I'm going to start right with you, Kristen. I'm looking at you, I'm looking at you with all my children. Yep, Kristin, this was the summer, this was the summer of Cliff and Nina and their courtship. Yes,

Kristin Nilsen 55:51

it

Carolyn Cochrane 55:51

was. It started then, and we've got Palmer's, you know, interference, and he's lying to Nina about her diabetes-related eye condition and faking the crisis, and it was he was trying to get all up in their grill, and you know, stop it all, so we know that this was the beginning of that, and all the ups and downs that that we,

Kristin Nilsen 56:12

she had this beautiful long blonde straight hair, nobody had straight hair in 1980 it was just beautiful, and that's how I learned about diabetes, because there and so Cliff Warner is went on to either even greater fame, I believe, to be the person who says I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV for what I don't even know what that's an ad for.

Carolyn Cochrane 56:36

Yeah, some aspirin,

Kristin Nilsen 56:40

it's like very something. I'm not a doctor, but I do play one on to use Dr. Cliff Warner, who's glad to marry Nina. Right? Oh, yes. So

Carolyn Cochrane 56:47

you had that, and guess what else happened on my children? It was sad. Erica's disco had to close it, probably. You know, aligns with the end of disco, of course, probably because she was happy, she was having to compete with the steam pit and the restrictive zoning laws, and that's why she had to close, and the steam pit was

Kristin Nilsen 57:09

probably punk, that was like punk and new wave, and was it just called Erica's? I think it was called, yeah, Erica's, yeah, it was just called Erica's, yeah, there was a big disco ball, I remember that,

Michelle Newman 57:19

just like the title of the show, your family, in

Kristin Nilsen 57:23

my family, we called it Erica. I didn't even know it was called All My Children until I was gonna say, until I could read, which really shows you how young I was when I started watching this show. No,

Michelle Newman 57:33

we know they, you, we've heard you in your little pack and play in front of Erica,

Michelle Newman 57:41

Erica, actually, Erica, what, Karen, Kane was probably your first babysitter.

Kristin Nilsen 57:45

Yeah, exactly. Let me take a little nap.

Carolyn Cochrane 57:48

So, okay, we're gonna skip on really fast to General Hospital and tell you that this is the summer where Luke and Laura are on the run, okay, from the mob, the mob boss, Frank Smith. So, this is when we're starting to get their relationship, okay? So we had the awful rape seduction storyline, kind of the year before, but now they have to run away from Frank Smith, and this is when their relationship starts to come together. And so this was kind of when we get really that super couple kind of idea starts that summer of 1980 Lastly, we're going to go with Young and the Restless, okay? Summer of 1980 you guys, this is when we get Victor Neumann, and we start to establishing him, or start to establish him as a central figure. He debuted in February of 80, and he really gets big storylines the summer of 1980 Here's Victor Neumann. This is all you need to know

Michelle Newman 58:39

about Victor Newman, he always just talked anytime you say before hit talk. Is that supposed to be

Carolyn Cochrane 58:53

sexy? I'm sorry, I don't know, but he took me like I just would have thought he was always on, like I just didn't even.. I couldn't fathom, although I don't know what year the Young and the Restless started, but to me I don't

Michelle Newman 59:04

either, and I think so I was a big all my children watcher in like the Jenny Gregg era, yeah, right, and then I think I took a break, and then my friend Lisa and I got really into Young and the Restless, probably maybe like the next year, because Victor was already on, Victor and Nikki, big deal, okay, then I was back into all my children, but then General Hospital for me was after Luke and Laura, like high school and into college. So I've done all three, so I.. it's interesting. I can go, oh yeah, yeah, I know. I was actually watching, right? Yeah,

Carolyn Cochrane 59:38

that's what a good soap opera. But it was just those

Michelle Newman 59:40

three are the only three that I rotated between,

Carolyn Cochrane 59:43

so that kind of got us through.

Kristin Nilsen 59:45

Yeah, for sure.

Carolyn Cochrane 59:46

Summer TV of 1980

Kristin Nilsen 59:49

yeah, there was a lot of soaps, because what else are you gonna watch? Yeah, and it was crisis, right? Obviously,

Kristin Nilsen 59:54

of course, yeah. Come on, John Davidson, yep, yep, bigger talk shows. Okay, in the summer of 1980 I. I was still a big reader. Junior high is generally when recreational reading starts to drop off, but for me, reading was still my best friend. I could still, I could hide behind a book, that was very handy, and it would be very important when it came to going to church camp and going to seventh grade. I would need to hide, you know, get to class, sit down, bury your face in a book, and that summer I would ride my 10 speed bike to the library in heavy traffic on the thoroughfare through town, it was like taking your life in your hands, but what else was I supposed to do, like ask someone to drive me to the library, that's ludicrous, I would never, I would, who would ask for, so at the library I looked for two things, primarily, which books are supernatural books, like Ghosts I Have Been by Richard Peck or The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, and I would also look for biography books in the biography section, books about former child stars, like Sherry Temple and Judy Garland, and Any of the little rascals, and there are always a lot of drugs involved, not like recreational drugs, but drugs that are provided by the movie studios to lose weight and calm down, and things like that. This was also the year that my mom and all the moms in the neighborhood read Wifey by Judy Blume. It had been out for, you should see their faces right now, they both did like big book, like suck in your breath.

Michelle Newman 1:01:22

I remember my mom reading it, and I remember you see Judy Blume, and I'm like, yes, oh, I want to read, because I was a big reader at 11, I could have read a book like that, and I remember, like, my mom, like, probably hid it from me, I'm sure,

Kristin Nilsen 1:01:34

because I found it, it had been out for a year or more, but things stuck around a lot longer then, especially because they had to get passed around, whether they got passed around your classroom or got passed around the neighborhood, and so you know, my mom had to wait for her turn, basically. So this was the year that I read Wifey, probably in the bathroom, on the toilet, where no one could see me reading it, and this was the story of a bored suburban housewife who dabbles in infidelity, and all I can remember about it is that she doesn't wear underwear to a party, and it's very freeing, that's all I remember. But other popular books that kids were reading that summer were Super Fudge, which was the long-awaited sequel to Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, also by Judy Blume. By this time, the world was in love with Farley Drexel Hatcher, aka Fudge, Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine Langle, who is the author of A Wrinkle in Time. This was almost 20 years after A Wrinkle in Time came out. I said to Michelle and Carolyn that we need to do an episode on A Wrinkle in Time, and they were like, they were, and I wasn't a Wrinkle in Time fan either, I was not a reader, but I talked to so many people for whom A Wrinkle in Time was like their favorite book of all time, but they're not buying it, they're not buying it. So, stay tuned, we'll see. And last but not least, Jacob Have I Loved by Catherine Patterson. This is a recurring theme on the Pop Culture Preservation Society. This became this would become my favorite book of eighth grade. It was really my first taste of young adult literature, which still wasn't its own recognized category, really, but it definitely felt more adult. The characters were in high school, there were boys. It takes place in this very atmospheric place, which was an island in the Chincoteague, Chincoteague Bay, Chesapeake.. whoops, Chesapeake Bay. There are Chincoteague ponies in the Chesapeake Bay. If you read Misty of Chincoteague, speaking of books, it was very akin to, like, if you guys remember The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy, it had that, which was a 90s book, but it has that same sort of atmosphere. It felt like reading an adult novel, and I loved it. And if you've listened to previous episodes, you heard about my road trip with my friends Callen and Martha, where we went to some island, and Colleen and I were all Jacob and me loved, Jacob, and we loved, and Martha wasn't having it, she was not having it.

Michelle Newman 1:04:02

This is a year that I agree. Library played a big role in my summers, probably. You know, lead in the summers leading up to this, but you know, I've showed you guys, and I think I've posted on social media, I have quite a few of my books from probably anywhere from like 75 to you know 83 all the Norma Klein books, all this stuff, probably most of them are library books. No, but I wonder, because like we moved all the time, like wow, gotta take these library books, but it's funny you said that about Super Fudge, one of my favorite books to share when I was a fourth grade teacher, but I know for sure, even at age pretty newly age 11, my birthday is in March for the summer. I would have read it for sure, but it would have been like a baby book for me.

Kristin Nilsen 1:04:50

Yes, me too. I would have been

Michelle Newman 1:04:51

much more into Jacob Have I Loved, and probably I was reading things like Mom, The Wolf Man, and Me, and these types of books, especially anything my sister would finish, I would probably read it. She's three and a half years older than I am, so I would imagine, yeah, I would, I would have been more interested in the books like that too, for sure. And would have read the hell out of wifey had I been able to get my hands on it, because let's not forget, by 1980 all of us had read like Flowers in the Attic, of course. Yes, it was contraband, and we had read it, no matter how, and I think by

Carolyn Cochrane 1:05:20

the summer of 1980 I'm reading those sequels to Flowers in the Attic. Yes, because I remember I am going into my sophomore year of high school, so I'm a little bitting Sidney Sheldon by that. As a matter of fact, summer of 1980 Love Affair with Sidney Sheldon begins. That's what I have written right here in my Rage of angels, and I'm pretty sure my mom just probably let me read when she was finished. I just picked them up. Yeah, so that was my kind of adult ing summer. And then let's face it, you guys, I was probably reading a lot of magazines as well, and so I thought it would be fun. I just, I got the covers for 17 magazines for the summer to let you know what we would be reading or talking about, or whatever. Okay. May of 1980 we get cover is Diane Lane, and it says new teen film star Diane Lane, and I'm right now you might recognize the cover

Kristin Nilsen 1:06:18

because a little romance came out, right? I bet

Michelle Newman 1:06:21

it was. Yeah, and again, if right now listeners, you're freaking out. A little romance. Oh my god, do we have an episode for that? Of course

Kristin Nilsen 1:06:27

we do. Of course

Michelle Newman 1:06:28

we do. Go back to about a year ago, I don't even know how long. Just, we just.. oh, we just delighted in that rewatch.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:06:38

Totally, there's a thing about 17 magazine covers, when you see them, at least for me, where I get that like suck back in time feeling, like I can just remember reading them and flipping through them, and I would have been reading articles. This one had the easiest ever teen diet or school's out guide to a fabulous summer terrific vacation wardrobe swimwear for your figure, so yeah, so that was in May of 1980 Then this is a throwback. Let me see how many of you remember this. June 1980 our cover model is tennis star Tracy Austin. Yeah,

Kristin Nilsen 1:07:16

I bought tree torns because of her. I

Michelle Newman 1:07:18

don't remember that cover though.

Kristin Nilsen 1:07:20

Look at how cute she's

Michelle Newman 1:07:21

17 years old. There, yes,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:07:23

she is.

Michelle Newman 1:07:23

Oh my gosh.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:07:24

And do you know if we had gotten this? Well, I did get this issue, but I'm pretty sure I didn't do this. They had an article, swim gear to sew. You could sew some swim gear. I don't know what that was about. I was never sewing anyway. Sun on your

Michelle Newman 1:07:40

little knit magic, a little knit magic. It was like orange, and you like zigzagged the yellow yarn crocheted, pushed

Carolyn Cochrane 1:07:48

it bikini. But, interestingly enough, there was an article, battered teens, the shocking truth, because there were always some really good, you know, deeper dives. Lastly, August of 1980 would have been the special back to school, remember that. Look at her blazer,

Kristin Nilsen 1:08:06

look at her blazer. What do we think is coming? The fall of preppy, we're getting our prep

Carolyn Cochrane 1:08:12

on. Yeah, so she's

Michelle Newman 1:08:14

wearing people listening. She's got like a blue and white pinstriped Oxford shirt buttoned all the way up to the top with what looks, and it's like either a burgundy or a dark brown blazer, and then a little bow tie. I mean, and even our hairdo, it's all so puffy, that short kind of feathered hair.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:08:32

Yes, yeah, it is just a classic. Okay,

Michelle Newman 1:08:35

so let's finish up. Let's close out this episode with some things that I know speak to all three of us at different ages and to all of our listeners, and that would be the toys and the fashion. Yeah, well, Carolyn was already in high school, and these toys don't mean a lot to her, and I was 11, finishing fifth grade, and toys I wanted to say were very beneath me. I probably wasn't buying a lot of new toys or getting a lot of them, but you're not going to be able to deny the importance of what I'm about to tell you. We also have the

Kristin Nilsen 1:09:08

commercials, we also have commercials, right?

Michelle Newman 1:09:10

For instance, the summer of 1980 was when Pac-Man began appearing in malls and arcades in the United States,

Kristin Nilsen 1:09:17

life-changing.

Michelle Newman 1:09:18

Now, it had debuted earlier in Japan, so fact checkers. I know, I know, I'm talking about Japan, talking about the United States, and it wasn't yet available for home consoles at all. It was just, you know, in the stand-up arcade game, which, let's face it, like, we needed another reason to spend our summer rainy days, or just hot days, or whatever, at the mall, but it was becoming, it was well on its way to becoming a global arcade phenomenon. Yeah, but that's the summer. It was

Kristin Nilsen 1:09:48

the only, it's still my only, my only video game. It was in the vestibule at Apple Bombs grocery store.

Michelle Newman 1:09:54

All right, well, something else that debuted, that made its, again, fact checkers made its international debut. You in 1980 that I know is still today probably almost as popular, and that's the Rubik's Cube. It was originally called the Magic Cube, but by the height of summer it was actually debuted earlier in the year, but by the height of summer it was a legitimate obsession.

Kristin Nilsen 1:10:21

Yeah, you had to have one.

Michelle Newman 1:10:22

You had to have one. And let's face it, you guys, if you couldn't solve it, you were probably peeling off the stickers and rearranging them all. I don't know anyone who would have done that, though. That's that's cheating. Okay. Electronic toys like Merlin and Speak and Spell, I was a little too old for those, but my friend Kristen had a little sister, Carrie, and she had a Merlin.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:10:45

We had a Merlin. I love to

Michelle Newman 1:10:46

get my hands on that. Anyway, those types of electronic toys are really becoming popular now. They hadn't really been that big before that. And earlier in 1980 Atari had released Space Invaders for the home console, for the icons, not

Kristin Nilsen 1:11:03

even aware of that. I had no idea about right.

Michelle Newman 1:11:06

So, summer was a really great time for very lucky kids who had an Atari at home to just spend all day racking up that high score in Space Invaders, and believe me, that would be the most popular house on the block. And I don't care, like it wasn't even like a girl boy thing, it was like I want anyone who had any type of video game, I wanted to be part of it. That

Kristin Nilsen 1:11:26

was so fancy,

Michelle Newman 1:11:27

something I was too old for already. But again, we all know the importance of the Strawberry Shortcake dolls. Well, that was

Kristin Nilsen 1:11:35

my sister. Yeah, my sister was really into Strawberry Shortcake.

Michelle Newman 1:11:38

They were released to the mass market in the spring of 1980 so in the summer, by now you know, a few months in, that's the big thing. And I know, Kristen, you've said this, and I think I kind of agree with you. I, I, it was like a bad strawberry smell, it was like fake,

Kristin Nilsen 1:11:52

yes, yes.

Michelle Newman 1:11:54

And she was like hard plastic, like she wasn't like pliable, no, I don't know,

Kristin Nilsen 1:11:59

I don't, it's almost like you got her in a cereal box.

Michelle Newman 1:12:02

Yeah, I do think there were bigger ones that were more like rag dolly. I don't know, people let us know, because obviously, if you're a younger Gen Xer, meaning you were born in like from 75 to 80, I'm sure strawberry shortcake was very important in your childhood, and

Carolyn Cochrane 1:12:17

little girls, and the bedspread, and all. Yes,

Michelle Newman 1:12:22

I can still smell it in my nose, I think. And yes, we're not saying we don't understand how great she was. We know that people loved, loved, loved strawberries,

Kristin Nilsen 1:12:31

and we were so big, and that was the era where iconography became a big deal. So it was just like strawberry shortcake as a symbol became big, and you had it on your sheets and your pillowcases and your lunch box and your, you know, what else could you put strawberry shortcake on? And then you wanted that thing because it had strawberry shortcake on it.

Michelle Newman 1:12:49

Why was her bonnet so big?

Kristin Nilsen 1:12:51

I don't know. Was her head that is it her hair? But it was

Carolyn Cochrane 1:12:55

huge.

Kristin Nilsen 1:12:56

It

Michelle Newman 1:12:57

was not in proportion with the rest of her body. Was

Kristin Nilsen 1:12:59

it all the curls were piled up, and maybe she's really smart. She has a lot of brains.

Michelle Newman 1:13:04

Okay, a brand new release for the summer of 1980 was the game Hungry Hungry Hippos, and this became pretty much.. well, it became the definitive loud game

Kristin Nilsen 1:13:17

for

Michelle Newman 1:13:18

rainy afternoons, right? That thing as hard as you can and then you and then you very quickly lose about four marbles and it's not as fun anymore. All right, let's talk about some of the fashion from the from summer of 1980 Some of the popular styles included op shirts, opt shirts, surf shorts, dolphin shorts, and again with the Richard Simmons was helping that along, right? That's

Kristin Nilsen 1:13:48

right,

Michelle Newman 1:13:49

striped tube socks all the

Kristin Nilsen 1:13:52

way up.

Michelle Newman 1:13:53

Yep, and I would say the bandanas too, like Kristen, you said, and you could probably.. there's a lot of ways you could wear them, polo shirts like Izad, Lacoste shirts, Madras plaid,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:14:04

oh yeah,

Michelle Newman 1:14:04

denim, Gloria Vanderbilt, Sergio Valente, Jordache, big big brands for denim. Keds were really big, Kristen, like you said, Tracy Austin, you had tree torns because of Tracy Austin. I loved my tree torns as well. Those were really big in the summer of 1980 Jelly shoes. Oh

Kristin Nilsen 1:14:25

yeah,

Michelle Newman 1:14:26

I bet you couldn't even.. I bet.. I bet the jelly shoes, like the flats, the ones that almost looked like little lace. And so the whole purpose is so you can like see how cool to see your foot in there. My foot was covered in band aids.

Kristin Nilsen 1:14:39

Yes, you can see your toes and everything. Who wants to? So funny, I loved them

Michelle Newman 1:14:43

so much, and even I even had like pumps that were jelly shoes. Now this would have been more in like 1983 but they had a little heel and they were purple. Picture like a small pump, but the whole thing was made out of that. It was solid, it was solid jelly. You guys, I think I hobbled in those. I could be. Early walk, and you guys, espadrilles, the laced up. I loved them, loved them so much. I had espadrilles, yeah, and they tie around your ankles,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:15:10

had good arch support, like not the jellies, not espadrilles.

Kristin Nilsen 1:15:17

But this was prime Dr. Scholl's era for me too. I wear Dr. Scholl's with my so much terry cloth. Everything I owned was made of terrycloth. That would have been like

Michelle Newman 1:15:27

70 was that 80. I feel like that would have been more like 70

Kristin Nilsen 1:15:31

dolphin shorts, and or like my jogging shorts, my tiny jogging shorts, and then a terry cloth top, like a terry cloth top. And then Dr. Scholl's

Michelle Newman 1:15:39

something I have, I'm photographed in a lot is a one. Now this would have been on like 78 or 80, and it's a one piece like romper short set with little spaghetti, like little straps, and it goes straight across here, and it's like yellow terry cloth, but then it's like got white piping around it, but it's a one piece, has a little drawstring waist, yeah, little rompers, which take

Carolyn Cochrane 1:16:02

all off when you had, if you were out, and you had to go to the bathroom, like a whole production, and again, little

Kristin Nilsen 1:16:07

buppy,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:16:08

so one piece things on me were, and I just want to go back to the Dr. S, because I really wasn't allowed, I mean, I think I had one pair, they probably were Dr. Foles or something, they were full, but I couldn't, you know, the whole thing was, you're supposed to grip them with your toes, that's why they were really good for you, but I couldn't walk in them very well, and my dad would get so mad, and he would make sure that I didn't have them on if we were going out somewhere, because they clod hopped just everywhere, I couldn't, they were shouted like a horse, yes, and he would be like, we are not going out. You change your shoes until you can learn to walk in those. We're not going out in those.

Kristin Nilsen 1:16:46

Could you? Did you have trouble gripping with your toes? Hold on. Have you ever

Carolyn Cochrane 1:16:49

seen my toes? I'm not gonna show people pay

Michelle Newman 1:16:55

good money to see Carolyn's toes every month.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:16:59

PayPal grab them enough, I guess, and they just, you know, did

Kristin Nilsen 1:17:04

you come down with your arch on the back, on the back,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:17:09

like it's, you know, Andy hates people that wear flip flops out, just so you guys know, because flip, you know, it sounds like they're slamming, and so imagine that, but that hard wood, yeah, well, and the one time what

Michelle Newman 1:17:19

you just said, Kristen, the one time I ever either had them or wore somebody's, all that had to happen was once to me, where my foot slipped back, and that that sharp edge of the heel caught the middle of my foot, but

Carolyn Cochrane 1:17:33

yeah,

Kristin Nilsen 1:17:34

that was pain, that was like a knife going into your arch,

Michelle Newman 1:17:36

yeah, you know, they were finally kept fine, yeah, yeah, but summer, and also I should, I should make sure and say that when we wore our dolphin shorts, I had a pair, my favorite were turquoise and white striped, of course, you wore them with your tube socks pulled up, you wore your shortest shorts with your highest socks, I want to

Kristin Nilsen 1:17:56

show your ankles, my god, show your coochie, but not your ankles crazy, so the summer of 1980 was so big, clearly so big in so many ways for us personally, because we were all coming of age, we were 15 or 1412, and 11, and also culturally we were alive, we just have to acknowledge this, we were alive at a really transitional time, not just the turning of the decade, which felt monumental, because it was the first one we could remember, but also the transition of so many things that summer. Summer, I mean, just think about this: summer is always transitional for children, for kids, but in 1980 that was transitional times 10, because of the music and the politics and the first whisper of reality TV, and also waiting for one of the biggest TV moments of all time. We gotta find out who shot JR. We waited all summer, and it's really fun to revisit this exact moment. Just think about it. I'm asking you listeners, think about where were you, what were you wearing, what haircut did you have what were you listening to? What were you watching? What games were you playing? Did you go on vacation that summer? Did you go to Crater Lake? I couldn't believe that you across my, my Lindsay Owl Ocean City Boardwalk.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:19:12

I would, yeah, great, leaped at you.

Kristin Nilsen 1:19:14

So that is your homework today, listeners. This is your journal prompt. Summer 1980 Who were you? Go say hello to that little fella, because that person, that person still lives inside of you, and they love to be acknowledged. Just ask your therapist. Yeah, that's for sure. So much for listening today, and we will see you next time.

Michelle Newman 1:19:33

And before we go, we have to give a massive shout out to our Patreon supporters. Your generosity allows us to keep diving deep into the nostalgia that brings us all together. If you're enjoying these trips down memory lane and want to help us keep the preservation going, come join us on Patreon. It's fun, really. Not only will you help us fund all the things it takes to make this podcast happen, but depending on your level of support, you'll get exclusive perks. Like extra video content, printables, Zoom, happy hours with us, and even fun swag mailed directly to your mailbox to those already there. Thank you for being our favorite part of this journey. And today we're gonna give a special shout out to these patrons, Carl, Carol, that's Carol, it's with a K, because it's with a K, and I couldn't read my own writing. Nope, Carole, Victor Newman, Caleen, Tam, Lisa, Kieran, Carolyn, Diane, Jill, Terry, or Tari, SJS, Teresa, Karen, Jennifer, Liz, Kim, Tony, Jennifer, Cynthia, Nancy, and Erin. Thank you so much.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:20:48

Thank you. That never gets old. And other ways you can support us are by sharing the podcast with friends, neighbors, strangers, people in the grocery line, anywhere you want to, or can. You can also review the podcast if you haven't already, that's simple and easy to do. Just check that out on your podcast platform, and also push that subscribe button. You can then get us all the time. You don't have to think about it. We'll just be there ready for you Monday mornings when we always have our new episodes come out. So help us out and share it. We're on fire today.

Kristin Nilsen 1:21:26

We are so sharp.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:21:28

Yeah,

Kristin Nilsen 1:21:28

it's been a long time. In the meantime, let's raise our glasses for a toast, courtesy of the cast of Three's Company. Two good times,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:21:36

two happy days, to Little House on the Prairie.

Kristin Nilsen 1:21:40

Cheers, cheers, everyone. The information, opinions, and comments expressed on the Pop Culture Preservation Society podcast belong solely to Carolyn, the Crushologist, and Hello Newman, and are in no way representative of our employers or affiliates. And though we truly believe we are always right, there is always a first time. The PCPS is written, produced, and recorded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of the fictional WJM Studios and our beloved Mary Richards. Nanu Nanu, keep on truckin' and may the force be with you.