Mark Kistler has spent over two decades inspiring kids to pick up their pencils and draw. If you're a child of the 80s, you'll remember him as Commander Mark, host of The Secret City Adventures on PBS—some episodes of which are conveniently archived on YouTube for your nostalgic viewing pleasure. [more inside]
posted by greenie2600 on Oct 26, 2008 - 15 comments

To celebrate their 10th birthday Google have brought back their oldest available index dating back to 2001.
posted by HaloMan on Sep 30, 2008 - 110 comments

When Books Could Change Your Life: an excellent essay on Children's literature by Tim Kreider, (previously), on the importance of reading as cultural socialization.
posted by Jon_Evil on Sep 25, 2008 - 32 comments

Did you grow up anticipating sports where death would be likely, if not certain? Almost certainly played by convicts, possibly with robot limbs? And which would be even more likely to have chainsaws and flamethrowers not usually found in the sports of today? Those We Left Behind’s look at Future-sports of the past, in videogames, movies and comics is for you!
posted by Artw on Sep 11, 2008 - 41 comments

Pocket Calculator Show. via: Beware of Blog
posted by serazin on Jul 7, 2008 - 13 comments

Playmobil Online Archiv - Playmobils archive of every toy they've ever produced, from it's start in 1974 onwards. It's only available in German, but even non-German speakers can appreciate gems like this awesome tiger tamer or these Mexican bandits, odd anachronisms like the chimney sweep or the figures for recreating the American civil war. [more inside]
posted by Artw on Jun 21, 2008 - 29 comments

NetClassixFilter: The next time you're standing clueless in the greeting cards section of your local drugstore franchise, you'll be wishing you'd visited the Gallery of Unfortunate Greeting Cards instead. For all your holiday needs: Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Weddings, 4th of July, Hallowe'en, Birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and of course, Washington's Birthday. [via Cap'n Wacky] [more inside]
posted by not_on_display on Jun 9, 2008 - 18 comments

Encyclopedia Repulsica, a/k/a The Family Circle Illustrated Library of Cooking (1972 edition): A peanut butter and lettuce sandwich, with a pickle on top • The Weiner Tiara Bake • Watercress Frappé (with optional radish rose) • How not to serve a Hamburger • [These, and many more, via a blog-full of eye-and-gut wrenching (and occasionally sublime) offerings from MeFi's Own™ Mael Oui, a/k/a Curly Wurly] [more inside]
posted by not_on_display on Jun 4, 2008 - 40 comments

The Journal of Cartoon Over-analyzations. For all your cartoon-related, obsessive and critical-thinking needs. Recent over-analyzations include Bestial Sexuality in He-Man and She-Ra, Evil Mickey Mouse and A Freudian Analysis of Beavis and Butthead. For quick fixes, check out the Mini-Analyzations.[Via].
posted by amyms on May 9, 2008 - 25 comments

I though documenting my early sex life would be a perfect reason to use Polaroids to do something other than take naked pictures, yet to still play on the sexual identity of the medium. I lived in Alexandria from 1980 to 1999. These were my formative years and they determined the way I dealt with women. A guy documents the spots in his old neighborhood (SFW) where he got kissed, dumped, laid or confused as a kid, and tries to work out "what went wrong." (via, via — both NSFW)
posted by nebulawindphone on May 7, 2008 - 13 comments

The Retroist is a veritable treasure trove of 80's (and 70's) goodness. TV commercials, catalogs, and of course the poetry of Mr. Leonard Nimoy. The Youtube channel alone is worth the price of admission-- Tobor! Diet Rite! Candyland!
posted by dersins on Apr 24, 2008 - 15 comments

It's the 1981 Atari product catalog!
posted by mr_crash_davis on Apr 13, 2008 - 39 comments

Everything you need to know about playing Nintendo.
posted by dhammond on Apr 10, 2008 - 64 comments

Under the Big Top: Shhhhhh! The Show's about to start*... quick, take your seat, sit down, and don't make a move. It's been going on for centuries, and now--lucky you will be able to be a part of it, if you haven't already as a child (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Honestly, who hasn't thought of running away from home and joining the Circus (but I'd suggest you wait a couple of years, until you're a little older, and a little wiser, to make these decisions). It is tempting though, when they roll into town with their fancy wagons, and their loud music. Although, the circus may not be as prevalent as it once was, there are new acts being created to entice crowds around the world. [previously]
posted by hadjiboy on Mar 31, 2008 - 14 comments

If you were a North American kid (well, a kid stuck at home, younger than driving age) in the late 70s/early 80s, your Saturday nights were likely spent in front of the television watching The Love Boat. The show subsequently gained worldwide popularity. Did you know that the Pacific Princess is still ferrying the lovelorn across the blue abyss, and that she has a bridgecam? Did you know there were Love Boat action figures? For your nostalgic pleasure: complete episode guide, complete guest star list, theme song video (variations 1, 2, 3), lyrics and chords, and song facts.
posted by amyms on Mar 22, 2008 - 47 comments

Between 1981 and 1984, the first network for kids broadcast an unusual show called THE THIRD EYE [more inside]
posted by cinemafiend on Mar 19, 2008 - 47 comments

If you had HBO in the 80's, you saw this every night at 8pm. HBO put together a brief behind-the-scenes featurette showing everything from the construction of the models to the composition of the music.
posted by dr_dank on Mar 15, 2008 - 63 comments

Back in 1983, before crossovers and limited edition covers ruined the industry, Marvel had a really great idea for a special month of comics. [more inside]
posted by GavinR on Feb 23, 2008 - 30 comments

"Well you know my name is Simon/ And the things I draw come true/ Oh, pictures take me over, over / Across the ladder with you." Little Gems is an extensive collection of information (including downloadable theme songs) about (mostly) British children's TV from the 1960s to 1980s. Simon In The Land of Chalk Drawings, The Moomins [previously on MeFi], Cockleshell Bay, Belle and Sebastian, The Herbs, and Hattytown Tales are just a few.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl on Jan 16, 2008 - 26 comments

Amazingly Nostalgic. Veniamin's even got an AWESOME website.
posted by gman on Jan 8, 2008 - 20 comments

Rhino Releases The Brit Box It's hard to explain in 2007 what it feels like for music to be both uniting and important. Having spent nearly three years of the '90s living in London, it's with honest nostalgia and wonder that we examine Rhino's The Brit Box. The set's mission is rather broad: it attempts to examine the whole of UK indie rock from 1985-1999 and devotes a disc each to '80s indie, shoegaze, Britpop, and the late '90s. [more inside]
posted by psmealey on Dec 6, 2007 - 60 comments

Retrostatic is a treasure trove of 80's (and 90's) TV commercials--from PSAs of singing pills to the Post cereal Create-A-Villain contest (and so much more). Also, cartoons, with descriptions and opening sequences of everything from Alf Tales to Thundercats.
posted by dersins on Dec 4, 2007 - 50 comments

The Radio Kitchen is an mp3 blog dedicated to the late night wonder of listening to shortwave and AM radio, now and as it used to was. Brought to you by The Professor from WFMU's defunct AM and Shortwave Radio blog). [more inside]
posted by dhammond on Nov 24, 2007 - 7 comments

Remember when air travel was viewed as glamorous and exciting? Of course you don't. So check out this collection of vintage flight attendant photos: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
posted by brain_drain on Nov 13, 2007 - 37 comments

It's 1994, there's a bomb in Los Angeles, and THERE'S NO TIME! Will Jack Bauer save the world with AOL 3.0?
posted by dhammond on Nov 8, 2007 - 45 comments

Noel Black's first project after graduate film school at UCLA was writing and directing Skaterdater, a short subject cinematic romance without dialogue, which used only music and sound effects to advance its plot. It won nine international film awards. [more inside]
posted by snsranch on Nov 1, 2007 - 11 comments

Raisin Hell, a tale of fourth-grade Halloween woe by Eric Feezell. "I was deep in thought, mulling over ideas for a Halloween costume, a fresh, heart-stopping one. Something that had never been done before... Suddenly I witnessed something stupendous. Instantly, any ounce of reason contained in my young mind evaporated. I saw a California Raisins commercial." For reference: a list of California Raisins commercials on YouTube.
posted by amyms on Oct 23, 2007 - 30 comments

Mine was The Fixx opening for A Flock Of Seagulls in '82 when I was 12 and it was the first time I smoked dope... I know this is the worst kind of query-Metafilter post but I can't resist. It is a fun article and I bet you have a better story.
posted by St Urbain's Horseman on Oct 1, 2007 - 215 comments

Before there were videogames, growing up in England in the late 1960s though the 70's we had Action Transfers. The Letraset company branched off its division of hand set rub-on transfer fonts into full blown action scenes, with Cowboys & Indians, famous historical battles, Vikings, natural disasters & more. This collector has dozens of sets, scanned in high resolution & never used.
posted by jonson on Sep 30, 2007 - 50 comments

Thule Trail is a cute modern remake of The Oregon Trail.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Sep 25, 2007 - 17 comments

Steven Banks Home Entertainment Center Is Online [more inside]
posted by jonson on Sep 22, 2007 - 17 comments

It's only a paper moon - a charming vintage photo collection. (via recogedor)
posted by madamjujujive on Sep 21, 2007 - 31 comments

Making a Transformer out of KFC buckets and custard pie boxes. [more inside]
posted by of strange foe on Sep 7, 2007 - 32 comments

Wishbook Web. Christmas catalogs scanned in their entirety from the 1944 Wards Catalog (152 pages) to the 1985 Sears Catalog (648 pages!). The site looks like it was built circa '97, but the scans are quite interesting. via - Similar posts to this one: 1, 2.
posted by Ufez Jones on Aug 27, 2007 - 28 comments

It is Saturday morning at 8:00. It's 1969. Your parents are asleep. What'll it be? CBS of course, with The Jetsons, then The Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner Hour, Dastardly and Muttley and their Flying Machines, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, Scooby Doo, The Archies, The Monkees, The Wacky Races, The New Adventures of Superman and Jonny Quest. On Channel 4 NBC fights back with Heckle and Jeckle, then The Grump, The Pink Panther, HR Pufnstuf, The Kellogs Banana Splits Adventure Hour, Jambo, The Flintstones and Underdog. Channel 7 is ABC which trails with Casper, then Cattanooga Cats, Hot wheels, The Hardy Boys, George of the Jungle and Fantastic Voyage. Good times.
posted by grahamwell on Aug 20, 2007 - 93 comments

Ready for '90s nostalgia yet? Well, throw some flannel on your Furby and get ready for that decade's most migrane-tastic fad, the autostereogram, or Magic Eye. Of course, the Web can't leave anything alone, so you can watch a moving autostereogram, play a little wall-eyed Tetris or Pong, and create your own image to delight and annoy your friends.
posted by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg on Jun 18, 2007 - 69 comments

1, 2, 3,4, 5,6,7, 8, 9,10, 11,12! Classic Sesame Street taught us Counting and other important stuff.
posted by louche mustachio on Jun 15, 2007 - 50 comments

Although Industrial Musicals and their jaunty odes to corporate pride and brand loyalty have seen the same fate as the values they espoused (mostly), goofily earnest and undeniable catchy tunes like Exxon's Up Came Oil♫, General Electric's Make a Woman Out of Your Wife♫, and The Monroe Calculator Company's 1660 & 65♫ are still as potent as all get out! [More songs and albums to help you get your gray flannel funk on inside]
posted by Alvy Ampersand on May 31, 2007 - 24 comments

Thomas Sutpen is one of Faulkner's most complex and intriguing characters. His blog, If Charlie Parker was a gunslinger, there’d be a whole lot of dead copycats includes nostalgic collections of rare photographs in serial form. Samples: They Were Collaborators (298) Great Con Artists of the 20th Century (14) Vietnam - Dramatis Personae (7) A is for Arbus (37) Collect 'em All (26) The Golden Age of Prurience (37) Poets are both clean and warm (18). Many wonderful others on the sidebar.
posted by growabrain on Apr 21, 2007 - 13 comments

Innocence is constructed by disavowing things that are right in front of your face. Richard Halpern, professor of English at Johns Hopkins University, published a different take on Norman Rockwell's art in Norman Rockwell: The Underside of Innocence. He looks below the idyllic surface of nostalgic Americana and sees unwitting voyeurism and blurred boundaries "between asexual friendship and Eros". Naturally, many Rockwell fans don't want to hear this about their beloved painter of innocence: an article about this book in the Boston Globe drew quite a few scathing comments. (BugMeNot logins for the Boston Globe website)
posted by Quietgal on Apr 15, 2007 - 105 comments

Steem is an Atari ST emulator for Windows and Linux that is very simple and user-friendly. More details on installing are in a helpful beginner's guide, but you're probably most interested in the games, of which there are lots [more inside].
posted by greycap on Apr 1, 2007 - 22 comments

Virtual Space Mountain! Wheeeee! (Click on the second video where you sit in front. What are you, a wuss?) Real video just can't do Space Mountain justice, but it does a pretty good job of capturing some other rides. Feel like revisiting some original Magic Kingdom rides without leaving home? Well here you go... Pirates, Mr. Toad, Small World, Haunted Mansion, Tiki Room, Thunder Mountain, Star Tours, Indiana Jones, Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Cruise, Matterhorn, Roger Rabbit, the late Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse and a bunch of people covered in lightbulbs dancing to the world's most excruciatingly annoying synthesized music. During your virtual day at the park, please just remember to watch out for Goofy. That dude is nothing but a messed up troublemaker. And don't forget... the parking trams do not go to aisles B as in Bambi & C as in Cinderella.
posted by miss lynnster on Mar 26, 2007 - 23 comments

Secret Fun Blog. A mixture of pop-culture artifacts, retro goodness and childhood nostalgia. Don't miss the audio and video offerings. [Secret Fun Blog is an auxiliary of Secret Fun Spot, which appeared on Metafilter in 2002 and is worth revisiting as it has been greatly expanded and updated since then.]
posted by amyms on Feb 27, 2007 - 10 comments

Pepsi Blue, et al. Dead soda visited by X-Entertainment, purveyors of much 80s-90s nostalgia. Previously.
posted by luftmensch on Feb 7, 2007 - 107 comments

Ghost Cowboy :: True Tales of Adventure in the American West
posted by anastasiav on Feb 3, 2007 - 10 comments

Billed as TV's frst video arcade game show, Starcade had its contestants battling each other on video game trivia, as well as actual gameplay. Originally aired in the early 1980's, the show featured games like Zaxxon, Congo Bongo, Star Trek and Journey, to name a few.

Ten full episodes are available online, for those of you who want a bit of video game nostalgia. And, if nothing else, looking at the contestants is pretty entertaining, in and of itself.
posted by avoision on Jan 17, 2007 - 28 comments

The Usborne Guide to Computer Games 1982 is full of fun ways to make traditional video games more exciting and contains some very accurate predictions.
posted by Bravocharlie on Dec 29, 2006 - 14 comments

101 Classic Christmas Videos The winter solstice is nearing, and Rudolph's on his way. So whether you're celebrating Festivus, or just being a blockhead, why not kick back with a nice glass of egg nog and a holiday classic?
posted by dhammond on Dec 19, 2006 - 15 comments

Classic UK Hardcore Breakbeat videos. John Tab, a Washington DC-area Drum and Bass DJ, has been scouring you tube for classic UK hardcore and jungle videos from the early 90s and offering them up with commentary.
posted by empath on Nov 24, 2006 - 52 comments

The Spark Museum John Jenkins' collection of vintage wireless, radio, scientific and electrical equipment, including Crookes and Geissler tubes, Barlow wheels and other early electric motors, loudspeakers and many more oddball electrical devices. [via TeamDroid]
posted by mediareport on Nov 13, 2006 - 9 comments