Live Stream Announcement - 80s Kids Magical Mystery Box Event

If you have been following us via Facebook then you will know that we are currently "Up To Something". Well, what we are up to will be broadcast via Live Stream on 5th May 2018 at 11:30 AM (ish) on our YouTube Channel. Here's a link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUe-G9vL9SY

If you would love to have been informed sooner, or did not know, somehow, that we had a facebook page here's a link to that:

https://www.facebook.com/RevengeOfThe80sKids/

Viewing window to be posted closer to the time.

Episode 121: Dreaming of Depressed Children and the War Machine

And so we pick up our knapsacks and alpenstocks once more, emerge from the lodge at the foot of "Mount Teenies" and wander purposefully into the 2010 foothills. We have aged since our impetuous youth pressed us into devoting a whole show to just one year. In the 80s that was achievable, in the 90s we were keen to be all done as quickly as possible, but then there were the noughties... my, didn't they have a lot to offer? Cramming one noughtie into a single show nearly killed us on more than one occasion and so, we have changed the format.

In the teenies each year shall get two shows. The first considering the year's biggest money-makers and the second moving on to what we like to describe as "Key Texts" and what you may like to describe as "The 80s Kids trying to give the 80s credit for everything". In this show, therefore, we will consider the top 10 highest grossing movies of 2010, so Iron Man 2 was bound to crop up.

Following on from that big obvious heap of MCU stuff what else do we have? Well, there's a lot of stuff for the kids! But... with How To Train Your Dragon, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part One, Toy Story 3 and Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland your kids may need cheering up. Thankfully we also have Tangled, Despicable Me and Shrek Forever After to fall back on. So there should be at least one thing to make the children happy, even though there are a greater number of things to make them depressed and anxious.

Grown Ups, on the other hand, got... well... Inception. That's the only thing in the top 10 not specifically chiefly marketed at people under 30. The only other entry being a Twilight Movie. Oh, yes, about that. We make a hasty assurance in this episode that leads us to hope, fervently, that we don't get too many listeners who are that bothered about Twilight. Let's move on. Quickly... very, very quickly.

Direct Link: https://archive.org/download/204DreamingOfDepressedChildrenAndTheWarMachine/2-04-Dreaming-Of-Depressed-Children-And-The-War-Machine.mp3

Episode 120: We Are The 80s Kids... - Summer Predictions 2018

As we may, possibly, have remarked, we are the 80s Kids, and as we further may have mentioned, we predict the future. We only mention the former because no one knows who we are. We only mention the latter because, like latter-day Cassandras, no-one listens to our prophecies, so the only ones wigged out when they come to pass is us.

It should be pointed out, to be fair, that we're a bit like those Cylons wired up in bathtubs from new BSG, parsing out our spooky visions of the future is rendered impossible because of the surrounding word salad, most of the time. This is our annual attempt to actually focus on the predictions at hand, a breakdown of what we consider to be the likely winners and losers in Summer 2018.

It's no surprise that Superheroes are back at the cinema this summer, enough of them to get their own category, but what's the point of speculating on those, really? SF and Fantasy, on the other hand, asks us to nominate Solo or more Jurassic World, among a smorgasbord of other delights. In the world of action, it looks like it's all about Skyscraper and MI: Fallout. Then it gets tricky, can one really pick apart a slate of comedies including Game Night, Life of the Party and Super Troopers 2? Family movies wave the big shinies of Incredibles 2 and Hotel Transylvania 3 in our direction, but all of this may lead one to wonder WTF happened to a variety of entertainment, sure Avengers, Solo, Rampage and the Stath punching a Megalodon are all amusing, but where are the zingers and shouldn't there be a minion in here somewhere?

Summer predictions, either they seem easy or they quite blatantly tell you they're impossible to pick. Let's see how the 80s Kids get on with this mess, shall we?

Direct Link: https://archive.org/download/203WeAreThe80sKids2018SummerPredictions/2-03-We-Are-The-80s-Kids-2018-Summer-Predictions.mp3

Episode 119: The Vin Diesel Problem

Technical snafus, out of context Justin, gentlemen having problems, not being able to do things... anymore, these are all the things that made the 80s Kids a beloved, nay, tolerated, nay, largely ignored, cultural artefact of the latter years. But are audiences still into the authentic 80s Kids vibe? Or do they crave the great 80s Kids flavour without all that calorific canon weighing them down? Only one way to be sure: REBOOT!

But can this really be a reboot? After all, this is labelled episode 119, Leo and Ian still bicker away at the podcast's core and someone called Justin occasionally chips in with a relevant or interesting tidbit. The theme tune has not been reworked, the format is mostly similar. Are these jokers trying to give us a continuation dressed up as a reboot? Is it enough that their eye is, most certainly, fixed on the franchise?

It would appear that the only answer is for us to pull on our reboots and trample all over the reboots of latter times, The A Team, Batman Begins, Spider-man (twice!), Ghostbusters, Terminator and that ever present Vin Diesel Problem. The complicated and confusing world of reboots is bound to get the 80s Kids to venture into choppy waters this week. Let's hope that this podcast pays adequate respects to the podcasts that went before whilst offering new hope for growth and development in the future, shall we?

Direct Link: https://archive.org/download/202RebootsEditFinal/2-02-Reboots-Edit-Final.mp3

Episode 118: Rowdy Roddy Rose Tinted Spectacles

We have established that Ghostbusters, Back To The Future, The Thing, Big Trouble In Little China, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Gremlins, Aliens, The Lost Boys, The Terminator, Blade Runner, Conan The Barbarian, Brazil, Predator, Commando, Return of the Living Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street, Explorers, The Goonies, Robocop and dozens of other great moments in cinema took place in the 1980s. But does that mean the 80s were necessarily a better time for pop culture than any before or since?

You cannot deny the 70s, the 00s and, sigh, even the 90s had their moments, but can it be true that in the 80s even the low points were higher? Is that a matter for ultimate aesthetic truth? Or is it just a bunch of grumpy old men crying into their Back to the Future trilogy box sets about past glories?

As the All-New, All-Retro 80s Kids are determined to make the bright future pay homage to the neon-tinted age of shoulder pads it is absolutely vital that they ask "Why are we so obsessed with the 80s?" with the rise of Stranger Things and synthwave it may seem that we're not alone, but is all just the future glimpsed through Rowdy Roddy Rose tinted spectacles? Or does the 80s truly live again?

Direct Link: https://archive.org/download/20180sNostalgiaEditFinal/2-01-80s-Nostalgia-Edit-Final.mp3

This episode features an excerpt from Whisper of Night Streets by the estimable Eva Schlegel.