TRUFFLE SHUFFLE CHRISTMAS GIFT IDEAS/COMPETITION

As you may have gathered by now over at I Miss The Old School, we are obsessed with all things… Errr… Old school. So, we were extremely excited to click onto website truffleshuffle this month to see plenty of Christmas goodies that pay homage to the best of 80s and 90s popular culture. In fact we were so made up we decided to post a few of our favourites as potential gift ideas for ‘Him’, ‘Her’ and the ‘Kids’, and we chose the most cost effective gifts, so that you don’t have to break the bank either! Aren’t we lovely? There is even a lovely competition to enter too at the end of the post! Merry Christmas everybody! Continue reading “TRUFFLE SHUFFLE CHRISTMAS GIFT IDEAS/COMPETITION” »

SLUSH PUPPIES

Ask the Glee kids how it feels to receive a fresh cold Slushie to the face, and they’ll more than likely stop believing and lose hold of that non brain freeze feeling. Continue reading “SLUSH PUPPIES” »

SPIROGRAPH

Long before Pete Burns and his rubber lips had our heads spinning right round, we were dizzy with glee over a game which had us throwing some serious shapes down on paper and creating our very own Art Attack.
Creative games were always added to my Christmas list; along with 5 selection packs and a Now That’s What I Call Music’ cd, and I remember opening Spirograph and thinking ‘WTF? And why?’ But once I’d cracked it open and took those bad boy cogs out of the packet my mind became a visual kaleidoscope; I was addicted.
Continue reading “SPIROGRAPH” »

RUBIK’S CUBE

Did you know that the Rubik’s Cube was invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik?

He sounds like he’d be fun at a dinner party doesn’t he? Well he wasn’t – he was probably in the corner twisting a white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow box around instead of commenting politely on the pavlova.

In the 80s, EVERYONE had a Rubik’s Cube, whether you wanted one or not. It was the law.

For anyone not around in the 80s, it was a small plastic puzzle with 54 different coloured blocks making up a six sided cube. To win, you had to make each of the six sides the same colour by rotating each face.

SOUNDS EASY RIGHT?

Well, did you ALSO know there are exactly 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 permutations of the Rubik’s Cube – that’s approximately forty-three quintillion.

And this is a present they gave to ten-year-olds. That’s the equivalent of being a forty-three quintillion piece jigsaw – and at least you get a pretty picture of a dinosaur when you finish that. With the Rubik’s Cube, all you got was a cube with six coloured sides – completely useless except for throwing at the cat.

To me, this was just a gift designed to make you feel stupid, angry and bored – in exactly that order – then go back to watching your Ghostbusters VHS.

Anyone who told you they could complete the Rubik’s Cube was lying. Nobody could do the Rubik’s Cube – unless they did it the way I did: peel off all the coloured stickers and re-stick them so all the sides match up. Then take it into the playground the next day and look smug.

(One man who could do it was Feliks Zemdegs, who holds the world record for completing the cube in 6.65 seconds)

An even easier way to solve the cube was merely to twist off the smaller individual cubes, then shove them back on in the correct order. I reckon I could do that in 6 seconds. EAT THAT FELIKS ZEMDEGS.

Poor Professor Rubik could never quite match the success of his multi-coloured cube – but I did own his follow up, Rubik’s Magic. Bored of squares, he’d come up with an exciting new innovation – circles. Basically you wibble-wobbled connected titles around ‘til you made a picture of a circle. This one was more annoying than the Cube because there was no way of dismantling it and cheating.

(BONUS FACT: Yuxan Wang holds the world record for completing Rubik’s Magic in 0.71 seconds.)

The Cube, however, remains an iconic image of the 80s. Every household really did have one, even though 99 per cent of them would just use it as a paperweight. Somehow Prof Ernő managed to convince the world to buy his useless plastic puzzle even though few had the brains to solve it. Now that’s real genius.

By Luke Chilton

PLAY DOH

When you cast your mind back to your childhood, there are hundreds of sights and sounds that come thick and fast, but for most people, myself included, there is only one childhood smell…

Play-Doh.

That salty, sweetness which smelled oh so good but (when temptation and curiosity became just too much) tasted oh so bad!

In 1992, my three-year-old self, received one of the greatest Christmas presents EVER – my first pack of Play-Doh.

I happily spent many an hour molding and creating what can only be described as modern art, whilst at the same time inventing a whole new colour – a mucky brown, which can be made by cleverly (or clumsily, whichever you prefer) mashing the once vivid colours together.

And the creative juices really flowed once I was given the different instruments that could make the Play-Doh into things like spaghetti and other modeling shapes.

The downside, however, was the inability to remove it from carpet – and trust me it was definitely impossible, my mum tried everything!

Every kid had Play-Doh, as did most nurseries and primary schools, and for me, it was an essential part of my childhood. Not bad for something that started out life as wallpaper cleaner ay?

Yes that’s what you read…

Back in the 1930s, (and in America no less), a mixture of flour, water, salt, boric acid and silicone oil, was making the rounds as wallpaper cleaner and it wasn’t until some clever children started messing and playing with it that the idea of Play-Doh came about.

The squishy substance has come a long way, sporting many colours since it’s original off-white – with gold and silver even being added to the palette in 1996 as part it’s 40^th anniversary.

There have also been more than two billion tubs of Play-Doh sold over 50 years, and because of that, in 2003, the Toy Industry Association added it to their ‘Century of Toys’ list.

By the 1980s, Play-Doh came in a variety of eight colours, called the ‘Rainbow Pack,’ with four new colours being added to the red, yellow, blue and white.

It was also in the 80s that Play-Doh’s packaging had an upgrade. In 1986, we said goodbye to cardboard containers with prone-to-rust metal bottoms, and hello to tight-sealed, easy-to-open, plastic tubs.

Beret-wearing ‘Play-Doh Pete’ was thankfully kept as the mascot (although his image was pimped too, but not until 2002, when the beret was replaced with a much cooler baseball cap!)

Even though it was first sold in 1956, it wasn’t until its export in 1964 that we British folk got to experience the joy of Play-Doh, but we’ve been molding and making ever since!

In an age of Xbox’s and Nintendo 3DS’s, it’s nice to know that Play-Doh is still going strong, and children of today continue to make that same mistake of wondering whether it tastes as good as it smells…

By Stefanie Keeling

HUNGRY HIPPOS

When choosing toys as a child, anything with a catchy theme tune and appealing cartoon was definitely a winner in my book, and the advert for Hungry Hungry Hippos had both. The giant colourful hippo characters doing the conga across the screen, singing ‘hungry, hungry hippos’ made a real impression on me and I was always left wanting more once the advert had finished! Continue reading “HUNGRY HIPPOS” »

BOY GEORGE TURNS 50

80s popstar and icon Boy George celebrated his 50th birthday this week (15th June, 2011). We can't believe it is nearly 30 years since the singer and his then band Culture Club released their debut album Kissing to Be Clever (2008), which featured the international hit Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? This makes us here at I Miss the Old School feel mighty old - or is that just the Ed???

Despite George now more likely to be making the headlines for his run-ins with the law as opposed to his music, the fact that popstar of the moment Lady Gaga cites him as one of her influences means the undeniable mark he made on popular culture lives on. And with it being Culture Club's 30th anniversary next year, there is currently talk of a reunion tour and whispers of Mark Ronson producing a comeback album, while this year George will appear on the UK Here and Now tour, which kicks off later this month.

Anyhow, by way of our own lil tribute IMTOS' Shez Lancaster takes a look at how George made his mark on the 80s with his inimitable brand of style and music. Continue reading “BOY GEORGE TURNS 50” »

HUBBA BUBBA

Hitting the sweet shop after school was one of my favourite things as a kid. Back in the day when 10 pence actually got you a decent pic n mix, Gob Stoppers were all the rage and it took me ten minutes to choose which sugar-charged Hubba Bubba bubble gum to choose from.

There was nothing more satisfying than walking home blowing and popping bubbles, looking like something out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Continue reading “HUBBA BUBBA” »

LEGWARMERS AND LYCRA/SPANDEX

Kate Moss could rock up in a bin bag with a banana peel for a broach and we’d still flock to the shops to imitate the look. It takes some extra-terrestrial beauty to take an item of clothing we wouldn’t usually be found dead in and turn it into the next season’s must-have.

Before Kate, there were the Spice Girls with their platform trainers, Madonna with her underwear as outerwear, and before that, there was Jane Fonda.

In a decade that was obsessed with hard bodies, health and exercise, Fonda was the reigning queen. Daughter of actor Henry Fonda, Jane started out as a model, but quickly won over audiences with her roles in films like Barbarella and They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? and quickly established herself as a sex symbol. Cashing in on her body and previous experience as a ballerina, Fonda released Jane Fonda Workout in 1982, which sold 17 million copies and was the first in a series of an impressive 23 videos, 5 books, and 13 audio programs, carving out a second, equally successful career.

Knowing we could never get anywhere near her angelic perfection, we conveniently settled for the next best thing: Jane’s body-hugging lycra leggings with contrasting thong leotard, waist-cinching belt, colourful headband and, last yet anything but least, leg warmers. And Fonda wasn’t the only poster child for this look back in the 80s, as actress/singer Olivia Newton John and 80′s breakfast television show TV.AM’s workout guru ‘Mad Lizzie’, aslo made it their own, with the video for Olivia’s hit record Physical giving her the perfect  excuse to get totally ‘lycra-ed’ up!

And with films like Fame, Flashdance and Footloose drawing huge audiences, leg warmers were the epitome of theatre school cool. We truly believed we were just a pair of thick-knitted ankle tubes away from breaking into a perfectly choreographed and harmonised song and dance in the school’s cafeteria. Of course, we soon discovered that a pair of leg warmers has no effect nor use to anyone not continually stretching and flexing, and despite a short resurgence mid-nineties, they have since been banned to fashion’s fancy dress section.

If leg warmers were the only trend coming out of the 80s’ aerobics craze, we would probably think back on that time with more fondness than shame. Unfortunately, the most unforgiving of all unforgiving fabrics – spandex – managed to creep into the limelight. Let me tell you, for once and for all, spandex only looks good on dancers with buns of steel and virile rockers in the prime of their life. If you’re not in one of those two exclusive categories, step away from the lycra. It is just not that into you.

Jane Fonda’s bottom was impeccable, and who doesn’t remember MC Hammer’s Can’t Touch This video in which three girls work their tight, spandex-clad booties choreographically bouncing bum bags? No wonder we all succumbed.

However 80s r&b star Bobby Brown’s bad decision to sport a pair of unflattering black cycling shorts, complete with red socks and black dress shoes, in the video for Every Little Step, is up there with the moment he figured taking drugs was a good idea! And let’s not get started on Mr Motivator!

A Marmite-like relic of our childhood, bicycle shorts made a very brief fashion comeback as an addition to flirty summer dresses two season’s ago, but nobody really fell for it. Even Jane Fonda knows better: in her 2010 comeback exercise video Prime Fit the now 72-year old still wears a tight-fitted top and her signature belt, but has traded the lycra for a pair of plain, black fitness trousers – without leg warmers. And when the trend-setting legend herself says it’s over, believe me, it is over.

By Janneke de Jong

SINCLAIR SPECTRUM ZX

The first computer I ever saw, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum was about the size of a large paperback book, jet black (save the rainbow flash of colours zipping across the bottom corner) with tiny grey rubber keys.

Invented by balding scientist Sir Clive Sinclair in 1984, the Spectrum was one of the first home computers. Plugged into the telly, you could play games in your own front room! Granted, they were all rubbish, but I wasn’t allowed in arcades, so to me, they were like stepping into TRON.

If you could go back in time to visit the eight-year-old me, and swap my Spectrum for an XBOX, it would be like giving a caveman a Cornetto. I’d love it for five minutes and then throw up, my body unable to comprehend the assault of colours, music and hard-core violence. (That is exactly what would happen if you gave a caveman a Cornetto)

For one, all the games for the Spectrum were on cassette tapes.

While this made copying your mate’s games pretty easy (all you needed was a tape-to-tape HiFi) it did mean that most Spectrum games took at least eight minutes to load. EIGHT MINUTES. Can you imagine any child today waiting eight minutes for Call of Duty to load? No, they’d be off spray-painting the library.

I found those eight minutes quite handy – you could pop downstairs for some toast and cup of tea and be back before the game had loaded. That way, you also avoided the EXCRUCIATING loading noises. Like scraping a cat’s claws down a blackboard while simultaneously putting its tail in a George Foreman grill. No one who owned a Spectrum will ever forget that noise – and it lasted EIGHT MINUTES.

(Later, when the games became more complicated, you often had to inset ANOTHER cassette tape and wait AGAIN. Even then around 75 per cent of the time, you’d just get an ERROR message and have to start over.)

However, if you were patient, you were rewarded with an embarrassment of riches.

Take the game Horace Goes Skiing for example. Check out these state of the art graphics. And the gameplay! You could move Horace left AND right!

Another staple of the Spectrum was the text based adventure game. These dispensed with graphics and moving characters completely, opting instead for descriptions of what was happening. The player would simply type instructions such as ‘go north’ to move to the next location.

But the rubbish nature of the graphics eventually forced programmers to be wildly creative with gameplay resulting in some of the cleverest, most inventive games ever made.

Sinclair brought out a 128k memory version, allowing software companies to make games like Chaos (chess with wizards), Laser Squad, (vast tactical warfare) and Elite (a never-ending space trading game). Soon, the Spectrum had become the most popular home computer in Europe. Kids at school that had the rival Commodore 64 were losers – the ‘Speccy’ was king.

Back then, you didn’t need 72 programmers, voice-artists, musicians and script-writers to make a game. Anyone could learn to code games on their own machine, meaning there was no end to the bizarre titles that came out. If a programmer had an idea, they could make a game out of it.

Want a somersaulting egg that solves puzzles? No problem, you had Dizzy – a sort of Indiana Jones.

Then there was Paperboy (you just had to deliver papers), Marble Madness (you were a marble), School Daze (you were a naughty schoolboy who had to terrorise fellow pupils without getting detention) and Jet Set Willy (not too sure what happened in that one…)

I loved my Spectrum more than it was normal to love a stupid noisy box of wires. It became more than a hobby – hunting down second hand games at car boot sales and devouring both monthly fan magazines, Sinclair User and Your Sinclair.

Even when Amiga’s, Mega Drive and Nintendo arrived, I stuck with my old Speccy. The new games dried up, but there was still a hardcore fan base still programming their own. I still remember the last ever issue of Your Sinclair – a massive double edition that paid tribute over a decade of Sir Clive’s revolutionary home computer. It was like Michael Jackson had died.

Now, the entire concept of the Spectrum is so alien to today’s youth, it’s hard to believe they even existed. But they did, and I’ve still got mine in the loft somewhere to prove it. I’ve got an XBOX now, and while the games look like Hollywood movies and you can spend hours recreating World Cup finals against 12 year-olds on the other side of the world, I’d still rather sit through eight minutes of screeching and play a two-dimensional black and white game featuring a somersaulting egg every time.

By Luke Chilton

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