80's High

In the midst of an oil crisis and collapse of the fledgling video game industry, Nintendo was challenged to reinvent an affordable way to keep fans glued to their home television sets. Step 1: Ensure the company’s champion, Mario, hopped right out of the box on Day 1. Step 2: Evolve everything they’d learned from arcades-turned-bowling alleys. And Step 3: Reposition the Famicom from a video game system to a toy, by plugging in the most iconic video game blaster of all time. Deck yourself out in camo and climb into your 80’s blind spot with us as we revisit the ingenious tech, addictive gameplay, and nostalgic soundtrack of Duck Hunt. Smug retriever dogs need not apply.

-- Can I Borrow Your Notes? -- 

• Duck Hunt (NES) - Teens React: Retro Gaming

-- Teacher's Pets -- 

• Join the Class of 80's High: [email protected]

"It’s here at last / a great podcast / on Reading Rainbowwww!" Fly back with Ben and Chris to the summer of 1983 to revisit the groundbreaking television show that brought literature to children beyond the school year and redefined what educational TV programming could achieve. The ever-wonderful LeVar Burton, and many other friends to know, showcased wonderful children’s books, gave kids an earnest voice, and took us behind the scenes to learn how the world worked around us. Thank you to Reading Rainbow for helping to inspire a lifelong love of storytelling, a respect for tough jobs, and the drive to read everything that we can get our hands on!

-- Can I Borrow Your Notes? -- 

• Reading Rainbow official website

-- Teacher's Pets -- 

• Join the Class of 80's High: [email protected]

Theorizing that we could time travel by researching and reminiscing, airwave personalities Ben and Chris entered their recording studio to develop a not-so-top-secret podcast, known as 80’s High. Pressured to achieve maximum edutainment and topical variety or risk losing listeners, Ben and Chris dove into the 1989 television sensation, “Quantum Leap,” and vanished. They awoke to find themselves in the past, surrounded by inexplicable Centurions, blue screen technology, and unfathomably good writing for a TV series. Fortunately, contact with their own time was maintained through brainwave transmissions with Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell, the show’s stars, whose phenomenal acting and broad talents kept audiences captivated as they put right what once went wrong. Join Ben and Chris as they venture through time and space to unravel this lightning in a bottle; hoping that each episode of 80’s High will be the one that brings them nostalgic bliss.

-- Can I Borrow Your Notes? -- 

• Unsolved Mysteries Of Quantum Leap With Donald P. Bellisario (Ars Technica)

-- Teacher's Pets -- 

• Join the Class of 80's High: [email protected]

Musician Herbie Hancock has made a titanic career out of fusing together disparate sounds, and Rockit was the breakout song that put him on the pop culture map. By crossing jazz with synthesizers, hip hop, drum machines, and DJ scratching, this song became the breakdancer's anthem of 1983 in school cafeterias across the country. And always a man to say yes to the possibilities, Herbie unleashed upon an unsuspecting MTV crowd a music video that gave us future shock, filled with disembodied figures writhing to the beat, popping and locking, kicking and twitching, and haunting our minds with the specter of what we just witnessed long after the TV went cold. Where did this video come from? Who made those unsettling mannequins? And what does it all mean? Join us as we explore the fascinating stories and characters that brought this song and its music video to life. 

-- Can I Borrow Your Notes? -- 

• Herbie Hancock's official website

-- Teacher's Pets -- 

• Join the Class of 80's High: [email protected]

What happens when Pee-Wee Herman, Sarah Jessica Parker, and the director of “Grease” join forces in a NASA laboratory to prod a kid's brain and find the start button on a mercurial space ship? We unlock a movie that is part unsolved mystery, part government thriller, part zany comedy, and totally out of this world (even though we barely leave Earth)! Travel back - and forward again - in time with us aboard the technologically ground-breaking Trimaxion Drone Ship (Max) as we study this rare and bizarre specimen from the summer of 1986!

-- Can I Borrow Your Notes? -- 

• Life After the Navigator documentary

-- Teacher's Pets -- 

• Join the Class of 80's High: [email protected]

It all started with a late night sketch meant to draw a few laughs, but little did Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird realize they had a wildly successful entertainment franchise at their fingertips. From the ink on the comic book page to the cartoon that launched a sprawling toy line, Turtlemania was everywhere in the late 80s and never really left us. They leapt to the movie screen, arcades, and video game consoles. Sometimes they were silly, other times dark and gritty. But every time, our heroes in a half shell delighted audiences with over-the-top action, sassy quips, helpful allies like Splinter and April, and dastardly plots to foil, thanks to The Shredder, Krang, and their rogue's gallery of baddies. So grab your signature weapon and headband and meet us at the party wagon because we're leaping from the sewers and into Dimension X with the cowabunga nostalgia of Turtle Power!

-- Can I Borrow Your Notes? -- 

• The Toys that Made Us, Season 3 (Netflix)

-- Teacher's Pets -- 

• Join the Class of 80's High: [email protected]

Come along with the Snorks! Swim along with the Snorks! That's right, we're heading down to the ocean floor to revive the hidden animated gem that followed our plucky gang of thumb-sized creatures as they go on snorktastic adventures dodging oil drills, outwitting Dr. Strangesnork, and hiding from the ravenous Snork Eaters. Now you might be thinking this is an obvious Smurfs knockbuster, and well, you'd be totally right! Find out how spite led to this show's creation, along with the tantalizing tale of Captain Ortega and an impressive cast of grade A voice actors. Snorkiscopes down, it's time to dive in!

-- Can I Borrow Your Notes? -- 

• Snorks Wiki (Fandom)

-- Teacher's Pets -- 

• Join the Class of 80's High: [email protected]

Once upon a time, there was a boy who saw the world in stories, portrait, and sound. From his humble home movies of toy train wrecks and classmates at war, Steven Spielberg grew into the most commercially successful filmmaker of all time and a beloved creator of cherished movies from breakouts Jaws and Close Encounters, to E.T. and Indiana Jones in the 80s, then beyond to Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, and so many more. And those are only movies he directed. We also get into his brilliant list of writing and producing credits, movie studios he founded, and the personal stories that informed so much of his work. So find a comfy, familiar spot because we're leaping into the fantastical worlds brought to the silver screen by the one and only Steven Spielberg.

-- Can I Borrow Your Notes? -- 

• "Spielberg" documentary (HBO Max)

-- Teacher's Pets -- 

• Join the Class of 80's High: [email protected]

Nothing says Halloween in the 80's quite like trick-or-treating late a night, running through a Jacycees haunted house, reading Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and bobbing for apples at school. But where did these traditions comes from? And why do we love them so much?

In this episode, we bring back classmate Mikey to explore the traditions that have made Halloween endure. From an ancient Celtic festival to the Catholic church, from the painful plastic of Ben Cooper masks to a haunted house with walls literally lined with guts. So grab a costume and pillow case and join us for a journey back to the 80’s, the ancient past, and up to today as we celebrate our favorite holiday.

-- Can I Borrow Your Notes? -- 

• History of Halloween (History.com)

-- Teacher's Pets -- 

• Join the Class of 80's High: [email protected]

“Hey, snap out of it! Look around, or else you’re going to miss something incredible!” If Talking Heads frontman David Byrne could condense the wit, complexity, and ironic sensibility of their hit single off of 1980’s Remain in the Light into a 2022 Tweet, this would be it. Blending rock, synth, dance, Afrobeat, and even radio-broadcast preachers into a wholly unique New Wave sound, Once in a Lifetime - and its avant-garde music video - lit up the airwaves and video waves of radio, vinyl, and MTV in the early 80’s, inspiring a generation. One such muse-inspired author, Suzanne Mattaboni, joins us on this episode to co-host and share her perspective on the Talking Heads, as well as her new novel, Once in a Lifetime.

-- Can I Borrow Your Notes? -- 

• Kermit the Frog - Talking Heads "Once in a Lifetime" (Laser Time, YouTube)

-- Teacher's Pets -- 

• Join the Class of 80's High: [email protected]