Just 12 very specific things you remember if you grew up in the ‘80s.

If we’ve learnt anything from the 2022 success of Kate Bush’s 1985 smash hit Running Up That Hill, it’s that '80s nostalgia is alive and strong. All that is old is new again, and as an *ahem* (elder) millennial, I’m here for it. 

Here are 12 very specific things you'll remember if you grew up in the '80s.

Peters Smurfee

Exhibit A: Remember the iconic Peters Smurfee? This icy treat, the 1979 baby of Peters Ice Cream and The Smurfs (more '80s icons), was responsible for many a blue-tinged tongue. 

To relive the nostalgia, Peters has launched the new Twin Pole Blue Raspberry Spider, so us ‘80s kids can introduce it to our families!). Inspired by the original, it really is the 2022 twist on the classic I remember so vividly from childhood: it's a duo texture frozen treat, with one side creamy vanilla and one side fruity sorbet. Both sides absolutely to be eaten at the same time, not even up for negotiation! 

Twin Pole instantly takes me back to Slip ‘N Slides in the backyard, running through sprinklers, and the crunch of Sun-In in your hair. Ah, the flood of memories.

Image: Peters.

Rara skirts

Sure, every ‘80s kid will remember rara skirts. The frills. The layers. The texture. But even more specific is how wearing a rara skirt made you feel. Instant confidence. That very particular feeling of looking in the mirror and experiencing... Joy! Delight! Swishy-perfection! To be honest I’m still trying to chase that rara-skirt-high in every stylistic choice I have made since 1986.

Sticker collections

If you didn’t have a prized sticker book with separate sections for hologram, Scratch & Sniff and ~fuzzy~ stickers, were you even born in the ‘80s? I can still smell the very particular scent of a banana sticker circa 1989, which I negotiated by swapping with a friend for two hologram hearts. 

Zero regrets. Would swap again. And you even had to limit the amount of scratching lest the sniffing lifetime be shortened. 

Rollerskating  

It’s a miracle I made it through the late ‘80s and early ‘90s without a broken arm given I spent every single weekend zooming around The Fun Factory roller rink while a DJ played Salt-N-Pepa. There were smoke machines. There was roller-limbo. PLUS if you were lucky enough, they’d clear the rink so a select few could have one-on-one roller skating lessons while the crowd watched on. It was a real moment.

Except I never had a special clear-the-rink lesson myseld, and I’m definitely not still scarred/gutted/intensely jealous all these years later. Definitely never thought about it since. Not once. At all.

Game & Watch

Two words: Donkey Kong. 

Mullets

They weren’t even good the first time around. How they’ve made a ‘22 come back is beyond me. When my teenage nephew finally got rid of his mullet the family literally had a party. There were tears of relief. There were streamers. There was cake. 

My signature look was a very high, very tight ponytail that was very much on the side of my head. Not the middle. Not the back. There was also a spiked fringe period from ‘85 to ‘87 and to be honest I don’t think my hairline has ever forgiven me. Some girls rocked a crimper, and some girls rocked a spiked fringe and a sideways pony. Each to their own. 

Beetlejuice

Look I know when we’re talking classic ‘80s movies the logical choice might be The Breakfast Club or Dirty Dancing. But Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice) is everything. Before there was Moira Rose there was Catherine O’Hara in that dinner table scene with a perfectly timed ‘Day-o’. 

I would mention The Neverending Story here, but I still haven’t recovered from the Swamp of Sadness scene with Artex. Too soon. (I mean, it’s been like twenty years, but still. Too soon. Okay I redid the math. It’s been almost forty years. HOW THOUGH?!) 

Garfield phones

Not only did we have landline phones, but we had landline phones that were in the shape of a lasagne-loving cat. And in order to speak to our friends we had to go through their parents and say things like ‘Hello Mrs Silbert, it’s Natasha speaking, may I please speak to Carla?’. 

The mortification. The horror. You could even secretly pick up another phone in the house and if you didn’t breathe too loudly, listen in on your siblings’ phone conversations. 

Mixed tapes

Before there was Spotify, there were handcrafted mixed tapes that were lovingly and painstakingly put together by hand. I still remember waiting *hours* for a song to play on the radio and the adrenaline surge to press record at the exact moment it began. And who can forget the unrivalled satisfaction of rewinding a tape with a... pencil. 

Slap Bands

They slapped (that's what the kids say now, right?). Literally.

The Baby-Sitters Club books and Choose Your Own Adventure books

You were either column A (The Baby-Sitters Club) or column B (Choose Your Own Adventure). And I was column B, all the way. *Skips ahead to page 6 to see whether we should take the winding path and then skips to page 14 to see if we should go to the river to look for the magic stone*. 

Now I’m not saying these books are the root cause of my decision paralysis and inherent need to micro-manage all outcomes... but I’m not not saying that. 

Puggles

Even as I’m writing this, it sounds kind of like something I’ve hallucinated and/or made up, but I’m pretty sure they were an actual thing. Puggles looked like a small beanbag and came from The Lost Forests (IYKYK) where they were delivered down a…. slide (??) from a kind of creepy looking….tree…with a…face (???). You see how I’m not trusting my memory here?

So, in summary: Twin Pole Blue Raspberry Spider comeback = good, mullet comeback = not good. Waiting with bated breath for the return of the rara skirt.

Now for the age-old question: how do you eat your Twin Pole, creamy side first, sorbet side first or both at once for twice the fun? Find Peters Ice Creams' new Twin Pole Blue Raspberry Spider is available in all major supermarkets.

Feature Image: Unsplash/Booktopia/Peters.