24 Totally Normal 1980s Habits That Would Be Bizarre Today | Strange History Podcast

0:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Strange History Podcast, the show where we

0:03 Speaker 1: take a fond and occasionally horrified look at the bizarre

0:07 Speaker 1: things humans once thought were completely normal. I'm your host, Amy,

0:12 Speaker 1: and today we're strapping on our neon fanny packs, grabbing

0:15 Speaker 1: a tab cola, and heading back to the nineteen eighties,

0:19 Speaker 1: a magical time when mullets roamed free, hair spray holes

0:22 Speaker 1: in the ozone layer were a legitimate concern, and safety

0:26 Speaker 1: regulations were more suggestions than rules. So let's fire up

0:31 Speaker 1: the Dolorean and revisit twenty four things that were perfectly

0:35 Speaker 1: normal in the eighties but would raise some serious eyebrows today.

0:39 Speaker 1: Smoking everywhere. This seems to be a trend we have

0:43 Speaker 1: seen through the decades. At one point we smarten up.

0:47 Speaker 1: I believe it was two thousand and four when smoking

0:49 Speaker 1: indoors finally became illegal. Back then, lighting up wasn't just common,

0:54 Speaker 1: it was practically a social queue. Restaurants, offices, airplanes, you

1:00 Speaker 1: name it. People smoked there. You could sit in the

1:03 Speaker 1: non smoking section of a diner and still feel like

1:06 Speaker 1: you were chainsmoking through osmosis. On a TWA flight in

1:10 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, the flight attendant's turbulence. Announcement was please

1:15 Speaker 1: remain seated, but if you must smoke, do so carefully.

1:20 Speaker 1: Safety first. Kind of kids riding in cars without seat

1:25 Speaker 1: belts seat belts optional car seats suggestion. The prized spot

1:32 Speaker 1: was in the rear facing way back of the family

1:34 Speaker 1: station wagon, where kids could make faces at the drivers

1:38 Speaker 1: behind them while eating pop tarts. In nineteen eighty three,

1:42 Speaker 1: a Florida family turned their minivans back area into a

1:46 Speaker 1: mobile playroom with bean bags. It was fun right up

1:50 Speaker 1: until the day a rear end collision turned the bean

1:52 Speaker 1: bags into airborne missiles. When I was a kid, my

1:56 Speaker 1: parents and aunt and uncle would pile five kids and

1:59 Speaker 1: four adults into one one of those wood panel station

2:01 Speaker 1: wagons every weekend during the summer and go for pizza.

2:05 Speaker 1: If my cousin Sam and I were lucky enough to

2:07 Speaker 1: score the way back, we would be reminded of the

2:09 Speaker 1: kids who stuck their head out the window and the

2:12 Speaker 1: father had closed the window and decapitates the kids. It worked.

2:17 Speaker 1: We never ever stuck our heads out the window and

2:20 Speaker 1: today remain one with our noggins. As an adult, I

2:23 Speaker 1: now realized they were full of beans and scare tactics were,

2:27 Speaker 1: and I am sure still remain a wonderful parenting tool.

2:31 Speaker 1: Letting strangers babysit your kids. If your neighbor's teenage niece

2:35 Speaker 1: was good with animals, that was apparently enough qualification to

2:38 Speaker 1: watch your children. No interviews, no CPR training, not even

2:43 Speaker 1: a background check. In nineteen eighty seven, a New Jersey

2:47 Speaker 1: mom hired a babysitter she met at a grocery store checkout.

2:52 Speaker 1: The sitter turned out to be a French exchange student

2:55 Speaker 1: who thought she was just coming over for dinner. Hanging

2:58 Speaker 1: out at the mall all day before social media, the

3:03 Speaker 1: mall was the feed teens would spend hours roaming, trying

3:06 Speaker 1: on clothes they had no intention of buying, and sharing

3:10 Speaker 1: fries in the food court. In nineteen eighty nine, a

3:13 Speaker 1: Minnesota mall band sitting on the central fountain after teens

3:16 Speaker 1: started using it as a dare base dunk tank, calling

3:20 Speaker 1: someone and just hoping they were home. There was no texting,

3:24 Speaker 1: no DMS, no scene check mark. If you called and

3:27 Speaker 1: got no answer, that was it, mystery forever. In nineteen

3:31 Speaker 1: eighty eight, a Pennsylvania teen missed a live call in

3:35 Speaker 1: contest to win concert tickets because his friend's mom had

3:38 Speaker 1: forgot to hang up the phone after an all night

3:41 Speaker 1: gossip session. Renting VHS tapes and hoping they were rewound

3:47 Speaker 1: Friday night meant heading to the local video store and

3:50 Speaker 1: hoping someone had returned back to the future, and if

3:54 Speaker 1: they hadn't rewound it, you might get slapped with a

3:57 Speaker 1: twenty five cent fine. Eighteen eighty seven, a Texas rental

4:01 Speaker 1: shop created a rewind police membership for customers who could

4:05 Speaker 1: be trusted to return tapes properly rewound. Everyone else was

4:10 Speaker 1: fined into compliance. Drinking straight from the garden hose, no

4:14 Speaker 1: one thought about hot plastic chemicals or hose safety. If

4:18 Speaker 1: you were thirsty after a bike ride, you went straight

4:21 Speaker 1: for the spigot. A Wisconsin dad in nineteen eighty four

4:24 Speaker 1: claimed water from the hose tasted better than tap water,

4:28 Speaker 1: mostly because it kept kids outside where they couldn't track

4:31 Speaker 1: mud into the kitchen. Playing outside until the street lights

4:36 Speaker 1: came on. There were no GPS trackers or find my

4:39 Speaker 1: iPhone alerts, just the neighborhood's unspoken law. When the street

4:44 Speaker 1: lights flickered on, you came home. In nineteen eighty two,

4:49 Speaker 1: a group of Chicago kids built a clubhouse in a

4:52 Speaker 1: vacant lot out of wood scraps and old carpet. It

4:55 Speaker 1: lasted three years before the city demolished it for safety

5:00 Speaker 1: reasons that should have been obvious from day one. Smoking

5:03 Speaker 1: sections in restaurants picture this. One side of the room

5:07 Speaker 1: was smoking, the other non smoking, with nothing but a

5:11 Speaker 1: fake plant to separate them. In nineteen eighty six, a

5:15 Speaker 1: Denny's proudly designated smoking booths right next to non smoking booths,

5:21 Speaker 1: separated by a plant. The plant did little to contain

5:25 Speaker 1: the cloud neon clothing that could be seen from space.

5:29 Speaker 1: The eighties were aggressively bright neon windbreakers, leg warmers, and

5:34 Speaker 1: glow shoelaces made everyone look like a living highlighter. A

5:39 Speaker 1: California middle school banned neon shoelaces in nineteen eighty nine

5:43 Speaker 1: because kids were trading them during fire drills. Instead of

5:46 Speaker 1: evacuating returning glass soda bottles for cash before recycling bins,

5:52 Speaker 1: you could turn in empty soda bottles for coins for kids.

5:56 Speaker 1: It was both eco friendly and a way to fund

5:59 Speaker 1: arcade habits. In nineteen eighty one, a group of Oregon

6:04 Speaker 1: kids pulled bottles out of a river and made six dollars,

6:07 Speaker 1: which they immediately blew on pac Man fixing cassette tapes

6:11 Speaker 1: with a pencil. If your tape got chewed up, you

6:14 Speaker 1: didn't cry. You grabbed a pencil, stuck it in the reel,

6:17 Speaker 1: and wound it back by hand. In nineteen eighty five,

6:21 Speaker 1: a Detroit DJ accidentally played a warped tape of Take

6:24 Speaker 1: on Me live on air. Listeners thought it was an

6:28 Speaker 1: artsy remix and flooded the station with requests for the

6:31 Speaker 1: slow version. Leaving kids in the car while running errands.

6:36 Speaker 1: In the eighties, if mom had to just run into

6:39 Speaker 1: the store, the kids stayed in the parked car with

6:43 Speaker 1: the windows cracked and maybe the radio on. No one panicked,

6:46 Speaker 1: called nine one one or even thought it was strange.

6:50 Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty six, a mom in Ohio left her

6:53 Speaker 1: two kids in the car with a can of pringles

6:56 Speaker 1: while she did the weekly grocery shop. She came back

6:59 Speaker 1: to find they'd use the empty can to catch lightning

7:02 Speaker 1: bugs through the cracked window. School computer labs with Apple

7:06 Speaker 1: two's and Oregon Trail computer class meant lining up to

7:10 Speaker 1: use a big, beige machine with a floppy disc the

7:13 Speaker 1: size of a pop tart If you didn't die of

7:16 Speaker 1: dysentery and Oregon trail, you were basically a tech genius.

7:21 Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty eight, a Massachusetts school's entire computer lab

7:25 Speaker 1: lost half a day because a student hid the floppy

7:28 Speaker 1: disks in the ceiling tiles to keep them safe. Long

7:31 Speaker 1: distance phone charges calling your cousin two states away could

7:35 Speaker 1: cost as much as dinner. Parents would yell it's long distance,

7:40 Speaker 1: Make it quick, and you'd have to cram your conversation

7:43 Speaker 1: into sixty seconds. In nineteen eighty five, a teen in

7:47 Speaker 1: Iowa called a California pen pal for forty five minutes

7:51 Speaker 1: and racked up a sixty eight dollar phone bill. Her

7:54 Speaker 1: parents made her work at the local ice cream shop

7:56 Speaker 1: all summer to pay it off. Metal playground equipment that

8:00 Speaker 1: doubled as an oven. Every playground had metal slides, jungle gyms,

8:05 Speaker 1: and merrygo rounds that could sear your skin by July.

8:09 Speaker 1: Kids didn't complain. They just learned to slide fast. In

8:13 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, a Texas park had to repaint its

8:16 Speaker 1: slide because it was literally melting flip flops. Watching cartoons

8:20 Speaker 1: only on Saturday morning. You couldn't just stream he man

8:24 Speaker 1: or Looney Tunes. You had to wake up at six

8:27 Speaker 1: am on Saturdays, pour a bowl of sugary cereal and

8:30 Speaker 1: watch until noon. Miss it too bad? No reruns until

8:35 Speaker 1: maybe next year. In nineteen eighty four, a Minnesota kid

8:38 Speaker 1: slept through Saturday cartoons for three weeks in a row

8:41 Speaker 1: and started taping them on VHS, sparking a mini cartoon

8:46 Speaker 1: rental business at his school. Ice cream trucks selling cigarette

8:50 Speaker 1: shaped candy. Nothing said summer treat like pretending to smoke

8:55 Speaker 1: while eating sugar. These chalky white candy sticks even had

8:59 Speaker 1: red painted tips to mimic the ember. In nineteen eighty seven,

9:03 Speaker 1: a New Jersey mayor tried to ban candy cigarettes. The

9:07 Speaker 1: local kids staged a protest outside city hall, complete with

9:11 Speaker 1: bubblegum cigars. Encyclopedias as the Internet. If you had a

9:16 Speaker 1: question you didn't Google, you pulled down a dusty volume

9:19 Speaker 1: of Encyclopedia Britannica and hoped your topic wasn't stuck between

9:24 Speaker 1: two missing letters. A family in Kansas in nineteen eighty

9:28 Speaker 1: one proudly displayed their full Encyclopedia set, except for Volume M,

9:33 Speaker 1: which was lost in a move. They never replaced it.

9:37 Speaker 1: So Moon landing remained a mystery to their kids for years,

9:41 Speaker 1: leaving the front door unlocked. Neighborhoods in the eighties often

9:45 Speaker 1: had an open door policy. Literally, friends and neighbors would

9:49 Speaker 1: just walk in, yell hello, and head straight to the kitchen.

9:53 Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty five, a Michigan man came home from

9:56 Speaker 1: work to find his neighbor making a sandwich in his kitchen.

10:00 Speaker 1: The neighbor's excuse, I was out of Mayo gas station

10:04 Speaker 1: attendance cleaning your windshield. Many full service gas stations had

10:08 Speaker 1: attendants who'd pump your gas, check your oil, and clean

10:12 Speaker 1: your windshield for free. In nineteen eighty three, a teenager

10:16 Speaker 1: working at an Oregon station accidentally filled a diesel truck

10:20 Speaker 1: with regular gas and still got a five dollars tip

10:23 Speaker 1: for cleaning the windows. Real nice Unsafe science experiments in

10:29 Speaker 1: school science class in the eighties often meant unsupervised experiments

10:34 Speaker 1: with bunsen burners, mercury, or dry ice. Safety goggles were optional.

10:40 Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty four, a Florida teacher let students bring

10:44 Speaker 1: dry ice home for fun. One kid used it to

10:47 Speaker 1: make fog for his Gi Joe battles in the bathtub.

10:51 Speaker 1: Drive in movie theaters as teen hangouts. Drive ins were

10:54 Speaker 1: still going strong in the early eighties. Teens piled into

10:58 Speaker 1: cars or the trunks if they wanted to avoid paying

11:02 Speaker 1: and spent more time socializing than watching the movie. In

11:05 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, an Ohio drive in had to post

11:08 Speaker 1: signs reading please watch the movie after staff caught dozens

11:12 Speaker 1: of people sitting backwards in their cars to chat with

11:15 Speaker 1: friends instead mixing tapes from the radio. Making the perfect

11:19 Speaker 1: mixtape meant hovering over the record button praying the DJ

11:23 Speaker 1: wouldn't talk over the intro of your favorite song. In

11:26 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, a Boston teen spent two hours recording

11:30 Speaker 1: Livin' on a Prayer without the DJ talking, only for

11:34 Speaker 1: his sister to tape care bears sing along over it

11:36 Speaker 1: the next day. And that, dear listeners, is a quick

11:39 Speaker 1: trip through the neon colored, smoke filled hose, water hydrated

11:44 Speaker 1: wonderland that was the nineteen eighties. It was a time

11:47 Speaker 1: when rules were looser, phones were dumber, and somehow we survived.

11:53 Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Strange History Podcast. If you

11:56 Speaker 1: enjoyed this trip down memory lane, don't forget to subscribe

12:00 Speaker 1: and maybe call a friend on a landline just for

12:02 Speaker 1: old time's sake. Until next time, I'm Amy reminding you

12:06 Speaker 1: history is full of strange and sometimes dangerously nostalgic moments.