My Favorite 80's Shows

Different things remind us of the 80's. Glitters, teased hair, Aga Mulach and the Bagets, puruntong shorts, and the glorious Cubao shopping center. For me it is the shows I watch on TV that remaind me of the era when I still sucked my thumb and wet my bed (see, I'm not THAT old). Perhaps you too have nostalgic memories of some of these shows, here are mine in no particular order...

John N' Marsha

The King of Phillipine Comedy Dolphy at his best (on TV, at least) His antics never fail to make a 9 year old laugh his pants off whenever he smacks his newspaper on Isko's head (Isko later will be known to younger audiences as Brod Pitt, who coined the "Alien!" catch phrase). We also see Nida Blanca back when she was not tainted with all the bad showbiz press.

The coolest part about this show is of course Dely Atay Atayan as the ear-splitting nagger of a mother-in-law to Dolphy and the equally ear splitting vocal shrieks of helper Matutina. No Doubt this was one of the best sitcoms of the 80's

He Man and the Masters of the Universe

I have the action figures and the comics. and I still keep them. Can any villain get any cooler than Skeletor? I mean, a burly blue skinned overlord with a skull for a head. I often asked myself as a kid if Skeletor had a brain in his skull and, if He Man hit him in the nose or poked him in the eyes with his Sword of Power if he would skewer his brains like barbecue and kill the b**tard?

The Greatest American Hero

Very few people remember this underdog-turned-superhero series. I didn't think it lasted but It had a good run. It was a bout thgis loser guy who got a special suit from an alien spaceship (very 80's) and upon wearing the suit began to realize that the suit bestowed upon him special superhuman powers like being bullet proof and giving him the ability to fly. Very corny and shallow by today's standards, but hey, I love underdog stories.

You may remember the Greatest American Hero Theme that goes..

"Believe it or not/ I'm walking on air/ Inever thought I could be so free/ Flying away on a wing and a prayer/ who could it be?/ believe it or not it's just me." (tear...)

(NPA) No Permanent Address

Nobody probably remembers this show because it had a very short run, but I wil forever remember this sitcom starring Jograd De La Torre because it was the most unique sitcom I had ever seen concieved for filipino TV. Every episode was in a different location. Jograd plays a wanderer looking for a job and home. He goes from misadventure to misadventure in every episode and gets in tangles with every one in the cast (who each play a different person every episode) until he either gets fired and told to take a hike or gets evicted from his room for board. At the end of every episode we see him wandering the streets of Manila looking for his next job and home...the typical filipino post graduation scenario.

I wish they would remake this show with better production values updated for the 2000's because it is so relevant to the filipino way of life, plus there are a lot of employument storys out there waiting to be told.

What about Jograd? Its also good to know that he's still in the comedy scene as a bar owner and stand up comic performer.

G.I. Joe

Snake Eyes, Duke, Cobra Commander, Destro, Roadblock, Bazooka, Sci Fi, Zartan, Leatherneck, Storm Shadow, Jady Jaye, Scarlett, The Baroness, The Viper troopers...Cobra Lalalalalalalalalala....I could go on.

Seriously, is there a dude n his 20's nowadays who doesn't own a G.I.Joe. I personally had 21 joes and cobras. I recently went to Greenhills ans saw that the old school G.I.Joe action figures could fetch up to P500 per figure. I bought some of mine for P65 fifteen years ago. See , toys are an investment!

McGyver

Every young boy in the 80s wanted a swiss army knife, and Its all because of McGyver. The idea of a non smoking, non drinking vegetarian supehero with a wealth of knowledge in Physics and Chemistry in his arsenal may not sound appealing but Richard Dean Andersen turned him not only into an 80's icon but a perenial sex symbol.

For my bets for the next MacGyver click here.

The Transformers

This my favorite cartoon series of all time. My youth was essentially molded by the politics and principles of the autobots. The Transformers the Movie remains my favorite animated movie of all time. The post-Prime episodes didn't appeal much to kids so they had to bring him back via a lame-*ss story about him being reanimated and turned into a zombie.

I will always love the first episodes and my favorite character Bumblebee. I always related with this autobot because he was small, but did all the really important jobs like spying on the Decepticons and other dangerous retrieval missions. He was also one of the most respected, but all in all, he was just a kid.

Trivia: In Transformers the Movie, Bumblebee gets sucked in by Unicron's gravity pull whil he and Spike were in an escape pod...Bumblebee says:
"Sh*t! what are we gonna do now?"

Go ahead, check it out...

The Ninoy Documentaries

The great modern filipino hero Ninoy Aquino had a lot of documentaries made about him. Some of them are ok, some of them not, but Ninoy continues to fascinate me to this day. It seems like i knew him as a grandpa or uncle when I was smaller. I recall waiting for his caravan on the highway when he got killed. I remember my granpa cussing like a sailor everytime Marcos was on the TV when he declared Snap Elections. I remember my dad going to EDSA in 1986. I remember going to EDSA myself fro the victory party. All of this because of this man.

I especially love the footages of his speeches where he makes fun of Marcos through a Japanese guy. I think it goes like this..

Japanese Guy: "My dear Piripino peopor. You are very rucky. You have a President that robs (loves) you and a First Lady that robs you more."

Alf

A.L.F. stands for Alien Life Form. This garbage disposal-like food connosieur resident alien of the Tanner family actually has the proper name Gordon Shumway (those who were loyal to the show and the cartoon spinoff should know this) Alf's brand of sarcasm and cynicism was material to my growing years. He taught me to talk back to grown ups (especially to my teacher in Don Bosco, who happens to be a priest) eat all types of garbage, and be rude to people and talk about them behind their backs. Everything a child should learn...

Perfect Strangers

Now this is a show everybody loves. Larry and Balki were the funniest guys in TV back when people were tired of intellectual and brainy jokes. Bronson Pinchot's character Balki was easily the more lovable of the duo. His fun loving and naive demeanor was a stark contrast to Mark Linn-Baker's uptight, routinary and methodical Larry. My grandma went to watch a taping of Perfect Strangers in Burbank when she was in the States, and she gave me the ticket. I still have it.