There are certain sounds and moments that don’t fade.

The click of the NES Zapper.

The buzz of a CRT.

And that dog… that smug, pixelated menace… popping up out of the grass like he owned your living room.

It think Duck Hunt was the second game I ever played on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), and that’s because it was the other game on the Super Mario Bros. cart that was included with the console. And I remember exactly how it felt.

You stood a little too close to the TV. You took it way too seriously. And when you missed both shots… yeah, you already know what happened next.

That dog laughed at you.

Out loud.

In front of everyone.

And somehow, that moment became one of the most shared experiences of an entire generation.

But here’s the thing most people never think about… Duck Hunt wasn’t just a simple pack-in game. It was doing things under the hood that felt really new at the time.

It didn’t actually “see” the ducks

The biggest myth about Duck Hunt is that the Zapper was some kind of early motion detection device.

It wasn’t.

When you pulled the trigger, the screen would briefly go black and then flash white boxes around the targets, so fast you barely noticed. The Zapper was just reading light. If it detected that flash in the right spot at the right time, it counted as a hit.

No tracking. No aiming system. No magic. It was just a clever trick that made it feel like you were pointing a real gun at a moving target.

Which, honestly, is exactly what Nintendo needed. It was a great illusion. And they nailed it.

That dog was part of a bigger plan

Everyone remembers the dog. Nobody forgets the dog. But he wasn’t just there to annoy you.

He was doing two important things:

First, he taught you how the game worked. He’d jump into the grass, flushed out the ducks, and gave you a clear visual cue of where to aim. This was a really clever way to lock you in.

Second… he created emotion.

That laugh? That was intentional. Nintendo wanted a reaction. They wanted you to feel something when you failed. And they got it. Rage, embarrassment, determination. You got roasted by a dog.

That’s why people still talk about that dog decades later. He was part of the experience.

This is the part that gets overlooked.

Duck Hunt was a Trojan horse.

After the video game crash of 1983, people didn’t trust consoles anymore. So when Nintendo brought the NES to the U.S., they didn’t market it as a gaming system. They positioned it as a toy.

The Zapper was a huge part of that strategy.

Duck Hunt gave the NES something different. Something physical. Something you could show people. You didn’t have to explain it, you handed them the controller… or the gun… and suddenly they got it.

That accessibility mattered.

A lot.

Because while everyone remembers Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt was sitting right next to it in millions of homes, quietly helping rebuild confidence in video games.

Duck Hunt Lore and Legacy

Duck Hunt isn’t complicated. And by today’s standards, it shouldn’t still matter.

But it does.

It matters because it represents a moment when gaming felt new again. When technology didn’t need to be perfect, it just needed to be convincing. When a plastic gun and a flickering screen could pull you all the way in.

And yeah… when failure came with consequences.

There was a smug dog laughing at you like you deserved it.

Forty years later, that might be the most honest feedback system gaming has ever had.

And if we’re being real…

He was right to laugh.

If you’ve been around here for a bit, you may have noticed right away…

Things look a little different.

After a lot of thinking (and definitely too much coffee), I decided to shift this publication from Nostalgia Nation to That 80s Dude, which was my “@” anyway.

Not because nostalgia is going anywhere… but because the way I want to build the scaffolding around it has changed.

So, What changed?

Short version:

There are thousands of nostalgia accounts now doing:

“Remember this?”

“Top 10 things you forgot…”

“Only 80s kids will understand…”

… and so on.

And look… I get it. That stuff works. Posting a classic tv show theme brings back memories. I’ll do that from time to time… it’s sort of baked in to nostalgia. 😏

But I don’t really want to spend the next few years reposting the same memories with slightly different captions. In June, I’m going into year six of doing this social media thing, and I have learned a lot.

One of the most important things I’ve learned about me is that I don’t want to be another nostalgia clearinghouse. Sure, I’ve got one of the OG accounts that started sharing tv themes, movie trailers, pictures of icons from our shared past, and I’ve tried balancing being present in my content, but it’s a lot more difficult to insert yourself in when most of the content is nostalgia-based. The content becomes something we’ve all seen before. It just does.

And, quite frankly, “the algorithm” hates that you’re trying to be creative with your account.

I took a couple of weeks off of Instagram (where That 80s Dude started) because I was just tired of seeing all the AI crap so many nostalgia accounts post now (and the fact that it gets hundreds of thousands of likes and hundreds of comments is frustrating to see). I thought, wait, I’m actually posting real images of the past and they don’t do as well as this AI generated content, so what am I doing here?

It made me reflect on the early days of when I started on social media (right when Instagram started, actually). I was one of the first mobile photographers out there (I was in iPhone Life Magazine… remember that publication?)

I took a break from all that and started a CrossFit gym, and then I returned to social media in 2020 when my fourth son was born.

The entire idea was to use my skills as a photographer to showcase my vintage/retro collection of nostalgic things. But that wasn’t what necessarily worked on Instagram. Not if you wanted to grow your audience. So I started posting nostalgic images and videos I found online, and people loved it. But this was before everyone was doing it.

Now, funny memes and AI rule the nostalgia space. I come across accounts that are being run by Gen Z that never went to school in the 80s but are posting about it like they were there.

The truth is, the last couple of years, having had an intense work schedule, and trying to spend quality time with my family, I’ve leaned into the “reposting” side far too much.

Find something fun and familiar on YouTube. Repost it. Get a bunch of likes. Repeat.

And for what? The entire reason I moved to Substack was to transition my most invested followers away from the shit-show social media has become to something far more meaningful.

What this is now

I think content should value your time and the creator’s time.

I wrote the book about nostalgia. I’m proud of it.

I published an e-Zine in January, February, and March. I’m proud of those issues.

I could tell early on that this was the year I was going to really lean into my roots and tell stories like the ones I tell in my book and in the e-Zine.

I just needed a jumping off point, and now was the time. It’s time to take all that information about nostalgia bouncing around in my head and apply it to the tangible things that trigger it.

The games I still play.
The music I still listen to and the gear I play it on.
The stuff worth owning, collecting, or revisiting.
The joy of it all!

Some of it’s old. Some of it’s newer. All of it is something I’ve spent real time with. I want to experience it again and share it with you so you find your place in it as well.

Less “remember this?” … I mean, I’ll still share nostalgia, believe me.
But also more “here’s why this matters (or doesn’t).”

And sure, I could have done that under the publication name of Nostalgia Nation, but something else I’ve learned is that your newsletter name (This email is from) matters. Tremendously.

Why the name change?

Simple answer:

“Nostalgia Nation” described the topic.
“That 80s Dude” describes the voice.

Besides, everyone that I’m trying to bring over to this beautiful corner of the world (Substack) knows me as That 80s Dude. I went with Nostalgia Nation as the publication because that was the name of my book. So now, it’s going to be a section in my newsletter.

And if I’ve learned anything doing this for a while, it’s this:

👉 People don’t stick around only for the topics.
👉 They stick around for the perspective.

A couple things I learned (the hard way)

Since I know a lot of you are creators too, here’s the concise version:

1. If your brand is doing things like everyone else… you’ll keep creating like everyone else. Even if you don’t mean to.

2. If your name doesn’t match your voice, you’ll feel it. It becomes weirdly harder to post. You second-guess more. You drift. In my case, I felt that “Nostalgia…” in the title of my newsletter could constrain and mislead the reader. I don’t always post nostalgia. I also post about modern concepts and things. I can easily tie those things to our past. So I was always writing with uneasiness thinking that someone new stumbling on my newsletter would think this was only a nostalgia-based publication.

3. Broad gets attention. Specific builds loyalty. And I’d rather have the second one. I love physical media, I love how Gen X grew up, and I have a unique experience as a collector of nostalgic things and modern things that pay homage to the past, so I believe that should come from my voice and not have any constraints whatsoever, publication name or otherwise.

Btw. About a couple of hours after applying the update on my newsletter, I got another paid subscriber. Pretty stoked about that!

I didn’t ask for a sign. But that was certainly a nice one.

What you’ll see going forward

• More hands-on, real-life use cases with things in my studio

• More opinions (Gen X has so many)

• More “How I Did This,” and “How-To” stuff with my set up that might inspire you to create your own retro studio

• More behind the scenes stuff and Substack tips I’ve picked up

• More reviews of cool things I come across, or that I’ve owned for a long time want to share with everyone

• More… me.

And yeah… still plenty of 80s, 90s, and early 2K radness along the way.

Ps. I’ve been sending nostalgic emails strait to subscriber inboxes a couple of times a week. These don’t necessarily make it to the Main Site. It’s been a fun way to share things like “On This Day…” or “I Bet You Didn’t Know This About…” with everyone, and that allows me to connect with you a bit more regularly.

Paid subscribers get a special (straight-to-inbox) email with exclusive content.

Subscribe now

If you’ve been here since the Nostalgia Nation days, I appreciate you sticking around.

If you’re new… welcome, and thank you for being here.

See you in the next post.

~ John (That 80s Dude)

Thank you for supporting NOSTALGIA NATION ❤️

There was a moment in 2003 when phones stopped being just… phones. And if you were paying attention, the Nokia N-Gage felt like the future showed up early, a little weird, a little bulky, and totally unapologetic about it.

It was a phone that tried to be a Game Boy. And honestly, that alone made it rad.

1. You had to hold it sideways to play

Not landscape like today, I mean fully sideways, like you were gripping some experimental handheld from a sci-fi movie. It felt wrong for about ten seconds, then suddenly it felt like you were in on something nobody else understood. That was part of the appeal. If it confused people, you were probably doing it right.

2. You had to remove the battery to change games

Yeah. Let that sink in. Want to swap games, power down, pop the back, pull the battery, then slide in the cartridge. Totally impractical, completely insane, and yet it made every game feel like a commitment. No hot-swapping unless you owned the later model (N-Gage QD, see below). You picked a game and lived with it. There is something weirdly respectable about that now.

3. Talking on it made you look ridiculous

The infamous “taco phone” move. Holding it flat against your face like you were about to take a bite out of it. People laughed. And you laughed too, because you knew this thing was trying something different, and honestly most tech back then was.

Trial and error in public, you just accepted it.

Back in 2003, I was sitting there trying to decide if I should go get my MBA. Real adult decisions creeping in. Career paths, long term thinking, all that fun stuff nobody warns you about. And at the same time, I am messing around with gadgets like this, still chasing that feeling of discovery, still wanting to be a kid just a little longer.

Funny how both can exist at the same time.

We were in between worlds. Not kids, not fully locked into the system yet either.

The N-Gage did not win. It was not supposed to. But it tried, and that’s what makes it memorable. It reminds me that not everything has to be perfect to matter. Sometimes it just has to be bold enough to exist.

The Nokia N-Gage was released on October 7, 2003. Due to poor sales and mixed reception, it was discontinued in Western markets by November 2005, with production ceasing entirely in other regions around February 2006.

Quick note from Nostalgia Nation partner, HOMAGE

(Check out this rad John Candy Pay Homage tee!… use CODE: AFF15 to save 15% off for new/first-time customers)

» IN CASE YOU MISSED THIS

🔖 The Nostalgia Nation Book
👕 The Simpsons Homer In The Bushes (Best seller)

Thank you for supporting NOSTALGIA NATION ❤️

Stay rad,

John 😎 aka That 80s Dude

This Swedish Chef tee is 🔥🔥🔥 (HOMAGE)

© 2026 Nostalgia Nation. All rights are totally reserved, my dude. I may receive a commission from featured partners and links. This keeps Nostalgia Nation mostly free. You’re receiving this email because you opted in via my site or social media profile. Either way, you’re here, and I appreciate ya - Stay rad!

Welcome to Nostalgia Nation Magazine — Issue 03

It’s March already, and somehow we’re already on Issue 3 of Nostalgia Nation Magazine. When I first started this little experiment, I had no idea how much work actually goes into producing an e-zine. Writing, editing, designing pages, coordinating contributors, tracking sponsors, promoting it… and somewhere in between all that, trying to make sure it still feels fun and nostalgic for the people reading it.

I’ll be honest with you… There were moments this month where the creativity didn’t come easily. In fact, there were a few days where I almost talked myself out of doing this at all. Producing a magazine, even a digital one, means you’re responsible for literally every single part of it. Some days I don’t want to show up on social media or here. Some days I just want to order a Hawaiian pizza and play The Legend of Zelda.

But… I show up.

Because some of you decided to become paid subscribers. That tells me this magazine might be more than just another nostalgia project floating around the internet. Maybe it’s the MacGuffin that turns casual readers into believers and supporters of what we’re building here.

So here we are.

This issue has grown to 40 pages, and I’m especially grateful to be partnering with HOMAGE, the vintage and retro sports and pop culture apparel brand that made it possible for this entire issue to be completely free for everyone. Normally the full e-zine is reserved for paid subscribers, so this felt like the perfect opportunity to open the doors and let everyone inside Nostalgia Nation for a while.

I really hope you enjoy this issue. And if you do… or even if it’s just “meh”… let me know in the comments.

After all, this magazine only exists because you keep showing up too.

Consider becoming a paid supporter of the Nostalgia Nation newsletter, podcast, and e-zine ecosystem to help keep the past alive.

Learn More Here

In this issue of Nostalgia Nation Magazine:

From the electric spectacle of 1980s wrestling, featuring a tribute to “Rowdy” Roddy Piper by Russell Franklin and an ode to classic 80s wrestling, to a creator spotlight on David Miniatures and a chat with Lisa Downs (Life After universe), this issue pulls you right into the action. You’ll also find rad trivia to test your Gen X and Millennial knowledge, pop culture reflections, and Casey Kasem’s America’s Top 40 for March. Issue 3 of Nostalgia Nation Magazine is packed with nostalgia, stories, exclusive illustrations available only in this issue, and the memories that defined growing up in the 80s and 90s.

NOSTALGIA NATION MAGAZINE - ISSUE 3 PREVIEW

HUGE THANK YOU TO ISSUE PARTNER (HOMAGE)

You can read below, or enjoy the audio experience for this post!

Somewhere between late December 2025 and “How is it already February?”…

I realized something.

I didn’t make a New Year’s resolution to watch 150 kung fu movies.

I had already started. It’s like I felt called to return to something I loved watching when I was a kid. I was scrolling through Prime and The Invincible Armour was suggested, and I decided to rewatch it, remembering just how cool the movie was. By the way, for those of you that have watched the Kill Bill movies, Tarantino pulls from this film as well as a few other Shaw Brothers films.

What began as casually rewatching a few classics turned into a full blown immersion. Shaw Brothers logos and beats. Golden Harvest fanfare. Bad dubbing. Flying wirework. Villains with eyebrows sharp enough to cut glass.

Before I knew it, I was deep into a kung fu marathon…

And after binge-watching and rewatching more 70s and 80s martial arts films than any responsible adult with a mortgage probably should…

I learned some things. Or at least re-learned them.

Not just about kung fu.

About life.

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Now, let’s be clear. I grew up on this stuff.

Late night Channel 4. “Kung Fu Theater.”

Grainy prints. Ninja shadows on the wall.

Three channels and pure imagination doing the heavy lifting.

These movies weren’t just a past-time for me. They were mythology.

So here’s what they taught me.

Lesson 1 – Simplicity Is Powerful

Kung fu movies don’t overcomplicate things.

There’s a hero.

There’s a code.

There’s a villain who broke it.

Justice will be delivered.

Once it’s delivered, end of movie!

I mean it. A lot of these films just end… on the final kick. It’s funny. It’s crazy.

And I think the point is that good has triumphed, so get on with your life.

When I rewatched Five Deadly Venoms, which was playground legend by the way. It has masked warriors; Centipede, Snake, Scorpion, Lizard, and Toad. It hit me how elegant the storytelling is.

Clear archetypes. Clear stakes.

No cinematic universe homework. (Although kung fu aficionados have a name for the Deadly Venom actors appearing in many films together. It’s referred to the “Venom Mob” phenomenon. But I digress.)

No twist for the sake of twisting.

Just moral clarity wrapped in choreography.

Modern storytelling sometimes feels like it’s afraid of simplicity.

These films weren’t.

And that confidence to tell a simple story that builds and builds? It still works.

But simplicity alone doesn’t carry a film.

You need transformation.

Which brings me to the second lesson.

Lesson 2 – Discipline Beats Talent

Rewatching The 36th Chamber of Shaolin as an adult hit differently.

As a kid, I loved the training sequences. The water buckets. The bell. The swinging logs.

As an adult?

I saw the philosophy.

That entire movie is incremental growth.

Chamber by chamber.

Failure. Adjustment. Endurance.

No shortcuts.

No montage magic.

Just repetition.

It’s basically a two hour meditation on delayed gratification disguised as kung fu cinema.

And at this stage of life?

That lesson lands harder than any flying kick.

Now let’s talk about legends.

Because you can’t binge this genre without noticing something else.

You’re watching culture shift in real time.

Lesson 3 – Legends Reshape Culture

Watching Bruce Lee again is anthropology.

Enter the Dragon still radiates presence. Bruce Lee occupied space differently. He carried philosophy in his posture.

Each of his films has a type of villain and various types of hench men. There’s a love interest in most, but not all. Serving justice is greater than personal ambition or comfort.

Then you watch Jackie Chan come in and flip the tone entirely.

Drunken Master, Police Story, Project A. Suddenly the genre breathes differently.

Bruce made martial arts mythic.

Jackie made it funny and acrobatic.

He stumbled. He improvised. He weaponized ladders.

There was a week where I watched a Bruce Lee film and then a Jackie Chan film, and kept repeating. Watching these films back-to-back, you can literally see the genre evolve. You’re watching tectonic plates move.

That’s what binge-watching does. It reveals patterns.

And here’s something else I didn’t expect.

The “flaws” didn’t bother me.

They became part of the charm.

Lesson 4 – Imperfection Has Texture

The film grain.

The obvious wires.

The hilariously fake beards.

As a kid, I didn’t care.

As an adult? I appreciate them more.

Those imperfections are fingerprints of a filmmaking ecosystem. Shaw Brothers studios weren’t trying to polish things to a Marvel level gloss. They used what they had available.

They were making art at speed. With choreography. With sweat.

Most modern films are immaculate.

But sometimes immaculate feels sterile.

Kung fu movies have texture.

And texture feels human.

And then there’s this:

I expected nostalgia.

I didn’t expect joy.

Lesson 5 – Joy Doesn’t Expire

I still leaned forward a little during final fights. Have you watched the final fight between Jackie Chan and Len Lo in Drunken Master II?!

I still laughed at the dubbing.

I still felt that jolt when the villain finally gets what’s coming to him.

There’s a scene in Office Space where Peter (Ron Livingston) awkwardly asks Joanna (played by Jennifer Aniston) if she wants to come over and watch kung fu movies.

When she lights up?

That felt like cultural validation.

Some of us never stopped loving this stuff.

And that’s okay.

Joy doesn’t age out.

But maybe the biggest lesson wasn’t cinematic.

It was personal.

Lesson 6 – The Kid Is Still In There

I’m not the kid watching Kung Fu Theater after midnight anymore.

I’ve got responsibilities. Deadlines. Expenses that don’t care about Shaolin philosophy.

But give me 90 minutes of flying kicks and temple bells? The kid in me shows up instantly.

Eyes wide. Fully invested.

Binge-watching these films has helped me reconnect with that kid inside. There’s so much crap out there that screws up a potentially great story in modern films, and that’s just not the case with old school kung fu flicks. They tell the damn story, no bs, no politics and agenda. It’s good guy vs bad guy. It’s about growth and getting better… mostly improving your kung fu. And the big take away… Kung Fu is in everything.

And maybe that’s the real training montage.

Not becoming someone new.

Remembering who you were before the world told you to be practical.

So what did I learn from binge-watching kung fu movies?

• That simplicity works.

• That discipline compounds.

• That legends reshape culture.

• That imperfection has soul.

• And that joy — real joy — doesn’t expire.

I may not hit 150 films exactly on schedule this year. I’ll do my damn best!

Life has a way of kicking you right in the junk even the best plans.

But somewhere between Snake style and Jackie Chan ladder fights…

I found clarity.

And sometimes clarity comes wrapped in grainy film stock and badly dubbed dialogue.

If you’re feeling buried under modern noise, maybe throw on a 70s, 80s, or even 90s kung fu flick.

The kid on the couch might still be waiting.

Alright friends, that wraps up this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. If it resonated with you, share it with someone who grew up on late night Kung Fu Theater or wore out a VHS tape rewinding the final fight scene. And if you just discovered Nostalgia Nation through this episode, make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss what’s coming next.

Until next time, Time Travelers…,

Keep the tape rolling,

And stay rad!

Clear your afternoon like you’re waiting for TRL to announce the number one video.

This week’s drop is stacked with 80s, 90s, and early 2000s goodness you can click, vote, argue about, and absolutely overthink.

PS. Never miss a transmission. Make sure you are subscribed! Because missing a post feels like recording over your favorite VHS.

» THE SHOWDOWN «

One choice. No fence sitting.

One invented time travel.
One solved crimes via psychic nonsense.

You’ve got five seconds. Trust your instincts.

» FLASH POLL «

Would you rather…

A. Own the original Nintendo Entertainment System on launch day in 1985?
B. Go to Universal Studios on opening day when KITT and The DeLorean made it on their lot in the late 80s?

» THE BEST OF «

The 5 greatest “I brought this to school” flexes

1. Trapper Keeper
   If it had a hologram on it, you were basically royalty.

2. Pokémon cards
   One shiny Charizard and suddenly you had a security detail.

3. Lisa Frank anything
   Neon dolphins and zero subtlety.

4. TI 83 calculator
   Half math tool, half underground gaming device.

5. iPod Mini
   The first time 1,000 songs fit in your pocket felt illegal.

Reply and tell me what you flexed hardest.

» THE THROWBACK «

I went down a rabbit hole that started with Geocities and ended in pure gold.

Enjoy this 1988 commercial for Nintendo Power.

Kids whispering secrets about cheat codes like it’s classified government intel… what a time to be alive!

PS. If you ever called the Nintendo tip line, you were serious about life.

» ULTIMATE MIX «

You’re on the bus. Headphones on. Window seat secured.

Grunge angst or Y2K swagger?

See last week’s Ultimate Mix: VHS Horror Night vs. After School Sitcom Marathon
(That one hurt.) < That was a direct to email post for paid subscribers >

Nostalgia Nation’s Flashback ⏪ Rewind returns next week with another transmission.

Until then, I’ll be reorganizing my CD binder and pretending I remember every password I’ve ever created.

If you loved this drop, share it with a fellow Time Traveler.

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If you hated it, take a chill pill dude! 😜

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© 2026 Nostalgia Nation. All rights are totally reserved, my dude. I may receive a commission from featured partners and links. This keeps Nostalgia Nation mostly free. You’re receiving this email because you opted in via my site or social media profile. Either way, you’re here, and I appreciate ya!

Welcome to Nostalgia Nation Magazine — Issue 02.

Issue 02 is a full Valentine’s-month time capsule.

This issue leans into love, longing, and the pop-culture moments that quietly rewired us. There’s a deep-cut Music Spotlight on Lazer Club, a new Creator Spotlight starring the lovely 80sretrobeat, and a trivia section designed to separate the casual nostalgists from the real ones. It’s playful and rooted in the stuff we actually lived during the month of February.

You’ll also find themed features that feel pulled straight from the era.

An ‘80s Music Video Romance section that remembers when love stories were told in four minutes on MTV, a Millennial Minute that bridges generations without pandering, and a fresh This Month in History that connects February moments across decades… culture, tech, media, and the stuff that shaped how we see the world now.

Links inside the magazine are clickable, because we’re civilized now.

If you’re a free subscriber, you can download Issue 02 below and explore the magazine before deciding to go deeper.

Nostalgia Nation Magazine - Issue 2 (Feb 2026) Free Subscribers

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Full access to Issue 02 is available to paid supporters below, after these messages 👇

Issue 3 (March 2026) will feature the 80s WWF, Collecting Vintage Things, Poster Restoration, 90s Movie Trivia, and much, much more!

Nostalgia Nation is supported by readers who believe independent, creator-driven publishing still matters. An annual subscription is available for those who want full access to the magazine, newsletter, and archive throughout the year.

For readers who want to help support the magazine at its earliest stage, a limited Founding Member tier is available. Founding Members play a direct role in helping Nostalgia Nation grow and are recognized for supporting the publication from the beginning.

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Interested in contributing to a future issue of Nostalgia Nation Magazine?

We’re always open to hearing from writers, readers with photos and stories from the past, creators interested in being spotlighted, and brands that genuinely align with our audience. If you believe nostalgia still matters, we’d love to hear from you.

Contact Nostalgia Nation

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I knew nostalgia had officially gone mainstream when I overheard two college girls sighing about 2016 at the gym. Yes, the era of Snapchat’s first AR (Augmented Reality) filters and Frozen sing-alongs are now considered golden oldies by people too young to rent a car. As a Gen Xer, I nearly did a spit-take with my coffee (yes, I drink coffee at the gym… don’t judge me).

2016…really?

I’m not sure I’d completely accepted it the last few years, but nostalgia isn’t just for us “ever-so-slightly-older” folks anymore. It’s become an all ages pastime, and the world is finally catching up to what we Gen Xers have known all along. Eventually, everyone becomes nostalgic.

Eventually, everyone needs a place to escape to in their mind and reminisce about simpler days.

But, 2016??

The New Nostalgia

Open TikTok these days and you’ll find teenagers romanticizing the early 2010s as if it were some distant, magical era. They’re fixated on hallmarks of that time, including Taylor Swift’s Red album, One Direction mania, indie “twee” fashion, low-fi Tumblr aesthetics. If you were in your twenties back then, Gen Z now envies you (though they’d never admit it). They even have a term for pining after a time you never knew. They call this anemoia (the feeling of nostalgia for a time or place you've never actually experienced).

Here’s the ironic twist… this Gen Z cohort spent recent years mercilessly mocking Millennial “cringe” culture. They made fun of Harry Potter obsessions, pumpkin spice everything, cheesy inspirational wall art. Yet now those same mockers are getting misty eyed about the exact era Millennials came of age in. Oh, how the tables have turned. The early 2010s were far from perfect (I vividly recall the post recession uncertainty… I thought I’d overpaid for a condo… 2020s showed I didn’t!), but to today’s youth that decade glows with a simpler, sunnier light.

Why the sudden longing for 2010–2016? Well, look what came after. The late 2010s and early 2020s haven’t exactly been a relaxing stroll. This generation came of age amid financial meltdowns, political upheavals, a global pandemic, and constant climate anxiety. The internet that used to be a fun escape became a firehose of bad news. And somewhere around 2016, TikTok showed up and finished the job. No wonder they’re nostalgic for any period that feels more hopeful or carefree by comparison. I’m not at all suggesting we didn’t have problems… or that they were building up, I’m just saying it was different, and even though this younger generation is feeling nostalgic sooner… I can’t blame them.

I’ve even heard some Zoomers half joke that they’re jealous of the 2011 college experience – moving to a new city bright eyed, taking silly selfies without filters, going to parties without fear that every awkward dance would be live streamed or meme-ified the next day. In hindsight, maybe the early 2010s really were a brief last era of carefree delusion, the final moment before life went fully online and every moment started being packaged as “content.” I can’t disagree.

Nostalgia Veterans

For us Gen Xers, watching this youth nostalgia boom is surreal and a little satisfying. We’re the original nostalgia veterans - we’ve been reminiscing about the ‘80s and ‘90s since the moment the calendar hit 2000. (I’m pretty sure I’ve been to more than one “80s night” where actual cassette mixtapes got pulled out.) We grew up during far simpler times and that brought us together. If you missed a TV show on Tuesday, you waited months for a rerun. We passed notes on paper in class and saved ticket stubs from concerts. To say nostalgia hits us deeply is an understatement. Our memories feel like treasures, not just endless digital files in a cloud.

Fast forward to today’s digital natives. Younger Millennials and Gen Z grew up with infinite content on demand. Their childhood photos live online, their favorite shows and songs (music videos) never really disappeared (thanks to streaming and YouTube). You’d think having everything at their fingertips would make them immune to nostalgia. Ironically, it’s done the opposite. The nostalgia cycle has sped up. Trends that used to take 20 years to come back now resurface in ten or fewer. (By the mid-2020s, Gen Z had already revived the early-2000s Y2K look and moved on to reviving 2014 Tumblr vibes.) When culture moves that quickly, even last decade’s fads can start to feel quaint.

Honestly, I find it amusing, and oddly validating, to see a 20-year-old get sentimental about the “old days” of DVDs or life before TikTok. Eventually everybody learns what we did.

And interestingly, a lot of young people are now gravitating toward the tactile experiences we grew up with, as if searching for some missing authenticity in their high-tech lives. The same teens who never knew life without Wi‑Fi are buying vinyl records and Polaroid cameras for the novelty of something real and physical. Some are even trying out flip phones to escape the relentless stream of notifications. When I saw my own teenager marvel at how a Polaroid snapshot develops in his hand, I recognize that spark in his eyes – it’s the same one I had waiting for my 35mm photos to get developed at the drugstore!

Sure, it was inconvenient back in the day. But the effort often made an experience feel special. Saving up to buy a new album, or waiting all week for your favorite show, gave those moments extra weight. Now, with entertainment available in an instant, some of that magic of anticipation is lost. Maybe that’s why Gen Z is so intrigued by how we used to live “slower.” Waiting for something — a photo to finish printing, a new album to drop on Tuesday — gave us a thrill that you just don’t get from an immediate download.

The Bridge Between Generations

At its core, nostalgia is comfort food for the soul, and it’s ageless. We Gen Xers have long leaned on it to cope with life’s stresses (hey, middle age is no picnic). Now younger folks are discovering the same escape hatch when the present gets to be too much. Different eras, similar coping mechanisms.

What’s truly heartwarming is how nostalgia is turning into common ground between generations. Recently I bonded with a Gen Zer at the gym, who I noticed was wearing a Bon Jovi tee (not vintage) — He was thrilled to mention how he got into listening to ‘80s music recently on Spotify, so I told him about recording Bon Jovi songs off the radio onto a cassette. We laughed at the differences in our experiences, but the underlying joy was the same. In that moment, the age gap melted away; we were just two people geeking out over music that meant the world to us.

In a world moving at warp speed, nostalgia lets everyone hit the pause button. I can’t stress to you how important that is. It reminds us that no matter how different our eras and technologies, some feelings are universal.

Every generation had its “good old days,” and by sharing those stories we realize we’re not so different after all. Maybe that’s the silver lining of this whole nostalgia boom. It’s giving us shared points of reference. We’re all time travelers, in our own ways — finding a bit of unity in that collective yearning for the way it was.

Until next time, Time Travelers… keep the tape rolling...and Stay Rad!

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Posts you may have missed:

Looking ahead: Issue 2 arrives soon, with an expanded patron-only section for those who choose to support the magazine and gain full access.

Welcome to Nostalgia Nation Magazine — Issue 01.

This is the thing I’ve wanted to make for a long time… a monthly, flip-through digital magazine built for people who grew up in the overlap… analog childhood, digital adulthood. We’re not here to live in the past like it’s a museum exhibit. We’re here because the past built our instincts, and in a world that updates itself every few minutes and forgets everything just as fast, it’s worth hitting pause on purpose.

Inside this first issue, you’ll get a little bit of everything that makes Nostalgia Nation what it is: stories, objects, culture, and the people keeping the vibe alive right now. There’s a VHS Shelf Confession (yes, involving a UK haul that arrived… not exactly in “mint” condition), a Creator Spotlight, a Reader Spotlight (because this is a community), The Millennial Minute (2000s toys are more underrated than people realize), a Test Your Knowledge section (trivia that’ll expose who actually rewound their tapes), and a feature essay: Why The Goonies is Still Better Than Stranger Things …because one of these worlds feels like kids could actually pull it off, and the other eventually turns into supernatural CrossFit.

Also: links inside the magazine are clickable, because we’re civilized now.

This issue is shared as a free preview so you can see the quality and vibe for yourself, then, if it hits, you can jump in as a paid supporter and get the full issue every month, plus subscriber-only extras and behind-the-scenes stuff as this grows.

Either way, I’m glad you’re here at the beginning of this passion project that I hope will grow into a wide network of creator driven content to serve all of you Gen Xers and Millennials out there that believe nostalgia matters.

I’ll continue publishing weekly articles and podcast audio here, and sharing daily nostalgia on social, but the monthly Nostalgia Nation magazine is where this project really comes together. That’s where the most care and creative energy lives… and I hope you’ll join me as it grows.

You can download the entire first issue free, below:

Nostalgia Nation Magazine - Issue 1 (Jan 2026)

352MB ∙ PDF file

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The Nostalgia Nation Newsletter and Magazine is supported by paid subscribers who believe independent, creator-driven publishing still matters. A monthly subscription is $5, with an annual option at $54 for readers who prefer to commit for the year. For those who want to help support the magazine at its earliest stage, a limited Founding Member tier is available at $108 annually. Founding Members help make this publication possible as it grows, and are recognized for supporting Nostalgia Nation from the beginning.

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Interested in contributing to a future issue of Nostalgia Nation Magazine?

We’re always open to hearing from writers, readers with photos and stories from the past, creators interested in being spotlighted, and brands that genuinely align with our audience. If you believe nostalgia still matters, we’d love to hear from you.

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Ps. Check out the Cover preview of the first issue of Nostalgia Nation Magazine below. Issue drops tomorrow!

The Atari 400 was Atari’s entry level home computer from 1979, known for its spill-resistant membrane keyboard, low cost, and powerful custom chips (ANTIC, POKEY) that made it great for gaming, alongside its higher-end sibling, the Atari 800. It offered excellent graphics and sound for its time, supported BASIC programming and peripherals like disk drives, and targeted families as an affordable gateway to computing and games, famously featuring a built-in notepad for users.

Here’s a cool commercial for “The Atari Family…”

1981 — Dynasty Premieres on ABC

Seasons: 9
Episodes: 229
Peak: #1 show in America (1985)

Cool Fact:
The costumes were such a phenomenon that they spawned a real-world fashion line “The Dynasty Collection” designed by Nolan Miller. Shoulder pads went mainstream because of this show.

1983 — The Joy of Painting Premieres on PBS

Episodes: 403
Final Episode: May 17, 1994

Cool Fact:
Bob Ross was a Master Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, where he developed his calm, reassuring voice as a counterbalance to military discipline, then carried it straight into public television.

1984 — Relax, by Frankie Goes to Hollywood Is Banned by the BBC

Despite the ban: Over 2 million copies sold in the UK
#1 in: UK, France, Italy, Spain, West Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Finland, Israel, Thailand

Cool Fact:
The BBC ban didn’t hurt the song… it turbocharged it. “Relax” became one of the first modern examples of controversy directly driving global pop success.

1989 — I’m Gonna Git You Sucka Hits Theaters

Director: Keenen Ivory Wayans
Budget: $3 million
Box Office: $13 million

Cool Fact:
The film was originally conceived as a straight action movie, but pivoted into parody when the Wayans realized the genre tropes were already absurd enough to play for laughs.

1994 — Four Weddings and a Funeral Premieres

Debut: January 20, 1994 — Sundance Film Festival
Writer: Richard Curtis
Star: Hugh Grant

Cool Fact:
Hugh Grant’s awkward, charming persona wasn’t scripted that way—it came from his real-life discomfort with fame, which ended up redefining the modern rom-com lead.

The first issue of NOSTALGIA NATION MAGAZINE drops tomorrow! Here’s a look at the cover:

Make sure you check your email tomorrow so you don’t miss this inaugural issue!!

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If you haven’t heard by now, on Sunday December 14, 2025, the world lost one of the architects of our childhood and countless movie nights. Rob Reiner, the man who taught us what “Hello” really meant, who made us laugh at This Is Spinal Tap and fall in love all over again in The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally…, and his wife Michele Singer Reiner, a talented photographer and producer who stood beside him for more than three decades, were found dead in their Brentwood, California, home.

Reiner’s career could fill a shelf of VHS tapes and Blu-rays. From playing “Meathead” on All in the Family in the 1970s, which was a role that made him a familiar face in living rooms across America, to directing films that became part of every Gen Xer’s life, his influence on pop culture was enormous. Michele was his partner in that life, both personally and professionally, after they married in 1989 and raised three children together.

What makes this tragedy especially heartbreaking for fans and the film community isn’t just the loss of two beloved figures, it’s that initial reports indicate a family member was involved in the fatal incident, and authorities have said their son, Nick Reiner, is being questioned and is in custody in connection with what police are treating as a homicide investigation. None of the official reports have released graphic details, and out of respect for the family and the seriousness of ongoing investigations, I won’t reprint those here.

It’s a reminder that behind the movies that bring us comfort, the laughter that echoes through decades, there are real lives and real heartbreaks. Rob and Michele’s work helped shape our sense of humor and our sense of love, and for that, they’ll be remembered not just as creators, but as part of our film and personal history.

What’s your favorite Rob Reiner film?

Contribute to the Life After The Goonies Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lifeaftermovies/life-after-the-goonies

If you enjoy deep-dives into nostalgia, physical media (movies, music, and games), and the stories behind the stories, hit subscribe — it keeps Nostalgia Nation alive and thriving.

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It’s a late 1980-something, Friday night, and you’re staring at a bookshelf full of VHS tapes in your living room. Each cassette stands upright like a book, proudly displaying a spine label that you meticulously applied. Those spine label stickers were important markers in their own right. They were really your first attempt at being organized.

Now picture yourself at the video store. For Gen Xers, the sight of a “Be Kind, Rewind” decal or those fuzzy genre stickers take you back instantly, right?

The Home VHS Spine – A Library on Your Shelf

In the heyday of home video, VHS spine labels served as a personal library catalog. Once you recorded a TV show or brought home a new movie, the first order of business was often labeling the tape. A typical VHS label displayed the movie title, maybe a date, and any other notes to identify the content. This was vital. With dozens of tapes on the shelf, you needed to see at a glance whether a cassette was your Star Wars recording or last week’s Simpsons episodes, or a family video. Most blank VHS tapes came with sticker sheets for this purpose. There was the main label, also known as the “Top Label,” and then there was one long sticker for the spine. And let’s not forget the smaller stickers for tape length, such as T-60, T-120, or T-160, in case you were recording multiple programs and you wanted to make sure you had enough room on your tape.

For a lot of us, especially Gen X, creating those spine labels was more than a task, it was a ritual. Some of us had systems. I remember digging through sticker books, picking just the right one to slap on the side of a tape so I’d know exactly what was on it. Sometimes I’d use alphabet stickers to mark the order of a series. Like “V: The Series,” for example, where each volume got its own letter on the spine. It was part librarian, part mixtape DJ effort, and totally personal. Others simply scribbled titles by hand in marker, and others used pencil, often crossing out and rewriting as tapes were re-used or recorded over. The aesthetics varied widely. There were those that used label makers, which I think look pretty awesome on vhs. Organizing tapes by their spines made movie picking feel like pulling books from a shelf for me. It’s no surprise many of us feel nostalgia even for the look of those chunky VHS spines.

I have a respectable Blu-ray DVD collection and it’s really a shame that there was never really a systemized way to produce the exterior like with VHS. There are a few boutique production houses that release steelbooks and intricate and lovely dvd box sleeves, but I really wish there was a standard, similar to VHS, Cassette, and Vinyl. Most DVD cases are so thin they hardly allow any visible art or personality on the spine. With VHS, by contrast, the thick spine was a canvas for logos, artwork, or personal touches.

Genre Stickers and Colorful Design Tropes

Beyond home collections, video stores and tape distributors developed a visual language of their own for VHS packaging. Stroll through an old rental aisle in your memory, and you might recall the color-coded stickers shouting a tape’s genre or status. Many independent rental shops tagged each cassette with bright labels such as Horror, Comedy, Drama, Action, often in standardized colors for quick recognition. While each store’s scheme varied, it was common to see vivid red or orange stickers for horror films and something like yellow or blue for comedies, creating a really cool aesthetic on the shelves. These design tropes weren’t strict rules, but patterns emerged. Horror VHS covers themselves often featured black and red motifs, while family films used brighter, friendlier colors. Stores capitalized on that by adding their own bold spine labels and genre decals to make reshelving easier and guide customers (a neon “HORROR” sticker practically screaming “kids, put this one back!”). It was very common for mom and pop video stores to create cataloging systems and place labels on the spine area of the slip cover in order to locate a title. Back in the day when I purchased VHS tapes, I used to hate those labels because I thought they destroyed the box art. Today, however, I love the stickers because it adds character.

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The major studios had signature spine designs that became familiar to collectors. Disney, for instance, famously packaged its classics in white plastic clamshell cases rather than the standard cardboard sleeves. This wasn’t just a quirk. Early VHS tapes were expensive luxuries (priced around $100 in the late 1970s and early 80s) and often came in sturdy cases to match that premium status. By the time sell-through prices dropped in the 90s, most studios switched to slim cardboard slipcovers, but Disney stuck to the clamshell for decades. As a result, the spines of Disney VHS tapes became literal outliers: taller, fatter, often with a bubbly font and the castle logo at the top. You either gave them their own row or let them awkwardly dominate the space because they were thicker and taller than most other vhs covers.

Meanwhile, other studios had their own trademarks. One of my favorites were the MGM/UA (United Artists) sleeves. These things were so cool because they were like opening a book cover. The vhs tape was nestled inside and it was an awesome experience to open. The only downside is that they definitely took up more space. Do you remember the consistent placement of logos like “CBS/Fox” or “Orion Home Video” at the tops of spines. RCA/Columbia Pictures was a great one because their spines had that distinctive red spine label around the title.

Collectors today can often identify a tape’s era or publisher just by that spine layout or the color schemes used on it. And let’s not forget some tapes had colored cassette shells as part of their aesthetic. For example, Nickelodeon released kids’ VHS tapes in bright orange plastic, and certain horror titles came in blood-red or black shells to stand out. What a wonderful visual time it was.

“Please Rewind” – Rental Stickers and Video Store Rituals

Anyone that rented a VHS in the 80s or 90s, and into the 2000s remembers the saying, “Be kind, Rewind.” Admit it, it is one of the most predominant and nostalgic things from that time that stands out to you as a practice of that time. This gentle rhyme was printed on countless stickers plastered to rental tapes. It was often accompanied by a smiley face or bold lettering. The “Be Kind, Rewind” sticker became a universally recognized plea. Why? Because many of us forget now that VHS tapes had to be manually rewound, and video stores cared dammit!

An unrewound tape meant the next customer (or a poor clerk) had to spend several extra minutes running it to the beginning. To encourage good behavior, rental shops deployed these stickers everywhere, and some even backed them up with fines. When I worked at Hollywood Video, we had about a dozen tape rewinders behind the desk because we never wanted to pass that task to the rental customer. It was store policy that every tape that arrived was rewound by staff if the customer that returned it forgot to rewind it. So yes, failing to rewind could hit you in the wallet depending where you rented from. This is where the infamous $2-Late-Fee was born from. Now, there are some of you out there right now that remember trying to rent a tape only to be told that you couldn’t rent one until the fee was paid. Shame on you!

Blockbuster’s sticker is probably the most notorious of them all because the tape label was cleverly designed to wrap around the front face and to the left side of a videotape, so that on one side showed a polite rewind reminder, and on the other side in bold capitals the word “WARNING!,” presumably threatening fees or charges if ignored.

Now, let’s talk about the arsenal of other ephemera rental stores deployed back in the day.

Do you remember the “3 Day Rental” or “New Release” stickers denoting how long you could keep a tape? There were all sorts of genre labels to direct you to the right shelf, and often a property sticker with the store’s name or an ID number. Many tapes rattled with a little magnetic security strip inside or had a holographic sticker that set off alarms. And woe to the person who tried to peel it off. Some ex-rental tapes still bear the scar of a label that threatened a hefty charge if tampered with. In fact, I remember seeing sticker that said something like, “$99.95 charge for tampering with this label,” which was a not-so-subtle way to deter theft or home recording. Another bit of security theater was the tamper-evident seal on the tape’s edge or the VHS case. This was common when purchasing a new tape, so you had to break the sticker to open the case, ensuring customers couldn’t swap out cassettes. And to prevent any recording over the store’s copy, most rental VHS cassettes had their record-protect tabs removed. In case you don’t recall, that was the little plastic piece on the cassette you normally had to break off to “lock” the tape from further recording. Some stores even covered the record hole with a sticker that would say “Void if Removed,” making it clear the tape was off-limits for recording. Some vhs blanks came with sticker sheets that included special dots meant to cover the record tab opening. In short, every sticker had a purpose. Stickers were a powerful way to manage the flow of tapes and protect the store’s investment.

The “Be Kind, Rewind” slogan itself is iconic, but there are other very important ones that exist, like the “Melt Sticker,” which has gained cult status among VHS aficionados. This was a label some shops placed on tapes to detect heat damage. If a customer left the tape in a hot car and the tape overheated, the sticker’s ink would change, essentially outing the negligent renter. It sounds crazy now, but at least a few stores went to that length to protect their stock. (Imagine returning a tape and the clerk pointing to a color-changed sticker and saying, “We know what you did to this poor VHS.”) These clever little innovations are mostly forgotten, but they highlight how VHS culture had its own ecosystem of care and concern, all expressed through stickers and labels.

Tiny Details with Big Nostalgia (Why Collectors Care)

It’s easy to chuckle at all this today. Who gets misty-eyed over labels? As it turns out, a lot of people do. Among VHS collectors and nostalgia buffs, the ephemera on a tape can be nearly as cherished as the movie itself. There’s even a gorgeous art book titled “Stuck on VHS: A Visual History of Video Store Stickers,” featuring over 1,000 images of old rental stickers and essays celebrating their place in pop culture. These seemingly trivial stickers are described as “small but essential ephemera” that captured a time when “movies mattered and video stores ruled.” In other words, they’re a tactile connection to an era.

Collectors debate fervently whether to leave vintage stickers on a tape or remove them. A 2017 Lunchmeat VHS article asked this very question to the “tapehead” community. Some purists see faded rental stickers as blemishes… ugly residues that mar the cover art. Others (myself included) view them as part of the tape’s story. As that article noted, many videophiles love these stickers because they “provide obscure insight on a tape’s origin” and add a “distinct bit of spice to their VHS collection.” A former Blockbuster tape without the Blockbuster sticker just isn’t the same; it’s like a passport without any stamps. Those stickers can tell you which store a tape came from, or even hint at the tape’s journey (imagine a well-worn “Property of Hollywood Video” label) How many living rooms did that tape travel through?.

For a lot of Gen X collectors, seeing an old video store label triggers instant memories of that store’s smell, the layout of the aisles, or the clerk who used to give you recommendations.

Collectors swap stories about weird finds online, like tapes covered in an overkill of labels, or humorous custom labels. In one Reddit forum, a user joked about creating a VHS label that “looks like a ransom note” using all those disparate letter stickers that came with blank tapes. Others recall family members who had almost librarian-like systems: one Redditor’s father numbered each tape and kept a movie notebook cross-referencing the contents. These personal anecdotes highlight how deeply people invested in organizing and labeling their media. It wasn’t just about finding a movie faster. I believe it was about taking pride in your collection and making it your own.

Forgotten Facts & Quirky Ephemera of the VHS Era

Let’s dig up a few unexpected or underappreciated facts about VHS labeling culture:

• Rental VHS tapes were once outrageously expensive, often priced for rental shops only. In the early 1980s, a new movie on VHS might cost $80–$100, which is why stores went to great lengths to protect them. Those “tamper-proof” labels and hefty fine warnings weren’t hyperbole. A tape really could be worth that much. It also explains why early VHS releases came in elaborate packaging (big plastic clamshells or heavy cardboard boxes) to signify their value. By the late 80s, studios introduced lower-priced VHS for the mass market, and packaging became cheaper.

• Blank VHS tapes included surprisingly granular labeling kits. If you ever bought a multi-pack of blank tapes, you likely found a sheet of stickers inside. Beyond the main spine and face labels, these sheets often had alphabet letters, numbers, and even tiny genre or TV-themed icons. Many users never touched those extra bits, but they were meant to let you do things like spell out a title vertically on the spine or mark volumes in a series (A, B, C… or 1, 2, 3…). Some brands threw in quirky stickers like “Sports,” or “Music,” anticipating how people might categorize their recordings.

• Rental chain branding on spines: When Blockbuster took off in the late 80s, they introduced uniform branded cases and spine labels. Many of their VHS rentals didn’t display the movie’s original cover on the outside; instead, they came in a generic blue-and-yellow Blockbuster case. The spine of these cases had a simple text label with the movie title (often in Blockbuster’s stencil font) and an inventory number. Employees have described walls in the back room filled with black or clear cases, each with a white spine label, neatly numbered. So, while customers browsed the colorful box art on the shelves (typically just display cases or empty boxes), the actual tape you took home had a far more utilitarian look, a sort of secret second identity. Owning a former Blockbuster tape today, complete with that plain spine label and maybe a “Please Rewind” sticker, is oddly thrilling for collectors because it’s like a direct artifact of the Blockbuster experience. I have a few of these in my collection and they are so nostalgic to me. I was even sent a really cool Nintendo Switch game case from a modern gaming tech company that was designs to look like a Blockbuster vhs rental case.

Rewinding the Memories

As a Gen X kid and lifelong “tapehead,” reflecting on VHS spine labels and stickers is a trip equal parts nostalgia and insight. It’s funny how something so small, the spine label on a VHS tape, could play such a big role in our media lives. They were our map to countless movie marathons, a visual comfort in the era before endless digital menus. Culturally, they turned humble cassettes into conversation pieces and status symbols (think of the kid whose shelf of horror tapes was a rite of passage, each with red title fonts on the spines). Historically, these labels and stickers tell the story of a rapidly evolving home video industry, from the wild west of early rental clubs with their homemade tags, to the corporate polish of Blockbuster’s branding, and finally to the retro-obsessed collectors hunting for that rare “Melt Sticker” cassette today. Aesthetically, they form a lost art. The bold typography, colorful genre stickers, and even the wear-and-tear (faded highlighter marks, store stamps, peeled corners) give each tape a unique character.

In sharing these stories and details, I hope I’ve not only triggered some warm memories of your own (did you suddenly recall the exact look of your local video store?) But I also hope that I’ve highlighted why these tiny ephemera matter. They matter because they encapsulate a whole mode of living and enjoying media that was physical and communal. A VHS spine label could spark a conversation or a recommendation. A “Be Kind, Rewind” sticker taught us a little courtesy (and maybe responsibility). Even the silliest genre sticker or the most authoritarian warning label is now a marker of the past.

So here’s to those quirky spine labels, rental stickers, and tamper seals. Here’s to the unsung heroes of VHS culture. They may have been small, but they loom large in the memories of a generation. And if what mattered was taking the time to neatly label a cassette of our favorite show, or rewind a tape for the next person, maybe that says something good about us after all. In a world of instant access, we can appreciate the charm of when entertainment came with stickers and instructions.

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According to the internet, I’m officially the last human being without a podcast. I held out as long as I could, honestly. I figured if I never started one, maybe society would somehow stay… balanced. Turns out, the universe doesn’t work that way.

So here I am, entering the podcast arena thirty years after everyone else, and honestly, it feels kind of great. Not because I needed another platform… because I don’t… but mostly because I grew up in a world where listening mattered.

We are the mixtape generation. The radio-DJ generation. The generation that sat in front of the TV with rabbit ears just right because “the movie is starting and don’t move or the picture will go fuzzy.” And look, we’re also the generation that bought all those early audio-books on cassette and CD. I still have so many honestly, I don’t know what to do with them. In fact, if you still have audiobooks on cassette, let me know in the comments which ones you have...

But my point it is… this podcast is my way of bringing all of that back.
Much less the fuzzy picture part. It’s the listening part I’m really interested in.

BY THE WAY, THE MAIN TOPIC TODAY IS ABOUT REMAKES AND REBOOTS, we’ll get to that in a moment as I expound the reason why….

WHY NOSTALGIA NATION - THE AUDIO EDITION EXISTS

If you’ve been reading my Substack, you know I love writing about the things that shaped us. I love sharing about the moments, the music, the movies, the weird cultural artifacts you forgot about until I mention them and suddenly your back that the mall in 1988 about to order at from the Orange Julius!

Some of those stories hit different when you hear them.
There’s a warmth to audio. A crackle. A closeness.

We grew up with sound doing half the work. The imagery lived in our heads.

That’s part of the charm.
Part of the magic.
Part of why I wanted to do this.

This show won’t be perfect. It won’t be over-produced. I’m not hiring a team of twelve editors and tech dudes to make my studio ready for a presidential visit. It’s just me, a microphone, and memories that refuse to be quietly archived.

GEN X STILL LISTENS

Podcast culture today is wild. You’ve got crime podcasts. Therapy podcasts. “Two dudes with microphones talking about nothing” podcasts. And now, you’ve got me working my hardest to keep our shared memories alive… podcast.

I know there’s a lot to listen to out there… but I’ll tell you what, it’s really tough to find a podcast that looks at what I’ve coined as The Hybrid Age. I’m talking about the Analog-to-Digital Renaissance… a one-of-a-kind human window when culture, technology, and community overlapped perfectly before social media rewired the world.

It was:

• The golden age of shared pop culture

• The dawn of personal technology

• The height of communal experiences (music, movies, arcades, malls)

• The final era of scarcity, which made everything feel bigger

• The rise of imagination-driven creativity before algorithms took the wheel

• A world where tech improved life without replacing humanity

I’m talking about 1975–2010. That’s basically the sweet spot where. It’s where analog soul + digital possibility =ed magic.

So I’m aiming to really dig into that… but I also want to bridge that into current culture and society. We have things now that we need to appreciate, but it helps to compare and see if were are doing better.

Not rushed.
Not manufactured for specifically for social.

Just honest, funny, nostalgic field notes from a generation that survived latchkey childhoods, dial-up internet, and the emotional trauma of not hitting record at the right time and catching the DJs voice on your mixtape.

Anyway, having said all of that. I appreciate you being here. I’ll post the Audio Edition when I have something to say and share. The best way to get the audio edition is to go to that80sdude.com (you’re here already ;) and make sure you are subscribed. All you need to do is enter your email in a box and hit subscribe folks. That’s it. And we’ll time travel together.

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MAIN THEME: REMAKES, REBOOTS & WHY SOME WORK (4–6 minutes)

Now, since this is Episode 1, I want to frame the first real topic around something that hits perfectly for Gen X and OG Millennials especially, and that is the fact that our childhood franchises are back.

Some of them are thriving.
Some of them… should have stayed in the box next to your broken Star Wars figures.

I recently saw Predator: Badlands (and wrote about it here), and although I was invited to an immersive screening in Los Angeles, I couldn’t make it work with my schedule, but I was able to screen the film a few days later, and man… this is how you continue an 80s property.

Not by remaking.
Not by rebooting.
But by expanding the universe!

The Predator franchise has learned something essential:
Don’t replace the nostalgia - build on it.
Respect the lore, but don’t chain yourself to the past.

It’s why Prey landed so well.
It’s why Badlands feels like a continuation, not a regurgitation.

Same thing with the Alien franchise.
Those films survive because they keep finding new corners of the universe to explore, not because they try to redo what can’t be redone. In fact I just read that Alien: Earth has just been approved for a second season because of the incredible reception its received from critics and fans.

And now we’ve got Gremlins 3 on the radar.
The Goonies 2 whispers in development rooms.
A new Masters of the Universe project trying to find the right home.

These aren’t small deals. These films are cultural earthquakes for a generation that still knows where they were when they first saw Stripe’s skeleton jump out of the fountain in Gremlins or heard Sloth yell “Hey you guys!”

But here’s the thing:
Some remakes bomb because they forget who they’re talking to.

They remove the charm.
They remove the practical effects.
They remove the weirdness… and cheesiness.

Gen X properties weren’t polished.
They were messy, and a little insane… and that’s why we loved them.

When you sanitize nostalgia, you kill it.
When you respect it, you keep it alive.

That’s the sweet spot.
That’s where Predator and Alien are thriving, and where some other reboots were dead on arrival.

So the question is, what do you guys think? Is there a better way to have remakes today?

Am I on the right track when I say we should expand franchises rather than redo them? Although I’d love to see a few films remade just because the idea was high concept or fun but the execution at the time was not that great. Take Critters for example. That’s one of my favorite 80s flicks, and it’s still really good as it stands, but I sure wouldn’t mind keeping the same exact plot and story and just remaking it with modern movie magic. I suppose we now need to say that casting needs to be on point, because you know that’s been a major complaint by not only Gen X but by movie goers in general. Anyway, I’d love to know. Which films do you think would absolutely benefit from a remake?

Oh, and this just popped into my head… that’s going to happen a lot, friends… I’ve been waiting for a sequel to The Faculty… you guys remember that movie? It’s the 1998 film directed by Robert Rodriguez. That movie is so much fun… why haven’t they expanded that franchise?

Alright, so that’s a wrap on Episode 1 of Nostalgia Nation, the Audio Edition. Appreciate you being here and listening (or reading). And remember…

DIRECT FROM MY COLLECTION VAULT

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A Missed Premiere, But Worth the Wait

I was invited to an immersive 4DX premiere of Predator: Badlands on November 4 in LA, but a schedule conflict meant I caught the film a few days later. It turns out it was well worth the wait. Predator: Badlands is the ninth installment in the franchise, yet it feels fresh. Directed by Dan Trachtenberg (who gave us Prey and the animated Predator: Killer of Killers), this film takes the series in exciting new directions, even making a Yautja (the Predator’s species) our hero. The result is a highly entertaining ride that balances savage sci-fi action with a dose of fun.

Story – A New Hunt with a Twist

Set in the future on a remote planet, the story follows Dek, a young Yautja outcast who crash lands on a hostile world and must prove himself worthy of the hunt. In a twist, Dek teams up with Thia, a marooned android (from Weyland-Yutani, of Alien fame… a corporation that always seems up to no good) to survive and take down a terrifying apex creature called the Kalisk. It’s a great concept that expands the Predator lore by exploring Yautja culture and even language.

Trachtenberg clearly knows how to deepen the franchise’s mythology. Badlands is set on the Predator homeworld and focuses on their clan society in a way no previous film has. We see Predator clan politics, honor codes, and even hear the Yautja language, which is a special treat for long time fans. The story is compelling overall, although the final act crams in a lot. The climax brings multiple showdowns (including a family face-off back on Yautja Prime) that get a little muddled, but ultimately it delivers a satisfying ending for Dek’s journey, while cheekily teasing more to come.

Tone – Surprisingly Funny Moments

One thing that caught me off guard: this movie is funny. Yes, a Predator film with humor! The banter between stone-cold Dek and Thia’s deadpan wit adds a light buddy comedy vibe in places. There’s even an adorable sidekick of sorts, a baby creature that Thia nicknames “Bud,” who tags along and provides some comic relief amid the carnage.

The original Predator (1987) had plenty of hilarious one-liners, and Badlands doesn’t disappoint there, finding comedy in the unlikely friendship between a lethal alien and a snarky synthetic. It’s a refreshing tonal balance. You’ll laugh one moment and grip your seat the next. Importantly, the humor doesn’t undermine the Predator’s badassery; it just makes the characters more relatable and the thrills more fun.

Action & Effects – No Skimping on the Spectacle

Visually, Badlands is top-notch. The CGI creatures and alien vistas are stunning. I didn’t spot any wonky effects or cheap greenscreen moments. With a hefty $105 million budget, the film’s graphics team brought their A-game for sure. The Kalisk (the big bad creature) and other alien fauna look fantastic and menacing. Action scenes are inventive and clear. One highlight is a mid-film sequence where Dek loses his high-tech gear and goes primitive. He crafts organic weapons from the environment to spring traps on enemies, a clever homage to Dutch’s mud-caked guerrilla tactics in the 1987 original. The set pieces escalate nicely, from stealthy Predator hunts to an all out climactic battle. Listen, I highly recommend seeing this film in theaters for the full picture and sound experience.

The sound design and 4DX-worthy thrills (roaring creatures, explosions, that iconic Predator clicking) are best enjoyed on a big screen with booming audio. This is a Predator movie that truly delivers on effects and sound, earning a full 5/5 in that department from me.

Direction & Lore – Trachtenberg in Top Form

Director Dan Trachtenberg has now proven three times that he understands what makes Predator tick. With Prey (2022) he took us to the past, with Killer of Killers (2025) he experimented in animation, and now with Badlands he pushes the lore forward.

Indeed, Badlands feels fresh because it doesn’t just rehash “Predator hunts humans.” It really flips the script. By making a Predator the protagonist, Trachtenberg turns “one of cinema’s most iconic brutes into a hero worth rooting for. Yet he doesn’t forget the roots. Badlands is packed with references and respect for the franchise history. The film draws influence from classic Westerns and survival films (think Mad Max 2 in an alien wilderness), giving it an adventurous, almost mythic tone at times. It’s Trachtenberg’s confident direction and love of the material that keep the movie cohesive even as it expands the universe. If I had to nitpick, the plot pacing in the last 20 minutes could have been tighter (hence a 4/5 for plot and cohesion), but overall his storytelling kept me fully engaged.

Easter Eggs & Franchise Nods

Long-time Predator aficionados will be grinning at the many Easter eggs. Remember the trophy room scene at the end of Predator 2 (1990) with all the skulls (including that famous Xenomorph head)? Badlands steps it up. Early in the film we see a Predator trophy wall loaded with exotic skulls. You need to look closely. They’re not just random aliens. Fans have spotted an Independence Day alien skull (confirmed as a Harvester from ID4 by the director) among the trophies. The one that stood out to me right away was the Tyrannosaurus rex skull proudly on display, implying these Predators have hunted on Earth’s prehistoric past (or at least taken a dino as a souvenir)!

It’s really awesome to see these thoughtful references in a film. The film also slyly references the broader Alien/Predator universe. For example, a climactic fight involves a power-loader style mech, clearly evoking Ripley’s showdown in Aliens. And if you watch closely, Dek’s final battle plan (using natural mud, traps and handmade weapons) mirrors Dutch’s iconic last stand in the 1987 original, bringing the homage full circle. All these references are woven in organically, so new viewers won’t miss out, but fans get that extra thrill of recognition.

On that note, if you haven't seen all the Predator films, don’t worry about it. You don’t need to know anything about The Predator to appreciate and enjoy this film experience!

Verdict – A Must See Big Screen Hunt

Overall, Predator: Badlands was a blast from start to finish. It’s the most fun I’ve had with a sci-fi film in a while. The film is highly entertaining, combining 5/5 entertainment value (I was never bored for a second) with strong craftsmanship. The plot may wobble slightly under the weight of its big ideas (hence a 4/5 for story cohesion), but it sticks the landing with a rousing finale. The visuals, creature effects, and sound get a 5/5 – absolutely top-tier. And while I won’t “rate” the Easter eggs, I will say they made my inner fanboy very happy.

As for my personal rating style – I’m giving Predator: Badlands 5 out of 5 “Jumbo Popcorn Buckets” 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 for pure entertainment. It’s that good. In other words, definitely make time to see this in cinemas.

Nostalgia Nation Movie Rating:

Entertainment: 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 (absolute blast)

Plot & Cohesion: 🍿🍿🍿🍿 (engaging, with a few muddy bits toward the end)

Effects & Sound: 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 (top-notch visuals and audio, must see in cinema)

Easter Eggs: N/A

Recommendation and total score: Predator: Badlands earns 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 from me.

It’s absolutely worth leaving the comfort of your home to experience on the big screen!

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You know how every generation gets one moment where they stop, look around, and think, Ah yes, this is when civilization started circling the drain.

For Boomers, maybe it was the birth of MTV.

For Millennials, it was when Starbucks introduced 13 different kinds of milk.

For Gen X?

Well, how much time do you have?

But let’s just skip to kids yelling “6-7!” for no discernible reason.

Yes, welcome to 2025, where Dictionary.com has officially named “6-7” the Word of the Year, despite the fact that it is very much not a word.

I’m sure I’m stuck in a nightmare.

So what does “6-7” mean?

Short answer: nothing.

Long answer: also nothing, just louder.

The phrase comes from the rap song “Doot Doot (6-7)” by Skrilla, which is a track so aggressively bad it should be considered auditory vandalism. That song, unfortunately, went viral on TikTok, and suddenly kids everywhere started shouting “6-7!” like they just cracked the Da Vinci Code.

Except instead of a secret, they found… just two numbers.

No context.

No meaning.

Just Gen Alpha brain-rot energy on full display.

Congratulations, society… you did it. 🎉

Why Gen X Can’t Handle This

We come from the era of:

• Take a chill pill (sound advice)

• As if! (peak sarcasm)

• Whatever (the national Gen X motto)

• Bogus (still relevant, actually)

Our slang had… intent.

It was rebellious. Dry. Sarcastic.

We weaponized “whatever” with the power of shoulder shrugs.

We didn’t yell random numbers like we were NPCs glitching in a Nintendo cartridge.

If we heard someone screaming “6-7!” in the 80s, we’d have assumed:

• They were calling out a dodgeball court lineup

• They misheard an emergency code

• They were having a BASIC programming crisis on their Commodore 64

Origins of the Nonsense

It started with a TikTok audio. Then some high-schooler screamed “6-7!” during a basketball game, while gesturing with his hands in a way that made him even more annoying. Then a 6’ 7” pro basketball player referenced it. There are a few more rabbit holes I won’t bore you with… but then… then the internet did what it always does.

Now kids say it as a reply to:

“How are you?” 👉 6-7

“What’s that mean?” 👉 6-7

“Why?” 👉 6-7

This is language now.

Shakespeare walked so TikTok Alpha could grunt and throw integers at us.

Light at the End of the Dial-Up Tunnel

Look… it’s stupid. Hilariously stupid. But harmless.

Every generation gets nonsense slang:

Gen X had “psych!”
Gen Z had “yeet”
Gen Alpha has… a math problem they refuse to solve

We survived the Satanic Panic, the Cold War, dial-up, Blockbuster late fees, Garbage Pail Kids bans, Y2K Armageddon, and drinking from garden hoses.

We can survive two random numbers masquerading as language.

Still… if the trend could go away before we reach retirement age, that’d be tubular.

So… what do we do with this generation?

Somewhere, right now, a kid is shouting “6-7!” into the void, and a Gen Xer is staring at them like they just announced they’re investing their allowance in NFT beanie babies.

I suppose there’s nothing we can do, really. But here’s a joke:

Kid: Do you know what 6-7 is?

Me: No… but I know 6 is afraid of 7 because 789 ;)

Stay strong, fellow latchkey legends.

We were raised for this chaos.

Now go blast some Duran Duran and reclaim your sanity!

What do you think of all of this? Drop it in the comments section!

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👻 Editor’s Note by John Toma

Every once in a while, a TV show slips through the cracks of pop culture memory. It’s buried by the very thing it was named after. Friday the 13th: The Series was one of those shows.

It wasn’t Jason. It wasn’t Crystal Lake. But it was eerie, inventive, and way ahead of its time. I remember watching it and being completely sucked in by the cursed antiques, the atmosphere, and that “store next door” energy.

While everyone expected a hockey mask, what we got instead was something closer to The Twilight Zone meets The X-Files, and this was years before Mulder and Scully ever hit the scene. It was smart, creepy, and wildly underappreciated. I’ve also got to say, it was quite sexy. As a young kid seeing Louise Robey as Micki Foster the first time… let’s just say I was quite intrigued!

If any 80s horror property ever deserved a Netflix-era revival, it’s this one.

So, in the spirit of Halloween, and cursed collectibles (a theme we all love), I’m turning over the spotlight to horror author Tom Leveen, who captures exactly what made this short lived cult series so unforgettable in his guest piece below.

The Night Jason Didn’t Show Up (But Something Cool Did)

Guest Post by Author Tom Leveen
(Author of Hellworld, Zero, and Those We Bury Back)
About Tom → | Tom’s Substack →

I turned on the little color TV in my bedroom that night in October 1987 with great anticipation.

How would filmmakers turn Jason Voorhees’ bloody saga, which up to that point consisted of six feature films, into a television series? Impossible!

And, as the opening credits rolled for Friday the 13th: The Series, it seemed I was right: It was impossible. This very clearly wasn’t Jason. Not even Crystal Lake.

What the—?

So 13-year-old me was pretty disappointed. How did these dumb TV show people manage to ruin what was, to me, a very effective slasher franchise?

Like, you could tell right away this was wrong during those credits, with its slow pan of the store and its items. This felt a lot like Ray Bradbury Theater or Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

So where was my ch-ch-ch, ah-ah-ah (a.k.a. ki ki ki, ma ma ma)?

Jason’s not even listed in the credits!

Then, at minute number four —

The doll.

That white-faced porcelain doll with its tinkling music-box theme, the slow dolly (haha!) forward of the camera…

DUDE, EVEN AS I WRITE THIS I AM GETTING GOOSEBUMPS.

Something inside me clicked. Like all good things from that era, whatever this show was, it wasn’t what I expected, but it was exactly what I needed.

The Allure of Episode One

In one of my horror novels, Those We Bury Back, a doll similar to the one in Friday the 13th: The Series makes a horrifying appearance, and the protagonist tries to understand what is so scary about a toy, and comes to this realization:

“It wasn’t that the toy posed a threat, at least not that he could see; it was more like the helpless horror of watching a car crash. Some feral, animal part of you wanted to reach out and just stop the cars from hitting. But you knew that couldn’t happen. Could not. So instead you’d be gripped by paralyzing fear, unable to act, unable to turn away. The unreality of the whole thing is what made it so frightening. This was something so utterly otherworldly, something having no business on this plane of existence, that it shrank his freezing feet inside his wet shoes and made every open hole in his body shrivel up tight. It did not belong.”

That’s what the Ft13:TS doll was. It didn’t belong.

I’d grown up on video rental stores long before Blockbuster existed in my town, and these places would rent anything to anyone … even if you were in first grade and handed over the clamshell for Tourist Trap (1979). (Tourist Trap was on VHS in 1980. Which means I was in first or second grade when I saw it the first time. Also it had a PG rating. PG!*)

By the time Friday the 13th: The Series aired October 3, 1987, I’d already seen Dolls, either on late-night cable or rented from Your Movie House on the corner. As a little kid, I’d been petrified by the TV trailer for Magic. I’d seen Dark Night of the Scarecrow when it aired in 1981. Amazing Stories had an episode called “The Doll” in ’86 (which, albeit, took a touching turn). Twilight Zone had that chilling Telly Savalas episode “Living Doll.”

As a too-young child, I breathlessly watched them all, and had the nightmares to prove it. In ’88, I even made my own short film in my house about haunted stuffed animals with a borrowed VHS camera.

Dolls, dummies, mannequins — they all scared the hell out of me.

So from minute number four in Friday the 13th: The Series, I was hooked. To be sure, there are stronger episodes than “The Doll,” but my personal terrors make this pilot one of my all-time favorites.

Ryan, Micki & Jack: The Found Family That Fought Evil

Ryan Dallion (played by John D. LeMay) was older than me, but not too much older. He was the cool older brother I didn’t have. (I have many older brothers, but none of them played a role in my childhood.)

I know a lot of guys had crushes on Micki, but I wasn’t one of them; I’d always appreciated Velma more than Daphne.

Ryan was brash and had a devil-may-care (haha!) attitude about life that I admired. But I also admired that his character — as well as Micki — evolved and matured as the show went on.

He spoke, looked, and acted the role of the irresponsible man-child, but when the devil came a’callin’, he stepped up. I hoped I could be like that.

The trio — Ryan, Micki, and Jack — hit all sorts of anthology-horror tropes, and in some ways can be seen as the progenitor to The X-Files, with a smarmy, youthful, black-haired young man pairing with his opposite, a red-haired, serious-minded young woman as they fight evil, a new monster every week.

It didn’t invent the “attractive young people guided by a wise older man battling evil” format, but it brought that dynamic into Gen-X living rooms. The X-Files? Check. Buffy? Check. Both owe a debt to Ft13:TS.

Cursed Objects, Cursed Titles, and the Curse of Cancellation

Friday the 13th: The Series was spawned by one of the producers of the slasher-movie franchise of the same name (Frank Mancuso Jr), who knew very well that naming the show after the Jason movies would generate interest.

Clearly, it worked. The show’s ratings were comparable to Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Also like The X-Files (in my opinion), the show is saddled with the loss of one of its two charismatic leads, and another actor is brought in to fill the space left behind. Even if they do an admirable job, the weight of history is always against them.

Worse still, the studio killed the show just short of its final few episodes, denying fans a satisfying conclusion to the arc begun three years prior.

May we never forgive studio heads who cancel shows mid-run without an actual ending!

The Uncanny Lives On

For those of us raised on fuzzy late-night Up All Night horror, grimy VHS boxes, and forbidden rentals (not that my parents ever tried to stop me — did yours?), Friday the 13th: The Series hit right in the soul.

Like many creepy shows, it was both scary and strangely comforting — a found family of misfits doing their best to undo the damage done by the greedy, the foolish, and the cursed.

One of my life goals as an author is to write a book detailing every feature film and TV episode dealing with scary animated puppets, dolls, and the like. There’s something about that uncanny valley that just chills me to this day.

And with the advent of almost-free-thinking, lifelike robots coming soon to a Walmart near you, maybe now’s a really good time to ask if we should make non-humans that look and act like humans do.

Maybe we ought to remember the doll’s chilling whisper to the little girl Mary:

“I can do a lot of things.

And so can you.

We’re going to be the best of friends …”

Which Episodes Do You Remember Best?

Share your memories in the comments, and have a safe, spooky Halloween.

— Tom Leveen

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I fractured a couple of my fingers recently and I’ve been working on a secret Halloween holiday project, so I’ve kept typing to a minimum. Be back soon with a rad deep-dive you all expect every week. In the meantime, enjoy this little gem!

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If you lived in Portland in 1988, Freddy Krueger didn’t just invade your dreams, he crashed your holiday season. Local station KPDX 49 ran a bizarrely convoluted contest called Freddy’s Holiday Party, where you could win a “Holiday Party Kit” loaded with treasures like a Dream Master VHS tape, Freddy Krueger party hats, and official invitations straight from your nightmares.

To enter, all you had to do was tune in to Freddy’s Nightmares every Sunday at 6PM, jot down the episode title on a postcard (remember those?), and hand deliver it to a participating video store. Easy, right? Sure, if you had the patience of a saint and the determination of a sleep deprived Elm Street survivor.

It’s the kind of marketing fever dream only the late 80s could produce. Equal parts confusion and creative charm.

Although it took several replays to fully understand the rule, this commercial is a gem from a time when giveaways were creative. Thought you might appreciate this gem this Halloween season.

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Sometimes my inbox delivers something that stops me cold between caffeine hits and nostalgia scrolls. A few weeks ago, I got a message from , daughter of the late Chris Wiggs, the man who invented Polly Pocket. You know, that tiny pastel clamshell world that lived in every kid’s backpack and somehow made Barbie look like a high maintenance diva with too much luggage.

Kate’s note hit me right in the feels. Her legendary father passed away in 2024 and she shared how she’s been honoring her dad’s legacy through a mix of nostalgia, art therapy, and healing, reflecting on how toys aren’t just plastic, but emotional totems. That idea made me think how these little objects we obsessed over as kids weren’t just playthings. They carried our imagination, our escape, and sometimes even our comfort when the real world felt too big.

The truth is I never played with Polly Pocket toys. I did have a collection of Mighty Max toys, which was an outgrowth from Polly Pocket and geared for boys. However, I grew up with four sisters (yes, I wrote four) and they absolutely loved Polly Pocket!

So today’s piece isn’t just about Polly Pocket the toy line, it’s about why she mattered. To us, to design history, and to the generation that grew up believing magic could fit inside a one-inch hinge.

You can read Kate’s personal letter (The Truth is In The Detail) below this essay.

Polly Pocket dropped in 1989, and it was the toy line that proved you didn’t need lasers, kung fu grips, or holograms to rule the playground. Polly Pocket was small enough to fit in your jean pocket, yet somehow big enough to hold an entire world inside a pastel clamshell.

Polly Pocket came from the brilliant mind of British designer Chris Wiggs (and later licensed by Bluebird Toys). Polly Pocket was the perfect storm of miniature magic and childhood control. For us Gen X kids there was something deeply satisfying about a world that literally snapped shut when you were done. No batteries. No assembly. Just pure, pint-sized escapism.

These toys were micro universes. Each compact opened to reveal a tiny diorama of either a beach resort, fairytale castle, shopping mall, nursery, and many more. And the figures, those teeny, one-inch dolls, were indestructible little icons. They looked like they’d just walked out of a Lisa Frank daydream and had zero articulation, but that was the beauty of it. Imagination did the heavy lifting.

For Gen X girls, Polly Pocket was a small little world that gave them power. You could carry your own world in your pocket. Barbie needed a dream house the size of a dishwasher, but Polly had a universe that fit in your palm. That kind of portability felt futuristic, almost defiant in an age of excess.

Today, the originals are highly collectible. Mint Bluebird sets can fetch hundreds on eBay, and they’re a tangible reminder of when toy design was clever, compact, and unapologetically weird. Before smartphones shrunk our worlds, Polly did it first, and she did it with way more charm.

So here’s to Polly Pocket, the tiny plastic architect of many young girl’s daydreams, who taught us that sometimes the best worlds come in small packages… and snap shut with a satisfying click.

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The Truth is in the Detail

by Kate Wiggs

My Dad always said: ‘The truth is in the detail’—a philosophy extending from design to life itself. I remember one visit to a stately home where even the plainest wooden cabinets bloomed with gold rococo flourishes so intricate that he remarked, “even the cupids have cupids on them.” I felt in those maximalist layers a visceral urgency, a straining toward transcendence through wax-cast gold and brass that it might elevate us at a spiritual level. This obsession with precision would define everything he created, including the tiny universe he placed in my four-year-old hands.

It was September 1982 when I heard Dad say my name with that familiar question mark at the end.

“Katy?”

That hint of a question told me he wanted to show me something. This happened often with my smooth-faced thirty-three-year-old father—where I was concerned, he thought about everything before he did it. I looked directly at his hands, held at my eye level. In his palm sat a bright yellow, flattish disc with a barely visible clasp.

I kept looking.

He pressed the clasp.

The disc opened.

At four, I had a fairly good grasp of the material world. I knew that fruit was soft, that soap and water could make hand-sized bubbles with rainbow colours tumbling inside them, that sugar mice hidden on sunny windowsills developed patchy white coatings but still tasted wonderful. All in all, I knew enough to know that yellow flattish discs don’t open up to reveal entire universes containing limitless other universes inside.

Except this one did.

I didn’t say anything. Neither did he. There was nothing to say. That question mark had communicated everything: Can I show you something? Do you see? Do you understand?

I understood. An entire universe, made the correct size for my hands, and then placed into them.

For several years following that day, I always had ‘Me’s ‘ouse’ with me. It was the perfect toy, endlessly recreating itself. When I felt the need for a quiet place to withdraw to, it provided that. When I felt bright and cheery, it reflected that back. I had the experience of having my inner world mirrored over and over, until the day Dad found it at the bottom of our red wooden toy chest and understood the potential, the ‘everyman’ quality of this simple doll and her portable universe.

Dad’s early life was far from easy, and he grew protective of the quick mind and precocious creative skill that he learned to hide within the hostile environments of his childhood. This meant that rather than being quashed, they proved to be his best assets. It also meant he had an instinctive sense of what it meant to have a sanctuary of one’s own, something no adult could enter without permission, something that could travel with you wherever you went.

Shortly before he died, Dad asked me to write the story, and the graphic novel format feels like the natural approach, because so much of our early lives were visually orientated. He would always create models for us to explain new concepts, very much a believer in ‘show me don’t tell me.’ As a result, my brother and I had our visual skills developed from day one; my brother became an animator and me an artist and art therapist. I’d written around 30,000 words of the story and was feeling stuck with the traditional memoir approach when I came across the idea that graphic novels work best when there are strong visual characters. Immediately, I saw in my mind’s eye the three main characters as they would appear illustrated, and the idea has been with me ever since.

There’s something pleasing about using a visual medium to tell the story of a man who believed the truth lived in the smallest details, from the tiny but robust hinges, the dual layered mouldings inside the original compacts and the hidden battery compartments. Dad taught me that universes could fit in your palm, that love could be expressed through engineering solutions, and that sometimes the most profound truths are found not in grand gestures but in the focus inwards, looking to the quiet place where the magic happens.

Kate’s website | Kate’s Substack

Reader question: Did you have Polly Pocket toys?

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