"Wait, That Happened?!": 5 Totally Bizarre Gen X Moments You Probably Slept Through (Even If You Grew Up Then)
Before anyone cared about kale, the 80s and 90s were quietly weird in ways no one warned us about.
1. The U.S. Tried to Build a Real-Life Star Wars (No, Not the Movie)
Long before Elon Musk played Space Barbie with his rocket ships, President Reagan had his own sci-fi fever dream in 1983. The project was called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known—unironically—as Star Wars. The plan? Use space lasers to shoot Soviet nukes out of the sky like we were in a bonus level from a video game. I mean, the concept was pretty awesome. Lasers from space… what’s not to love?
Problem was, the technology to pull it off didn’t actually exist. We’re talking about pre-CD-ROM era tech trying to laser missiles from orbit. Most of the "defense" was theoretical, which didn’t stop the government from funneling billions into it like it was a rich kid's arcade allowance.
Speaking of rich kids, remember the show Silver Spoons and that rad train set that went around the living room?
Ok, so The Soviets freaked out. Scientists facepalmed. Gen X kids just kept watching The Last Starfighter and assumed this was all part of the canon. Anyway, when I think about it now I don’t know why my mind keeps going to Captain America: The Winter Soldier from 2014. In that film, Project Insight is the secret S.H.I.E.L.D./Hydra program that uses three upgraded Helicarriers linked to a satellite system to preemptively eliminate threats using precision-targeted weapons. These were essentially laser-guided gun systems. But the targets were people. So maybe it’s a good thing SDI never happened…. Or did it?
2. There Was a Real "Toy War" in America — and It Got Ugly
You think the Console Wars between Sega and Nintendo were brutal? In the early 80s, there was a full-blown Retail Toy War between Kenner, Mattel, Hasbro, and anyone else brave enough to throw elbows in a Toys “R” Us aisle.
The stakes? Shelf space, Saturday morning commercial supremacy, and your hard-earned 1985 birthday list.
Kenner’s Star Wars figures had just finished cleaning house, so Mattel launched He-Man in 1982, then Hasbro dropped G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. Barbie? She got new hair, new cars, a hot tub, and even dabbled in breakdancing just to stay relevant.
These companies turned children into brand-loyal foot soldiers. And, look, I’d be lying if I said that we weren’t fine with it. I’m still a firm believer that Saturday Morning Cartoons should have never been attacked by ignorant parents thinking they were protecting us from capitalism.
But here’s the weird part: At one point, He-Man outsold Barbie. For a brief shining moment, a guy in a loincloth with a bad bowl cut was America’s top toy.
3. Max Headroom Hacked a TV Station and Nobody Ever Caught Him
In 1987, some unknown prankster wearing a Max Headroom mask (you remember him—the glitchy AI TV host with the stuttering voice and creepy smile) hijacked a Chicago TV broadcast.
This wasn’t part of a promo. It was straight-up illegal pirate TV. Someone overrode the signal during a local news segment and again during an episode of Doctor Who. He danced around, said weird stuff, and got spanked with a flyswatter. (I honestly couldn’t make this up if I tried.)
To this day, nobody knows who did it. The FBI, FCC, and all the alphabet soup agencies couldn’t crack the case. Meanwhile, Gen Xers just changed the channel and figured it was another weird dream caused by eating too many Funyuns at midnight.
4. Michael Jackson Tried to Buy Marvel Comics… So He Could Be Spider-Man
I know… this sounds insane, but it’s true!
In the mid-90s, Michael Jackson tried to buy Marvel Comics, back when Marvel was circling the financial drain thanks to overprinting, writing and creating crappy comic books, and dropping five variant covers per issue.
Why? Because he wanted to play Spider-Man in a movie. No joke. MJ had already bought the Beatles' song catalog, so why not own Peter Parker too?
Stan Lee even confirmed it. The plan didn’t go far, partly because MJ would've had to actually act like a nerdy teenager and not, you know, Michael Jackson. Still, it’s wild to think we were one dicey business deal away from a Captain EO and Spidey crossover event!
5. Pepsi Accidentally Promised a Fighter Jet… and Got Sued by a College Kid
In 1996, Pepsi ran a “Drink Pepsi, Get Stuff” promo campaign where you could collect Pepsi Points to redeem for prizes like T-shirts, sunglasses, and leather jackets. But in the ad, as a joke, they included a Harrier jet. Yeah, an incredibly expensive vertical takeoff military aircraft — for 7 million points. Cue the record scratch.
Enter John Leonard, a college student who saw the ad and realized there were no disclaimers saying it was a joke. He found a loophole. Pepsi let you buy extra points for 10 cents each. So Leonard got investors together, wrote a check for $700,000, and sent it to Pepsi, fully expecting a damn Harrier jet.
Pepsi, understandably, freaked out. They claimed it was satire. He sued them in what became Leonard v. PepsiCo, a real federal case about whether a soda commercial constituted a legally binding offer of military-grade aviation.
Spoiler alert: Leonard didn’t get the jet. But the story was so ridiculous, it inspired a Netflix docuseries in 2022, which is actually really good. And the lesson? Always read the fine print, or you become the fine print.
Gen Xers lived through some weird times…
I know us Gen X kids didn’t grow up in a vacuum, but it certainly can feel like we grew up in a funhouse mirror version of history. Between the Cold War, Ronald Reagan’s space ambitions, and toy companies manipulating our tiny brains like behavioral psychologists with a plastic fetish, the 80s & 90s were weird as hell. And if you blinked (or were just trying to beat Contra without the code), you probably missed a few of these moments.
Just another reminder that the 1980s and 1990s were quietly bananas.
THANKS FOR READING.
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As the song says: “Ah, yes! I remember it well!” Thanks for calling them to my mind, John.
Seems like I read somewhere that SDI was less about building Star Wars-style lasers, than it was about bankrupting the Soviet Union. Who knows if that’s even a little true, but I imagine all that spending did help speed the fall of the Communist Russkie regime.
By the way, when my brother and I wanted something and my single dad said we couldn’t have it, he would often add: “If you don’t like it, ‘Tough shisky,’ as the Russkies say.” I spelled it without the “t” here because that’s how I heard it as a 7 year old. In retrospect, I’m guessing that “t” was in there.🤔😂
(Note: And I’m sure you know that “Russkies” was also the name of an 80s movie starring Whip Hubley, Joaquin (AKA “Leaf”) Phoenix, and Peter Billingsley of A Christmas Story fame.)
Fun times!