Tag Archives: 80s

Pizza Hut Training Video from 1988

Posted on by
Reply

By now, you should certainly know how I feel about Pizza Hut from back in the day. It was one of the best dining experiences you could find in the late ’80s and early ’90s. I’m so nostalgic for that period of time at the Hut, that I’m always on the lookout for anything associated with it from then.

I came across this old training video from 1988 that I guess was what new hires had to sit and watch at the beginning of their employment. It’s a basic video on various pizza construction and some quality stuff, but things like this are like catnip for me. I could sit and watch this over and over. Well, at least a few times anyway.

But when you have 15-20 minutes to spare, give it a watch and it will transport you back to those good old days of Pizza Hut.

1984 TV Guide Fall Preview

Posted on by
Reply

One of the things I miss most about the past is just how much info used to come packed in an issue of TV Guide. In the ’90s, that thing became quite a thick publication that was filled with the nightly TV grids so you’d know what was on TV when, and cool ads for various shows and movies each night.

But as good as normal issues of TV Guide were, their best issue of the year was always their fall preview issues where they’d run down all of the new series debuting on network television that fall. Every year was sure to bring hits and misses, and going back through those old issues now is a real trip back in time.

With that in mind, I present this Time Capsule and all of the fall preview pages for the fall of 1984. There were some epic shows that debuted in 1984, plus a few not so epic ones too. Give the pages a look and remember what it was like flipping through a TV Guide fall preview back then.

Alpha Mission for Nintendo

Posted on by
Reply

The great space saga known as Alpha Mission…..or kind of a Galaga knockoff. This was a cool game where you had a space fighter and the ability to upgrade its weapons and defense systems in the course of the gameplay. Once you earned more weapons, you could switch back and forth between them. At the end of each level was a boss, and that boss was only beatable by one of those special weapons….and you had to figure out which one and select it before you got to him. It was hard in the beginning, but soon it became one of those games that I would sit down for an hour and a half and run through the whole thing for fun.

I got Alpha Mission on the same night I got my Nintendo. When we went to pick it up, all my local Hills department store had were the Nintendo systems without any games. So my dad let me pick a game, and I picked Pro Wrestling. While there in the store, he decided he wanted to pick a game and he chose Alpha Mission. I was astounded that my old man was picking out a game to play.  He was genuinely excited about getting a Nintendo, but I had my doubts about just how much he would actually sit down and play.  Turned out I was right, as he only played Alpha Mission once.  I’m glad he picked it up though because as noted earlier, it became one of my favorite games to kill time with.

Masters of the Universe Toys Ad (1984)

Posted on by
2

This may be my favorite ad out of all of the many ones that were printed for the line. If it’s not at the top of my list, it’s certainly in the top five. The image of the kid having a ball playing with the MOTU figures with his Mom over his shoulder fills me with nostalgia because my own Mom would sometimes watch me play with various toys.

I have no idea where this ad originally appeared, but I can tell it was a two-page spread. Can you imagine how awesome it would be to be thumbing through some magazine and all of a sudden you turn a page and BAM!, this ad smacks you right in the face!

Looking at the figures that are prominent in the ad, it can be guessed that this ad is from 1984. Everything pictured was on the market by 1984, and I don’t see anything that was released in 1985 or later.

There are 18 different action figures from the line pictured, and I had 17 of them with the lone exception being Webstor. But I did get a chance to play with Webstor on occasion because my cousin Tim had him. I really dug the Webstor figure because of his cool backpack grappling hook feature that allowed him to scale objects with the pull of the string coming out of the bottom of the backpack.

Of the figures pictured here, it’s hard for me to narrow down my favorite. The Battle Armor He-Man and Skeletor figures were cool with their rotating check plates that showed increasing damage during battle. But Cobra Khan had the cool “spitting” feature where you could fill him up with water and pump his head like a spray bottle and it would squirt out of his mouth. Then there are Fisto and Jitsu with their action arm features, and Whiplash with his elongated rubber tail. Dang, those figures were just so much fun back then.

Besides the figures, you’ve also got both Castle Grayskull and Snake Mountain present, showing off the cool playsets that were available as part of the line. I had both of those too. I got Castle Grayskull for Christmas one year, but can’t recall when and where I got Snake Mountain.

In closing, this ad just brings a ton of memories flooding back to me, and I wish I could go back in time…not just in body, but in mind and youthfulness and live through the boom period of the Masters of the Universe again.