Daily Dirt: No doubt about it, from hair to social impact, the ’80s will always be “big”

March 27, 2025 | By Steve Eighinger, Muddy River News Minister of Culture and Doctor of Love

The women and the men had big hair on most rock videos on MTV ... back when MTV played videos.

Daily Dirt for Thursday, March 27, 2025

How could a decade that gave us Al Bundy be anything but great? … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 1,240 of The Daily Dirt

1. When we look back to the 1980s, the first word, I think, that crosses many minds is “big”.

Big Hair.

Big Music.

Big Movies.

Big Events.

You get the idea. Our four-day look at the 1960s-70s-80s-90s reaches its penultimate stage today.

When measured in intangibles, the ’80s also had a sense of innocence, much like the 1960s. For those who lived through both periods, I think many feel each decade represented a kind of stepping stone. The ’60s provided the door for a fast-paced 1970s, a decade that seemed to fly by to the beat of an up-tempo disco background. The ’80s blared at us much like one of Heart’s memorable anthems, easing us into the 1990s, which would begin to introduce us to a far more digitalized society that relied more on more on such items as the internet and cellphones.

But for now, we’re looking back at the Big ’80s and 10 (mostly random) items that made that a decade so very memorable:

Video stores: How many hours a week in the 1980s did we spend at these places? At the time, I called a great little town in Ohio named Ashland as home, and every Tuesday the new arrivals at the video store would arrive. It was glorious.

A golden age for TV: From the acceptance and growth of MTV, to weekly programs like “Dallas,” “Cheers,” “The Wonder Years” and “Married … with Children,” the ’80s may go down in history as the greatest 10-year period of television. Certain TV boundaries that had been taboo in the past were being crossed, but we were still a few years away from the unwanted raunchiness that awaited on the horizon. Television had reached “adult” status in the 1980s, a far cry from the pablum we had been served in the 1960s and 1970s. (The most colorful TV character of the decade will always be Al Bundy from “Married … with Children,” and there will be no argument over that decision.)

Rubik’s Cube: Every household had one, but how many ever actually solved this cubed-shape puzzle?

Shoulder pads: All these years later, I’m still not sure how shoulder pads ever became a fashion statement for girls and women.

Big hair: I think this was my favorite part of the decade — next to the “Alone” music video from Heart — and I swear, there are still days when I can smell the hair spray. And big hair was not only a girls thing. Remember bands like Bon Jovi and Motley Crue? There was some serious hair-tactics going on with guys, too.

“Flashdance” fashion: The movie “Flashdance” inspired an entire clothing style with a torn sweatshirts worn off the shoulder.

Pac Man: Video game graphics were improving in the 1980s, and instead of “Pong” and “Space Invaders” we were busying ourselves with “Pac Man”.

Walkman cassette players: These made it possible for us to take our music with us everywhere. It was like having MTV in your ear wherever you went.

Michael Jackson: By the end of 1983, the “Thriller” album had sold 32 million copies and was the best-selling LP of all time. The music video was all over MTV and everyone was doing the dance and singing along with Michael Jackson. A solid runner-up in this category was Madonna, who was the No. 1 female artist of the decade.

Movies, movies, movies: The ’80s gave us such classics as “Back to the Future,” “Breakfast Club,” “E.T. the Extra Terrestrial,” “Ghostbusters,” “Top Gun,” “Dirty Dancing” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” will forever be linked those wonderful years that made up the Big ’80s.

Tomorrow: The 1990s.