History Main / The80s

* ''ARG/OngsHat'': The ARG was first created in the late-1980s.

* ''ARG/OngsHat'': The ARG was first created in the mid-1980s.

See Also: TheRoaringTwenties, TheGreatDepression, TheForties, TheFifties, TheSixties, TheSeventies, TheNineties, TurnOfTheMillennium, TheNewTens, and TheNewTwenties.

''Film/BobMarleyOneLove'': 2024 Music/BobMarley BioPic, set from 1976 to 1981.

* ''Film/EddieTheEagle'': 2016 Michael Edwards BioPic.

In the US, it was also the second[[note]]The first wave was ''Anime/AstroBoy'' up through ''Anime/SpeedRacer''[[/note]] wave of UsefulNotes/TheJapaneseInvasion, the inklings of which started in '78 with the dub of ''Anime/BattleOfThePlanets'', continuing on with ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato'' ('79),'' Anime/{{Voltron}}'' ('84), [[TookALevelInBadass getting even more hardcore]] with ''Anime/{{Robotech}}'' in '85, and hitting its apex with the nationwide release of ''Manga/{{Akira}}'' ('88). Japan additionally managed to break through in the US via the gaming industry, with the success of Creator/{{Nintendo}}'s ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'' and wider success of the Platform/NintendoEntertainmentSystem leading Japan to become the leading theater of the video game industry in the US following [[MediaNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 the North American video game industry crash]] in 1983. Names like Creator/{{Capcom}} and Creator/{{Konami}} became major players in the software side of the industry with loads of smash titles that would eventually grow into major franchises, and while western developers were still around and making games for Nintendo's system, it was the Japanese industry that served as the key focal point.

On the homefront, the 1980s produced a rash of pop-cultural icons that today are looked upon, at worst, with AffectionateParody, and at best, as the national ideal. The conservative political culture of the era meant two rather contradictory things for the production of pop-culture; on the one hand, the surge of private enterprise together with new media technologies allowed corporations such as Creator/{{Hasbro}} an unprecedented ability to build [[MerchandiseDriven massive franchises]] around their products, typically with a TV show and accompanying toys, but on the other hand, MoralGuardian complaints would challenge the ethics of making a show that was "essentially one large commercial" in addition to railing against any work of media that didn't meet their rigid standards. The result was the rather spoof-worthy AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle segment common to many mass franchise shows, shoving an {{Anvilicious}} moral into the action. Fortunately, these were conveniently located after the actual plot, so kids could just turn it off at that point and run down to buy the toys. Besides, the segments [[SoBadItsGood make]] [[MemeticMutation great]] [[YouTubePoop joke]] fodder. The prominence of moral guardians during this decade would have considerable ramifications in later decades, with "mature" content being galvanized as the artistic ideal from the 1990s onward[[note]]the idea already started to take form with the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood era of 1965-1983, but solidified in the '90s as a result of the heavy amount of moral guardianship in this decade[[/note]] and companies who appealed to the idea of "family-friendliness" (most notably Creator/{{Nintendo}}) facing nothing short of ridicule once the conservative culture of the '80s gave way to '90s and 2000s cynicism.

* LimitedAnimation: Cartoons still suffered from being shoddily animated, though a slight improvement from Creator/HannaBarbera or Creator/{{Filmation}} {{Domestic Only Cartoon}}s that dominated the 70s as animation began being outsourced to Japan and South Korea. Most 80s cartoons were also notoriously thinly veiled toy commercials or extremely saccharine schlock to appease {{Moral Guardian}}s. However, the situation began to change midway through the decade with Creator/{{Disney}} finally entering the TV animation market with big budgeted and well-written productions like ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGummiBears'' and ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'' and setting off UsefulNotes/TheRenaissanceAgeOfAnimation as the competition realized they had to raise their own standards.

** UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHipHop: From the late 1970s, blossoming throughout the 1980s until the early 1990s.

* TropeMaker: And TropeCodifier. With [[UsefulNotes/TheBlockbusterAgeOfHollywood blockbuster films coming on full force]], the wide introduction of computers and VideoGames, and with the rise of cable television with channels like Creator/{{MTV}}, Creator/{{HBO}}, CNN, {{Creator/Nickelodeon}}, et al., giving time and interest to watching more of it in a single channel than in a [[UsefulNotes/BlockProgramming programming block]], the tropes and the StockParodies that came to the scene in this decade are:

** RogerRabbitEffect: While nothing revolutionary, given that the animation technique was used during UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation, it was given a name, and this was done in works like Music/AHa's "Take on Me" and, of course, ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit''.

* VideoGamesOfThe1980s: Despite the [[SerendipityWritesThePlot technological limitations]] and [[UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 a great fiasco early on in the decade]], video games as a whole was a promising media platform. And it all started [[UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem in]] [[UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows 1985]]. In this decade it made, named and codified:

In the US, it was also the second[[note]]The first wave was ''Anime/AstroBoy'' up through ''Anime/SpeedRacer''[[/note]] wave of UsefulNotes/TheJapaneseInvasion, the inklings of which started in '78 with the dub of ''Anime/BattleOfThePlanets'', continuing on with ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato'' ('79),'' Anime/{{Voltron}}'' ('84), [[TookALevelInBadass getting even more hardcore]] with ''Anime/{{Robotech}}'' in '85, and hitting its apex with the nationwide release of ''Manga/{{Akira}}'' ('88). Japan additionally managed to break through in the US via the gaming industry, with the success of Creator/{{Nintendo}}'s ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'' and wider success of the UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem leading Japan to become the leading theater of the video game industry in the US following [[UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 the North American video game industry crash]] in 1983. Names like Creator/{{Capcom}} and Creator/{{Konami}} became major players in the software side of the industry with loads of smash titles that would eventually grow into major franchises, and while western developers were still around and making games for Nintendo's system, it was the Japanese industry that served as the key focal point.

While other hardware developers would fail to adequately crack Nintendo's dominance for most of the decade, that all changed in 1987, when a joint venture between NEC and Hudson Soft resulted in the creation of the UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16, which became a surprise success in its native Japan and outsold the NES, spurring Nintendo into action in creating [[UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem a competing system]] to keep their place in the industry intact. The following year, Creator/{{Sega}} would introduce its own [=TurboGrafx=] rival, the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis, with its 1989 debut in the US managing to both successfully stamp out the [=TurboGrafx's=] presence in the west and present the first real challenge to Nintendo as a hardware manufacturer. This battle, however, wouldn't truly take hold until the first years of the next decade, in part because it took Nintendo until 1990 (in Japan) and 1991 (in the US) to release their own new system.

* UsefulNotes/Commodore64: The most widely sold inexpensive multipurpose home computer of this decade.