In Spite Of A Nail / Dirty Laundry: An Alternate 1980s

• Not only does Back to the Future still exist ITTL, but all but three of the actors remain the same from OTL^note John Cusack as Marty McFly, Melora Hardin as Jennifer Parker, and Joan Cusack as Linda McFly.
  • The plots of the OTL Back to the Future films are essentially the same ITTL, only Part II is TTL's Part IV and Part III is TTL's Part II.
• Posts involving album info reveal that The Other Wiki still exists ITTL.
• M*A*S*H still has its finale ITTL, the same Nielson rating and the same amount of viewers as well.
  Andrew: All exactly as IOTL. Unlike certain other timelines, the M*A*S*H* finale remains one of the defining moments of the early 1980s ITTL.
• Ronald Reagan still gets two terms ITTL.
• Unfortunely, Billy Squier's "Rock Me Tonite?" music video is still a thing.
• "Welcome to the Jungle" is still made, albeit as a Mötley Crüe song; the same album also features "November Rain".
  • And this time, it goes to #1.
• Despite it being released under Atari, the Nintendo Entertainment System only has three changes made to it from OTL.^note The Atari logo (obviously), a "slightly modified version of OTL's gamepad with a screw-hole in the center of the D-pad and a small joystick screwed into it", and "that crappy Ricoh 6502-knockoff" microprocessor being replaced with the actual 65C02.
  • However, thanks to The Great Video Game Crash of 1983 not being a thing ITTL, the actual design of the game system resembles the 7800.
• We still get "New Coke". Oh, boy, do we still get "New Coke".
  • Not to mention that Bill Cosby is still chosen as the spokesman for Coca-Cola. However, unlike OTL, he was devastated after what was revealed in Mullins v. Coca-Cola, saying that he was "misled".
• According to Word of God, the Iran-Contra Scandal hasn't "yet?" been butterflied away.
• The Impossiball is still invented in the 1980s but has a slight design modification to make it "an actual, playable ball" on top of a twisty puzzle.
• We still have a "Satanism" scare here... only worse.
• Sadly, the "Night Stalker" still ran rampant ITTL. As for how it played out? ...well...
• This post concerns two OTL events that still occur ITTL: "The Punisher"'s 1986 reboot and the Challenger disaster. The second one being a very sad case because Andrew wanted to avert it.
• The "Understanding AIDS" pamphlets still get mailed out and President Ferdinand Marcos' snap election still happens. Thanks to them happening in the same year, however, butterflies result in Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile enacting a coup, declaring himself the sovereign government of the Philippines, dissolving the Batasang Pambansa and promising a "new Constitution.
  • Also Cardinal Jaime Sin still condemns the "Understanding AIDS"' pamphlets. The butterflies affect him too, however; he winds up getting arrested at Manila International Airport, which helps cause the above to happen in a way.
• Chernobyl still happens but winds up being one magnitude less disastrous ITTL.
• Ready to have your mind blown? Despite "Dirty Laundry" not existing ITTL, "Dirty Laundry" still exists (albeit as a feature-length film called "The Punisher: Dirty Laundry" instead of being a short film).
  • What makes this funnier is that Andrew only found out about that short film's existence after planning out the reboot of "The Punisher".
  Andrew: The mind boggles.
• "The Wonder Years" still becomes a thing, even with Fred Savage starring in it!
• The California Raisins are still a thing ITTL albeit In Name Only.
• Warner still sells Atari mid-1984. Except it was due to Warner Bros.'s movie division not doing so well, lacking the successes of Gremlins and Purple Rain ITTL. And even if Atari was profitable, it still required heavy investment to develop new computers and Warner wasn't exactly aiming to be in the electronics business. Compared to OTL however, they sold Atari in one piece, instead of selling the games and hardware divisions separately. And the buyer? Honeywell, who wanted to mainly compete against IBM in selling business computers.
• Jack Tramiel still gets forced out of Commodore, and buys a failing computer company, and have it sell hardware based on OTL's Atari ST. The failing company in this timeline, however, would be Tandy, not Atari.
• Ray Kassar still gets investigated for insider trading in relation to Atari's moves. Instead of selling Warner stock before Atari's bad earnings were announced, he bought Warner stock on margin before Atari's sale was announced.
• Sadly, "Son of Svengoolie" still gets cancelled ITTL.^note First response. However, on the bright side, this still happens.^note 8th response.
• Keith Olbermann still is writing for Sports Illustrated in TTL's-1986.
• Donald Trump still bought the New Jersey Generals in 1983 and still wound up being a key figure in the USFL v. NFL case.
• Although "The Super Bowl Shuffle" is "Perfect Season" ITTL, all the song's proceeds went to the Chicago Community Trust to help needy families in Chicago. Word of God even says that In-Universe, some version of Walter Peyon's lyric "Now we’re not doing this because we’re greedy, the Bears are doing it to feed the needy." still exists in the song.
  • The song still reaches #41 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.
    Andrew: This is exactly the same ranking as OTL, and I suspect that in both timelines, the numbers may have been artificially jiggered to keep the song out of the Top 40. Or you can view it as coincidence; the choice is up to you. :)
• Believe it or not, Still The Big Chill exists IOTL. You know it as "Hometown".
• There is still a massive Award Snub in the Best Hard Rock/Metal category at the 1989 Grammys. Only this time it's Def Leppard winning instead of Jethro Tull.