Web Video / 80's Dan

So hello, sunny skies
Goodbye, blues!

A character and show created by Brad Jones as a spinoff of The Cinema Snob. Dan got zapped from 1989 to the present when in Brad Tries... Brad opened a bottle of New Coke. Since then, Dan has settled with his roommates, Dolly and R.O.B. the Robot, and his neighbors the Crabtrees, to talk about his favorite stuff from The '80s, no matter how stupid or schlocky it is.

Most of the show is done in a fake sitcom format, complete with canned audience reactions. Plots usually involve Dan gushing over stuff from his time, his friends getting annoyed, and R.O.B. trying to make it with Mrs. Crabtree, to her husband's increasing annoyance.

Episodes can be found here.

80's Dan has reviewed the following:

• Automan
• World Games (NES)
• The McDLT
• Hot to Trot
• Halloween III: Season of the Witch
• A Very Inappropriate 80's Dan Christmas
• C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud
• Christmas Eve in Springfield

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Provides Examples Of

• Abstract Apotheosis: Dan fell into a time warp at the exact moment the Nineties began.
• Actor Allusion: Spoofed In-Universe. Dan dresses up as Cinema Snob in the Halloween III: Season of the Witch episode, with some heavy Self-Deprecation.
  "I'm that pretentious guy from that internet show!"
  "The stick up his ass seemed pleasant."
  • And then in the next year's Halloween Special, Dan is dressed up as "A Kid from the Nineties".
  • Also, ROB is voiced by Jake, who portrayed a character whose quest it was to make a ROB function (and proceeded to treat it like his own son) in Brad Jones' 2008 film Game Boys.
• Affectionate Parody: The show is one of 80's sitcoms, including a gratuitous Laugh Track and a cute buddy who's completely out of place.
• Ass Shove: In the Christmas Special, Mrs. Crabtree threatens to shove ROB up her own ass. Acts as Foreshadowing to The Reveal that she really does do that kind of thing when drunk, and that the Christmas star 80's Dan and Dolly were looking for throughout the whole thing was up there all along.
• Berserk Button: Halloween III: Season of the Witch is this to Dan.
• Big "WHAT?!": ROB lets out one when Dan gives the Spoof Aesop (see below) at the end of the Christmas Special.
• Black Comedy: "80s Dan's Very Inappropriate Christmas"
• Brick Joke: In Brad Tries... New Coke, Dan mentions that he got some Coke 2 from someone from the 90s who was also in Limbo. Flash forward to his joint review of Bimbos BC with Linkara, where 80s Dan meets 90s Kid and the two plan to swap their supplies of discontinued Coke products.
  • The rifle fired by The Cinema Snob on X-mas of '12 is revisited in Dan's accompanying video: It shatters the window and hits Jake. Everyone else laughs.
• Censor Box / Sound-Effect Bleep: Dolly's religious aura makes it physically impossible to swear around her. But only on Christmas. Actually, the rules aren't clear.
  Snob: I can't say [bleep], but he gets to make jokes about crack and weapons?!
  Dolly: It doesn't make sense to us either.
• Character Blog: ROB The Robot has a Twitter account.
• Christmas Episode: A "Very Inappropriate" one.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Dan, at least that's how he comes across a lot of the time.
• Clown Car: The Chicago Ghostbusters's Ecto 1, which holds a lot more Ghostbusters inside than the outside would indicate.
• Comically Missing the Point: Dan's verdict on Mrs. Crabtree's Halloween outfit.
  "I'm STARBUCK!, goddammit!"
  ""That is the worst Dirk Benedict costume I've ever seen."
  • Then he mistakes Dolly's Sailor Moon outfit for a sexy Donald Duck outfit.
  • For Halloween 2012, Dolly tries wearing a "sexy Captain N" outfit (something Dan might actually recognize.) Everyone mistakes it for Captain Planet, and Dan ends up praising Mrs. Crabtree's Game of Thrones outfit instead.
    • He was told ahead of time about her costume, which is how he knew the reference. He still fails to identify her Khal Drogo handpuppet.
• Cool Shades: Dan has a pair, just to complete the 80's cheese look.
• Crazy-Prepared/Hammerspace: The inner pockets of Dan's suit.
• Crossover: The Christmas special has Dan meet two of Brad's other characters, The Cinema Snob and Kung Tai Ted, and has shout-outs to The Hooker with a Heart of Gold and The Big Box.
  • Dan and 90's Kid of Atop the Fourth Wall have met at least twice (once off-screen and once on-screen).
  Linkara: "Ah, yes. The crossover everyone demanded."
  • The entire cast of 80's Dan appeared alongside The Nostalgia Critic in his review of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Mrs. Crabtree suggesting that 80s Dan shove a New Coke bottle where the sun doesn't shine.
  80s Dan: Y'know, if I shove some coke up my ass, at least I'd die from partying too hard.
  • She suggests a similar fate for R.O.B., but it just turns him on.
• Deadpan Snarker: R.O.B.
• Disco Dan: Dan, who may or may not even be named after that trope.
• Drinking Game: For Halloween III, 80s Dan takes a drink whenever his fellow reviewers make a Bret Easton Ellis reference, and everyone else takes a sip when the jingle comes on.
• Dude, Not Funny!: In-Universe, this is the reaction of everyone to Mr. Crabtree's Challenger astronaut costume, including the Laugh Track.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: 80s Dan originated as a one-off throw-away character in The Cinema Snob's Caligula review, lampshading Drop In Characters.
  • "80s Dan?! THAT'S NOT EVEN A REAL CHARACTER!"
• The '80s: And how it clashes in many ways with modern times.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: "The Sweenz"
• Everything's Deader with Zombies: Sweenz comes back as one.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: A line in the Halloween III review explains that 80s Dan fell into a time warp at the exact moment the 80s ended.
• Foil: Dan is a foil to the Cinema Snob. The two are almost perfect opposites: The Snob hates '80s schlock, Dan loves it. The Snob is unrelentingly cynical, Dan is unreasonably optimistic. The Snob is highly intelligent and cultured, Dan is a complete dimwit. And of course, the Snob wears a black jacket, while Dan wears a white—excuse us, Crockett jacket.
• Functional Addict:
  • It's no secret that Dan is a cokehead. While it might explain some of his eccentricities, it never seems to impair him in any way.
  • Similarly, the rest of the main cast (sans Rob, being a toy robot) are alcoholics and they have a very high alcohol tolerance. It takes 24-hours of drinking for Mrs. Crabtree to become wasted, and unfortunately she's a mean drunk.
• Fridge Logic: In-Universe, Dan eventually calls out Mr. Crabtree's costume. He could have been any astronaut, not one from the Challenger. Instead of answering, Crabtree just shoots zombie Sweenz.
• The Fundamentalist: Dolly turned out to be one, at least when it comes to Christmas.
• Good Old Ways: Dan doesn't have much use for modern CGI.
• Hopeless Suitor: ROB to Mrs. Crabtree.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: 80s Dan's Very Inappropriate Christmas: Jerrid as a lonely Nazi who wants somebody to watch Nazisploitation with him.
• Inadvertent Entrance Cue: Dan originally showed up any time someone mentioned Crystal Pepsi.
  80's Dan: Hi, everyone! Eighties Dan here!
  Brad: The fuck?!
• Jerkass: R.O.B. casually insults everyone around him and hits on Mrs. Crabtree right in front of her husband.
• Lampshade Hanging: In the first episode of 80s Dan, Dan squirms rather sheepishly while the very familiar Automan theme plays:
  Dolly: Why I am thinking of VHS tapes, all of the sudden?
  ROB: Same reason I'm thinking of titties!
• Laugh Track: Not quite spoofed, but it's clear the use isn't serious either.
• Leitmotif: Dan has both "Take On Me" and "Goodbye, Blues" (the theme from Hawaiian Heat).
• Love Triangle: Between ROB, Mrs.Crabtree and her Husband. ROB actually has more of a chance than you would think.
• Meaningful Name: The Crabtrees are a crabby married couple. Also, Jillian as "Dolly."
  • "80s Dan" is the name of a copyright-free music file built into Brad's video editing software.
• Medium Awareness: R.O.B. wonders why the camera cut to him after Dan mentions shows shoehorning in sidekicks.
• Meet Cute: The Title Sequence shows the titular hero falling into a time warp, then getting hit by Dolly's car.
• Mirror Universe: Brad has joked that 80's Dan is basically the "bizarro" Cinema Snob, right down to the white blazer. (In-universe, though, they live down the street from each other.)
• My Eyes Are Up Here: Dolly said this to ROB.
• Negative Continuity: How Dan got here tends to tweak from various videos.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Mrs. Crabtree
• No Full Name Given Mrs. Crabtree is only ever referred to as "Misses".
• Non-Human Sidekick: Spoofed, when Dan said he loved when shows would do this trope for no realistic reason, and the camera cut to R.O.B. the robot, who himself wondered why the camera cut to him.
• Orphaned Series: Curiously not due to both couples starring in the series breaking up/getting divorced, as all were still on good terms. Instead, the series appears unlikely to continue due to the falling out between Brad and Jake (ROB's voice actor). That said, Brad has suggested that if the series continues, there may an an in-universe reasoning for ROB's voice changing or the character being switched out entirely.
• The Other Darrin: Parodied In-Universe with a guy replacing Dolly, until the actual Dolly showed up later, then the Crabtrees being alternately played by inanimate objects.
• Ow, My Body Part!: Mrs. Crabtree on Christmas: "OW MY ASS!" (Don't ask.)
• Perpetual Smiler: Dan, to the point of his smile reaching shit-eating-grin levels.
  • Explained in the Hot to Trot episode. He does cocaine and is high as a kite.
• Reality Subtext:invoked Parodied in "The Sweenz", which plays with fan expectations about Brad's output following various life changes, such as his separation from his wife Jillian (whose character Dolly is now played by a man), Brian and Sarah Lewis's divorce (they're so close to murdering each other they have to be filmed separately with inanimate objects standing in for the other) and Jerrid Foiles leaving Team Snob (he shows up in a gratuitous 5-second cameo just to show he's still around).
• Robot Buddy: R.O.B.
• Self-Deprecation: Dan's Halloween costume. "I'm that pretentious guy from that internet show!"
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Dolly embarking on a journey to find the star to her Christmas Tree. Turns out it's up inside the drunk Mrs Crabtree.
  • "Because this whole holiday reeks of ass!!"
  Dolly: You know, we could've just bought a new star.
• "Shaggy Frog" Story: 80s Dan relating the story of his 1989 Christmas.
• Shipper on Deck: Rob, to Dan and Dolly:
  Rob: You know, I don't understand why you two haven't banged yet.
• Shout-Out: Dan's insistence that his jacket isn't white. "It's Crockett."
  • The 2012 Halloween episode of has Dan dressing up like 90s Kid.
• Sitcom: Done in this style.
• Spinoff: Of The Cinema Snob.
• Spot the Impostor: Mr. Crabtree wanted to shoot the fake Dolly, not because the fake Dolly was dangerous, but because Mr. Crabtree just needed to let off some of his stress.
• Spoof Aesop: 80s Dan's Christmas: "Whether we think about Santa this season, or Jesus, whether we're religious, or we just like presents, we can all agree on one thing. And that's that killing Nazis is fun."
• Stylistic Suck: With intentionally stale jokes and obnoxious Laugh Track.
• Suckiness Is Painful: Mr. Crabtree is anxious to show 80s Dan the new Transformers movies. So he'll kill himself.
• Take That!: To the Transformers movies, TRON: Legacy, and a lot of the 80's cliches.
  • Dan draws a blank on who Angie Harmon of Rizzoli & Isles is. Mr. Crabtree puts it in terms he can understand: "Tyne Daly with a penis."
  • The second Christmas Special has an extended one at Chris Hansen and "To Catch A Predator," described by ROB as being "that show that proves you can be the bigger asshole in a room with a pedophile"
  • The Sweenz was a shot at the people who expected the show to be over after hearing about Brian and Sarah's divorce along with Brad and Jillian's separation.
• Those Wacky Nazis: Dan and Dolly stumbling into a Neo-Nazi's "lair" on Christmas.
• Too Kinky to Torture: ROB is so in love with Mrs. Crabtree that he takes her drunken threat to shove him up her ass as foreplay, even saying that it would be best if she didn't mention such bedroom activities with her husband still in the room.
• Trademark Favorite Food: He's able to trade 90's Kid some New Coke for Crystal Pepsi during the Bimbos B.C. crossover.
• Unpopular Popular Character:invoked Dan is this in spades. In-universe, his friends are all annoyed by him, and they don't seem to hide that fact, either.
• Working with the Ex: Done in a hilarious fashion in "The Sweenz" when despite the two recently divorced couples^note Brad and Jillian, and Brian and Sarah being completely amicable in real life, it's played up like they all can't stand eachother.

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