A 1980s Childhood (9 page)

Our hero in this film is a young boy called Bastian who escapes bullying by reading a magical book that transports him to the world of Fantasia; here, the Empress pleads with him to save them from a terrible force that threatens the whole world called The Nothing. Bastian is assisted by Atreyu, a young warrior, and a luckdragon named Falkor (who looked a lot like my parents’ Pekingese dog called Ming). The terrible Nothing spreads through the world, destroying it piece by piece as Bastian travels across the mystical land encountering numerous bizarre creatures and challenges along the way. We discover that Fantasia represents humanity’s hopes and dreams and that The Nothing represents apathy, cynicism and the denial of childish dreams. Ultimately, Bastian makes it to the Empress’ ivory tower, but by the time he arrives the whole of Fantasia has been destroyed. After concluding his mission by giving the Empress her new name of Moonchild, the Empress then tells Bastian that he can restore all of Fantasia just by wishing it and using his imagination. The film ends with Bastian flying on the back of Falkor over the restored land of Fantasia, before making a sneaky detour to terrify the bullies back home in the real world.

Back in 1983 when the film
War Games
was released, many British homes had recently purchased a BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64 computer and were just beginning to understand the power and potential of home computers. What they didn’t realise, though, was that their home computer had the potential to inadvertently start a Thermonuclear War. In this cold war suspense film, Matthew Broderick plays young computer hacker David Lightman who accidentally accesses a US military supercomputer programmed to predict possible outcomes of a nuclear war.

Lightman begins by trying to impress his friend Jennifer (Ally Sheedy), showing her how he can hack into the school computer and change her failing grades. As he demonstrates his hacking skills, he comes across an unidentified computer which he believes contains various games he can play, including Theaterwide Biotoxic, Chemical Warfare and Global Thermonuclear War. What he doesn’t realise is that this is actually a back door into a military computer that controls America’s automated missile silos using a kind of artificial intelligence which learns from the outcomes of the various hypothetical ‘war game’ scenarios it runs. As they begin a ‘game of Global Thermonuclear War’, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) control centre believes that actual Soviet missiles have been launched and are heading for strategic targets in the US, although it soon becomes evident that this has not actually occurred. Although no Soviet missiles have been launched, the NORAD supercomputer thinks that missiles have been fired and automatically prepares retaliatory action that will lead to World War III.

Lightman discovers what has happened from a news broadcast and although he tries to cover his tracks, he is quickly arrested by the FBI and taken in for questioning. Lightman realises the severity of the situation and escapes, tracking down the original programmer of the NORAD supercomputer to ask for his help in preventing a nuclear holocaust.

Disaster is averted at the very last moment after Lightman directs the computer to play tic-tac-toe against itself, resulting in a long string of draws and thereby teaching the computer the concept of futility. Just before launching the nuclear missiles, the computer runs through all the possible outcomes of the thermonuclear war and realises they all result in stalemates, at which point the computer decides that nuclear warfare is ‘a strange game’ and offers to play a nice game of chess instead.

This is without doubt one of the greatest science fiction films of the 1980s, telling the story of a lonely boy called Elliott who discovers an alien living in the woods near his home. Some visiting alien botanists had been exploring the woods together but were scared off by US government agents; in their haste to escape, they accidentally leave behind E.T. the extra-terrestrial. Fortunately, this alien is not one of the laser-wielding, blood-sucking varieties and instead prefers watching movies and getting drunk while his new friend Elliott is at school. Everything goes well for a while, although E.T. seems to be missing home and attempts to communicate with his home planet using a makeshift transmitter cobbled together from odds and ends wired to a Speak and Spell toy. E.T. demonstrates some remarkable talents, including reanimating a dead flower, healing an injured finger and using a psychic connection to transfer his emotions to Elliott.

Things start to get a bit edgy when E.T. falls ill; due to his psychic connection, Elliott also gets sick and it becomes evident that the pair are dying. At this point, government agents raid the house and quarantine both Elliott and E.T. in a rather intense and frightening scene which terrified me as a child. It appears as though E.T. dies and Elliott begins to recover, but when Elliott is left alone with E.T., he reanimates and reveals that his alien buddies are coming back to retrieve him. Now all they have to do is escape from the government agents and get to the alien landing site as quickly as possible, giving rise to a heart-pounding BMX bike chase sequence with E.T. in a basket on the front of Elliott’s bike. Trapped in a dead-end, E.T. conveniently demonstrates another of his skills by levitating the bicycle in the air leading to the often-parodied silhouetted-bicycle-in-front-of-the-full-moon shot.

Of course, E.T. makes it back to his spaceship just in time and disappears back off to his home planet, leaving Elliot and his sister Gertie (Drew Barrymore) staring up at a rainbow in the sky. At the time,
E.T.
was the second most financially successful film ever, after
Star Wars
, taking a whopping $792,910,554 at box offices worldwide, as well as generating vast revenues from related merchandise.

While I would dearly love to continue reminiscing about all the other films I enjoyed in the 1980s, I’m going to have to wrap it up because there’s simply not enough space in this book to cover them all. Instead, I’ll leave you with a nostalgic list of some of my personal favourite films and TV shows of the eighties. Please note that I have been careful to only include films that were actually released in the 1980s, but you may notice that some of the TV shows span more than one decade. Of course, a lot of what we watched on television in the eighties was a continuation of existing TV shows that had started back in the seventies.

A Bit of a Do

Airwolf

Alexei Sayle’s Stuff

All Creatures Great & Small

’Allo ’Allo

Are You Being Served?

Auf Weidersehen, Pet

Bananaman

Battle of the Planets

Baywatch

Beadle’s About

Bergerac

Blankety Blank

Blind Date

Blue Peter

Blue Thunder

Brookside

Brush Strokes

Button Moon

Byker Grove

Cagney & Lacey

Cannon & Ball

Catch Phrase

Challenge Anneka

Charlie’s Angels

Cheggers Plays Pop

Chip ’n Dale Rescue Rangers

Chish ’n Fips

Chockablock

Citizen Smith

Clive James on Television

Colin’s Sandwich

Columbo

Come Dancing

Coronation Street

Countdown

Crackerjack

Crimewatch UK

Crossroads

Dallas

Danger Mouse

Dear John

Degrassi Junior High

Des O’Connor Now

Diff’rent Strokes

Dogtanian & the Three Muskehounds

Doogie Howser, M.D.

Dr Who

DuckTales

Dynasty

EastEnders

Emmerdale Farm

Eurovision Song Contest

Family Fortunes

Finger Mouse

Fraggle Rock

French and Saunders

Friday Night Live

Give Us a Clue

Grandstand

Grange Hill

Hale & Pace

Hardcastle & McCormick

Hawaii Five-O

He-Man & the Masters of the Universe

Henry’s Cat

Hi-de-Hi!

Howards’ Way

Inspector Gadget

It Ain’t Half Hot Mum

It’s a Knockout

Jackanory

James the Cat

Jamie and the Magic Torch

Jem and The Holograms

Jimbo and the Jet-Set

Jim’ll Fix It

John Craven’s Newsround

Jonny Briggs

Jossy’s Giants

Juliet Bravo

The Kenny Everett Television Show

The Kids of Degrassi Street

King Rollo

Knightmare

Knight Rider

Knots Landing

LA Law

Last of the Summer Wine

Let’s Pretend

Little House on the Prairie

London’s Burning

Lovejoy

M.A.S.H.

M.A.S.K.

Magnum P.I.

Manimal

Married with Children

Mastermind

Match of the Day

Max Headroom

Mike Yarwood in Persons

Minder

Miss World

Monkey

Monty Python’s Flying Circus

Mork & Mindy

Mr & Mrs

Multi-Coloured Swap Shop

Munch Bunch

Murder She Wrote

My Little Pony ’n Friends

My Two Dads

Naked Video

Neighbours

Noggin the Nog

Not the Nine O’Clock News

Only Fools and Horses

Open All Hours

Opportunity Knocks

Pebble Mill at One

Pigeon Street

Play Away

Play School

Play Your Cards Right

Points of View

Police Squad!

Popeye

Porterhouse Blue

Prisoner (Cell Block H)

Puddle Lane

Punky Brewster

Quantum Leap

Quincy M.E.

Rainbow

Rainbow Brite

Record Breakers

Red Dwarf

Remington Steele

Rentaghost

Roseanne

Rumpole of the Bailey

Russ Abbot’s Madhouse

Sale of the Century

Sapphire & Steel

Saturday Night Live

Saturday Superstore

Saved by the Bell

Screen Test

Sesame Street

She-Ra: Princess of Power

Simon and the Witch

Ski Sunday

Smith & Jones

Sons and Daughters

Sorry!

Spitting Image

Stig of the Dump

Stoppit and Tidyup

Street Hawk

Super Gran

SuperTed

T.J. Hooker

Taggart

Take Hart

Take the High Road

Tales of the Unexpected

Tenko

Terrahawks

Terry & June

That’s Life

The Adventure Game

The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin

The Amazing Adventures of Morph

The A-Team

The Basil Brush Show

The Benny Hill Show

The Children of Green Knowe

The Comic Strip Presents

The Dick Emery Show

The Dukes of Hazzard

The Flumps

The Flying Doctors

The Golden Girls

The Goodies

The Jetsons

The Keith Harris Show

The Krankies Elektronik Komik

The Krypton Factor

The Late Late Breakfast Show

The Laughter Show

The Les Dawson Show

The Les Dennis Laughter Show

The Littlest Hobo

The Magic Roundabout

The Moomins

The Morecambe and Wise Show

The Muppet Show

The Mysterious Cities of Gold

The Onedin Line