Top Gun 1986

Top Gun hit the theaters in 1986 (when a 7PM movie was only $3.85 for a student) and remained in the theaters for what seemed like forever! My buddy Neil and I refused to see Top Gun at first because a cute neighbor of ours, Jennifer, was head over heals in love with Val Kilmer … and we were jealous. We would tell her, “He ain’t all that, he’s got big teeth!”
Anyway, I finally broke down and saw the move in early 1987. Top Gun stayed in the theaters for almost a year. This was back in the days when movies didn’t come out on video – if you missed it in the theater, you had to wait for the television networks to pick it up. Once I saw it, I was hooked and immediately bought the soundtrack. I also fell in love with Kelly McGillis. (she has since hit the wall, hard!) LOL
Look at this list of actors:
Cast
Tom Cruise as Lt. Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell
Kelly McGillis as Charlotte 'Charlie' Blackwood
Val Kilmer as Lt. Tom 'Iceman' Kazansky
Anthony Edwards as Lt. (j.g.) Nick 'Goose' Bradshaw
Tom Skerritt as Cmdr. Mike 'Viper' Metcalf
Michael Ironside as Lt. Cmdr. Rick 'Jester' Heatherly
John Stockwell as Cougar
Barry Tubb as Wolfman
Rick Rossovich as Lt. (j.g.) Ron 'Slider' Kerner
Tim Robbins as Lt. (j.g.) Sam 'Merlin' Wells
Clarence Gilyard Jr. as Sundown
Whip Hubley as Lt. Rick 'Hollywood' Neven
James Tolkan as Stinger
Meg Ryan as Carole Bradshaw
Adrian Pasdar as Chipper

The soundtrack to the movie was also one of the most popular of all time. It included "Take My Breath Away" which became a #1 hit.
You can get many of these songs here:

How to tight roll your pants, 80s style

The coolest kids in 1986 had tight-rolled pant cuffs. Of course, I was one of those cool kids. From what I can remember, tight-rolling hit the St. Petersburg, Fl area in about 1986, and remained a fashion trend until about 1990.
Many have speculated just where the fad started. I believe it came from the boy-band craze surrounding “New Kids on the Block.”
Below, I have demonstrated the steps in properly tight rolling your trousers. Some kids back in the day used safety pins to hold the rolls in place, but that was a definite amateur way to do it. A properly tight-rolled pant leg would at least withstand the rigors of your first and second period classes before needing a refresh.
I also notice that the Old Navy pants I am wearing in the pictures were not made for tight rolling.
The best “pegged” cuffs were achieved on Levi’s 501 button-fly jeans, and Bugle Boy khakis. Some may also remember the Bugle Boy pants that revealed a little design on the underside of the pants, so when you tight-rolled them, you'd reveal a paisley pattern on the rollup.

Start by pulling the cuff out completely.


Next, fold over as far as possible without cutting off the circulation. If you have "cankles," tight rolling is not possible.


Roll cuffs up twice. Notice how the crease extends all the way up to the knee. This is important to achieve the proper "pegged" look.


Next, lose the socks! No respectable 80s kids wore socks! LOL


The finished look is clean, neat and cool.

Thanks to fellow blogger and friend Bryan Seddon for acting as photographer for this post. You can see Bryan's blog here.

Please share with me some of your memories about "pegging" your pants? Ladies, did you tight roll too?...I cannot remember.

Taco Bell "Chilito" 1986

I have always loved Taco Bell. I do not recall the first time I ever ate there, but I do recall my first taste of the famous, "chilito."

It was a summer Sunday evening in 1986. I was in the youth building at my home church, Liberty Baptist, located on 4th street in St. Petersburg, FL. There's a Taco Bell just a block down.
A few of my buddies and I were hanging out prior to the evening services playing ping-pong, and decided to make a quick "Run For The Border."

We all took off on foot and hit the drive-thru (yeah, we thought it was funny to "walk" thru the "drive" thru ... Gen X nerds!). My normal order in those days would have been 2 soft tacos and a small drink for just under $2 total. (some may recall Taco Bell's big promo in those days was their 59/69/79 menu where every menu item was either $.59 $.69 or $.79.

Anyway, this particular evening they had just rolled out a promo for the new "chilito" for $.79.
Interestingly enough, in 1986, the whole "Value Meal" concept had not yet been adopted by the Taco Bell chain; they were still into promoting individual items.
I decided to give it a try and I ordered 2 chilitos.
That was the beginning of a taste-bud obsession that still exists today!

The chilito is the simplest form of Mexi-Fast food. It is a super-soft flour tortilla, lots of melted cheese, and some chili-flavored meat. Add a little mild taco sauce, and you're in taste bud heaven!

To this day, I never order anything else from the Bell. When I am "thinking outside the bun," I'm dreaming of gobs of melted cheese and chili inside a multi-layered tortilla.

Here's some trivia for you:
Currently, the chilito is named the "chili cheese burrito" because the word "chilito" means "penis" in certain slang Spanish dialects! Ha!
Also, you will very rarely find the chili cheese burrito advertised on the actual published menu at your local Taco Bell. In fact, according to this interesting website: www.chilicheese.org, only 12% of Taco Bells nationwide will even make one for you. I believe this figure to be a bit low because I buy them quite frequently at stores located in Indiana and Illinois.

I will say, however, that it is NOT listed on the published menu. I've had to ask for it by name, and in some cases, the kid at the register has had to get a manager to confirm what a chili cheese burrito actually is, it's availability, cost and how to ring it up!

Why has the chilito been sent to the literal back burner in the Taco Bell world? Some speculate that it just was not popular enough. Others think it's due to the bad press over the reference to the male member. Still others conclude its fat content is too high for today's health conscious fast food consumer. (read that again and see it that is funny to you as it is to me! LOL)

To "wrap" this up...if you all could share with me two things:

(1) do you like chili cheese burritos?

(2) what do you pay for them in your state or town? I find the prices range from $1.29 to $1.49.

A-Ha, "Take On Me" 1986

From Wikipedia...
"Take on Me" was estimated to have sold 7-9 million copies worldwide; it peaked at number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and number two in the UK Singles Chart. Sales were aided in the U.S. by a music video on MTV that mimicked the truck chase from Terry Gilliam's movie Brazil and the climactic scene from the Ken Russell film Altered States. The video used a sketchy animation / live action combination called "Rotoscoping" (in which the video is first shot on normal video, then each frame is hand-traced over to give the animated effect) that tells a fantasy thriller story to the song. At the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards "Take on Me" won in six categories. It was also nominated for Best Video Of The Year at 1986 American Music Awards.

By popular demand: MacGyver!

I love MacGyver! This is one of my top 5 favorite shows from the 80s.
Here is a description from Wikipedia:

MacGyver is an American adventure television series, produced in Canada, about a laid-back, extremely resourceful secret agent, played by Richard Dean Anderson. The series was created by Lee David Zlotoff and executive produced by Henry Winkler and John Rich. It ran for seven seasons from September 29, 1985 to May 21, 1992 on the ABC network and filmed primarily in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Of the 139 one-hour episodes, three had two parts. Additionally, two made-for-TV movies were produced in 1994.

Angus MacGyver's main asset is his practical application of scientific knowledge and inventive use of common items—along with his ever-present Swiss Army knife and duct tape and the usual coincidence of being locked up in a room full of useful materials. The clever solutions MacGyver implemented to seemingly intractable problems—often in life-or-death situations requiring him to improvise complex devices in a matter of minutes—were a major attraction of the show, which was praised for generating interest in engineering[1] as well as providing entertaining storylines. All of MacGyver's exploits on the show were ostensibly vetted to be based on real scientific principles (even though, the creators acknowledged, in real life one would have to be extraordinarily lucky for most of MacGyver's ideas to succeed). In the few cases where MacGyver used household chemicals to create poisons, explosives or other things deemed too dangerous to be accurately described for public consumption, details were intentionally altered or vague.

The use of ordinary household items to jury rig devices shows an influence from The A-Team (though MacGyver eschewed firearms). The idea has entered U.S. popular culture; such constructions are referred to as "MacGyverisms" (a term first used in episode 3 of season 2, "Twice Stung").

In an August 2007 survey commissioned by the McCormick Tribune Foundation, Americans polled voted MacGyver as the favourite fictional hero they would want to have if they were ever caught in an emergency. [2]

The thing I always admired about Mac was that he was a likeable, non-threatening, non-intimidating hero. He wasn't too good looking, yet not ugly. He wasn't too cool, but definitely not nerdy. He was a tough guy, yet always hurt his hand when he punched a bad guy... and he was good with the chicks, but not so good. That's pretty much the story of my own life methinks! ...Now, if I could just figure out how to make my truck run on bubble gum and rubbing alcohol instead of gasoline...LOL