Wait, "Hazy Shade of Winter" in '83?: Anachronisms in Stranger Things

[ElectricBoogaloo]

On 11/18/2017 at 11:42 AM, BradandJanet said:

Just finished season 2. About half way through, I heard someone say, "Have a good one." I don't remember this expression until fairly recently. It's one that bugs me, so I noticed it. 

I remember people using that phrase in ye olden times. Some of the boys used to respond with remarks like “I already have a good one. Now I just need a longer one.”

[methodwriter85]

I tend to give shows a pass on background stuff like that. There's really only so much you can do to keep things period if you're shooting on location and not in a set. I'm sure that extra got chewed out later on.

Edited November 24, 2017 by methodwriter85

[Littlebitofcheese]

On 11/18/2017 at 2:42 PM, BradandJanet said:

Just finished season 2. About half way through, I heard someone say, "Have a good one." I don't remember this expression until fairly recently. It's one that bugs me, so I noticed it. 

Grew up in the upper midwest in the 80's..... very common phrase back then in our area.

[BradandJanet]

On 11/24/2017 at 9:36 AM, Littlebitofcheese said:

Grew up in the upper midwest in the 80's..... very common phrase back then in our area.

Interesting. I grew up in the midwest too, but I was in the east by the 80's. Either it wasn't popular here, or I was too busy trying to work and raise little kids to remember.

[festivus]

For those of you that like scrunchies, well they're back. I've been seeing them lately and even the teens are wearing them. My friend told me a few days ago that she's seen the big bow clips for sale too. I can't believe those are coming back. The hair clips in 1984 looked like those that were posted on the previous page and I should know because I still have mine. I'll never give them up! The one that Nancy wore (posted on the previous page) was more of an early 90's style. I had those too but I always thought they were uncomfortable. The way they curved hurt my scalp. I'll have to watch the episode again, I didn't notice her hair clip and a google search is not helping.

 

I've only used Mrs. Butterworth's syrup my whole life but I honestly can't remember if it was still in glass bottles in 1984. I'm searching it now and I do still think it was in glass, and even when it changed to plastic it was still the same shape as the glass so you couldn't squeeze it. I did actually notice this during the episode so funny to find it being discussed here. And now I've spent way too long researching hair clips and Mrs. Butterworth's lol.

 

I'm having a harder time with certain words or sayings that are being used, I really have to think hard to remember if it's something I would have said in 1984. I don't remember ever using douchbag but it doesn't mean it wasn't around. I'm much better with knowing what clothes, hair and music should be in 1984.

 

ETA: I took a picture of my hair clips but can't figure out how to post it here.

Edited February 19, 2018 by festivus

[methodwriter85]

On 11/1/2017 at 11:01 AM, Sader87 said:

There was a mention, by the older brother, of the band The Smiths in Season 1.....set in Indiana 1983, that would be an anachronism imo...The Smiths weren't really known in the States until 1984 and even then, probably by very few.

No biggie but it took me out of the scene.

It made sense for Jonathan, though. He comes off as a very indie music type of guy and I bet he sought that kind of stuff out. The kind who would hang out at record stores and ask employees for bootlegs of the latest stuff from England, especially if he was already into stuff like the Clash. It was said that he liked "weird" music like that.

Speaking of music...I've kind of "studied", in a sense, Duran Duran, and having the first reference to Duran Duran hit in season 2/1984 was pretty spot-on. "Hungry Like The Wolf" was a hit in late 1982/early 1983 in the U.S., but it really seems like the U.S. really took to Duran Duran after their Arena tour in 1984.

[Sader87]

Yeah....still very much a stretch....the Smiths were barely known in the USA in 1983 by even the most astute alternative music listeners here...they were barely known in England in 1983.

[QuantumMechanic]

On 11/20/2017 at 11:36 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I remember people using that phrase in ye olden times. Some of the boys used to respond with remarks like “I already have a good one. Now I just need a longer one.”

I can attest from direct experience that George Carlin was using that line in his live act in 1984, so it certainly existed well before 1984.

Edited April 28, 2018 by QuantumMechanic

[psychoticstate]

On ‎3‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 7:48 PM, methodwriter85 said:

 

Speaking of music...I've kind of "studied", in a sense, Duran Duran, and having the first reference to Duran Duran hit in season 2/1984 was pretty spot-on. "Hungry Like The Wolf" was a hit in late 1982/early 1983 in the U.S., but it really seems like the U.S. really took to Duran Duran after their Arena tour in 1984.

I was a teen in the 80s and a huge Duran Duran fan.  The group was huge after their album Rio came out in 1982, thanks in part to their incredible music videos.  I used to spend hours after school each day watching MTV and waiting for a Duran Duran video to pop up.   They had Seven and the Ragged Tiger in late 1983; 1984 was the year I first saw them in concert.  It was their 1984 concerts that were recorded on Arena.  So they were definitely huge in the U.S. before then.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

(I Just) Died in Your Arms by Cutting Crew was used in S3.E1, which takes place in June 1985. The song wasn't released in the UK until a year later on July 26, 1986, and it wasn't released in the United States until January 1, 1987.

I'm okay with it though because I love that song!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Although stilt walking has been around for centuries, it wasn't a common thing to see them at a dinky small town carnival back in the 80s. In the last decade, it's become a common enough performance skill that they're at music festivals, corporate parties, and other events but I don't recall seeing any outside of Ringling Brothers back in the 80s. Apparently the Hawkins fun fair was fancy enough to have them though because I definitely spotted one in S3.E7!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

In S3.E7, Dustin sneaks Steve and Robin into the movie theater to watch Back to the Future, which came out on July 3, 1985. S3 begins at the end of June and it's clearly near the Fourth of July at the end of the season, so I'm going to guess that S3.E7 takes place on either July 3 or July 4 in order to make Back to the Future fit the timeline. The Fourth of July carnival is going on in the same episode so it's definitely around the holiday (most carnivals like that are around for more than one day).

But then that had me googling the other movies used during S3. Outside of Back to the Future, the sign outside the movie theater says the other movies playing are Fletch, Cocoon, Return to Oz, D.A.R.Y.L., and The Stuff which do fit the timeline (Fletch was released on May 31, D.A.R.Y.L. and The Stuff were released on June 14, Return to Oz and Cocoon were released on June 21).

But Day of the Dead, which the kids snuck into during the first episode of the season, had its world premiere on June 30, was put into limited release on July 3, and had its wide release on July 19. In other words, it's pretty unlikely that the kids would have been able to see it in Hawkins during before July 19.

[monkeypox]

In S3.E4 "The Sauna Test," Lucas tells Mike, after seeing the sweaty dudes in the sauna, "I think I just threw up in my mouth." This was not a saying in 1985. 

[Aim123]

When Joyce is helping Hopper get together a script to talk to Eleven about all of the kissing,  she mentions the relatively new psychobabble phrase 'setting boundaries'. The whole boundaries mumbo-jumbo just came out recently. Not only that, but 80s parents certainly knew nothing about boundaries (or anything of the sort) back in the day! Unless they were a therapist or something. They were too busy smoking cigarettes and ignoring us.

[Mrs. Stanwyck]

Not sure which episode but Robin rides up to the mall wearing a bike helmet.  At least in my neck of the woods there were no bike helmets in 1985.  And in 1985, a bike was my main mode of transportation.

[QuantumMechanic]

(deleted because I said the same thing a year ago)

Edited July 8, 2019 by QuantumMechanic

[Cowgirl]

On 7/6/2019 at 1:01 PM, monkeypox said:

In S3.E4 "The Sauna Test," Lucas tells Mike, after seeing the sweaty dudes in the sauna, "I think I just threw up in my mouth." This was not a saying in 1985. 

I completely agree.  I was surprised when I heard this phrase in that episode. Even though I grew up in a small rural western town and ValleySpeak never completely pervaded our vocabulary, we still would have said, "Gag me!" or our local permutation of "That was gaggy!" (Though not the full "Gag me with a spoon.") upon seeing old fat dudes in a sauna. 

Edited July 10, 2019 by Cowgirl

[Aim123]

59 minutes ago, Cowgirl said:

I completely agree.  I was surprised when I heard this phrase in that episode. Even though I grew up in a small rural western town and ValleySpeak never complete pervaded our vocabulary, we still would have said, "Gag me!" or our local permutation of "That was gaggy!" (Though not the full "Gag me with a spoon.") upon seeing old fat dudes in a sauna. 

I agree. I grew up in the actual *Valley* Valley, and we still never said 'gag me with a spoon.'

[SoMuchTV]

5 minutes ago, Aim123 said:

I agree. I grew up in the actual *Valley* Valley, and we still never said 'gag me with a spoon.'

On the opposite coast in the mid 80's, I definitely remember "gag me with a spoon" as being something you'd hear from a stereotypical valley girl. Maybe it was in a movie or something?  For some reason I'm thinking of Moon-unit Zappa.

[Aim123]

1 minute ago, SoMuchTV said:

On the opposite coast in the mid 80's, I definitely remember "gag me with a spoon" as being something you'd hear from a stereotypical valley girl. Maybe it was in a movie or something?  For some reason I'm thinking of Moon-unit Zappa.

Yes, you are correct. It was a Frank Zappa song, and his daughter did the voice in the song.

[Zima]

6 hours ago, SoMuchTV said:

On the opposite coast in the mid 80's, I definitely remember "gag me with a spoon" as being something you'd hear from a stereotypical valley girl. Maybe it was in a movie or something?  For some reason I'm thinking of Moon-unit Zappa.

6 hours ago, Aim123 said:

Yes, you are correct. It was a Frank Zappa song, and his daughter did the voice in the song.

It was also said in "Heathers". 

[DrSpaceman]

The "throw up in my mouth" thing I noticed too. 

Not only that, I hate that phrase. 

Also when they are talking about Back to the Future, she mentions the mom wanting to "bang" her son, not a euphemism I recall being used at the time in the 1980s in Indiana. 

But small verbal anachronisms like that don't bother me much.  Just little things, they don't detract from the show in general. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

On 7/8/2019 at 3:19 PM, SoMuchTV said:

On the opposite coast in the mid 80's, I definitely remember "gag me with a spoon" as being something you'd hear from a stereotypical valley girl. Maybe it was in a movie or something?  For some reason I'm thinking of Moon-unit Zappa.

On 7/8/2019 at 3:21 PM, Aim123 said:

Yes, you are correct. It was a Frank Zappa song, and his daughter did the voice in the song.

8 hours ago, Zima said:

It was also said in "Heathers". 

I watched Heathers approximately eleventy billion times and they definitely didn't say "gag me with a spoon." The closest was when Veronica said, "I'd like to see Heather Chandler puke her guts out."

I totally remember that Valley Girl song! And the movie with Nicholas Cage!

[methodwriter85]

Seeing Moon Unit's hairstyle in that clip made feel better about Robin's hairstyle, which I thought felt a little too modern bob for me but this is actually pretty close.

[Cowgirl]

14 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I watched Heathers approximately eleventy billion times and they definitely didn't say "gag me with a spoon." The closest was when Veronica said, "I'd like to see Heather Chandler puke her guts out."

I think in Heathers, the closest phase was a riff on the "gag me with a spoon" thing, and it was "F*** me gently with a chainsaw."

[janey99]

I can't remember which, one of the first couple of episodes of this season, the phone rings, Lucas picks it up, then hangs it up and says "Ugh, telemarketer!"  Umm, no, not in the mid 80s!

[DietCokeJunkie]

12 hours ago, janey99 said:

I can't remember which, one of the first couple of episodes of this season, the phone rings, Lucas picks it up, then hangs it up and says "Ugh, telemarketer!"  Umm, no, not in the mid 80s!

It was my first job my senior year in high school (1982/83), so yes it was definitely a thing in the 80s. 

[PradaKitty]

Woody Woodpecker wasn’t a Loony Tunes character,  

[Captain Asshat]

On 7/8/2019 at 5:19 PM, SoMuchTV said:

On the opposite coast in the mid 80's, I definitely remember "gag me with a spoon" as being something you'd hear from a stereotypical valley girl. Maybe it was in a movie or something?  For some reason I'm thinking of Moon-unit Zappa.

Correct on both counts. Moon Zappa recorded a song called "Valley Girl," which had that line in it. Then there was the Nicholas Cage movie with the same title that *might* have also used it. I really don't remember. But after the song, at least, people associated "Gag me with a spoon" with Valley girls, even if actual Valley girls never used the term. 

1 minute ago, Captain Asshat said:

Correct on both counts. Moon Zappa recorded a song with father Frank Zappa called "Valley Girl," which had that line in it. Then there was the Nicholas Cage movie with the same title that *might* have also used it. I really don't remember. But after the song, at least, people associated "Gag me with a spoon" with Valley girls, even if actual Valley girls never used the term. 

[meggonzo]

On 7/5/2019 at 11:08 PM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Although stilt walking has been around for centuries, it wasn't a common thing to see them at a dinky small town carnival back in the 80s. In the last decade, it's become a common enough performance skill that they're at music festivals, corporate parties, and other events but I don't recall seeing any outside of Ringling Brothers back in the 80s. Apparently the Hawkins fun fair was fancy enough to have them though because I definitely spotted one in S3.E7!

I saw stilt walkers at dinky small town parades in Wisconsin in the 80s, so this is plausible to me.

[AngelKitty]

On 7/14/2019 at 7:12 AM, DietCokeJunkie said:

It was my first job my senior year in high school (1982/83), so yes it was definitely a thing in the 80s.

But were you called a telemarketer at that time or a telephone salesperson?

[Dev F]

14 minutes ago, AngelKitty said:

But were you called a telemarketer at that time or a telephone salesperson?

Webster's dates the term telemarketer to 1980, and I can find almost 8,000 occurrences of the term in 1985 newspapers on Newspapers.com.

[ProudMary]

On 7/6/2019 at 6:21 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

In S3.E7, Dustin sneaks Steve and Robin into the movie theater to watch Back to the Future, which came out on July 3, 1985. S3 begins at the end of June and it's clearly near the Fourth of July at the end of the season, so I'm going to guess that S3.E7 takes place on either July 3 or July 4 in order to make Back to the Future fit the timeline. The Fourth of July carnival is going on in the same episode so it's definitely around the holiday (most carnivals like that are around for more than one day).

But then that had me googling the other movies used during S3. Outside of Back to the Future, the sign outside the movie theater says the other movies playing are Fletch, Cocoon, Return to Oz, D.A.R.Y.L., and The Stuff which do fit the timeline (Fletch was released on May 31, D.A.R.Y.L. and The Stuff were released on June 14, Return to Oz and Cocoon were released on June 21).

But Day of the Dead, which the kids snuck into during the first episode of the season, had its world premiere on June 30, was put into limited release on July 3, and had its wide release on July 19. In other words, it's pretty unlikely that the kids would have been able to see it in Hawkins during before July 19.

I watched about half a dozen Stranger Things' Easter Eggs' videos on YouTube last night and while now I can't find the specific video that mentioned it, they said that Day of the Dead did, in fact have a sneak preview day in late June, 1985. They gave the exact date of the preview in the video. I did find this article, which while not saying the date of the preview, has a screen cap of the poster with the "Sneak Preview" banner on it. Wish I could find the damn video I watched though!
 https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/stranger-things-easter-eggs-in-season-3-the-many-r/2900-2920/10/

[lisagd]

On 8/28/2016 at 9:53 AM, PatternRec said:

the song was Heroes (a David Bowie song written with John Lennon) 

Heroes was written by Bowie and Brian Eno. The song Bowie and Lennon collaborated on is Fame. (I know it's late, but I just joined the forums)

[lisagd]

On 7/6/2019 at 12:08 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Although stilt walking has been around for centuries, it wasn't a common thing to see them at a dinky small town carnival back in the 80s. In the last decade, it's become a common enough performance skill that they're at music festivals, corporate parties, and other events but I don't recall seeing any outside of Ringling Brothers back in the 80s. Apparently the Hawkins fun fair was fancy enough to have them though because I definitely spotted one in S3.E7!

Stilt walkers, usually dressed as Uncle Sam, were a common sight at fairs and carnivals for decades prior to the 80s.

[Hanahope]

I noticed a Sam Goody's in the mall, that was a good throwback.  But I also saw "Claire's", and I certainly don't recall seeing Claires in a mall back in the 80s.