I spotted the following over at Boing Boing today. It’s an old TV commercial from the ’80s that I’d completely forgotten until I saw the first five seconds or so of it again, whereupon it all came flooding back. I used to think this spot was so completely awesome; it would grab my attention whenever it came on, no matter what I was doing, and keep me riveted for the next minute:

So what was it about this I thought was so neat? Damned if I know… probably that it had a sci-fi premise and turned on the idea of loud rock-n-roll setting you free, or something.

Of course, the comments over at Boing Boing are flooded with Damn Kids(tm) making fun of the feathered hair and the obsolete technology and the whole Duran Duran music video vibe. Well, I say screw them. They weren’t there, and they didn’t live through it, so they don’t understand that that stuff used to be cool. We weren’t deluded or lame for wearing that stuff; we were in step with the times. As far as I’m concerned, the ’80s was the last decade that displayed the slightest bit of style or glamour. Yeah, it all looks pretty ridiculous now, but we were at least trying, man, instead of endlessly recycling and recombining what everybody wore in previous decades. And we were having fun. Everything now is so… uniform.

I’m happy to see at least one of those commenters gets it:

You know, screw all that SCA/RenFaire/Steampunk BS. I’m going to start cosplaying as someone from a retrofuturistic 80’s timeline.

Now wouldn’t that be fun?