Smokers debate
My opinion is that smokers are a waste of taxpayers money, they should be left out from all help on the NHS as they continue to cost billions of pounds each year of my hard earned cash, should they be banned or not.
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George Michael is our 80s Star of the week.
Everything you ever wanted to know about George Michael in the 80s, but were afraid to ask.
George Michael (born June 25, 1963) is an English-Greek pop singer/songwriter who (as a solo artist and one half of the duo WHAM!) has sold an estimated total of 80 million records.
It wasn't until he formed the duo Wham! together with Andrew Ridgeley in 1981 that success came for Michael. The band's first album, Fantastic!, was an instant success, and within a year they had released their classic debut single, Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do).
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David Bowie is the star for this week.
David Bowie (born David Robert Jones on January 8, 1947) is an English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger and mixer, whose work spans more than four decades.
A knowing, indulgent and occasionally camp figure, he is universally recognised as one of the most accomplished and inspired artists in popular music. Throughout the 1970s he took cues from art, philosophy and literature, and appeared to elevate popular music to a more sophisticated level while cleverly not overplaying the gravitas card. He is also a film and stage actor, music video director and visual artist.
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Ulysses 31 is the star for this week.
Ulysses 31 is a Franco-Japanese anime series (1981) that updates the Greek and Roman mythology of Odysseus (known as "Ulysses" in Roman Mythology, and Ulysse in French, hence the name) to the 31st century. The show comprises 26 half-hour episodes and was produced by DiC Entertainment. The Gods of Olympus are angered when Ulysses, commander of the giant spaceship Odyssey, kills the giant Cyclops to save a group of enslaved children, including his son. Zeus sentences Ulysses to travel the universe with his crew frozen until he finds the Kingdom of Hades, at which point his crew will be revived and he will be able to return to Earth. Along the way they encounter numerous other famous figures from Greek mythology given a futuristic twist.
The A Team are The 80s Forum Star for the Week.
The A-Team is an American action adventure television series about a fictional group of ex-United States Army Special Forces who work as soldiers of fortune while being on the run from the military for a "crime they didn't commit".
The A-Team is an American action adventure television series about a fictional group of ex-United States Army Special Forces who work as soldiers of fortune while being on the run from the military for a "crime they didn't commit".
It remains known in popular culture for its use of over-the-top violence, formulaic episodes and its distinctive opening theme. It has been parodied on numerous websites such as Newgrounds and also on television shows such as Robot Chicken, Family Guy and Spaced. The show also served as the springboard for the career of Mr. T, who portrayed the character of B. A. Baracus, around which the show was largely written.
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The 80s Forum Star of the week is The Pet Shop Boys
The continued success of "It's a sin" was followed by the release of "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" on August 10. Co-written with Allee Willis and also featuring Dusty Springfield on vocals, the single reached number two on the UK Singles Chart. Though the duo had wanted to release this track on their debut album, but they had been unable to persuade their record label that Dusty Springfield was a good idea; Parlophone had suggested that they record it with Tina Turner.
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Bon Jovi are The 80s Forum Star for This Week.
Bon Jovi is a hard rock band originating from Sayreville, New Jersey. Fronted by lead singer and namesake Jon Bon Jovi, the group originally achieved large-scale success in the 1980s. The band has continued its success as one of the world's most successful rock acts throughout the 1990s and 2000s, selling over 120 million albums worldwide.
The song began to get airplay in the New York metro area, then other sister stations in major markets picked up the song. Suddenly, the record labels who had passed on the demo were scrambling to find out who this unsigned artist was. WAPP was doing showcases and Bon Jovi now desperately needed a band. The soon-to-be-members of the band had crossed paths in their earlier days, but the current lineup didn't come together until March 1983. Bon Jovi gave David Bryan a call, who in turn called bassist Alec John Such and an experienced drummer named Tico Torres.
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Duran Duran, The 80s Forum Star for this week.
The raunchy video created an uproar and was banned by the BBC and heavily edited for MTV. The band unabashedly enjoyed and capitalised on the controversy, and the album peaked in the UK Top Twenty at Number 3.
Later in 1981, the band embarked on their first United States club tour, followed by more dates in Germany and the UK. This second tour of Britain coincided with a wave of riots sparked by unemployment and racial tension, including those of Moss Side and Toxteth. The band played an eerily quiet Birmingham the day after the Handsworth riots.
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The 80s Forum Star for this week is The Boss, Bruce Springsteen
It is one of the best selling live albums of all time. It summed up Springsteen's career to that point and displayed some of the elements that made his shows so powerful to his fans: the switching from mournful dirges to party rockers and back; the communal sense of purpose between artist and audience; the long, intense spoken passages before songs, including those describing Springsteen's difficult relationship with his father; and the instrumental prowess of the E Street Band, such as in the long coda to "Racing in the Street". Despite its popularity, some fans and critics felt the album's song selection could have been better. Springsteen concerts are the subjects of frequent bootleg recording and trading among fans.
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Welcome To the third edition of The 80s Forum Monthly Newsletter. Designed to keep you up to date with the very latest issues concerning The 80s Forum.
It's Halloween time again.Whitney HoustonProbably the greatest 80s singer of them all. Read all about Whitney Houston in the 80s here
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Perhaps we should be grateful for those few minutes, which those attracted to the programme for other reasons may ignore while making or taking bets on which of the Sun Hill staff will soon have a child kidnapped, or prove to be corrupt, have a serious problem with alcohol or drug abuse, turn out to be either adopted or the parent of a long-lost illegitimate child, become unfaithful or a bigamist, go mad or murder several colleagues...
If only we'd known.
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Todays 80s Star is ..Frogger.
The game was originally going to be titled "Highway Crossing Frog," but the executives at Sega felt it did not capture the true nature of the game and was changed simply to "Frogger". Frogger is regarded as one of the "Top 10 Videogames" of all time by the Killer List of Videogames (KLOV).
The original "Highway Crossing Frog" was actually an exact copy of an earlier game called Freeway, developed in 1971 at the University of Washington Psychology Department on an IMLAC PDS-1 graphics minicomputer, as the "reward" part of a project related to studies of human short-term memory. Apparently, someone at Konami saw it and commercialized it. The Atari version was released in 1981, developed for the company by Ed English, who was also the programmer for Coleco's Mr. Do.
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Back To The Future is our 80s Star of Today.
The film that made bodywarmers (basically sleeveless Puffa jackets) and skateboarding fashionable again. Michael J Fox played the teenage hero with the time-travelling DeLorien car, who returns to the 1950s to make sure his teenage mum and dad get together and so ensure his future survival. The film spawned two sequels and a hit single - The Power of Love - from US rockers Huey Lewis and the News.
When Ronald Reagan first saw the joke about him being president, ie. "Ronald Reagan? The actor? Ha! Then who's Vice President, Jerry Lewis?", he made the projectionist of the theatre stop the reel, roll it back, and run it again. He also considered accepting a role in the third film as the 1885 mayor of Hill Valley but eventually declined.
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Grange Hill is our 80s Star of Today.
Grange Hill's golden period was undoubtedly the middle to late 1980s. This period attained the highest ratings in the show's history and one of the most popular storylines was of fans' favourite Zammo and his addiction to heroin. This storyline ran for two series (1986-87) and focused on Zammo's descent into drugs and his strained relationship with his girlfriend Jackie and friend Kevin.
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Depeche Mode are our 80s Stars of Today.
Soon after the formation of "Composition of Sound", Clarke and Fletcher switched to synthesizers, working odd jobs, including a carpentry, to buy them, or borrowing them from friends. Gahan joined the band in 1980 after Clarke heard him perform at a local scout-hut jam session, crooning to a rendition of David Bowie's 'Heroes', and "Depeche Mode" were born. The new name was taken from a French fashion magazine, "Dépêche mode", which translates to "Fashion News".
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The 80s Forum Star for Today is...Ally Sheedy
Alexandra Elizabeth Sheedy (born June 13, 1962) is an American screen and stage actress, possibly best known for her roles in the "Brat Pack" films The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire. Sheedy was born in New York City to John J. Sheedy, Jr. a Manhattan-based advertising executive, and Charlotte Baum, a notable press agent who was involved in women's and civil rights movements. Her parents divorced in 1971. She has two siblings, Patrick and Meghan.
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