Let’s be the year 1981

Best prime time drama ever.

Did they actually do that Jesus Christ Pose in that scene?

Laughable.

I was being conceived!

I’m baby Go-Go’s

I'm Chrissie Evert winning my last Wimbledon title on the verge of being passed for good by a newly fit Martina.

I’m peak Chrissie Hynde.

I'm the gayling in his freshman year in college who lost his virginity to the beautiful toe-headed surfer boy he lusted after who sat up in the top row of the lecture hall and who he saw months later at a gay bar.

The surfer boy dumped the gayling after fucking him and sent the gayling into a swirling depression.

I'm John Hinckley Jr. I had to shoot President Reagan and a few other people just to impress Jodie Foster, and it turns out she was a lesbian all along!

FUCK!!!

I’m the acknowledgement that a dread disease is starting to affect gay men.

I’m the Berkeley freshman debating which glory holes are better, the ones in Moffitt, Doe or Tolman.

I’m Prince, picking up steam, drawing on multiple genres of music and adding an element of seediness and sex while I hop around on stage like I’m already the superstar that I become a year later with 1999.

I’m the new disco version of the opening credits of Guiding Light. Sadly, I won’t last as long as I should have.

I'm Prince Charles. I married a young and beautiful Diana Spencer to give me an heir and a spare even though I was carrying on with the Rottweiler Camilla.

The press caught wind of it and called me a tampon.

I’m Fallon Carrington, and I fucked my daddy’s football team.

what is the whole tampon thing with Prince Charles? Even though I'm 55, I've only ever heard reference to it recently here on DL.

[quote] beautiful toe-headed surfer boy

Oh, dear.

It's towheaded, not toe headed. Unless you have a foot fetish, in which case you might enjoy a toe on one's head.

I'm Ordinary People and won Best Picture.

I’m Sheena Easton!

I’m Rick Springfield!

Y’all killed disco 🪩 for these two MOR darlings who are your official prom king and queen of 1981!

I'm Bette Davis Eyes, Billboard's number one song of the year.

The Pope, The Pope…Who Shot the Pope?

I'm me and decided to lose 10 pounds which turned into 40 and I'm still the same weight. Yay, me!

I'm the bountiful pubic hair on all the men at every university in the country.

I'm Miss Bacall, quite busy endorsing hearts not diamonds AND High Point.

I’m Indiana Jones.

You know you want me, gaylings.

I’m Silkience.

Chisa needs me only on the ends.

I’m Suzanne Somers. Alan has convinced me to go for the money on the show. I am so going to come out on top!

I'm leg warmers!

And parachute pants!!

Funny, as a teen, when I saw that cul-de-sac flyover so close to the beach, it seemed so nice.

Now, I know the shallow, plastic people who live in places like this are mostly vacuous whores.

I'm Muhammad Ali and fought my last fight. I lost.

Parachute pants weren’t until 1984.

I’m Terence Stamp as Zod, magnetic, seductive, terrifying, and witty.

r31 you were saying?

Those aren’t parachute pants…

I'm the final episodes of Charlie's Angels

Yes they are. just a very early iteration.

This is supposed to be a fun thread, not an argumentative one.

I’m in command here!

My pubes finally started to grow in!

Ahh an iteration. Weak.

Kneel to Zod.

I'm MTV and I'm new.

I’m preppies and effing yuppies! Along with the rise of the Moral Majority it’s all enough to make you want to gag yourself with a spoon!

R12 I'm Tony Reardon and Kelly Nelson's bulges.

I'm September 18, 1981, the weekend the seismic cultural tsunami that is the film "Mommie Dearest" is released, forever changing well....absolutely everything from then on!

r34 / r39 I hope things improve for you

I'm the May 1981 issue of Playgirl magazine.

Where’s the parachute?

I'm the yacht [italic]Splendour[/italic]. If my walls could talk!

r45 oops

r46 You're tryin!

I’m Andy Gibb and I just met the love of my life on the John Davidson show!!! We are going to be together forever!

I'm gas - and I only cost (on average) $1.25 a gallon.

Donkey Kong, here!

I've become the obsession of millions of teenagers in thousands of arcades across the country.

I'm Betsy Bloomingdale, first pal of the new first lady. I'm part of the chic, fabulously wealthy California Republican set that swoops into Washington from Palm Springs for Ronny and Nancy's parties. Forty years from now, we'll be politically extinct.

R15 there were secret recordings between Charles and Camille that were made public. He told her he wanted to spend all day in her trousers and she asked if he wanted to be reincarnated as a pair of her knickers. He said with my luck I'll come back as one of your tampons.

This scandal was called "Tampongate" and the Italian press called him "Il Tamponini "😂I'm sure it's somewhere on YouTube.

I’m Jenny Beckman mocking my knockoff Trapper Keeper from Kmart.

Thanks r54

So unsexy/erotic. Yuck.

I'm the movies Endless Love and Taps, which unleashed Tom Cruise on the world.

I'm Christiane F.: the movie, the soundtrack, the heroin heroine.

I just graduated from high school, still 17 looking for the only gay bar in my small town that will let me in with a fake ID. They are playing some new music that sounds very fun from some unknown called Madona. I hookup with the bartender with the porn stash and have my first gay sexual experience on the pool table after hours. We stay together for the next 6 years. Hearing rumors about some gay disease going around in the big cites called AIDS. It wont affect us because we live in a small town. Until everyone including the bar owner eventually gets it and dies.

I'm...confused, because I (of course) know who David Bowie is and grew up with him...i have no idea what r58 is about.

I'm Tainted Love, and you can't escape me.

I'm at Gilly's in Houston riding the mechanical bull after seeing Urban Cowboy.

I'm Sandy Allen a.k.a. "The World's Tallest Woman".

I celebrated my 26th birthday in Niagara Falls Canada this year (around the same month that AIDS was discovered).

The Guinness Museum where I worked threw me an outdoor party & the pics from it were shown in Guinness Book Of World Records editions for years to come.

FYI R60

Thanks, r64

Many Brits would consider it the worst year in living memory, the royal wedding and the famous Ashes fightback notwithstanding.

I'm THESE Parachute pants!

I am the enduring mystery of how a roomful of fatties transformed into chiseled homosexuals in ONJ’s Physical.

Was the dual metamorphosis correlation or causation?

"Don't question me!!!"

--r36, nearly hysterical

I'm the 8th season of The Jeffersons that debuted in the fall of this year.

It's one of the better seasons.

I'm "Crimes of the Heart" opening on Broadway for a run of 500+ performances.

I'm Natalie Wood, floating off Catalina Island. Did I catch Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken in bed together and threaten to expose them? Who can say? Certainly not I.

[quote] I was being conceived!

I was also being conceived.

You ok R69?

I'm Ebony & Ivory - one of the cheesiest songs, even by 80s standards.

Oops *recorded* in 1981, but released in 82

R51- Gasoline prices by early 1981 near me peaked at about$1.39 . In today’s money that’s $4.92 per gallon!

To say ONLY $1.25 per gallon is wrong 😑

I’m KooKoo, Debbie Harry’s first solo album

I’m Belladonna and I’m number one! FUCK YOU LINDSEY!!!!

I'm Gloria Vanderbilt. While some of you bitches are arguing if parachute pants were in style in 1981, I'm spending the time continuing to hawk my fabulously popular (but cheaply made) designer jeans, with the latest iteration being the ones made of "Stretch Denim for Murjani." Like everything I've ever done, I lean heavily on my well know social status in an effort to fool the public that I actually have good taste and artistic talent.

I'm working like hell to sell this crap so I cover the expenses to maintain my false image as an uber wealthy socialite. I'm feverishly pushing the jeans before the public wises up and these rags inevitably wind up in the clearance bin at TJ Maxx.

More like suicide pants^

If her son had worn parachute pants when he jumped, he might have survived. Since that was 1988, four years after parachute pants first became “in”—it was possible. Even though they were “out” by then.

R81 Meh, you tried.

That’s high praise, from Greg.

We’re stars on 45 and our one week at number one kept Bette Davis eyes from being the biggest song of the 80s.

We're the "Solid Gold Dancers," writhing and gyrating to the songs in the "Top Ten Countdown."

I'm the stolen blue gown.

I'm a pack of Merit ultra lights. 🚬

I’m Susan Sarandon rubbing lemons on my tits!

I'm Mr. Osborne's interview with Miss Turner.

I'm Britney Jean Spears and my momma's cooter itches, y'all.

I worked advance for the White House for Reagan's first trip after the shooting. I couldn't believe all the nutjobs that knew his allegedly secret schedule.

Hinckley wanted a Bush presidency. The Jodi Foster shit was just a misdirection.

They even found a book on faking mental illness in his room.

R91 You worked for a nutjob who let millions die around the globe with no medical help / funded treatments / emotional support whatsoever.

I'm Klinton Spilsbury. I'm sexy and have just landed my first leading role in "The Legend of the Lone Ranger." I know this is going to be only the first of many action films I'll make. I'm going to be a superstar!

Who you?!

Watch the movie LOOKER. Starring Albert Finney and Susan Dey. It was filmed in 1980 and released in 1981.

I’m me, starting at NYU

The ultimate safety school in 1981

I’m r98, in her first year in the Women’s Studies program at Queensborough Community College.

The Smurfs cartoon debuts on NBC.

I'm Mary Steenburgen, Timothy Hutton, and Robert Redford, all winning Oscars that you queens still insist we didn't deserve.

I'm future DL faves "Body Heat" and "Arthur" (with its ubiquitous cheesy "Theme")

I’m the popularity of Strawberry Shortcake.

I’m the highly unlikely comeback hit Sukiyaki for A Taste of Honey.

I'm Hillary Clinton making my first kill.

R67 Those are NOT parachute pants. Not even a bit.

Bless her heart! ^^

I'm the Grey Poupon commercial.

I'm the idiots who can't let go of the parachute pants instead of actually contributing useful examples from the year 1981.

FFS - these ARE parachute pants.

It’s not Hammer Time yet.

R109 so that Venn diagram would include you, too

;)

I'm the movie Reds. Putting people to sleep around the world.

I'm Stripes, and I also am boring.

But the guys were 1981–hawt^

I'm caught between the moon and New York City.

I'm Pat Benatar's tits.

R116 you mean Pat’s pancake tits?

pancakes or waffles. they're still hers.

STROKE ME

STROKE ME

Didn't foresee that at the time R

R93.

I'm Lady Diana Spencer, about to take the role of a lifetime. I make my official worldwide debut on July 29, 1981 in the televised Royal Wedding - just four weeks after I turn 20. I marry Prince Charles, who is much older than I am, and some day soon (I hope) will be King of England, so I become Queen. I've enough psychological problems to fill two psychiatric hospitals - but I'm told this marriage will solve everything. I have nothing to worry about - I'm about to live the dream life of a Princess, and inspire little girls and gay men around the world.

Really, what could possibly go wrong for the rest of my life ?

R99 so you had to wait to transfer to NYU 🆒

HI CAMILLA!

I'm the other notable Diana of 1981 - That would be "Miss Ross" to you !

I just left an 18 year successful career at Motown for a multi-million dollar deal at RCA, making me the highest -paid female recording artist in history. I'm in control of everything I do at RCA, so screw you Berry Gordy. I have the #1 song in America for nine straight weeks called 'Endless Love', a duet with Lionel Ritchie. My new album - produced by me - comes out at the end of the year and it will be an incredible hit.

The 80s is going to be the best decade ever for me ! I just know it.

Ratchet ass bitch could only make nine weeks.

I'm 320.00 a month rent for a beach front apt in Santa Monica.

I'm Pheobe Cates, I've only got 12 more months to perfect my pool-exiting game,

[quote] The press caught wind of it and called me a tampon.

That wasn’t the press. You did that to yourself. It’s on the recording.

I'm the one and only Barbra Streisand. After being one of the biggest box-office stars of the 1970s, I kick off the new decade with the movie "All Night Long", as a favor to my agent, Sue Mengers, married to the movie's director Jean-Claude Tramont. She convinces him to fire the actress Lisa Eichorn, even though they began filming weeks ago, and replace her with me. It's a short shooting schedule and they're willing to pay me $4M to take over the role, making me the highest paid actress in Hollywood at the time. I say 'I'll do it'.

My first film of the 1980s - billed as a 'romantic comedy' - is the biggest bomb of my career. The film flops at the box office and gets negative reviews from every major film critic. The movie takes in only $4.5 M, with a budget of $15M. A very big blemish on my film career I can't get rid of, but I can get rid of Mengers for talking me into this - so I do. I fire that bitch as my agent. I take that $4M and put it towards my next movie project that I've been working on since 1968 : 'Yentl'.

I am 'The Brady Brides'

I’m the Trial of Jennifer Richards

Please, please marry me, R132

I am Douglas Marland, and I've written many hours of good soap.

And when GL won the Emmy in 1981, my petty ass put that Emmy on a rotating display and told every soap in the business, including GH: LOOK AT THIS, BITCHES!

For a year! EAT IT BITCHES!

Gloria could not have saved GH without Doug.

Doug probably could have saved GH without Gloria.

What sweet justice he must have felt.

I'm the guy ogling David Naughton in the movie theater watching "American Werewolf in London".

To think I was a "pepper", too...

I'm Ronald Reagan who fired over 11,000 Air Traffic Controllers who went on strike for better working conditions and pay and were not allowed to work that job again. Extreme, that guy was mean and batty. Sound familiar?

I'm Debbie Harry turning down the role in Blade Runner that made Darryl Hannah a star. Choosing instead to pursue a failed solo career. Oops.

I'm the new show Entertainment Tonight. I will be on till the end of time since people can't get enough of celebrity gossip.

I'm Madonna, currently performing at Max's Kansas City and trying out different sounds until one of them lands me a record deal. In this one, I'm clearly going for a Chrissie Hynde vibe, as if the world needs another Chrissie Hynde.

I'm Stevie Nicks who turned down the Call Me opportunity for a single which went to Debbie Harry.

I'm OK with that, R141.

I had many, many hits as a solo artist in 1981 and thereafter, while Debbie...

Bless her, she tried her best.

I'm Donna Summer's I'm A Rainbow - I will be the last Giorgio album, and where it starts to go wrong for her whole relationship with Geffen, sitting in the vault, never actually 'finished' but ultimately released in 1996. Highway Runner and Romeo got loaned out for Soundtracks (Fast Times At Ridgemont High and Flash dance respectively), my title track and Don't Cry For Me Argentina on the 93 Polygram Anthology, You To Me and Sweet Emotion were snapped up by Amii Stewart, I Believe In You by the Average White Band, and To Turn The Stone by Frida, where Giorgio pretty much kept the entire backing track - this would be the song Mr Geffen screamed 'Fucking Bagpipes' about - I was improperly avenged for the 40th Anniversary with a bunch of inconsequential remixes and some of my best cuts missing. I want an AI-improved 50th Anniversary, where I sound finished, and will settle for nothing less

I'm also just me, a cologne/Bianca/cigarettes kinda 15 year old throwing myself at much older men in awkward social situations.

I'm the OG of Cringe.

Binaca.

Fucking autocorrect.

I'm the IBM 5150. The only computer you'll need for decades.

I’m Faye Dunaway, preparing to sweep the upcoming award season with what will become the tour de force performance of my career as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest. I’m having Edith Head design my award show gowns in tribute to Joan with shoulders pads and secret compartments for the boys and the booze.

I'm 19 and getting fuck everynight by 27yr old BF. If I needed a break I blew his bi,big cock. Thanks Brian

I'm the hostages on their way home.

R137, I was 11 in 1981. My grandmother took me to visit family in Texas — my first time on a plane. The strike happened (or maybe the firing happened) while we were there. We were worried the whole time that we’d have to find another way to return.

Did you click your heels? Or wake up with a bump on your head?

R151, I wish. We boarded the plane in Dallas to fly home. Just as we were taking off the plane screeched to scary halt. Everyone thought it had something to do with the strike/scabs… turns out there was a deer on the runway.

One sad thing about that strike was that the union (PATCO) actually endorsed Reagan in the 1980 election, then he betrayed them a few months later. Potential Trump voters should take heed.

Oooooh!! Thanks for the earworm, R7

I'm the Queers Who Saved "Mommie Dearest". Without us it would have tanked at the box office:

"The film has had an enduring reputation as a cult film, particularly heralded by gay male audiences, owing to its over-the-top camp style. Writing for the British Film Institute, Alex Davidson observed that the film "has been savagely embraced by queer audiences since its cinema release in 1981. Drag queens outdo each other for the fiercest impersonation of Faye Dunaway in Crawford mode. And who doesn't want to be part of a 'whiplash' audience, whatever that is? Well, possibly Christina Crawford, who has seen her harrowing history of child abuse transformed into a gay pantomime. Watching audiences howl with laughter as your avatar is beaten and throttled must be a sobering experience."

I'm Sarah Purcell.

You suck.

I'm dead.

I'm the Streisand LP "Memories" by Barbra Streisand. Columbia wanted a Streisand release for the Christmas season, but Streisand was in London working on her movie 'Yentl'. Streisand agreed to record two new songs while in London ("Comin' In and Out of Your Life" and "Memory"), while the remaining eight tracks were 'previously released'. Three of the songs were released three years earlier on her 'Greatest Hits Volume 2' album, one was from her 1979 album 'Wet', and one was from her last album 'Guilty'. One was an out-take from "A Star Is Born". Photographer Greg Gorman flew to London to do the cover and back cover photos of Streisand.

Columbia, going through financial difficulties at the time, gave the album a huge promotional push with advertisements saying, 'Remember Your Life and Times in Love'. Fans fell for it - the album peaked at #10 on the Hot 200 Albums Chart, and stayed on the chart for more than two years. The album went on to sell 5X Platinum. It was released in the UK as "Love Songs", with an additional four 'previously released' tracks, and became one of her best-selling albums of all time in the UK.

R159 oh who cares!

R160=Mandy

R59, the single is beautiful song, not laden with radio-friendly hooks, but her voice sounds superb here.

Fuck off streisand stans

Yes—please

At the close of 1981 and into early 1982 Olivia Newton-John - Physical was IT. The single, music video, album, video album were HOT and extremely popular in the US.

R163 = Britney Spears

R165, too hot! Totally hot!