I Love the 80s (Nights Off From Drinking)

If you were a kid in the late 80s, then you most definitely stayed up late Saturday night watching one of the most (if not the most) incredible line-ups of horror television ever produced on one network. It started at 8 PM with Friday the 13th: The Series—an awesome show about a cursed antique store that had nothing to do with Jason Voorhees, but was indeed produced by some of the same people who made the iconic slasher flicks. Mulder and Scully from The X-Files never could have existed were it not for Ryan and Mickey, tasked with recouping all of the supernatural items sold by their late devil-worshiping uncle. At 9 PM came Freddy's Nightmares, a spin-off from the Nightmare on Elm Street series hosted by Freddy Kruger himself. Way ahead of its time in terms of creepiness.

From 10 PM to 11 PM you had the back-to-back duo of Tales from the Darkside and the superb creature-feature Monsters—which holds up so well it's scary. I watched the first episode of Disc 1 last night and my wife had to turn away from the screen. "You watched this when you were seven??!" she screamed.

At 11 PM you had WWE Superstars (which many of you know my affinity for), and if you could manage to stay up until 11:30 there was G.L.O.W.—The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. There's an outstanding documentary about G.L.O.W. available on Netflix Instant right now if you're interested. Nothing epitomized the late 80s more than this show, so it's really a very important piece of pop culture history. My wife had no recollection of its existence, but really enjoyed the film despite lacking the inherent nostalgia.

On Saturday evenings in 1987, I would go to the Food 4 Less in Modesto with my mom, get boxes of Cheez-Its along with Mike & Ikes out of the bulk bin, and plop down in front of the TV for as long as I could hold out. I really, really miss those days. As I've decided to dry out at least once a week going into the holiday season (I drink all the time, in case you didn't now), I needed something to fill the void of alcohol. Thank God for boxed DVD sets of old retro television. I'm now two episodes into Friday the 13th and I feel like a giant beam of sunshine is casting down upon my heart strings.

There was only one thing left I needed to do:

-David Driscoll