I Enjoy Being an 80s Girl

I've spent the last couple of evenings reviving some wonderful childhood memories on YouTube. One of my fondest memories is of the girl-oriented specials and series my family used to rent from Harbor View Video in Cape May and see in syndication, and more rarely, on broadcast TV, usually on Saturday mornings.

The Charmkins (1984?)

This is one of the first things I remember us renting, around '85 or '86. The first video store I ever saw was a place at the small shopping center in front of the K-Mart in Rio Grande. We rented Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory from the first time from there, too. It's long gone now, and I never saw this special again until tonight.

The Charmkins capitalized on the 80s charm fad. The twist - they were little people (and animals) with flower-themed names and smells. The fad outlasted these toys. I don't think we had any, but we loved this special.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Original Care Bears specials - Land Without Feelings and Battle the Freeze Machine (1983 and 1984)

The earliest appearances of the Care Bears on TV. Note the anime-esque animation style, very different from the Care Bears movies and Family series from later in the decade. The spookier Land Without Feelings is my favorite of the two, but they're both a lot of fun, especially if you have very young kids.

Land Without Feelings - Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Battle the Freeze Machine - Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Rose Petal Place (1985)

This is actually the second special made for this short-lived toy line. We had one doll from this line, Daffodil, a cassette with a complete story, and three of the Parker Brothers picture books. I've seen the first special several times on Channel 17 from Philadelphia and Channel 11 from New York, but this is the first time I'd ever seen this one.

I'll add that this is one of my favorite short-lived 80s girls' lines. Marie Osmond is the lovely voice of sensible Rose Petal. Her friends are a lot of fun, too, especially sassy Sunny Sunflower. Nastina the Spider is a great villainess, too.

(Ironically, the dolls this one revolves around never made it onto the market. Kenner canned the line shortly before this special was released, and the second line of dolls only exist as prototypes.)

Real Friends - Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Lady Lovely Locks TV Episodes (Late 80s)

This was one of my sisters' and my favorite toy lines in the late 80s. Lady Lovely Locks and her friends were fancy-tressed nobles who wore lacy gowns and had very, very long, thick hair. The twist with these ladies was they each came with their own clips molded to look like a small animal. My favorite, Maiden Curly Crown, came with chipmunks, for instance. Rose's beloved Maiden Fair-Hair came with rabbits. The villainess, Dutchess Raven Waves, came with gnome-like creatures who were really cute. We also had a prince, Strongheart, who had much shorter hair and wore a cape and trousers.

The story here seems to be Raven Waves badly wants a lock of Lovely Locks' hair, and will do anything to get it. Another story running concurrently is Strongheart (here with long blond hair, looking quite different than the short, dark-haired doll) has been turned into a dog, and is looking for a way to permanently return to his human form and tell Lady Lovely Locks how he feels about her.

Harbor View Video had a video with a few episodes of the short-lived TV show we used to rent constantly. Here's two of the episodes from that tape...

In the Kingdom Of Ice
The Wishing Bone

The Yum Yums (1989)

The Yum Yums, a stuffed animal line from the late 80s-early 90s, is one of the last of it's kind, both as a cartoon and as toys. The toys smelled like the candy they were respectively named after...but they didn't make for great entertainment outside of one's imagination. I only saw this one once, in part, on a random CBS Saturday morning, and never saw the whole thing until the other night.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

I'll post more as I find them!