Video summary
In this episode of the Super Retro Podcast, the Tennessee Titans gather at their practice facility to react to and discuss iconic items from the 1980s. The players begin by examining early contact management tools like the Rolodex, which served as the original address book before smartphones existed, followed by a nostalgic tour through gaming history. They identify various consoles ranging from the Atari joystick and the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) to later models like the Super Nintendo, acknowledging how the NES revolutionized the industry and paved the way for modern gaming. The group also recognizes classic handhelds and controllers, noting that these early devices were often a child's first introduction to interactive entertainment.
The discussion then shifts to popular toys and characters that defined childhood in the eighties, including He-Man from Masters of the Universe, the beloved alien ALF, and the infamous Garbage Pail Kids trading cards. The players share personal anecdotes about owning these items, such as using Snoopy plushies with their action figures or collecting Voltron robots that could combine into a tiger. They also explore unique toys like the Mad Ball, which featured wild faces on sports equipment, and the Rocket Ball, highlighting how manufacturers tried to make everyday objects look as strange and fun as possible during that era. These segments reveal a deep appreciation for the creativity and simplicity of 80s playthings, even when some items were considered gross or difficult to use.
Beyond toys, the group reflects on the technology and media consumption methods of the time, specifically focusing on floppy disks and VHS tapes. They explain how floppy disks, despite their name, were actually rigid plastic devices used to store computer programs, often holding only one megabyte of data. The players also recall the experience of watching movies at home or renting them from Blockbuster, emphasizing the tedious but memorable process of manually rewinding VHS tapes before returning them. Additionally, they discuss credit card imprint machines and Texas Instruments calculators that could speak and spell words, illustrating how these tools were essential for daily life and education before the internet became ubiquitous.
Ultimately, the video concludes with a celebration of how these 80s artifacts shaped the culture and technology of today. The Titans express gratitude to pioneers like Nintendo for creating the foundation of modern gaming while laughing at the quirks of old tech like cassette tapes and check-cutting machines. Although some items remain mysterious to the younger players, the collective nostalgia creates a shared understanding of how far technology has come since those days. The episode ends on a high note, with everyone agreeing that these retro items were not just toys or gadgets, but cultural touchstones that brought joy and wonder to generations of kids who grew up with them.
Read the full video transcript
What y'all know about the the behemoth?
This is awesome.
>> Now, who's this fella? I don't know who
this fell is. Y'all was just doing
stuff.
>> Just rewinding these things before
taking them back to Blockbuster.
>> Yeah,
>> it's not Barney. I can tell you that.
>> What's up, guys? We are Super Retro
Podcast. We are here at the Tennessee
Titans practice facility today. Time to
show these players some items from
the8s. Let's go.
>> Yeah, my teachers had this in school.
This is where you keep the note cards in
>> pretty much. I don't know the name of
it, but
>> I do not know what this is.
>> Okay.
>> Well, allow me to explain.
>> These are like numbers and all that.
>> You have your grandma's number right
there. Right there. Right.
>> And you'd have her address, her phone
number, and that's the only way you
knew.
>> Uh the Rolodex.
>> Oh, Rolodex.
>> Everyone's number in there.
>> Now, all [music] of that is in your
phones.
>> So, you you'd have like your name, your
contact right there, and that's how we
kept everybody's number. So, you know
how you have contacts in your local.
>> This is the OG contacts. Oh, the
Nintendo I used to have. Okay,
>> let's go.
>> I used to I used to play this one right
here.
>> Punch out.
>> Yeah, I used to play this right here. I
don't know about this one.
>> Fun. You love that.
>> My grandpa used to have one of these.
>> I think I remember playing this at the
Learning Barn.
>> It's a This is not a 64, is it?
>> Super Nintendo.
>> Nope. Before
>> Right before that,
>> it started it all, bro.
>> Big Brother.
>> Uh, it's the OG.
>> I know this one. This is NES, right?
>> Heck yeah, bro. NES.
>> I played this at my like uh my
babysitter's house when I was like five.
They had Super Mario Bros. That's what I
was playing there.
>> Yep.
>> Yeah. I have the new Nintendo, the
Switch.
>> Yep.
>> Kids.
>> It doesn't look quite like this.
>> No. This is where it all started right
here. This is a Nintendo NES. This this
came out 1984 and 1985.
>> Oh, yep.
>> So, and this really started at all. If
it if it weren't for the NES and the um
the steps that they were taking
>> and how successful it was, you wouldn't
have a 64.
>> You wouldn't have a 64. You wouldn't
have it where the PlayStation's where
it's at now. Mhm.
>> Gamers, you all a lot of lot of thanks
to the NES.
>> Yeah, we do. We do.
>> Like a joystick.
>> That's exactly what this is.
>> But do you know what it's for? What what
system it's for?
>> Probably like like
>> for Nintendo.
>> Uh
>> predates Nintendo.
>> This was our This is most of our as a
kid's first joystick.
>> Atari controller.
>> Nailed it.
>> But what controller?
>> Atari. That was before Nintendo.
>> I have an Atari at home.
>> Atari.
>> Atari. Yep. That's an Atari joystick.
One of the first home joysticks anyone
ever had.
>> That's the first controller.
>> You can just plug it in through the
HDMI.
>> Yep.
>> I have no idea what this is.
>> You don't know who that is.
>> I don't know who this is.
>> Got a movie out in theaters right now.
>> I have no clue what this is.
>> It's a famous toy from the 80s, which is
a big movie right now in theaters right
now.
>> I don't know. But he got cool hair
though.
>> His hair is on point.
>> Yeah, it is.
>> I still have some of my old action
figures. don't have this one. But yeah,
>> you remember his name?
>> I don't remember his name.
>> That's He-Man.
>> Let's go.
>> Yep. Go.
>> He-Man.
>> Yes, sir.
>> We don't know about the the He-Man.
>> But uh before I had uh Battlecat, I
basically had my He-Man. I had him on a
on a I used a Snoopy toy to basically
>> he's riding Snoopy.
>> I'm talking about like four or five
years old. I had a Snoopy soft toy. And
then eventually finally got Battlecat.
>> I don't know what this He-Man. This look
like He-Man. Yes, He-Man.
>> And check this. This was how I made back
in the day. You have his arm like that
and you be fighting with your other one.
>> Boom.
>> Leech. Leech man.
>> My favorite from the Masters of the
>> You can never get him to stand upright
properly. And then the water. Is there
water in there?
>> No. Not
>> that. Yeah.
>> Stick to the window. Yeah.
>> This how you watch the other way.
>> No, the other way. This how you take
pictures.
>> And then you flip that down.
>> That's how I used I used to have this as
a kid, man.
>> Oh, I don't know what this is called.
>> This is cool.
>> This is like where you
>> put it up there. Yeah,
>> flip it.
>> You know,
>> now flip that. Yeah.
>> And it slippes the slide. Let's go.
>> I do remember this. You put the little
um
>> little disc in there.
>> Yep. Slides in. Go ahead. There's one in
there. Yeah.
>> Oh,
>> yep.
He's here.
>> 3D as well.
>> Like you get a picture and then you're
like, "Let me put it in here so I can
see."
>> Look here. Let's
>> No, you would buy different different
disc to put in there. It'd be cartoons.
It'd be
>> anything. Animals. Oh, y'all didn't have
like a
>> Okay.
>> Yeah, we didn't have it, bro.
>> Come [laughter] on.
>> You can take this out and put Yeah, you
can go get new ones.
>> Hey, this was YouTube.
>> Oh, it's like a TV show,
>> basically. Yeah, it goes from slide to
slide.
>> We were bored as hell looking at this
thing. That's all we had, man.
>> We didn't have electronics, can we? No.
>> TV.
>> This is awesome. [laughter]
Oh man.
>> You know what that is in there?
>> Yes. What's his name? Uh,
>> he's here.
>> He's here.
>> Yeah, we have him. Let's see.
>> Somewhere. Oh, he's right here.
>> Dude, this is awesome. What's his name?
Um,
>> he's in here.
>> Uh,
it's not Barney. I can tell you that.
Barney.
>> I I know who it Who is this?
>> This is the coolest alien that's ever
existed.
>> Alien.
>> He's furry.
>> He's an alien.
>> That's a mammal.
>> What was the I know, but what was like
the love behind him?
>> Arlo or starts with an uh
Now, who's this fell? I don't know who
this fell is.
>> That, my friend, is Alf.
>> That's my guy right here.
>> Alien Life Form. He was a TV show in the
80s, and we all fell in love with him
because he was just silly, goofy, alien,
>> and he loves cats. He eats cats.
>> Okay, good to know. I'm not not too deep
in the lore, Val.
>> Yeah, it's pretty cool, man. It was a
good show.
>> Y'all was just doing stuff. [laughter]
>> They just created anything.
>> You do this in the water. No, it was
just a old It was like a weird way to
make a football. You know what I mean?
Put a ugly weird face on it.
>> Look at that.
>> How far could you throw that thing?
>> Yeah, like Yep.
>> This kind of a hard object.
>> It's a weird
I throw it at least 50 though. I got 50.
>> I'd love to take a pass from you.
>> You know what that is?
>> No, I have no idea what this is. Is this
from like the Mario?
>> All of us kids had to have
>> a rocket ball.
>> Close. I couldn't tell you what it's
called.
>> And then this.
>> See, this I'm not I'm not familiar with.
>> Oh, you'll love these.
>> What is a Nerf ball?
>> It's a little Nerf ball.
>> Sort of. Sort of.
>> I mean, you're in the area.
>> But what it what kind of ball is this?
>> It's called a Mad Ball. It's actually a
super mad ball. It was a popular toy in
the 80s called the Mad Balls. And then
they got into making sports balls,
football, basketball, soccer ball. They
just put these wild face.
>> They tried to get as weird as they could
with their football.
>> And we loved it.
>> Yeah, they got weird. You They got
weird.
>> But that's a cool little toy. People
like them still.
>> Trucker little truck.
>> Yep.
>> Feel how Feel how
>> your head is. That's old toy. That's
from 83, bro.
>> Look at that.
>> Yeah. I used to have something like
this.
>> Yeah.
>> This was our first little toy back in
the 80s.
>> Yeah. I used to I used to have something
like that. That is
>> It's a solid piece.
>> Yeah, it is solid.
>> That's from 1983.
>> Yeah.
>> This is how they used to make toys in
the 80s. Much different. Much higher.
>> There you go. Look at him. There you go.
>> He gone.
>> I mean, I just call it like a RC car,
but I think I'm wrong.
>> Forward.
>> Oh, yeah.
This
>> toy still works from that.
>> Did the lights come on?
>> Yeah.
>> Top tier toy right here. Back there.
>> Big foot. Of course. No. Big foot. Yep.
>> It was awesome. It
>> still goes, man. 1983.
Yeah, baby.
>> You know what we do?
Another breaker.
>> ET.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Everybody knows.
>> Yeah. Everybody know ET. Yeah. This
>> ET was huge in the 80s, man.
>> Actually made a cameo in the Phantom
Menace if uh for those of you that don't
know. Yeah.
>> This guy knows this stuff.
>> He's in the Star Wars universe.
>> Yeah, he's in the uh political scene.
>> Yeah, he is. Yep. ET man, you going to
be on our podcast. Come on, man.
>> I was raised wrong.
>> Now, this is really old. This is before
my time, basically.
>> Okay.
>> Oh, man.
>> That's a deep
>> Wow, that's deep. Uh, yeah. Data discs.
[laughter]
>> I was going to say floppy discs.
>> That's what That's the first of floppy
discs.
>> These are the first floppy discs. This
is This is why they call the floppy cuz
cuz the floppy disc isn't floppy, right?
It's hard and plastic. This is actually
floppy.
>> So, technically I got them right.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's how you put
like a computer program in.
>> Oh, these are super thin. These are old
floppy disc.
>> This like this like the first floppy.
>> It was before the walk around with this
in your backpack at school.
>> Hope it doesn't break.
>> Yeah. And this is have like one megabyte
on it, [laughter]
>> if that. Bro,
>> do you know? So, I did we didn't have
much growing up, but we did have a lot
of VHS tapes. That's awesome.
>> And we had uh like we didn't have many
TVs in the house, but one TV we did have
we actually had two of them. It was like
those small little cubes with the little
VHS
built in.
>> We had a little small TV right there
under
>> and that's uh what I watched all my
movies on. We had Grinch.
>> We I used to have these back at home.
>> Got them back at the house.
>> Yeah.
>> VHS.
This was how we watched our movies, man.
>> You know what they definitely don't know
about is rewinding these things before
taking them back to Blockbuster.
>> Yeah,
>> this is a deep cut. And you might not
>> My grandparents had this. I've seen this
before, but I don't think I would know
what it's called.
>> Like a check cutter.
>> There's no way for you to know what this
is.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> These were for what? Checks, right?
>> That's how you did ran a credit card.
Oh, so you'd put your credit card here
>> and go and it would
>> imprint her numbers
>> and then put it here
>> and then you they rip this off and
they'd send this to the bank.
>> Okay.
>> Cuz there was no internet like this is
how you charged stuff back in the day.
>> Damn. What year is this?
>> Oh, bro.
>> This is 80s.
>> Can I Yeah, go ahead.
>> Oh, that is that that sound needs to be
put in, you know, on a cassette tape.
That
>> sound on our podcast. Hilarious. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Let's see.
These were some cool trading cards as a
kid.
>> I don't know, Adam the Bump. I don't
know these.
>> Do you know what these are?
>> This looks like a Cabbage Patch kid on
there.
>> That's a great
>> These are trading cards.
>> Yeah, but that's a great uh callback
from the Cabbage Patch.
>> That's terrifying.
>> Do you know what those are?
>> I do. I'm a I'm a trading card guy.
Garbage pale kids, you know. Never get
Never got into these.
>> This was the That's the one. That's the
crew.
>> This is the big one.
>> That's the big dog right there. The Adam
Bob.
>> Adam Bob. What's What's that go [music]
for these days?
>> Pretty expensive. 150 at least.
>> 150.
>> They're called garbage bail kids and
they're
>> just They tried to be as gross as
possible.
>> Our parents didn't want us to have them.
>> Everybody in school had these garbage
pail kids.
>> These were cool, man.
>> Um
>> Oh gosh. I feel like I should know.
>> This is This is a deep cut tool. It's a
deep cut tool. Definitely not judging
you if you don't.
>> Toy Soldiers.
>> Close, bro. That was somebody else's.
>> Oh, no. It was from the movie Toy
Soldiers. What were they called?
>> Right.
>> They were in Toy Soldiers.
>> Looks like them. No,
>> I'm going to know it. What are they?
>> Oh, it's called an action figure.
>> The first thing I thought about with
this guy
>> was uh
>> I know what you're going to say.
>> The Toy Soldiers movie.
>> Oh, no. I don't know. No, I was going to
say Beastman from Masters of the
Universe.
>> No. Yeah,
>> they were called Muscle Men.
>> Muscle Mint.
>> Yeah. And they were just a cool little
toy that
>> we somehow liked even though they
weren't had any color at all on them.
And
>> And you could get these out of, you
know, like in the restaurants or stores
that have like little tur.
Yeah, that's what these were. And you
could also they they became so popular
they started selling them in the stores.
>> Yeah. There you go.
>> Texas. I have no idea what this is, but
my mom's a kindergarten teacher, and it
just seems like something she would have
in her classroom.
>> She definitely This is like the OGTI.
>> Uh, shout out to my mom being a math
teacher, but I don't know what
>> Hey, those are expensive. Those Texas
instrument calculators.
>> Yes.
>> Oh my gosh. Speak and spell. I don't
think I ever uh I don't think I ever
used one of these. I don't know how it
works to be honest with you. Um,
>> speaking.
>> Thought it took AA batteries. It takes
C. Like this was like our teacher/ iPad
Texas instrument
>> like the calculator.
>> I mean I know it says it.
>> I mean you type it and it says it back.
It was in Toy Story.
>> Yep.
>> He can spell man.
>> Okay. I mean I could read it there but I
didn't want to cheat.
>> Yeah. No, that was a Texas instrument
like and it was our teacher.
>> It would ask you to spell words. Yeah.
It would ask you to spell words and you
>> should have put batteries.
>> I know it wasn't prepared.
>> C batteries though. Who keeps see
batteries?
>> Yeah, you're right. You're right.
>> You know this guy. Oh my god.
>> Uh, is this a Megazord from Power
Rangers?
>> Close.
>> Very close. And I'm I'm assuming they
took some inspiration from it.
>> No.
>> No. Everyone thinks Power Rangers. And I
understand why people think Power
Rangers. I get it. Cuz it looks just
like the Power Rangers.
>> Uh, this
>> the Gundam.
>> This is Voltron.
>> Voltron. I knew Voltron.
>> You did, man.
>> I've seen Dead.
>> And that's an old toy, too. And each of
these come off and form a tiger.
>> Yeah.
>> So this was next level to a kid.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> And this is the uh the diecast metal
one. This was the the one that everybody
wanted cuz they made plastic versions of
this.
>> Okay.
>> And it's kind of the cheap one, but this
is the one that everyone wanted.
>> That's sweet. Voltron, man.
>> Oh, Voltron. Not a Voltron guy. Not a
Voltron guy. Not a Voltron guy. Don't
know why.