Fun ’80s Quiz: If You Lived in the Eighties, Ace This!

The Nintendo Entertainment System was first released in North America on Sept. 27, 1986. It featured 17 launch titles, including Super Mario Bros. Masayuki Uemura, who developed the Nintendo Entertainment System that started a global revolution in-home gaming, died on Dec. 9, 2021. He was 78.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA’s career leader in total points, with an average of 24.6 points per game, in 20 seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks (1969-70 to 1974-75) and the Los Angeles Lakers (1975-76 to 1988-89), and 38,387 points in total.

NASA footage of the historic Apollo 11 landing on the moon in 1969, with footage of the 1981 launch countdown of the Columbia space shuttle, and the MTV flag, were the first images to appear on MTV when it launched, on August 1, 1981. The moon landing images were shown right before airing the then music station’s first music video – the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.”

MTV Moon Person News Fact

On Sunday, Aug 1, 2021, MTV celebrated its 40th anniversary by revealing a large-scale “Moon Person” during a ceremony at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. In an interview with The Associated Press, MTV Entertainment President and CEO Chris McCarthy said that the image of space travel fit well with the spirit of its young audience.

Most famous for opposing apartheid in South Africa and helping the country’s peaceful transition to majority rule, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu died on Dec. 26, 2021, at age 90. He had won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize and was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, in both cases being the first black African to hold the position.

What was Desmond Tutu’s Position on LGBTQ+ issues?

Tutu criticized South African President Thabo Mbeki for denying HIV/AIDS and preventing the government from distributing life-saving treatments. He also compared a proposed law criminalizing homosexuality in Uganda to apartheid South Africa’s laws that banned inter-racial sexual relations.

Meeting in Geneva in 1955, the U.S., France, Britain, and the Soviet Union leaders sought to end the Cold War. As this didn’t exactly work out, in 1985, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev met for a second Geneva Summit to hold talks on international diplomatic relations and the Cold War arms race.

The Biden-Putin Geneva Summit of 2021 Fact

US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a third Geneva summit on June 16, 2021. The two leaders discussed face-to-face the escalating tensions between the US and Russia in the first months of the Biden administration.

R.I.P George Shultz. Reagan’s secretary of state also served under Eisenhower (as Secretary of Labor) and Nixon (as director of the Office of Management and Budget, and then as Treasury secretary). He was 100 when he passed away on Sunday, Feb. 7, 2021.

Ann Dowd, known as the intimidating Aunt Lydia in “A Handmaid’s Tale,” portrayed housekeeper turned housemother for boarding students Edna Garrett, the shared character of “The Facts of Life” and “Diff’rent Strokes,” on ABC’s “Live in Front of a Studio Audience” special, Dec. 7, 2021. The special is now available on HULU.

What happened to the original Mrs. Garrett?

Mrs. G was played by actress Charlotte Rae, who died from bone cancer at her home in Los Angeles, California, on Aug. 5, 2018. She was 92 years old.

Annie’s dog is named Sandy in the hit Broadway musical “Annie.” The character also appears in the two films based on the musical.

What’s “Annie Live!”?

“Annie Live!” is the tale of the young orphan and her dog during the 1930s’ Depression in a live musical form, which aired on NBC on Dec. 2, 2021. It’s NBC’s first live musical since 2018’s “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert.”

1984’s movie Ghostbusters takes place in New York City, AKA The Big Apple.

Ghostbusters 2021

Sony Pictures’ trailer for “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” was released on July 27, 2021. Starring Finn Wolfhard, McKenna Grace, Carrie Coon, and Paul Rudd, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” was released on Nov. 11. The film’s director, and co-writer, is Jason Reitman (Juno), son of the original Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman. Watch the trailer.

Stand by Me is based on Stephen King’s 1982 novella The Body, with the film’s title derived from Ben E. King’s song.

Stand By Me 2021 Fact

2021 is the 35th anniversary of Rob Reiner’s Stand by Me. One of the film’s stars, Wil Wheaton, told Yahoo Entertainment in an interview published on Friday, May 21, 2021, about the abuse he experienced from his mother Debbie, a former actress, and his father Richard, a medical specialist. The then 14-year-old actor said that this experience significantly influenced his role in the film.

2021’s “Voyage” is the first ABBA album with new songs since “The Visitors” in 1981, released before the band split. ABBA Gold, a greatest hits compilation initially released in 1992, passed its 1000th week on the UK Album Chart in July 2021.

Are ABBA reuniting on stage?

The new album launches a new ABBA concert show – also called Voyage – featuring digital representations of the four band members created by motion-capture technology. From May 2022, fans will have a chance to catch the ABBA avatars (AKA ABBAtars) accompanied by a live band at a purpose-built ABBA Arena in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.