Johnny Rockets restaurants epitomizes the meaning of 'throwback': vintage jukeboxes, timeless transistor radios, old-school waiters' outfits, even classic furniture and menu boards. Johnny Rockets pays homage to the 50s drive-thru restos in the U.S. It's like turning back the clock to 1955, when Bill Haley and the Comets rocked around the clock.
My favorite decade, however, was the 1980s. It was the decade of advancing technology, such as the CD, the PC, and video games such as Pac-Man. It was also the decade of 'Thriller', the end of the Cold War, MTV, and even spandex and wild hairstyles. The synthesizer dominated the musical landscape, whether it was pop, post-disco, dance, new wave or hair metal. Some guys are meant to look dapper, such as Robert Palmer.
I got fascinated with the 80s back in high school. Even in the world of MP3s and social networking, the 80s remain fixed through my ears. I remember when my old high school used to have a jukebox in the canteen and I played one 80s song from there and I got danced to the beat, that to this day it was so catchy that when I listened to this song I just grooved like crazy. Nowadays, though, thanks to internet radio and downloadable sites I can access to an endless library of 80s songs and listen to them over and over again without any interruption or commercial breaks.
Remember back in 2003 when I first watched a Celtic game on TV? That of course was Game 7 of the 1987 Eastern Semifinals between Larry Bird's Celtics and the Milwaukee Bucks, back when Solar Sports was the NBA's primary outlet. Nowadays, there's BTV, and every once in a while I would catch up with a classic Celtics game from the Bird era, particularly my favorite game: Game 2 of the 1986 first round between the Celtics and Michael Jordan's Bulls. Even in the current Celtic era of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, I still state that the reason I became a Celtic fan was because of watching an 80s Celtics game.
Of course, that was the time when athletes' uniforms were tighter than today. You got the short shorts in basketball, the pullover shirts and stirrups in baseball, and even the infamous Cooperalls (the long pants) in hockey. I still consider myself lucky because, even though the Red Sox flubbed an attempt to win the World Series in 1986, the baseball world was fortunate that the Yankees, aka the most accomplished dynasty in all of baseball, failed to win even a single World Series and saw upstarts such as the Royals, Mets and Twins won it all in a three-year span in the mid-80s (1985-87). Had the Patriots never blew themselves out and defeated the Chicago Bears in the Super Bowl in 1986, they would've been the first championship team instead of the 2001 Patriots. Of course, the Bruins of Ray Bourque and Cam Neely came to prominence in the late 80s, only to be denied by a buzzsaw known as Wayne Gretzky and his Oilers.
There will be more 80s talk in the next segment.
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