Posts  >  Category: Random 80's Trivia

I was asked just that by trade magazine Womenswear Buyer WWB this month and after much thought and a little help from the office girlies, plumped for Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry.

Why? Well she'd be flashy, feisty and (we imagine) fabulous fun. Ideally she’d turn up in one of her iconic 80’s outfits, complete with two tone blonde hair and armed with a karaoke machine.

The perfect night in! If only.....

Who would you choose?

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In 1971, John Pasche, a budding young British artist, was commissioned by the Rolling Stones to produce a logo intended to be used as the album artwork for Sticky Fingers. After meeting Mick Jagger for the first time, Pasche was inspired to come up with the now infamous lips and tongue design by the "size of his lips and mouth". Voted in 2008 as the Greatest Band Logo of all time, and widely credited as the first 'rock brand marketing', the iconic design has been celebrated, for better or worse, in some zany ways over the past forty years. We celebrate our favourite here, and now!

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Yet another retro revival hits our cinema screens this week but although box office forecasters are predicting big things for The Green Hornet, the critics seem to be swatting it from every direction. Uh oh! In advance of our TruffleShuffle outing to see this movie this week, we look at what some of the experts are saying about the Superhero action comedy remake...

The premise of the movie is loosely based on that of the original which centred on the smart and rich newspaper publisher, Britt Reed, who turned masked vigilante with help from his Asian manservant Kato. This time though, the publisher is a bumbling, immature party animal (played by Seth Rogen) who inherits his father's empire and newspaper when he suddenly dies from a bee sting but then doesn't know what to do with it. Kato (played by Jay Chou) meanwhile, is no manservant. He's a mechanical and engineering genius, martial arts warrior, piano-prodigy, weapons expert and coffee-making artiste. Together, they decide to protect the citizens of L.A. by becoming good guys pretending to be bad guys who fight crime without badges and it's all in 3d too!Directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,) it's already managed to flit to the top of the US box office, earning $34 million in this, it's opening weekend. Plenty enough to score the number one spot and to fight off competition from the new Ron Howard/Vince Vaughn combo, The Dilemma.

To be honest - we had pretty high hopes for this one but from the sounds of some of the reviews below, we might just be disappointed! We'll reserve our judgement until we've seen it in action but in the meantime, here's what the experts are saying....

NME - 4 OUT OF 10

The problem with the new film is the titular character himself; Hornet was always a bumbling douchebag compared with DC and Marvel’s sleek elite, and while Rogan’s resume means he has the comedy chops to portray such a character, the age the film is being released into means there’s something heavy footed and dated about the green one's japes – tonally it’s perhaps akin to the aforementioned Nolan casting Adam West in place of Christian Bale.

Despite an impressive cast of players – Michael Gondry behind the camera, Inglourious Basterds’ Chistoph Waltz the villain in front – the sum of such talents only succeeds in making a film out-of-step with the times; Kick-Ass did comedy sharper, Watchmen more adult, there’s even gags in The Dark Knight if you scrape off the grime. What The Green Hornet does better than all these films is making superheroes uncool – and there’s nothing that’s even a bit super about that.'

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News just in on the 80's grapevine that our friends at Atari have teamed up with 20th Century Fox to turn its classic 80's arcade game Missile Command into a feature film.

If you're not familiar with the cold war arcade classic, it involved protecting a series of vulnerable bases from falling nuclear warheads and apparently Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama, the screenwriters behind the upcoming Flash Gordon remake, have been hired to pen the script.

Have to say - when I think back to the hours spent playing Missile Command back in the day, I don't ever remember thinking this would make a great movie someday but hey, at least there will be plenty of explosions to get our teeth into.

Two more of the company's games, Asteroids and Rollercoaster Tycoon, have also recently been optioned for the big screen which does make you wonder, is Hollywood starting to run out of fresh ideas and if so, is using arcade games with pretty non-existent plot lines as your starting point really the way to go?

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We had a little chuckle at this - a Stockholm pastor is being probed by the Church for wearing a dodgy men's t shirt.

Apparently, colleagues saw a photo on his facebook profile of the naughty minister wearing a tee with a print of a well known Swedish porn film, and are currently working out what action to take. The photo was taken while he was supervising a children's trip to France.

Maybe he could have sparked less of an outrage by wearing something slightly less risky - he could have even praised the Lord himself with this amazing Jesus T Shirt from Chunk!

Mayhem has set in at Truffle Towers this week as us shufflers scramble for our controllers for some seriously old school, retro, and awesomely classic games. Who cares about growing up?!

Brushing the cobwebs aside from our Nintendo NES, Atari, N 64, Sega Master System and the like, TruffleShuffle is reliving the good old days of our mis-spent childhoods with some finger numbing sessions on everyone’s favourite retro video games. Top of our list, of course, it’s the plucky little Italian we have all come to love, King of retro games....Mario! There is no better way to while away the hours than in the world of Mario and his brother Luigi, ducking and diving, level after level, in evermore risky situations. Mama Mia!!

For those who like us never made it to the end, this is how it should be done:

If you’re as mad on it as us, take a sneaky look into what we are all wearing and rocking to show our love for retro games here
The shufflers were subjected to a little poll and asked for their top 5 retro games. The votes are in, check them out below! Do you agree, have we missed anything? Let us know your comments!!!
1. Super Mario
2. Sonic
3. Paper Boy
4. Lemmings
5. Street Fighter
 Of course, retro games wouldn’t be the same without their iconic ‘stick in your head’ soundtracks. We’ve been scouring the web to find other peoples takes on such classics, here’s one for you guys:
Also, a few interesting, but useless facts for today:Mario was originally known as Jumpman. However, when Nintendo's US office were trying to think of a better name in time for the American release of the game, they were interrupted by their landlord Mario Segale, after whom they christened the character.A Q Score survey in the early nineties revealed that Mario was more recognisable to American children than Mickey Mouse!Have a great weekend!