"I Love the '80s" is the US version of BBC2's "I Love the 1980s" series of "Remember when...?" shows. It's shorter due to ad breaks, has less interviews with the people who were actually behind the items in each show (though given that more than a few items overlap - "Diff'rent Strokes," for instance - and given that reusing the interview segments would have caused some serious mismatching of footage, maybe not cannibalizing the original shows was wise... although why couldn't it just have been a co-production in the first place, with some area-specific items removed depending on where it was shown?), and whereas each episode had a different host, this series goes for a voiceover approach ("Because you've still got those neat Swatches, admit it!").
But while it's inferior to the original in some aspects, it's superior in others; the year-specific lists - Bret Michaels's babes, Soleil Moon Frye's charts of who or what was first born in a year, Andrew Dice Clay's "Mr and Mrs" - are amusing, and though it has its share of talking heads, they're still preferable to the ones in BBC2's show (or would you really rather have Jeremy Spake and Zoe Ball?). Plus growing up outside the UK meant that ultimately this series speaks to me more than the UK version...
Followed by "I Love the '70s." Yes, the 1970s. Unlike some broadcasters I could mention, VH-1 seems to have realised that it's too soon to feel nostalgic about the decade that gave us "Sex and the City," Britpop, Beavis and Butthead, and John Major. Assuming, of course, that some of us ever will.
But while it's inferior to the original in some aspects, it's superior in others; the year-specific lists - Bret Michaels's babes, Soleil Moon Frye's charts of who or what was first born in a year, Andrew Dice Clay's "Mr and Mrs" - are amusing, and though it has its share of talking heads, they're still preferable to the ones in BBC2's show (or would you really rather have Jeremy Spake and Zoe Ball?). Plus growing up outside the UK meant that ultimately this series speaks to me more than the UK version...
Followed by "I Love the '70s." Yes, the 1970s. Unlike some broadcasters I could mention, VH-1 seems to have realised that it's too soon to feel nostalgic about the decade that gave us "Sex and the City," Britpop, Beavis and Butthead, and John Major. Assuming, of course, that some of us ever will.