Mental Floss

THE '80S

PBS NewsHour, Flickr // CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

When we think of Zubaz today, “utilitarian” probably isn’t the first word that pops into our heads.

Ethan Trex


A scene from The Kids in the Hall.

Twenty-five years after airing its final episode, a revival of 'The Kids in the Hall' will be coming to Amazon as its first original Canadian series.

Scott Beggs






Kevin Winter, Getty Images

By most accounts, Steve Martin—your favorite wild and crazy guy—is neither wild nor crazy. (Sorry.)

Stacy Conradt




Paramount Pictures

In the fall of 1979, a group of unknown actors, a director desperate for a hit, and a special effects visionary got together in the woods of New Jersey to create the stuff of legend.

Matthew Jackson




Not even a lineup of the world's biggest artists could save "We Are The World" from annoying listeners.

If you don't want to spend the rest of the day humming "We Built This City," "Who Let the Dogs Out," or "We Are the World," stop reading this article right now.

Stacy Conradt


Nickelodeon

Nickelodeon’s 'Double Dare', which ran from 1986 to 1993 and taped more than 500 episodes, gave its kid contestants bicycles or boom boxes in exchange for fetching giant balls of snot from oversized noses.

Jake Rossen






Lucy Quintanilla

R.L. Stine’s Fear Street novels terrified teens in the late 1980s and early '90s. Now, the Fear Street books are heading to Netflix in a three-film trilogy. Here's what you should know about the books.

Erin McCarthy
Star Wars © & TM 2015 Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

After the massive success of the 1977 original, and the downer ending of 'The Empire Strikes Back' in 1980, space opera mastermind George Lucas returned in 1983 to produce what everyone thought would be the final installment of 'Star Wars'.

Sean Hutchinson
Peter Parks, AFP/Getty Images

Although it doesn’t have quite the same archaeological provenance as hieroglyphs or dinosaur bones, historians believe there’s ample evidence to suggest that the mullet has been around for centuries. And it's gaining popularity once again.

Jake Rossen