5 Childhood Heroes from the 80s That Let Me Down

Bigfoot

There was a time when I was around seven or so when I was pretty much confident I could either be Bigfoot or live with him. Did I carry a lot of lead paint-saturated toys in my mouth as a child? Possibly. But Harry and the Hendersons clinched it for me that Bigfoot was awesome and probably just misunderstood. If I could find him, domesticate him and train him to play tag, we would be the best of friends for all eternity. It was as foolproof a plan as I had ever devised. For a solid year I was all about Bigfoot. I even attempted an expedition to track him down about a block from my house. I found tracks that I at first thought were his but later decided were probably just hobo tracks or “bum shufflins.” I lived in a really shitty part of town. The Heartbreak Have you ever seen a person who claims to have seen Bigfoot? These are the people that carnies turn away at the gates to the circus because they can’t handle the stress of this kind of shit. As I grew older, my mind wrestled with the realization that one of two things was occurring – either Bigfoot was a hoax or he had a preternatural attraction to mental retardation of the most dire sort.

Some research when I was old enough revealed that most Bigfoot sightings were not even something plausible, like a diseased monkey or an unhygienic mountain man. Mostly they were just dickheads in ape costumes. Any reported sightings of footprints? Frauds and hobo shufflins. Bigfoot’s stubborn insistence on not existing had let me down. Worse yet, the guy who played Harry in the movie actually contracted AIDS on the set of Harry and the Hendersons during a blood transfusion. Fuck you so hard, Bigfoot. Vengeance If I wanted to teach Bigfoot a lesson I’d have to go toe-to-toe with him in a manner he’d understand: cold brutality. Now, arguably, fighting a beast I’d just acknowledged had let me down by virtue of not actually existing would be a bit of a challenge but if I’d learned nothing else from numerous montages in 80s fight films it was that no adversary could stand up to a dude who’d gone through one. Bigfoot was in for some shit.

I’m gonna kick you right in your hairy chest box. Pussy.

I did some Googling to find some cryptozoologists, the people who study things like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster while pretending to be actual scientists and not just despicable frauds who waste other people’s valuable time. Once I found one willing to talk to me on the phone, I laid it out bluntly: How can I kill Bigfoot with my bare hands, or at least mess him up real bad? My cryptozoologist friend began explaining how Bigfoot is obviously a very endangered and peaceful being of high intelligence. I had to cut him off. I don’t give a fig if he’s the hairy, bastard child of Stephen Hawking and Mother Theresa, the son of a bitch stole my hopes and dreams and he’ll be lucky if he gets away with a black eye and some ball kicks. I was hung up on. A guy who pretends to study Bigfoot for a living was too professional to continue our discussion. This Bigfoot rabbit hole full of bullshit goes very deep. Regardless, once the ninja stars I ordered off the Internet show up he’s going to wish he never existed. Which he doesn’t.

Jon Arbuckle

When I was a kid,

Alex Trebek

I have innumerable memories of a harrowing incident that played itself out time and again throughout my childhood. My father would get this look in his eye and I knew what was coming but, as a child, helpless in the face of such things, I could only stand by and watch. He would rise from his favorite seat and proceed to the kitchen. There, he would bust out a can of knock-off Spam. It was Holiday brand luncheon meat. We never bought Spam, it was too corporate.

Spam? This ain’t the Ritz.

He’d plop his congealed pork atrocity on a plate and proceed to make about four sandwiches. And then he would take them to the bathroom and when he emerged, an hour or so later, there would be no indication any sandwiches had ever existed. I can’t say how much this influenced my idolization of Mr. Alex Trebek, but his confident mustache and seemingly endless knowledge of trivia made me want to go live with him.

Johnny 5

Short Circuit is, without a doubt, one of Steve Guttenberg’s best films. That statement holds more gravity than I care to get in to right now but trust me, it’s completely true. But more important than Steve Guttenberg’s involvement is the film’s central character Johnny 5. Of all the robots I ever thought were awesome, Johnny 5 was the only one with a campy 80s soundtrack and Ally Sheedy, who I couldn’t give half a shit about. While most 80s bots were busy killing or being made of boxes, Johnny 5 was cracking wise. Remember when he did that

The A-Team

To this day I can’t think of anything that should be more awesome than the A-Team and I can think of boobs. I think of them a lot. The A-team featured a grizzled old dude who just didn’t give a shit, a lunatic, a suave James Bond and Mr. T. That’s a guy who hasn’t seen fit to change the way he looks in 30 years and is known by a letter. That shit is hardcore. This group of hardasses came together as a team of mercenaries who never actually took money from people that I am aware of. That in turn means they just blew up every goddamn thing they came across for shits and giggles. They had a profound influence on my young mind and, to this day, when I feel a wrong needs to be righted, my gut instinct is to use explosives. Because it’s the right thing to do.