Zig & Zag's '80s Masterclass

Arriving in Ireland in the ’80s as young aliens, it was clear to see that people wore different clothing. The first thing that springs to mind is desert boots. Ask anyone who was a student in the ’80s about desert boots and they’ll know exactly what we are talking about. We wore blue, red, green anoraks over a tracksuit tops and ripped denim jeans with skateboard boots.

When we first crash landed here, our main job was to get jokes from the children of Ireland. We asked them to send in jokes, so we could bring them back to the people of our home planet Zog, which was depleted of all jokes. That was the reason we ar- rived on Dempsey’s Den. Kids used to write us tonnes of letters. That was another thing about the ’80s, if you wanted to talk to somebody, and you couldn’t ring them on the phone, you’d have to send them a letter. There was no email. There was no snapchat, text or mobile phones. It was through all these letters that we discovered what the families of Ireland were eating for their tea. Dinners mainly consisted of mince, onions, or fry-ups. As soon as you opened the envelope, you’d know that’s a house that has a fry every evening. You could smell the grease off the letters.

There was only RTE1, RTE2, BBC1, BBC2, ITV and, later, Channel 4. They were the only TV stations you could watch. There used to be a prayer at bedtime and the national anthem was played at the end of programming for RTE1 at 7.30pm, then everything shut down. We watched Dynasty, Baywatch, Glenroe. We were big Baywatch fans. We interviewed lots of people off Baywatch, Pamela Anderson, Jeremy Jackson, and many more. I’m sure most of them ended up in rehab. The Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles cartoon was being made at the time in Ireland. Our favourite character from Saved By The Bell was the curly-haired nerd Screech. Kelly Kapowski was lovely and we liked Mr. Belding.

We used to hang out with Jerry Fish, the brothers from the Four Of Us, Brendan and Declan Murphy, and the Saw Doctors. Frances Black was around
a lot, Linda Martin, and, of course, Mary Robin- son. We were the first ones to interview her as President of Ireland. Live Aid was pretty huge. We met Bob Geldof loads of times, he’s a really nice guy. We were huge fans of Back To The Future. We interviewed Michael J Fox in New York. Sometimes you have a perception of what people are like, but he was even more lovely than you’d expect him to be. He is Marty Mcfly.

As for other films, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Top Gun, Ghostbusters, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, is a classic. The Goonies was the best film ever made. The Lost Boys was deadly. That was before Kiefer Sutherland got weird. We’re huge Bill Murray fans. We used to do this thing called ‘Rotten Apple club’, on Friday afternoons on The Den. We got the idea from a Bill Murray.

When it comes to ’80s sex symbols, Madonna springs to mind. Leslie Dowdall, from In Tua Nua, she was hot. Of course, The Hoff and Zach Morris from Saved By The Bell.

There was lots of weird music going on back then. Eighties music was either really good or really bad. We listened to Guns N’ Roses and Van Halen. There were no CDs, it was either vinyl or cassette tape. We’d have the Stunning on The Den, our favourite band ever. The Four Of Us, Light A Big Fire, An Emotional Fish and The Sultans of Ping. They were all great bands.

Kids in the ’80s used to entertain themselves with Rubix cubes and Slinkys. Board games like Monopoly, Cluedo, Game of Life, Mousetrap, Buckeroo, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Operation. Ev- ery television advert was either a toy ad or a snack ad. You don’t get that anymore. You can’t advertise sugar to children. The trade-off for kids in the ’80s was they didn’t have diabetes but they didn’t have a lot of teeth either. Irish kids got kicked out the door in the morning and were told to ‘come back when it’s teatime’.

We got a Hot Press cover in the ’80s, which was very cool. We got interviewed by Graham Linehan at his mom’s house. A really famous photographer named Colm Henry, who’s worked with U2, Phil Lynott, Rory Gallagher and Sinéad O’Connor, did the photo for the cover. It was so rock ’n’ roll, we were holding a guitar.

The main difference between the ’80s and now is there’s more than five television channels. There’s a thing called ‘the internet’. You can’t just pick a plastic bag up anymore, you have to pay for it.

Potato waffles aren’t considered part of your five a day. Going to the chipper isn’t considered healthy. People weren’t so concerned with what they ate in the ’80s. Nowadays they are, it’s mad. Nobody jogged on the streets in the ’80s, unless you were running away from the guards.

Zig and Zag’s animation is available on the RTÉjr television channel weekdays at 5:45pm and on the RTÉjr app.