Original subtitles

♪ ♪

ROB: We all love the '80s, right?

It's the decade we just can't quit.

It's a time when the world kicked in to technological overdrive.

So, now we're gonna celebrate some of the gadgets which have

stood the test of time, and some that haven't.

ROB (off-screen): Call them what you will,

gadgets, gizmos, mechanical lifesavers,

the '80s heeded their siren call.

LONI: How does it work? I don't know.

I just put the food in and it cooks.

ROB (off-screen): They told us how to play.

CRISTELA: Game Boy for me was my life.

ROB (off-screen): How to work.

DEE: If you had one of these you had attitude like,

"That's right, I'm on the phone."

ROB (off-screen): And how to be.

DMC: A boombox is gonna make you look.

TONY: Swatch came along. I'll wear two, It was fun.

TIFFANI: Walkman was your own individual little dance party.

ROB (off-screen): Now we're going back to the future to

count down the top ten gadgets of that decade

that changed our world.

MEAT LOAF: It's not a gadget, it's a necessity.

(theme music plays)

ROB: We're gonna start with a bang.

Our number ten is a gadget that defines '80s cutting edge, literally.

NARRATOR: In the '80s, inventors and their inventions

came in many forms, factual and fictional.

MAN: She's alive. Alive!

NARRATOR: But it took an unlikely combination of a

German manufacturer and a TV show

to give the '80s male a not so close shave.

MAN (off-screen): The cop show just graduated to the '80s.

NARRATOR: When the decade began,

America was deeply polarized.

Men were either beard-loving ex-hippies,

or clean-shaven office workers.

There was no such thing as halfway.

ALVIN: Before the 1980s, if you showed up in a meeting

with stubble on your face, people thought something

was desperately wrong.

MAN: Sure do get a smooth shave with this electric razor.

NARRATOR: All that changed in 1984.

TUBBS: Freeze. SONNY: Freeze. Miami Vice.

ELLEN: They were sexy, they were hot.

It was brand new.

NARRATOR: When a steamy and dreamy lawman named Sonny Crockett.

STAN: Yo, Sonny.

NARRATOR: Took the Miami drug scene and men's style by storm.

LONI: He had that designer stubble.

It was like god darn, yeah sexy.

DON: I like the idea of a guy standing around in a

$800-$900 suit unshaven and kinda looking like,

you know, he just, he just,

he was a derelict off the pages of Vogue.

NARRATOR: But Johnson's derelict look was anything but.

Designer stubble symbolized a new kind of masculine cool

and, surprise, this sexy plumage particularly

appealed to women.

DON: When I was asked by the American press here "why the stubble",

I said that Sonny Crockett seldom woke up in his own bed.

NARRATOR: But it takes a lot of care to look like you don't care.

STACY: I think Don Johnson absolutely represented this

idea of, you know, effortless chic,

but effortless takes effort.

NARRATOR: Enter Braun with its Micron Vario 3 shaver.

This miracle of German engineering claimed to deliver

the closest shave ever,

using their innovative three-stage setting,

but men quickly discovered they could use

these variable settings to maintain their stubble at

just the right designer length.

JAMES: What Braun and, ultimately,

a couple of other manufacturers did,

was come up with an electric shaver where you adjust

the distance of the shaving head from your cheek.

NARRATOR: Thanks to Braun, anyone could achieve that

casual, scruffy, chic look.

JON: It just became hip not to shave and be really cool,

and it was kind of a relief, like,

I don't have to shave every day and people like it.

NARRATOR: Other manufacturers followed with stubble clippers of their own.

MAN (off-screen): The company wants to call this the Miami Device.

NARRATOR: But it's the Braun that led the way for

male grooming in the '80s.

Designer stubble is only the beginning of what will become

a male grooming revolution, but Braun and the look it

helped to create have stood the test of time.

JAMES: Now they come in everything from one millimeter to 10 millimeters.

So I used one this morning.

You know, I mean everybody who has a beard uses one of these things,

even if you don't want that just rolled out of bed look.

NARRATOR: We're pretty sure Don Johnson still agrees.

ROB: It's tricky getting the ratio of cool stubble

to slightly derelict

to Civil War photograph.

I've tried to pull it off myself from time to time.

Speaking of time, that bring us to our number nine,

an item that adds new meaning to the phrase,

"runs as well as a Swiss watch."

MAN (off-screen): Maybe some day all watches will be made

like the Seiko digital alarm chronograph.

NARRATOR: In the late '70s, cheap mass-produced quartz

watches from Asia flooded the market.

MAN (off-screen): Maybe someday all watches will be made this way.

NARRATOR: By the early '80s, traditional European

watchmakers had a big problem.

Their products were seriously out of date.

(cuckoo)

Swiss watchmakers needed to keep up with the times,

and had to come up with a product that was both

affordable and fashionable

and thus the Swatch was born.

SHAWN: Swatch brought the precision of a Swiss timepiece,

it brought the affordability that, you know,

the average American was looking for.

NARRATOR: Retailing at just $25 to $35,

the Swatch launched in the US in 1983,

but the first batch wasn't exactly eye-catching and

left consumers unmoved.

Swatches marketing boss hatched a radical plan.

FRANZ: The first collection was not very great,

so I came in with the idea we are not selling a watch,

we are selling a fashion accessory.

MAN (off-screen): Swatch.

WOMAN (off-screen): Swatch.

MAN (off-screen): Always different, always new.

Fashionable.

TIFFANI: It started off as just a user-friendly,

easy watch to wear to then becoming this kind of great,

bright, vibrant sort of jewelry.

JACKIE: I had Swatch watches in every color of the rainbow.

They're all neon, but that's all the colors you needed in

the '80s anyway and you could match any outfit.

NARRATOR: Swatch released up to 48 new designs every year,

meaning you could fit in by being different,

and in the '80s it was just perfect:

an accessory with attitude.

SHAWN: Right from the start, this made them counter-culture

because they were doing something that was very

un-Swiss at the time.

MAN: The Swatch is water and shock resistant.

Brr, Swatch-o, ha, ha, ha Swatch-o.

NARRATOR: The Swatch was cool, colorful and collectible and

best of all for their manufacturer,

one was never enough.

MARK: Swatch came from second watch and it was a completely

different concept for a watch.

TIFFANI: You got to a point where you were wearing two or three,

and you would turn the face, like,

slightly this way and then another one with the face this way.

It was like a bracelet.

TONY: I actually got a sponsorship with Swatch and

in my contract it said I had to wear two.

I was like, "Yeah, sure, I'll wear two.

Why wouldn't I?"

NARRATOR: By launching a timely revolution,

Swatch reinvigorated the Swiss watch industry and kept an

entire decade on time.

MARK: Swatch understood that it was a youth market and what

an untapped market this audience was.

TIFFANI: Swatch watch, I think is probably the one accessory

that you can say defines the '80s.

I loved 'em.

ROB: Now, how did we arrive at our top ten?

Good question.

We recruited eight brilliant cultural historians who ranked

the highlights from ten to one by carefully considering two factors:

'80s wow, their importance at the time,

and impact, their legacy today.

The panel's mission was to uncover the greatest gadgets

of the entire decade.

Our number eight definitely has the '80s thing going for it,

and it has inspired a musical legacy that we

still haven't quite lived down.

♪ Down, show me the way ♪

♪ Get down, go ladies ♪ ♪

NARRATOR: "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaataa sold over

a million copies in 1982.

♪ Do what you want, but breathe ♪

JASON: "Planet Rock" is probably the most famous hip hop beat

of all time.

There was no beat that sounded like that.

It was kind of nervous and twitchy and really unusual.

NARRATOR: "Planet Rock's" beat sparked a musical revolution

and it was all created thanks to one amazing '80s gadget:

the Roland TR-808 drum machine.

DMC: The 808 drum was a global sonic revolution.

NARRATOR: Launched in 1980, the 808 generated sounds using

analog rather than digital technology,

which gave its drumbeats a futuristic vibe.

This unique sound caught the ear of early hip hop artists,

one of whom was pioneering producer, Egyptian Lover.

EGYPTIAN LOVER: The best thing ever is it doesn't sound like real drums.

It's a totally different sound.

Then we'll add a little jazzy hand clap.

So, when I made my records back in '83,

I mean, 35 years later, it's still futuristic.

NARRATOR: In addition to its unique drum sounds,

the 808 freed users from the pre-set rhythm patterns found

on other machines.

Legendary music producer, Trevor Horn,

was quick to take advantage.

TREVOR: Things before, they came with pre-set everything,

an 808, you could get it to play any rhythm.

When I first worked with ABC, the first song that I did with them,

it meant that I could program the rhythm section

♪ Shoot that poison arrow to my heart ♪

♪ Shoot that poison arrow ♪ ♪

TREVOR: Back in 1982, that was ground-breaking.

NARRATOR: In 1983, supplies of the old analog components had dried up,

so Roland replaced the 808 with a more advanced model,

but thanks to hits like "Planet Rock",

its sound had already become iconic.

JASON: It suddenly became a kind of cult's tool, instrument.

People wanted that 808 sound.

It was so specific.

NARRATOR: Used 808s started being snapped up by DIY music producers,

often for less than 100 bucks in thrift stores.

EGYPTIAN LOVER: All the producers heard this sound in

the clubs and they loved the sound and they bought the 808.

NARRATOR: Hip hop acts like Run DMC, LL Cool J

and Public Enemy started to incorporate the 808 sound.

♪ Oh, I wanna dance with somebody ♪

NARRATOR: And by the mid '80s, it was being used by everyone

from Whitney Houston to Talking Heads.

♪ Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody, ♪

♪ With somebody who loves me ♪ ♪

JASON: That drum sound became part of the DNA of so much

hip hop and so much popular music, even to this day.

♪ So keep your love locked down ♪

NARRATOR: Today, the 808's beats are included with music

software and modern drum machines and are still being

used by some of the world's biggest artists.

Kanye West dedicated an entire album to its sound.

40 years on, the 808 continues to define the sound of pop music.

♪ I got no-one new ♪

NARRATOR: So far, we've had the Braun stubble clipper at number 10,

the Swatch watch at number nine and

the 808 drum machine at, yep, number eight,

but our number seven was more than a mere gadget,

it was an addiction.

CRISTELA: Now you could go to the grocery store and while

your mom's looking at bread, you're like right here

boo, boo, boop, do, do, do.

Like, it... I love it.

ROB: The '80s developed some serious weapons of mass distraction.

Our number seven was invented by a guy who used to work as

a janitor for an electronics firm.

One day on his way to work, he noticed somebody idly playing

with his pocket calculator, and lightning struck.

MAN (off-screen): They said it wasn't humanly possible,

but now you can have all the power and excitement of

Nintendo right in the palm of your hand.

Introducing...

TIFFANI: Game Boy. I mean, these were huge.

DMC: Everybody had one.

CRISTELA: Game Boy, for me, was my life.

DMC: It allowed you to bring your arcade with you.

CRISTELA: If I had a new game, I would play it in the morning

till I went to sleep.

That was my life until I beat the game.

MAN (off-screen): Game Boy, only from Nintendo.

Now you're playing with power.

Portable power.

JAMES: You got this tiny screen,

these low resolution games

and consumers really loved the simplicity.

You didn't need to have, you know,

- a 4 - K image for it to really be a great experience.

NARRATOR: In 1989, the Game Boy is ready to launch.

They just need a killer game to go along with it.

Nintendo spies find the perfect candidate.

The trouble is, it's on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain.

♪ Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do ♪

♪ Do, do, do, do ♪

♪ Do do ♪

♪ Do, do, do, do, do, do ♪ ♪

ASHLEY: Tetris was not a Nintendo invention.

It was actually a Soviet Union invention.

It came from someone named Alexey Pajitnov,

who worked at a computer sciences organization in the USSR.

SETH: It just kinda built it to test out computers and for

his own amusement thinking, like,

maybe some people will like this.

Turns out a lot of people liked it.

MAN: We play only in our free time.

NARRATOR: The addictive game became wildly popular and

started to circulate for free via the good, old floppy disc.

SETH: Just about everybody in Russia had Tetris on their computer,

so when Nintendo was getting ready to release the

Game Boy they wanted Tetris.

They viewed it as this perfect match for their new system,

but first they needed the rights to Tetris and in order

to get the rights, they launched what might be called

almost a spy mission.

NARRATOR: But two other software developers had the same idea.

The race was on.

SETH: These three competing parties all tried to track

down whoever controls Tetris in the Soviet Union

and convince them to let them make Tetris.

NARRATOR: After a cloak and dagger search,

Nintendo's agents finally make contact with Alexey.

MAN (off-screen): Mr Alexey Pajitnov? He's the author of Tetris.

(speaking Russian)

ALEXEY: Play Tetris, my friends.

NARRATOR: The deal was done.

BOY: You need a Tetris shot.

MAN (off-screen): Tetris.

♪ Nintendo ♪

NARRATOR: Nintendo had hit the jackpot.

Tetris was an addictively simple game that cut through

the gender divide.

ASHLEY: It was a game that appealed to women and men,

so you really saw women start getting into gaming as well.

Nearly half of the people that had a Game Boy by the 1990s

were women.

WOMAN: Harry and I can't keep our hands off it.

HARRY: I hate it. I can't stand it.

Get the monkey off my back. This thing is addicting.

TIFFANI: This was the start of, like,

all our problems that we have now with our kids

on these games, right?

ROB: Gadgets like the Game Boy wasted hours of our time,

but our next one sped life up in seconds,

and in a strange way, helped pave the way for equality in

the workplace too.

(beeping)

SHAWN: Microwaves came on the scene when the American

household was changing.

NARRATOR: In the 1980s, American lifestyles were

changing rapidly and technology was adapting

to the way we lived.

JAMES: Divorce rates had gone up,

so there were a lot of single people and they didn't

necessarily wanna spend 90 minutes making a meatloaf.

SHAWN: We were starting to work further from our homes,

so we were traveling longer, we had longer commute times.

We were starting to engage in more activities.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, a revolution was taking place in the workplace,

with a record number of women joining the workforce,

but women were still doing 80% of the cooking at home.

It was high time for a revolution in the kitchen.

WOMAN: I'm a working woman.

That means every minute I've got has got to be well spent.

NARRATOR: The microwave promised to be a time-saving

appliance for the modern home, but its path to becoming a

fixture of domestic life was far from smooth.

WOMAN: People sometimes feel intimidated about their

microwave ovens.

They don't feel comfortable with 'em.

NARRATOR: Fears of microwave radiation had been around

since they first appeared in the '40s,

and as microwaves became more popular as a household

appliance in the '70s and '80s,

these fears intensified.

MAN (off-screen): Widespread public concern over the safety

of food that's been cooked or heated up in microwave ovens.

TIFFANI: You started hearing the stories about how terrible

it is and we shouldn't be cooking our food this way.

JAMES: It's got radiation in it,

so if I open it too soon, will the radiation come out.

(explosion)

KATIE: There were all these urban myths about them,

like if you stood in front of the microwave while something

was being cooked, you were frying your liver.

NARRATOR: In 1988, scientists were able to debunk the myths

linking microwave exposure to cancer.

WOMAN: Get comfortable with it.

It's not going to bite you.

NARRATOR: And as anxiety surrounding the use of

microwaves eased,

a flurry of microwave cookbooks and

adventurous menu items was unleashed.

MAN (off-screen): Stuffed mushroom caps with cheese and sausage.

NARRATOR: As buying on credit became more accessible in the

1980s, they became easier to afford.

SHAWN: The role of credit now becoming more widely available

saw a massive uptake of microwaves throughout US households.

NARRATOR: And by the end of the decade,

they were in 70% of American households,

more common than toaster ovens,

video recorders or cable TV.

KATIE: It continues to be one of the most effective things

that improves our lifestyle.

MEAT LOAF: It's not a gadget. It's a necessity.

NARRATOR: The microwave joins our scoreboard at number six,

but as we enter our final five,

size really did matter with the '80s gadget that

guaranteed you were both seen and heard.

DMC: You're gonna notice me and you're gonna like it

whether you like it or not.

(Game Boy beeping)

ROB: Hang on. Oh, whatever.

We're halfway home with our top five in our sights,

but if we've inspired you to hunt for a used Game Boy,

I have some bad news, they are right there next to the used

VHS tape bin in your local thrift store.

Our number five is an '80s innovation that is still

rattling windows and scaring off small pets,

even as we speak.

NARRATOR: Throughout the '80s, advances in technology meant

that gadgets were getting smaller,

but there was one loud exception: the boombox.

That gadget just got bigger and bigger.

DMC: The boombox was amazing because it allowed us to take

our hi-fi our stereos with us to let everybody know you was here.

Boombox is gonna make you look and you're gonna recognize me,

physically, mentally and spiritually.

NARRATOR: Unlike the traditiona home entertainment center

or car radio, the boombox was very public.

That was kind of the point.

LONI: You put it down and you're partying and then,

you know, everybody's beat boxing and they're doing all

kinda dances and everything.

It was just a wonderful time.

EGYPTIAN LOVER: The boombox, I think,

was like a personal studio, personal club.

You can bring your club everywhere you went.

DANA: If you had one of these in the hood,

it was a symbol of real juice.

NARRATOR: The boombox was all about maximum bass and maximum volume,

and in the early '80s, it provided the back beat

for a musical revolution.

JASON: The boombox was incredibly important for

early hip hop and rap.

First of all, all hip hop is rooted in the idea of sound system culture,

and Jamaican immigrants and immigrants from

other places in the Caribbean,

brought that to the United States to

neighborhoods like the Bronx,

and started a tradition of parties using these mobile speakers,

and that's really the early roots of hip hop.

JACQUES: The bigger you got with the boombox,

the more bass at the bottom end that you can get,

which was a big part of hip hop at the time.

ASHLEY: In New York City, DJs recorded their sets on tapes

and were able to trade it around in the city and with boomboxes,

you could really play that out loud.

MARK: Their contribution to the growth of hip hop is unparalleled.

NARRATOR: The flashier and louder the boombox,

the more status it carried, but the more power it needed.

JACQUES: Oh, the batteries.

That was another thing is getting the batteries for your boombox

because it took either C or D sized batteries and it was,

like, eight batteries that it took in order for it to play.

DANA: You had to go buy batteries for people sometimes.

You couldn't just go and listen to the boombox,

you had to put up money.

Y'all I ain't playing my joint man,

go buy some batteries, dude.

Go buy some batteries.

NARRATOR: But this brash, bold and

battery hungry powerhouse was not for everyone.

MAN: If you're a music lover who likes to indulge wherever

you go, including on mass transit,

then some tickets might be coming your way,

but these ticket's will get you into a courtroom,

not a concert.

NARRATOR: By the mid '80s, the public's patience with the

boombox was beginning to wear thin.

DANA: Moms, back in the day, they didn't take you.

They just come out the window and go,

"Hey, get your ass...

Take that (bleep) somewhere else, okay."

NARRATOR: And it wasn't just moms who had a problem.

In the early '90s, the New York Police Department

launched Operation Soundtrack, a war on noise targeting the

boombox and some say, their owners.

With the threat of $500 fines and equipment confiscation,

the golden age of the box that boomed was over.

ROB: Everybody was having way too much fun in the '80s and

the only thing that we were missing,

was a way to capture it.

Our number four marks the true invention of selfie culture,

and nothing would ever be the same again.

DOC: This is truly amazing.

A portable television studio.

No wonder your president has to be an actor.

He's gotta look good on television.

NARRATOR: In the '80s, the American public suddenly

became producers as well as consumers of content.

MAN: Look at me, look at me, I'm a TV star, mom.

NARRATOR: And one budding star was award-winning director, Kevin Smith.

KEVIN: I was in eighth grade and I was the videographer.

So, like, you know, there's a picture of me somewhere

holding this big ass, clunky video camera and it literally

made my life, and that's where I,

you know, kind of learned to shoot.

Oddly enough, it probably looks about as good as Clerks,

my first movie.

NARRATOR: But it wasn't just the movies.

The camcorder's role in the '80 was about to get all too real.

MIKE: Hello, and congratulations on buying

your new JVC GR-45 VideoMovie.

NARRATOR: In 1982, JVC launches the first portable

camera which records directly on to VHS tape.

TONY: I got familiar with camcorders very early.

We were hyped.

We were filming skating, we were doing it ourselves.

NARRATOR: The camcorder revolutionized '80s culture,

shaking up everything from skating to the news to,

of course, porn.

KEVIN: You used to have to rent pornography.

Now you could create your own pornography.

You became the studio.

The video cassette camera democratized media,

put media into other people's hands.

You used to have to watch the news to get somebody's perspective.

Now you could create the news.

NARRATOR: Like in 1988 when a camcorder captured police

brutality during a protest in New York.

The footage lead to the indictment of six police

officers for excessive force.

While some were using the camcorder as a tool for social justice,

for most it was an instrument of fun.

TONY: It was the birth of America's Funniest Home Videos.

ASHLEY: You shoot something funny,

no matter how, it could be short,

you are gonna show up on TV and you're gonna get your

15 minutes of fame and that's gonna be cool.

MAN (off-screen): Going for the gold.

(laughter)

SETH: People saw that this content was interesting.

People wanted to watch this.

They wanted to laugh at other people's misfortune.

That's what gave us YouTube.

NARRATOR: The camcorder paved the way for the performance

culture of today where what you record and share online

sometimes seems as important as what you experience in real life.

GIRL: Chevvy, let's take a selfie.

ASHLEY: This is something that sticks through to now with

user-generated content, memes and TikTok.

It's just amazing how a camcorder really kick-started that trend.

MAN: Mind-boggling, a nation of people taking pictures of each other.

Taking pictures of each other.

ROB: We're now ready for our top three '80s gadgets.

Any idea what they may be?

Well, when you look back at the '80s,

you can see some irresistible trends converging,

like portability and craving for constant stimulation.

The smartphone was only a pipe dream at this point.

The need for connection did lead to one of the defining

gadgets of the '80s and our number three.

Hello, Hard Rock Cafe, I need a table for 27 for Brat Pack.

(dial tone)

NARRATOR: It was a long time ago in a land far away,

a time when phones had things attached called cords.

TIFFANI: I had memories of the telephone at home with the

long cord, so you could actually take it into another room

and then you were, like, dunking under it,

you know, to make sure that you didn't get tangled into it.

JON: The only phone was in your house or at work,

or a pay phone.

That was it.

NARRATOR: And then, in the '80s,

thanks to Ronald Reagan's deregulation of the airwaves,

a new gadget would save us from the tyranny of the land line.

REAGAN: You ain't seen nothing yet.

NARRATOR: A gadget, which according to its inventor,

was directly inspired by the communicator from Star Trek.

KIRK: Kirk to Enterprise.

SCOTTY (off-screen): Scotty here, sir.

KIRK: We're beaming up.

Notify transporter room.

EGYPTIAN LOVER: The very first cellphone I ever had was this

big, mama jamma right here.

NARRATOR: The Motorola Dynatac cellphone launched in 1983 and

became an instant icon.

TIFFANI: To all of a sudden see that sort of idea of

talking to somebody outside your home was huge,

and kind of weird.

JON: You can call somebody from your car,

which was insane.

(phone ringing)

MAN (off-screen): Mobile telephones are in your future.

If you don't have one now, you probably will have one in a

decade, say the phone makers.

EGYPTIAN LOVER: You had one of these,

you were definitely a baller.

You've really got it going on, like,

"Yeah, I do got it going on."

NARRATOR: The cellphone's time had arrived, but

it was bulky, expensive and definitely not for everyone.

JON: At the time, if anyone was walking down the street

with a cellphone, in my mind they were very wealthy.

MEAT LOAF: My first sighting of a cellphone,

was in the car of the manager that sued me for $100 million.

In the early '80s it was a status symbol.

SHAWN: That's why we saw them embraced by the Gordon Gekkos

of the culture in which we lived.

GORDON: Astonish me, pal. New info.

I don't care where or how you get it.

Just get it.

TONY: This meant that you had too much money in the '80s.

You had made it if you had a cellphone.

NARRATOR: And for those that hadn't made it.

WOMAN: Let me roll up my window.

I can't hear you. There's some trucks coming by.

NARRATOR: There was even an option to fake it.

NARRATOR: The Motorola Dynatac goes on sale in 1983 for an

eye-watering $4,000,

but another product emerges that delivered status

at something of a discount.

WOMAN: Oh, I love it.

MAN (off-screen): She's talking to herself.

There's nobody on the other end of the call.

This is what the cellular car phone has spawned,

a phony car phone.

Status without the static.

WOMAN: Our motto is, it's not what you own,

it's what people think you own.

NARRATOR: As the cellphone market grows and technology

develops, the size shrinks and prices fall.

SHAWN: By the end of the decade,

we've got a little over five million subscriptions in the US.

That would grow to 109 million subscriptions by the end of the '90s

and today we have over 330 million cellular connections.

NARRATOR: The brick-like cellphone was a nostalgic '80s gadget,

but it also transformed our lives forever,

transporting us into the always-connected smartphone

universe which we live in today.

MAN: Hang it up, and the only thing I can say is,

what will they think of next?

ROB: Well, as I mentioned earlier,

trends were converging in the '80s that would literally

invent much of our modern world,

and our number two was no mere gadget,

it was a revolution in a box.

Only we didn't know it yet.

MAN (off-screen): Like many young Californians,

Steven Jobs has a penchant for the western casual and a love

of the scenic outdoors.

NARRATOR: It's 1981.

26-year-old Steve Jobs has built Apple from a scrappy

start-up in a California garage into one of America's

biggest electronic companies.

Jobs is on a mission to convert America to personal computing.

STEVE: The effects that it's going to have on society are

actually going to far outstrip even those that the

petrochemical revolution has had.

NARRATOR: But Jobs' revolution had a problem.

In the early '80s, only a fraction of Americans could

actually operate a computer.

You had to be able to speak fluent computer if you wanted to use one.

SHAWN: Everything was command prompts.

Everything was writing out essentially code,

and so it was only accessible by those who were willing to

learn how to code a computer.

Computing was an exclusive club.

NARRATOR: It was enough to drive some early users to

distraction and sometimes destruction.

(gunshot)

SHAWN: Steve Jobs was a big thinker and so he saw that the

computer could be accessible to the masses if he could

create a better way of navigating the computer environment.

(applause)

MAN (off-screen): Hello, I am Macintosh.

NARRATOR: In 1984, Jobs was ready to launch the

computer for the masses.

MAN (off-screen): You can draw a picture,

or it can draw conclusions.

It's a personal computer from Apple and it's as easy to use as this.

Macintosh: the computer for the rest of us.

NARRATOR: The Apple Macintosh promised to put the word home

into home computing.

SETH: The Mac wasn't the first portable computer,

but it was the first one that had any personality to it.

It was the first one that was friendly to use and

felt friendly as a device.

NARRATOR: The key to the Mac's simplicity was an innovation

called the graphical user interface,

a revolutionary display system which used icons and a mouse.

JAMES: Look at this home screen.

It's almost a little funny.

There's little pictures of everything.

If you wanna find your file, look,

it looks like a file folder.

JON: I remember getting my first Apple computer.

It came out with a mouse.

You could move the arrow around and type something

and correct it.

It was just amazing. You had to have one.

NARRATOR: Finally, Americans could use computers without

having to learn to code.

STEVE: We wanna bring this to tens of millions of people.

NARRATOR: Apple sold 275,000 units in 1984,

but Jobs' genius idea wasn't exactly his own.

SHAWN: In 1981, Xerox introduced what was called the Xerox Star,

and it's the first computer to use a graphical user interface.

STEVE: I was so blinded by the graphical user interface.

I thought it was the best thing I'd ever seen in my life.

It was obvious to me that all computers would

work like this some day.

NARRATOR: Priced at a mere $17,000 however,

the Xerox Star is beyond most consumers' budgets.

SHAWN: In 1981, that computer does not go on to see any

commercial success.

NARRATOR: Jobs wasted no time, perfecting Xerox's original

vision into the user very friendly interface that has

today conquered the world.

STEVE: They just grabbed defeat from the greatest

victory in the computer industry.

Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry today.

SHAWN: Today, we think that everybody should have a

computer in their pocket or in their hand or on their desktop,

but that was an idea that really came to fruition

early on with the Mac.

STEVE: Thanks.

(applause)

ROB: It's nearly time for our panelists' number one,

a game-changing device that inspired the future,

but ironically didn't really make it too far out of the '80s.

ROB (off-screen): So far, we've seen nine amazing

gadgets that defined a decade, from an iconic timepiece to a

revolutionary computer, but there can only be one winner.

ROB: To make it to number one, you better be an absolute

game-changer and for me, this was it,

and the panel agreed.

It's unimaginable today, but being able to suddenly have

your own music with you wherever you went,

was revolutionary and this number one certainly started a trend.

BILL: How many times have you been on a bus or a subway train

when someone next to you would turn on a radio at full blast?

NARRATOR: While some extroverts of the '80s were

eager to boom their music at those around them,

the more silent majority embraced a new gadget that

allowed them to pretend the rest of the world didn't exist.

DEE: Sony Walkmans were a revelation.

MEAT LOAF: Everybody and their mother's grandson wanted one.

ALVIN: I loved walking down the street and just watching

people bop to their own beat.

MAN (off-screen): Sony introduces the only cassette

player as small as a cassette case.

NARRATOR: Many great ideas start small.

Some greater ideas stay small.

Our number one gadget took technology,

art and the power of the individual,

and attached a pair of headphones to it.

♪ You really feel the music with the Sony Walkman ♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Launched in the US in 1980 and helped along by

some classic '80s advertising, consumers soon picked up on

the Walkman's key appeal: privacy.

MAN (off-screen): Put on a Walkman and see the world

in a whole new light.

♪ Sony Walkman ♪

MAN (off-screen): The Walkman from Sony,

the one and only.

NARRATOR: But for some parents,

not knowing what their kids were listening to,

was a frightening thought.

JAMES: They could be listening to any kind of scary

death metal or something.

There was a lot of paranoia and fear about music during that era.

BROKAW: Rock and roll is here to stay,

but it will never make everyone happy and the latest

controversy involves sexual and violent lyrics.

DEE: And that brings us to the Washington wives and

their paranoia over music lyrics, and the PMRC.

WOMAN: Young minds are at stake.

TIPPER: Pre-teenagers and young teenagers having access

to this material.

NARRATOR: In 1985, with an estimated four million

Walkmans sold in the US,

the Parents Music Resource Committee got busy.

JEN: Parents were always concerned about the Walkman,

about what kids could be listening to you that you

weren't aware they were listening to.

NARRATOR: The PMRC draws up a list of songs featuring sex

and violence which it wants to censor.

♪ We're not gonna take it ♪

DEE: Twisted Sister was on there for "We're Not Gonna Take It"

because they felt it was too violent.

They were very thorough in their misinterpretation of

musical lyrics.

NARRATOR: In defense of free speech,

Dee went to Washington to plead his case alongside the

unlikely duo of Frank Zappa and John Denver?

DEE: I felt like I was being given the flag to

lead everybody into battle.

The beauty of literature, poetry and music is that they

leave room for the audience to put its own imagination,

experiences and dreams into the words.

I was able to articulate a powerful statement against censorship.

There is no authority who has the right or the necessary

insight to make these judgments.

Not myself, not the Federal government and certainly not the PMRC.

NARRATOR: The PMRC failed to censor explicit tracks.

Its only victory was the parental advisory label,

which can still be found stuck on morally dubious records.

Meanwhile, the Walkman thrived.

JAMES: The Walkman probably more than any other product,

just sums up the '80s.

It was launched in 1980, by 1990, 50 million had been sold.

NARRATOR: The Walkman's earphones made it possible to

escape the outside world and when its small size collided

with the technology of the home computer,

a new world would be born.

For that reason, the Walkman is our number one.

JAMES: We still have that principle,

everybody has earbuds or headphones.

Everybody walks around with their music.

We just do it in a different way today.

MEAT LOAF: The Walkman changed the world.

♪ ♪