I thought this was fascinating and wanted to share. Seems happier times. No one on their cellphones and actually talking with each other. No impersonal kiosks. Cashiers at each register. Also, what stood out to me is how respectably everyone is dressed back then.
Your thoughts? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsZ1mUjnMVg
--Michael D. Clarke
Looks like this was still the era when during peak times burgers were cooked in anticipation of sales (instead of to order) and kept in a metal bin behind the counter, like in the movie The Founder. The first McDonald's in NYC opened summer of 1972 a few blocks from me. I was 13 years old.
https://books.google.com/books?id=EeNLAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA60#v=onepage&q&f=false
It's interesting. Looked like people were actually getting their fast food instead of waiting ten minutes.
shareYou needed a backpack to carry a cell phone in those days!
shareFYI McDonalds' food was waaaay worse back then! The drinks were watered, except for the milkshakes which were so full of glycerin that they didn't melt when they warmed up. I was once dragged to a McD's and ended up with an "apple pie" that had one tiny chunk of apple in it, the rest of the filling was all translucent glop.
I don't know when the improvement happened, because I avoided the place as much as possible for decades. Still do, their vegetarian options suck.
Interesting. Yeah, alot has changed since 80s with food regulations and all. But the people seem more happier and less self-absorbed back then judging from videos. But then again, I was born in 1988 and hardly have any memory of those days.
Also, I bet adults back in 1980s complained about the youth as well talking about how life was way better in the 50s/60s. Older generation always does seem like to compare to younger generation.
--Michael D. Clarke
Oh, older folks have always bitched about Kids Today letting society go to hell, I know this because I not only remember the old folks of my long-ago youth saying the same things I say now, but in college I had to read the Satires of Juvenal, and found that 2,000 ago the ancient Romans were saying it too!
Complaining about the young seems to be a natural part of the aging process.
I agree that this happens with every generation but society definitely is gradually getting worse and worse, especially in the last 5 to 10 years.
shareI'm not so sure about this. I think a large part of it depends on where you were located and how your taste in food runs. I'm originally from a small town in southern Ohio and we finally got our McDonald's in the early 80s (around 1981 or so, if I remember correctly). Let me tell you, our McDonald's was packed for a long time after it first opened and the drive thru lines were long. The food was great at our McDonald's. Also, you definitely got bigger portions and better value for your food back then as well.
I'm also pretty much a "junk food junkie" and I love McDonald's food. I've gone on record that I want my last meal to be a McDonald's Big Mac extra-value meal (large sized, of course!). 😃
I will also confess that I've never been a fast-food junkie, or a big fan of burgers, or anything served in a hamburger or hot dog bun. So while back in the day, I got occasionally dragged to McDonalds' by other people, I wasn't in a mood to be impressed, as the people in your town undoubtedly were. So maybe it was because I'd been dragged to particularly bad locations, but the fact is McD's had a dreadful reputation among my youthful peers, and my few experiences justified the reputation.
Now, the only thing I get there is the ice cream sundae things. Dreadfully bad for a person in every way, so I try to limit my intake to a few a year, but where else can you get drive-through
"hot fudge"?
Rose coloured glasses syndrome going on.
The past was just the past.
I sometimes wonder if those of us who were adults during that time were suddenly transported back to the 80's if it would really seem that much different than today? Not taking about the lack of technology, but if you were just out and about - like walking through a mall, (which we still have here), how different would it seem?
shareYou'd probably have to go back to the early 1960s before what people wear was very noticeably different (everybody wore hats, for one thing).
shareActually, the 1960s were when hats stopped being mandatory. The hairdos were too big and too thick to think about stuffing a hat over them, and BTW that for real started with President Kennedy. He didn't wear hats because they'd have squashed his fabulous hair, and he single-handedly killed the men's hat business!
And then bouffants came in (with the help of Mrs. Kennedy), and the women's hat trade died too.
I made the same point in a thread on the Back to the Future Board, about what a modern remake would be like.
I thought the culture shock wouldn't be close to what Marty felt going from the 80s to the 50s, if he went from 2013 back to 1993. The biggest adjustments would probably be no cell phones or internet. They could keep that scene when Doc Brown is surprised to hear that Reagan became president, though, just change it to Trump.
Everybody is thin, slim, fit !
shareBack when Happy meals were actually Happy meals
https://youtu.be/9qAfN_5ZIbM?si=CDrLM6x0aiSYFPKV