In late 1985, Disney had just set the record for the most helium balloons ever released. As a way to kick off their 1986 United Way campaign, the city of Cleveland thought breaking this record would be a great way to draw attention to the fundraising event.

But the balloon release didn't exactly go as planned... This is a look back at Balloonfest '86 when an impending storm caused 1.5 million balloons to play havoc with traffic, waterways, and an airport.

Besides spreading all the way to Canada, the balloons also caused issues during a search for two missing boaters on Lake Erie. Balloonfest '86 became pretty infamous, but was it really the "deadly disaster" that various outlets have reported it to be...?

• The Everything 80s Movie Review Podcast: Patreon.com/80s

On September 22, 1982, a new show debuted on NBC. It felt like a throwback to the family sitcoms of yesteryear, but, at the same time, felt like a big risk...

The early 1980s seemed to be a time when the family sitcom had disappeared. Primetime TV at the time was all about dramas, and the popular sitcoms were shows like M.A.S.H and Three's Company.

The new NBC show came out to little fanfare and barely had an audience in its first season. It was the same thing for the second season. But in the third season, things were about to explode...

Thanks to a renewed interest in family sitcoms--not to mention its young breakout star from Canada--primetime network TV was about to change forever.

Full House, Growing Pains, Who's the Boss, Perfect Strangers, Family Matters, Home Improvement--they might not have ever happened if it wasn't for this show...

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It's a year that, thanks to George Orwell, had been in the public consciousness for decades. But when it finally came around, 1984 ended up being memorable for many different reasons...

Today, we look back on the movies, TV shows, cartoons, music, tech, and sports that made up a pretty remarkable year.

It's a year that featured some of the biggest movies of the decade, an era-defning album, a few beloved cartoon shows, and one of the biggest sports spectacles of the 20th Century.

But Orwell's dystopian vision did make an appearnace--it just happened to be in one of the most important commercials in the history of advertising. Let's go back four decades and revisit 1984...

The Everything 80s Movie Review Podcast: Patreon.com/80s