1988 flashback: What was setting Melbourne on fire 36 years ago

From $1 pots at the Metro and brightly coloured Esprit T-shirts to the Walsh St police murders, how well do you remember the highs and lows of ’88?

Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan were a newly married couple on Neighbours in 1988 – and a real-life couple in secret.

In 1988, Bob Hawke was PM, a former Hollywood actor was running the show in America, Kylie Minogue’s Locomotion was on high rotation, and Scott and Charlene were still newlyweds.

Posters of Kylie and Michael Hutchence adorned bedroom walls, and Johnny Depp, Jason Donovan and Tom Cruise were all teen heart-throbs.

Heart-throb Michael Hutchence performs with INXS in Sydney in 1988. Picture: Bob Barker.

Playing Donkey Kong on your new Nintendo entertainment system was cool, and Pictionary was overtaking Trivial Pursuit as the new kid on the block.

If you got sick of the five channels on free-to-air TV, you’d whip out your Video Ezy card to rent a VHS tape of a movie that came out at the cinema several months earlier.

The Nintendo Entertainment System was all the rage in ‘88.

There was nothing like popping down to the local Video Ezy to hire a VHS tape of a months-old film on a Friday night. Picture: Brett Lethbridge

You probably remember chugging peach wine coolers, $1 pots, Southern Comfort and Cokes, or cocktails with names so loaded with sexual innuendo you made the bartender blush.

You’d sing-slash-scream “Boom, Boom, Boom, Let’s go back to my room …” on the dancefloor.

And, hey, it’s scary to think, but some of those all-night ragers you knocked back cheap shots with at The Metro, The Underground or Inflation are now answering to “Nana” or “Pop”.

What we were wearing

The fashion excesses of the 1980s reached their gloriously decadent peak at the school formal, where girls dazzled in brightly coloured taffeta dresses with tulle underskirts, puffy sleeves, big bows and frills, and frizzy perms piled high, or off to the side for a sophisticated touch.

Model Georgina Odgers demonstrating the latest fashion – a drop-waisted dress – from Hiltons in 1988 with that ubiquitous ‘80s hairstyle: a perm.

Model Teresa Robinson in a classic 1988 look: a Mariana Hardwick silk dress with an asymmetric skirt over tulle, a bow at the dropped waistline and ruched bodice.

Heavily styled, lion-manesque mullets like Jason Donovan’s were cool for teenage boys.

Hooded duffel coats with toggles, desert boots and combat bags were a staple winter look for young people.

A 1988 Mariana Hardwick silk taffeta evening dress with a tiered full skirt and rose trim.

Actor Jason Donovan in 1988, when his luxurious locks and taste in denim jeans were an inspiration for teenage boys.

Tweens and teen girls couldn’t go wrong with a Country Road tote bag, brightly coloured Esprit top and high-top Reeboks.

Our love affair with denim continued and we embraced any and every form – acid-wash, stone-wash, marble-wash, double denim and Levi 501s with their famous button fly.

“Double denim”, like these acid-wash denim jeans and jean jacket outfits photographed in 1988, was one of the signature looks of the decade.

Shoulder pads, like the ones in this Perri Cutten shirt, were still popular in 1988.

Bubble or puffball skirts, ra-ra skirts, ruffled dresses and drop-waisted skirts or dresses were popular in the ‘80s, as were mini skirts and tight stretch mini dresses.

And the ‘80s aerobics craze triggered a surge of sales of belted leotards with leggings and leg warmers.

Chunky shoulder pads were still in style, but shrinking by ‘88 after reaching ludicrous proportions earlier in the decade, and power dressing was still a thing for both women and men.

Power dressing was still going strong in ‘88.

The 1980s aerobics craze inspired its own fashions such as this striped, belted leotard worn with legwarmers.

Glitzy gowns like these from the Dynasty collection, pictured in 1988, were in fashion after the cult TV show inspired a return to glamour.

Cult ‘80s TV show Dynasty inspired a flood of glitzy and glamorous evening gowns, and young women turned to ‘80s style icons Princess Diana and Madonna for inspiration.

Songs you couldn’t get out of your head

Kylie Minogue’s Locomotion was still a hit in ‘88.

John Farnham’s Age of Reason was one of the biggest hits of 1988.

(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life – the schmaltzy theme song to hit film Dirty Dancing – was Australia’s no. 1 single for 1988.

Other smash hits included Simply Irresistible, by Robert Palmer, Never Gonna Give You Up, by Rick Astley, I Should Be So Lucky, by Kylie Minogue, Don’t Worry Be Happy, by Bobby McFerrin, and Age of Reason, by John Farnham.

And everyone was still singing along to two boppy dance hits from the year before: Kylie’s Locomotion and Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back to My Room) by Paul Lekakis.

Paul Lekakis’s Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back To My Room) was one of the songs we couldn’t get out of our heads in 1988.

Kylie Minogue with her Gold Logie in 1988.

TV Week Gold Logie winner

KylieMinogue – Neighbours

TV shows we were watching

Actor Marianne Fahey as Kylie Mole from the TV sketch show The Comedy Company, which aired from February 1988 until November 1990 on Network Ten.

The Comedy Company

Hey Hey It’s Saturday

Perfect Match

Sale Of The Century

A Country Practice

Neighbours

Home and Away

Wheel of Fortune

Family Ties

Who’s the Boss?

Beyond 2000

Hey Dad!

LA Law

Rage

Dynasty

Kylie Minogue with hosts Jacki MacDonald and Daryl Somers on Hey Hey It's Saturday, around 1988.

Tom Cruise in 1988 film Cocktail.

Hit films

Die Hard

Cocktail

Crocodile Dundee II

Three Men and a Baby

Young Einstein

Good Morning, Vietnam

Beetlejuice

The Man from Snowy River 2

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Stars we loved

Kylie Minogue, Michael Hutchence, Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis, Paul Hogan, Princess Diana, Elle McPherson, Johnny Depp, Bette Midler, Charlie Sheen, Keanu Reeves, River Phoenix, Michael J Fox, Patrick Swayze.

Fashion icons Diana, Princess of Wales and model Elle MacPherson in 1988.

Neighbours star Kylie Minogue was well on her way to becoming an international superstar in 1988.

VFL Champs

Premiers: Hawthorn

Brownlow Medal winner: Gerard Healy (Sydney)

Norm Smith Medal winner: Gary Ayres (Hawthorn)

Other Aussie sporting heroes

Pat Cash, David Boon, Allan Border, Merv Hughes, Greg Norman, Trevor Hendy, Danny Frawley, Maurice Rioli, Stephen Kernahan, Paul Roos, Paul Salmon, John Platten.

Top nightclubs

The Metro, Underground, Inflation, Grainstore Tavern, Hippodrome, Impression, Chevron, Chasers, Checkpoint Charlie, Tok H, Darby’s, Lasers, Jake’s, 21st Century in Frankston.

Pat Cash during his five-sets loss at the 1988 Australian Open final.

Bouncers at the entrance to the Underground nightclub in the late 1980s.

Politicians

Who was PM? Bob Hawke

Victorian premier: John Cain

World leaders: Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Australian of the Year

Kay Cottee, the first female sailor to single-handedly circumnavigate the world non-stop.

Big events

Almost 20 million Brits watched Scott Robinson (Jason Donovan) and Charlene Mitchell (Kylie Minogue) get married on Neighbours, the year after two million Aussies watched the wedding in Australia.

Neighbours stars Scott (Jason Donovan) and Charlene (Kylie Minogue) made the cover of Time magazine in 1988, the year after their wedding.

Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan at the 1988 TV Week Logie Awards.

Kylie Minogue, at 19 years old, became the first person to win four Logie Awards in one year, and the youngest recipient of the Gold Logie.

INXS won five gongs at the MTV Video Music Awards in LA in 1988.

INXS won five gongs at the MTV Video Music Awards in LA.

Victoria was horrified when Constables Steven Tynan, 22, and Damian Eyre, 20, were gunned down execution-style in Walsh St, South Yarra.

World Expo 88 was held in Brisbane.

Australia celebrated the bicentenary, marking 200 years since the First Fleet arrived.

The Australian Open was held for the first time in its flash new home at Flinders Park, a short stroll from the city, after moving from Kooyong.

Tech breakthroughs

CD sales overtook vinyl records in Australia for the first time.

Fax machines and floppy disks were still standard business tools.

Mobile phones had begun selling like hot cakes, with 50,000 users nationwide only a year after Telecom launched the first handheld mobile phone.

Telstra's Noel Hunt shows a modern phone alongside the first mobile phone (right) sold in 1987. It weighed 10kg and its battery lasted only 15 minutes.

Julian Knight was jailed for life in 1988 over the Hoddle Street massacre.

Pentathlete Alex Watson was sent home from the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

Villains

Julian Knight: Jailed for life in 1988 after he shot seven people dead and injured 19 in the Hoddle Street massacre the year before.

Mr Cruel: The reviled home invasion rapist had begun his four-year reign of terror on children across Melbourne in ‘87.

The Pettingill clan: A decade before the underworld war kicked off, the notorious crime family, including Kath Pettingill, Victor Peirce and Trevor Pettingill, were the biggest names in Melbourne’s crime world, along with brothers Jason and Mark Moran.

Joh Bjelke-Petersen: The hardline conservative premier was hauled before the Fitzgerald corruption inquiry in 1988, months after his controversial reign in Queensland ended.

Alex Watson: The pentathlete was dubbed “the Cappuccino Kid” after he failed a drug test and got kicked out of the 1988 Seoul Olympics for excessive levels of caffeine.

Myer’s much-loved Bargain Basement, pictured in 1952, was still going strong in ‘88, but closed in 1996.

Since gone but not forgotten

Myer’s Bargain Basement, Video Ezy, Brashs, Ansett, McEwans, Wobbies World, The Swagman’s cabaret shows, Tuckerbag supermarkets, Billabong family bistros, Smorgy’s smorgasbords, Denny’s restaurants, mix tapes, 3XY’s top 40 charts.