The 116th Strawberry Festival takes a flashback to the 1980s with its “Berries Just Wanna Have Fun” theme, alluding to Cyndi Lauper’s hit song, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”
The 1980s reflected a decade of neon colors, big hair, music videos, video games and bold fashion statements – think fingerless gloves, parachute pants, leg warmers, acid wash jeans, and punk.
Also emerging in popularity during that time were shoulder pads, aerobic VHS tapes (remember Jane Fonda?) and jazzercise, jelly shoes and accessories, breakdancing, and boomboxes and walkmans.
Atari games that emerged in the 1980s include Asteroids, Space Invaders, Missile Command, Centipede, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. Meanwhile, Tetris took off and Nintendo hit the market with its Super Mario Bros and Legend of Zelda games.
Childhood amusements included Cabbage Patch Kids, Transformers, Rubik’s Cube, Garbage Pail Kids, My Little Pony, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comics, Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Brite.
A fraction of the decade’s hit musicians, movies and television series included: Michael Jackson, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, The Talking Heads, Whitney Houston, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Flashdance, E.T. the Extraterrestrial, The Blues Brothers, The Goonies, Stand By Me, Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back, Dirty Dancing, Top Gun, Seinfeld, Punky Brewster, Knight Rider, The Golden Girls, Cheers, Smurfs, Fraggle Rock and Unsolved Mysteries.
The amount of pop culture born out of the 1980s is too numerous to list, but suffice it to say that each generation since then has been influenced by something coming out of that era. Enter Lebanon’s annual Strawberry Festival, this year drawing from that time when kids drank from garden hoses and girls just wanted to have fun.
The Strawberry Festival Association is bringing back the traditional junior parade and grand parade, carnival, strawberry shortcake and coronation, as well as All Heroes Day, the run/walk, strawberry shortcake eating contest. The Strawberrian ambassadors will be in full force, and mascots A.J. and Ida Berry may be spotted at key events. Returning to provide further amusement is live music and Family Land.
With four days of entertainment and activities, the Lebanon Strawberry Festival practically dares its guests to say they didn’t have fun. Afterall, when the workin’ day is done, berries just wanna have fun.
