They were two legendary toy car companies that were a part of growing up for millions of kids. But behind the scenes, it was a cutthroat battle for our brand allegiance.

Matchbox and Hot Wheels had been fighting it out since the late 1960s, and even though both brands went through tumultuous times in the 70s and into the 80s, the toys stayed strong and even grew in popularity.

The die-cast toy car industry of the 1980s was so big that several other companies entered the picture. From Sears to generic knock-offs, everyone wanted a piece of the action. Including one company that decided they were going to make things much smaller...

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Unsolved Mysteries was one of the scariest TV shows in the 80s, especially if you were a younger viewer... But it was also one of the most-watched shows of the decade.

Its roots go back to the early 80s, and the show went through several iterations and hosts, including Perry Mason himself. But eventually came the host with one of the most distinctive voices in television history: Robert Stack.

You'll hear why its intense theme music was deliberately created to scare you, how viewers became part of the story, and how it helped launch the true crime boom from America's Most Wanted to today's podcasts.

And despite debuting nearly 40 years ago, Unsolved Mysteries is still with us to this day...

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It felt like a true golden age. An era that gave us multiple sports dynasties and individual athletes that seemed larger than life.

The 1980s weren't just a historic era for the Big Four North American sports, but it led to some generational rivalries. Rivalries that included a changing of the guard in the NHL and NFL, and an on-court rivalry between the bad boys of the NBA and the future of the league.

In the 1980s, we also saw two women battle it out for tennis supremacy, one of the greatest boxing matches of all time, and an original 6 battle from the 1940s, still going on in the 80s.

And then, there was what may be the true defining rivalry of the 1980s: Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, and a decade-long battle between the Lakers and the Celtics.

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