[Sandra Bee]

I've just been given the '80s boxset of Corrie and after watching a few episodes, I have to say it was brilliant in those days. Such wonderful characters.

Mavis and Rita in The Kabin
Alma and Gail in Jim's Cafe
Eddie Yeats lodging with The Ogdens
Bet, Betty and Fred Gee making fun of Mrs Walker in The Rovers
The Duckworths
Len and Rita
Mike and The Factory Girls
Bet and Alec
Ken and Deirdre and a sweet little Tracey living with Uncle Albert
The Tilsleys

and many more.........

I'd forgotten how hilarious the interaction between Bet and 'Fredface' was. Priceless!!

It must have been 'The Golden Age' of Corrie.

Such pleasure but it makes me sad too that it has changed beyond recognition.

[gboy]

There was some good stuff happening in Corrie back in the 80s: the Rover's fire, Alan Bradley, Bet taking over the Rovers, Dreary's affair with Baldwin. Plus the introduction of what would become long-term major characters - the Websters, the Macdonalds, Alma Baldwin/Sedgewick, Audrey Roberts, combined with departure of some big Corrie players: Annie Walker, Elsie Tanner, Len Fairclough, Eddie Yates, Hilda Ogden...

Probably the show's biggest period of change as it moved away from it's 'gentle' roots and upped its game in light of new arrivals EastEnders and Brookside (plus the Aussie soaps).

The Coronation Street of 1989 was very different to the Corrie of 1980 - even the Street itself has changed.

[David the Wavid]

It's another vintage Coronation Street decade and therefore all brilliant of course but it's probably my least favourite of the first four. I think the trouble is that it never really found its own voice until David Liddiment and Mervyn Watson gave it an overhaul in 1989. By 1982 the core cast had been the same since 1976 and while the old guard like Len and Rita, Annie/Bet/Fred/Betty, and Eddie and the Ogdens were great to still have around, they were past their prime there was a feeling that the show really needed new blood. 1983-4 was then a difficult period where the show lost Elsie, Annie, Len, Fred, Eddie, Bert, Stan and Albert one after the other, most of whom didn't get a proper farewell. The show started to feel like an abandoned ship and new characters like Percy, Curly, Kevin and the Duckworths took a while to bed in. By that last year of the decade though, it had had a new lick of paint and was back to its best.

None of this stops me from enjoying it and it did maintain a consistently high standard of writing and acting. The ratings were the highest of any decade, in fact they were highest at the height of the problems in 1984/5, when the programme was supposedly being overshadowed by the newer soaps (EastEnders's highest ratings of the decade don't even match it).

[Helicase]

Originally Posted by Sandra Bee

I've just been given the '80s boxset of Corrie and after watching a few episodes, I have to say it was brilliant in those days. Such wonderful characters.

Mavis and Rita in The Kabin
Alma and Gail in Jim's Cafe
Eddie Yeats lodging with The Ogdens
Bet, Betty and Fred Gee making fun of Mrs Walker in The Rovers
The Duckworths
Len and Rita
Bet and Alec
Mike and The Factory Girls
Ken and Deirdre and a sweet little Tracey living with Uncle Albert
The Tilsleys

and many more.........

I'd forgotten how hilarious the interaction between Bet and 'Fredface' was. Priceless!!

It must have been 'The Golden Age' of Corrie.

Such pleasure but it makes me sad too that it has changed beyond recognition.

The bits in bold are as much 90s as 80s.