What’s your favorite ’80s reference in Stranger Things?

Netflix's sci-fi drama is nothing if not a pop culture smorgasbord from that decade

By Saloni Gajjar, Alison Foreman, Jack Smart, William Hughes, Tim Lowery, Mary Kate Carr | May 26, 2022 | 12:00pm

TV Features Stranger Things

What’s your favorite ’80s reference in Stranger Things?

(Clockwise from bottom-left): Ghostbusters (Columbia Pictures); Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard in Stranger Things (Netflix); E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (Universal Pictures); Gabriella Pizzolo in Stranger Things (Netflix); Winona Ryder in Stranger Things (Netflix); Noah Schnapp in Stranger Things (Netflix) Image: Rebecca Fassola

The long-awaited fourth season of Stranger Things is almost here. And since the Netflix hit essentially doubles as a time machine, transporting audiences several decades into the past, we naturally decided that the latest AVQ&A should ask: What’s your favorite ’80s reference in Stranger Things?

Ghostbusters

Putting Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas in costumes during Stranger Things may have been obvious (the movie was released in 1984, the same year season two is set). But it’s the adorable execution of this entire Halloween sequence that really makes the reference work. Starting with Joyce and the rest of the parents taking polaroids of the boys’ homemade outfits (“Hold up the proton blaster!”) and ending with the devastating revelation that no one else at school dressed up (“Who ya gonna call? The nerds!”), this scene perfectly captures the warm nostalgia and knowing humor that first made Stranger Things into one of TV’s greatest coming-of-age epics. Plus, the two Venkmans? Flawless. [Alison Foreman]

9 Comments