I was alive but young when the Berlin Wall came down and I was confused because the Alvin & the Chipmunks cartoon had them sing it down a year earlier

which haha kids, but the fact that Reagan used pop culture triumphs interchangeably with geopolitical triumphs in his American renewal campaign was noticed at the time

“Ronnie Raygun”, “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative (to shoot down ICBMs pew pew), what Max Headroom was about

but that’s just thematic Reagan did play with structural power here. Classic ‘80s cartoons like Transformers or G.I. Joe came from pulling back decades-old FCC regulations on ad minutes per 30-min slot and toy-branded tie-in themes (coming in part after the 1969 Hot Wheels)

the price for that was retaining the “bumpers” transitioning between kids shows and ads (“after these messages, we’ll be right back”) and also things like G.I. Joe’s “Knowing is Half the Battle” segments, which would meet a remnant “educational” requirement for kids’ programming, one designed to fit say Mr. Wizard (that say Bill Nye the Science Guy or Beakman’s World still tried towards)

Also you know how ‘80s family sitcoms famously had “very special episodes” that were very PSA-ish

(“Public Service Announcement”, the 80s-90s idiom for regime autopropaganda over loyalist broadcasts)

like “oh no wife-beating. THAT’S BAD” or “oh no consuming ‘scheduled narcotic’ intoxicants THAT’S BAD” part of that was when the government bought PSAs on these broadcast media they controlled a license regime over (even before merger antitrust shit came into it) they required a free match time and would demand that free match time at the highest-billing hour but give the networks a chance to instead earn “credit” with messages on these prime time shows