The “Totally Awesome” Tees of Fast Times At Ridgemont High

This 1982 teen film adaption of the Cameron Crowe book by the same name was an instant Gen X classic. It provided a snapshot, even if a bit embellished, of teen life in the early 80s. While most analyses’ of the movie focus on many iconic scenes, we are going to look at it from a different lens: the T-shirt game.

The 80s were a coming of age for the graphic tee. Wardrobe director Marylin Vance sought to closely depict what the youth of the day were wearing in southern California in the early 80s.  Director Amy Heckerling said this about the wardrobe choices: “I go to clubs a lot and I see kids dress in great clothes. “Then sometimes while location scouting, I’d see kids in jogging sneakers and backpacks and react strongly about those. We had to settle between what is the cool thing to wear and reality”

So perhaps the students of “Ridgemont High” were a bit cooler than your average high school student at the time but we are the ones who get the benefit of seeing some dope vintage tees on display.

1. Van Halen 1980 Invasion Tour Raglan

Our first stop is this Van Halen 1980 Invasion raglan t-shirt. I wasn’t alive in 1982 but according to my dad, Van Halen tees were everywhere. (you can buy this example here).

2. Tom The Mongoose McEwen English Leather T-Shirt

Tom Mcewen was one of the most influential racers in drag racing history and had an early deal with the toy car brand Hot Wheels. This example from t-shirt company Dallaswood is similar to the iron-on hot rod designs you’d see from brands like Roach. This design is modest compared to what racing tees would grow into by the 1990s.

3. Tom Petty And the Heart Breakers World Tour

Man, these hallways are packed. Here we have the Tom Petty 82-83 world tour tee. Pretty simple, but tastefully so. This guy shows up a lot in the first few frames of the movie, but we are just getting started. You can buy this one here.

4. Jimmy Buffet And the Reefers Raglan and Alice Cooper Mad House Rock

This one was one of the hardest to ID. It took two days of searching and even then I was clueless. Then I asked my wife and she looked at the clip and was like “oh, that’s Jimmy Buffet duh”.  So feeling totally emasculated and shown up by my doesn’t-study-vintage-for-a-living wife I did a quick search and found the only example on the internet. Curious that it appears that either the movie example is printed in reverse of the posh example or the filmmakers intentionally had the girl wear the tee backward to show the graphic.

I’m betting this kid is the kind of kid I’d be friends with in high school.

5. Popeye 1980 Movie Iron-On “I Yam What I Yam”

I couldn’t find the exact Iron-on, but here is a similar one.

6. Michael Schenker Group Tour Shirt

Here we have two tees in the frame, though we were only able to ID this one. Curiously, after this shot both guys in t-shirts had their tees swapped for button-up shirts in the same scene so we don’t get any better angle of the one in the corner. If you know what it is drop it in the comments. Here is the MSG tee.

7. Ted Nugent Scream Dream T-Shirt

Somehow this was Ted’s 6th studio album by this point. Wango Tango anyone? This tee is fairly widely available.

8. Led Zeppelin Parking Lot Boot T-shirt

This example is pretty thrashed and likely a bootleg tee. It’s possible the one in the movie is official, but no confirmation.  Yes, also the one in the movie isn’t a V-neck, get off my back.

9. Ming The Merciless Flash Gordon Movie T-shirt

Unfortunately, this is the only time this tee shows up in the movie. I think it deserves more airtime, but either way here it is!

10. I Got A Piece Ash From Mt St. Helens

Many of us who weren’t around at the time probably discount how big a deal the eruption of St. Helens was at the time. Also, how dope of a marketing opportunity it was to hock tourist tees. Here is the closest example.

11. Bruce Springsteen 82-83 Tour Raglan

Obviously, not the exact match, but it is from the same tour. Bruce was seriously “the boss” at the time.

12. Journey 1981 Escape Album T-shirt

This one was tough, but we didn’t stop believin’ and we finally found it.

13. AC DC Back And Black Tour T-shirt

Ok, this one is tough as AC DC had several designs like this, but pretty sure this is the tee based on the timing. Not a great shot of the tee but it’s there.

14. Billy Joel 1980 Summer Tour Raglan

Again, not the exact colorway, but you could have bought this one for 7 bucks. Seems like a decent deal for a 1980s raglan.

15. 1980s Nike Spell Out

Nike was starting to gain steam in the culture by the early 80s and got a nice front-and-center feature here.  Also, Rat loves that Popeye shirt.

16. Space Sailing 1975 Roach Screen Print T-shirt

Roach was known for their Iron-ons but this one appears to be a rarer screen print version. We were lucky enough that Number 2wo of 2ndplanetvintage owns a copy that vintageorlando originally found.  This example isn’t a ringer like in the movie but with such a rare tee we aren’t gonna complain.

17. Sex Wax Long Sleeve

My wife was a bit confused when she saw my eBay searches after this, BUT “IT’S JUST SURF BOARD WAX, HONEY!”. The founders knew it would be provocative and help them stand out and it worked.

18. Buzzcocks Band T-shirt

Wearing a Buzzcocks and Sex Wax t-shirt to the hospital tour… sounds like a Spiccoli and friends idea.

19. Colt 45 Drunk Horse T-shirt

20. Bruce Springsteen The Jersey Devil t-shirt

These last two are perhaps the most infamous t-shirts of the whole film and show up in one of the most notorious endings in 80s Hollywood. Here we get the ever-enduring “Awesome, totally awesome!” quote from Jeff Spiccoli while wearing the Colt 45 tee and Brad holding a gun (a Colt 45?) wearing the Bruce Springsteen “The Jersey Devil” tee. Both these tees are commonly reprinted and originals are fairly difficult to find. What a great way to end a tour de force in vintage tees with these two bangers.