This collection of promos from 1980s Nickelodeon is the strongest I can distill my childhood, without the risk of poisoning you with glitter hairspray and white noise.
@zx3 The big tragedy for me is old instructional television. Like, the really low-budget stuff produced by local PBS affiliates in the 70s and 80s, with lots of funky analog effects and surreal set design. Letter People and stuff, though that's the easy one to find. Most of those tapes were under *strict* use-and-erase limits so they weren't preserved at all, and it was just so needless. It was such a trove of early video-era aesthetics, just gone. :(