1960s

a few iconic images from the decade

The 1960s were a decade that began on January 1, 1960 and ended on December 31, 1969. It was a time of change in the United States and the rest of the world, and is the decade that established a large amount of cultural icons, making them into household names.

The 1960s were also a major period of time in the Sir Shrek Universe, in that many of the main heroes and villains came to be in this decade. Just as well, some of the most significant events that set up the Sir Shrek Universe (and the world) to be the way it is today took place, and many aspects of culture itself changed in many different ways.

## Real Life

For one, this was the decade most political movements gained real traction, and accomplished much for the improvement of society. The Civil Rights Movement, with Martin Luther King Jr. being the most famous activist, caused segregation to be outlawed in the US with the Civil Rights Bill of 1965, and Second-Wave Feminism allowed women to get equal pay with the equal pay act of 1963.

Just like the 1950s, the 1960s were a decade of scientific and technological advancements. Most notably, the famous Apollo 11 moon landing in July of 1969. Video games were also further researched and developed, such as the 1962 game Spacewar, and game consoles began to be developed in the latter half of the decade. The 1960s also had various amusement park technologies become popular, such as steel-tracked rollercoasters (invented by Arrow), which first came into existence in 1959. Other technologies include working lasers, computer mouses, dynamic RAM, and a ton of now well-known music formats, such as cassette and 8-track, which came to be in the early-to-middle portion of the decade.

Speaking of music, rock became the most popular genre in the US and UK, mostly coming from the British Invasion, which took place from 1963-1967. Leading the charge was the Beatles, who quickly became the best-selling music artists of their time. Along with them were many other now-famous bands, like the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Animals, Herman's Hermits, the Dave Clark Five, the Kinks, Dusty Springfield, and the Yardbirds, among many others. The Beatles specifically made many advancements and pioneered or popularized many staples of rock, and music in general, such as outdoor stadium concerts, music videos, concept albums, lyrics on album sleeves, and the quitting of touring, in addition to many studio techniques such as double-tracking, back-masking, tuned feedback, spliced audio loops, distortion, equalization, stereo separation, multi-tracking, compression, phase shifting, and microphoning. The British Invasion didn't mean that American artists were completely ignored, as Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience still gained considerable success in the 1960s.

Many famous movies also came to be in the 1960s, most notably 1960's *Psycho*, 1964's *Dr. Strangelove*, 1966's *The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly*, and 1968's *2001 : A Space Odyssey*, among many others.

## Sir Shrek Universe

The same events in the real world took place here, in addition to the rise of many heroes and villains of the Sir Shrek Universe.

For one, Shrek and Donkey had originally came to the US in the 1750s, witnessing the Revolution, and many other events. They left in 1936 due to the Great Depression, moving back to Shrek's Original Swamp in Scotland, and stayed there until long after World War II, returning to the United States in 1960. The 1960s were the decade that Riley Andersen's grandparents were born, her grandfather in 1961 and her grandmother in 1962, and it was also when Max's father Norman was born, in 1967 to be exact, and his mother Caroline in 1969.

They also marked the appearance of the first minions, created by Gru the mad scientist. The first one appeared in 1960, and they reached numbers of 100,000 by the time 1964 rolled around, which was the first time one of them was publicly sighted. Not only that, Spaz Shrek fully developed in 1969 from scientific experiments that had been ongoing since 1960 in Aperture Science, a now defunct science organization which went under in 1996, 30 years after Spaz Shrek started his rampage. In 1969, Spaz Shrek escaped without a trace, later to become one of the greatest villains in the Sir Shrek Universe until 2017, when he fled into hiding somewhere in Northern Canada. His exact whereabouts are currently unknown.

Spy and the Heavies became a popular instrumental band, selling many records. They were previously called the Terrific Threesome (1950-1956) and then the Enforcers (1956-1965), before they settled on Spy and the Heavies, which was the name that stuck all the way until 2015, when the contractual partnership was broken, but the band members' friendships were not. However, the band gained popularity in the 1960s, and that lasted all the way through the 1970s and beyond. There were six main members of the band - Francis, the leader, who was a spy in the Vietnam War, Thomas, Larry, and Jason, who were all heavy weapons personnel in the same war, and Ludwig and Albert, two medics from the war. The band is named after Francis, Thomas, Larry, and Jason's war positions. Francis eventually passed away in 2015, and the band started performing as "Spy and the Heavies Revival" occasionally.

The last thing to mention is the Gravel War, which started in 1967, becoming its most heated in 1968-1971, and eventually ending in 1972 for the Robot Wars, which lasted until about 1980. These wars were the setting for Team Fortress 2.