Weird cultural things from childhood that you remember vividly

Mood rings

Awkward....

Keep on Truckin'

Flakey Foont. Thanks, R3.

Kung-Fu and other martial arts movies. I remember a neighbour owning nunchakus

Earth shoes!

edible Girl Scout cookies, made by Burry's.

the Brady Bunch

Clackers

Avocado Appliances

Metrical

Tame Cream Rinse

Chevy Vegas

Ford Pintos

Argosty Magazine

After Dark Magazine

When "diversity" (not that we used that word) meant Jews and Italians.

Christian Archie Comics

Easy-Bake Ovens. Who would ever think that baking cakes with a light bulb could be so popular?

Ding-Dong School with Miss Frances

Captain Kangaroo

Hula Hoops

Pogo Sticks

Why were truck drivers so popular? I can’t imagine anyone thinking anything good about those dumbasses.

"Don't cook tonight. Call Chicken Delight!"

It’s Shaake n Baake and I halped

I believe the truck and CB craze was started by Burt Reynolds and those Smokey and the Bandit movies. It popularized the Knights of the Highway myth and trucker lingo.

I admit I am too young for this, but I wish I weren't

1964. I was 5 years old and obsessed with Captain Kangaroo, along with Bunny Rabbit, Mr.Greenjeans, the whole gang….Flash forward to 1981. I was the Assistant Costume Designer for the last 5 Seasons of Captain Kangaroo. God Allmight was my bubble burst. Mean man.

Chatty Cathy Dolls

I had a little crush on Bunny Rabbit, R19. Was he nice, at least?

Penny Loafer shoes

That ancient Chinese secret.

He was faaaabulous.

twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonionsonasesameseedbun.

Rocky and Bullwinkle

I got a rock.

Wife swapping. It's still around, of course, but now they call it polygamy, and it seems very skanky and twisted. Back in the "Mad Men"/"Ice Storm" era, it just sort of seemed naughty.

Those of us children with real intellect and taste preferred The New Zoo Revue over that salacious captain.

I used to teach at these divorced family communication workshops and I heard a lot of stories about how people met others online and had affairs, fucking up the family, etc. My mind started to wander and I was thinking, "Where did people used to meet random strangers to throw over their families for when I was a youth?" Then in one group, a man about my age told the sad story of his childhood family break up. Turns out Mom got a CB radio and ended up connecting over the airwaves with some passing trucker and yup, you guessed it, she ran off with him leaving Dad and son sad & alone! Analog cheatin' & romance, baby.

Pinky and the Brain. One is a genius, the others insane.

Long and Silky

Hold the pickles hold the lettuce special orders don't upset us. All we ask is that you let us serve it your way.

R21, Yes, Bunny Rabbit was adorable as was Mr. Moose, both insured for 1M bucks and they had NO back ups, so I had maintain them quite meticulously. Mr. Greenjeans, "Lumpy" as he was nicknames, was never sober, so if you remember the episodes when he "went to visit his sister on her farm" it meant he was too hungover to tape that week. Bob K. was a short tempered, down right mean man, always screaming at the Wardrobe Staff and anyone who got in his way. Nasty. Also, once he went thru Hair and Make Up- full wig, sideburns, real mustache by then, tons of pancake, he refused to put ANYthing over his head.This meant taking 800 dollar Paul Stewart crew neck sweaters and cutting them up the back. Lovely.

"After School Specials", raisimg the consciousness of an entire generation of pre-teens.

Lawn darts.

Topps Rubber Uglies.

King Ding and the Ding-a-Lings.

Krazy Kar

Hot Pants

Fisher Price Record Players. Like a lunch box. You placed the 45 on a turntable, closed the box and it played. Listened to all the Osmond, Jackson 5 and Melanie records on it.

And then when you got a bit older, r38, you could graduate to a Close-n-Play.

K-tel records

"What do you do with it?"

"Put your foot through the loop. Rotate your ankle so the lemon orbits around your leg, and jump when the lemon is about to collide with your leg."

"Fascinating!"

Mystery Date. I used to sneak and play it when my sister was gone. Same with her Barbie townhouse.

Getting Ronco gadgets for Christmas.

Shopping at something called "The Mall".

The original 'Creepy Crawlers,' 'Thingmaker,' with the baking kiln and metal moulds.

Hasbro's Astro Lite.

View Master.

The original Mr Potato Head.

"Hey! You got your peanut butter on my chocolate!" "Well, you got your chocolate in my peanut butter!" (I could never figure out why the girl was skating down the street with an open jar of peanut butter.)

Floral decals everywhere. Especially on VW bugs.

Mrs. Beasley

Julia dolls. My racist parents wouldn't buy one for my sister for Christmas.

Vatican II. The priests turned the altar around and changed from Latin to English, the nuns started wearing shorter habits with smaller veils that showed their hair, the goody-two-shoes kids put up colorful banners around the church, and then they started the folk Masses. Yuck. I was only a kid, but I knew that sucked.

Playing 8-track tapes while having a "romantic encounter" with your boyfriend (better than having to keep stopping to get up and turn a record over). Eight-tracks just kept repeating.

R48 with the flowers reminded me of tub decals. I hadn’t thought of those in ages.

High white socks with 2 or 3 stripes of a primary color.

Pogo balls

pogo sticks and red rubber balls

Drive-in movies. My parents would load us little kids in the car, dressed in our PJs, for some lame comedy movie that was playing. Later as a teenager, my friends and I would sneak in by backing the car through the exit. We never got caught.

[bold]EVERYONE[/bold] had a variety special in the late 1970s

The new version of Mystery Date involves catfishing!

The ABC Movie of the Week.

NBC Mystery Movie (Columbo, McMillan & Wife, McCloud, Hec Ramsey, The Snoop Sisters, etc)

PBS, airing programs like The Prisoner and Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Night Gallery, The Sixth Sense, Ghost Story/Circle of Fear.

Giving cigarettes as Christmas gifts.

My parents took my sister and I to the drive-in to see "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte" and "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane". We were 6 and 7 years old. I saw that head falling down the stairs for years.

R34, I love it! and you. Thank you!

Out of curiosity, because I love puppets, how did you maintain them? Brushing, sewing, spot remover? :)

In 1968, American Indian youth created the Red Power Movement to demand self-determination for Native Americans in the United States. Their ascendance into public awareness led to wacky, funky co-optation. Sacheen Littlefeather made a speech at an Academy Awards ceremony on behalf of Marlon Brando, who declined/refused an award.

Moccasins fringed buckskin jackets, turquoise, feathers and beads (hi Cher!) became the rage in fashion statements.

Wacky Packages

Comet

It makes your teeth turn green!

Comet

It makes you like sardines

Comet

Makes you vomit

So go get Comet

And vomit

Today!

Milk that came in plastic bags

R62- Thanks, I had a ball doing the show as I was young and just starting out in the business plus a bit starry eyed….I would actually wash them with soapy washcloths, gently,, then blow dry them, gently, and then take a dog brush to the low pile fur….they got pretty filthy in the studio even though they were stored in velvet bags and then big wooden cases…..they were treated like they were actually living things by all. Very gentle…...

Smoking areas in movie theaters and planes

Sci-Fi movies from the 60’s

Coats with fur around the neck

Duck tail haircuts

Davy Crockett coonskin caps.

Nothing beats sci-fi movies from the 60s, seen at a Drive-In Theater!

So go to the Refreshment Stand, and get your popcorn, soda, Smithfield Barbeque sandwich, and Toddy, the chocolate drink that comes in a can, served hot or cold!

Milk carton missing children

Well, you did a great job, R67. They always looked very nice.

R67, did you also wrangle all of those ping-pong balls?

Not weird, but

-silly putty -slinkys -etch a sketch -yo yos -spirograph

R65, the version I heard was a little different:

Comet

It makes your teeth turn green

Comet

It tastes like gasoline

Comet

It makes you vomit

So buy some Comet

and vomit

today!

I wasn’t a kid but the Barbie reference made me think of this clever Nissan ad.

Any other '60s children remember Romper-Stompers?

McDonald's is your kind of place, Hamburgers in your face, french fries up your nose, pickles between your toes, ketchup down your back, I want my money back before I have a heart attack....and don't forget the milkshakes, they come from polluted lakes, McDonald's is your kind of place.

OMG, R80 - my mom and I went to war over those! (You do mean those cannisters featured on 'Romper Room, ' which one stood on, one for each foot, held onto the bottoms of your shoes with cords you held in your hands, right?) I wanted a pair, and she wouldn't let me have them, insistent that I'd break my ankles, legs, or neck.

Little Rabbit Foo Foo

Ran hoppin' through the forest,

Scoopin' up the field mouse

An' bashin' him in the head!

Be grateful for your mom's presence of mind, R82. I still have the scar on my knee, 49 years later, from where I fell off of them and nearly kinned myself on the sidewalk!

Milk, milk, lemonade....around the corner, fudge is made.

Sugar (ba-ba-ba-ba-ba), oh, honey, honey (ba-ba-ba-ba-ba), you are my candy girl, and you've got me wanting you...

Summer Stock theaters. Where else would you see Ethel Merman in call me Madam 18 years after she originated the part? Eve Arden in wonderful town. Elaine Stritch in I Married An Angel and even The King and I. Janis Paige in Sweet Charity. Pia Zadora in Funny Girl. Alexis Smith and Joel Grey in Pal Joey. Mickey Rooney as both George M! and W.C. Fields. And that's just SOME of the musicals!

R65 and R78, this is the version I remember:

Comet

It makes your MOUTH turn green!

Comet

It TASTES LIKE LISTERINE!

Comet

It makes you vomit.

So GET SOME Comet

And vomit

Today!

My first date: Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific, in the backseat of an AMC Gremlin!

Savings books where the bank would machine stamp each of your deposits and withdrawals. This was before ATMs.

We had a completely different set of lyrics:

Sherman!

Look what you did to me!

Sherman!

We'll have a fam-i-ly

Sherman!

We'll call him Herman!

And there'll be Sherman, and Herman, and me!

I was too young to get the “Keep on truckin’” thing. Older teenagers at church were into that. I still don’t understand what that was about. And the words “groovy” and “far out” were antiquated and lame when I first heard them. Did people really say that or was it just something that script writers at The Brady Bunch and Dragnet would insert in 1970 to make a character sound hip?

Colorforms.

Play-Doh. Yum.

Gumby and Pokey.

Rock'em Sock'em Robots.

Davey and Goliath.

Atari.

Highlights Magazine.

H.R Pufnstuf.

r14 AND R17 Truckers and CB radios became so popular because, in response to the oil embargo, interstate speed were reduced from 70 mph to 55 mph. It was a financial boon to the local police who issued tickets right and left. But in America's car crazed culture where even luxury cars were equipped to do 0 to 60 in race car speeds, 55 was like taking away guns would be for todays second amendment nuts. To give you an idea, I had a Lincoln Town Car (a gift) that had a 500cubic inch engine and got 7 miles to the gallon. It was like am overstuffed Barcolounger on top of a rocket. How speed crazed Americans were back then.

Truckers stayed on the CB radios and let other drivers know where the police were (the "Smokies" in Smoky and the Bandit lingo) so drivers could speed between policemen. People would get behind truckers both for the protection from speeding tickets as well as the much better milage due to traveling in the vacuum behind that reduced wind drag that was created by the big trucks.

I always found all these blue collar obsessions with Kung Fu and CB radios and convoys horrible and felt so embarrassed for those who embraced them. Unfortunately I was kept very well by someone who was always fully into the popular culture so since my standards would have meant I would have had to pay my own bills, I hid my disgust and slept around on them with much more sophisticated, but poorer, consorts..

This song, the theme for a movie starring Kris Kristoffesen and Ali McGraw shows how pervasive this shit was

The Frito Bandito.

I still call my cat the Furrito Bandito.

The ABC 4:30 Movie.

Local TV stations ending the broadcast day by playing The Star Spangled Banner over the image of a waving flag, then there would be nothing to look at but a test pattern, usually from one a.m. to six a.m..

R95, don't forget W.C. Friitos.

In elementary school, the pencil toppers were a coveted status symbol.

WOR ch.9 Million Dollar Movie intro.

[quote]I always found all these blue collar obsessions with Kung Fu and CB radios and convoys horrible and felt so embarrassed for those who embraced them.

As did I, R94. I equally detested the whole "Lords of Flatbush"/Fonzarelli/Billy Jack bullshit. From these cultural abominations, I sought refuge in reruns of Lost in Space and Star Trek.

Then came Star Wars, and I was transported.

Where's the beef?

One should never, ever denigrate The Fonz!

Tell 'em, Fonzie...

Spending Saturday nights at my grandparents' house, and thus having to watch "The Lawrence Welk Show" with them. My cousins and I mercilessly made fun of the Champagne Lady, Guy & Ralna and Myron Floren, until my grandfather finally angriy made us leave the room 'til the show was over.

Family Classics with Frazier Thomas!

R94, The song came first and was a hit, then they made the movie.

R103, your post reminded me of my childhood New Years Eves when my parents would put on Guy Lombardo and we'd be allowed to stay up until midnight. This was during the late '60s.

Guy's final NYE...

Generic any/everything.

The commercial where Burt Reynolds told you to taste your kid's forehead.

Gas, Grass, or ASS...no one rides for free.

White artificial Christmas trees.

Down with hot pants.

Marriage Encounter groups

Book of the Month Club

[italic]The Total Woman[/italic]

Ads for porn flicks in the newspaper

Kathryn Kuhlman

Uri Geller

Up With People

Creature Features on Friday nights Dark Shadows after school

Ads like "Don't squeeze the Charmin", Bounty's "the quicker picker upper" with Nancy Walker, and the Palmolive Madge's "you're soaking in it" .

My grandma liked The Lawrence Welk Show and my grandpa liked “Hee Haw” of an early Saturday night, although he’d refer to it as the “Grand Ole Opry”, which it wasn’t. I also remember The Porter Waggoner Show coming on with Miss Dolly Parton and, later, “Pop goes the Country” and Dolly’s own syndicated show, “Dolly” which ran in 1976-77. I was really impressed with “Nashville hair” that the female singers had at the time. It was the biggest hair I’d ever seen.

Getting free towels in Boxes of Breeze Laudry Detergent. Endlessy hawked by Dolly Partner and Porter Wagoner.

Dolly and Porter peddling Breeze detergent, which came with a free "flardy tahl" in the box

Watching the soaps with my grandmother. She watched all of the CBS soaps, from "Search for Tomorrow", right through "The Edge of Night". ("Guiding Light was her favorite--mine too.)

R102, my issue with the Fonz is that, in 6th grade, there was this punk-assed kid who went around in a leather jacket, talking and acting like the Fonz. He had a coterie of fellow bullies who accompanied him on the playground. He'd snap his fingers and point ([italic]"AYYYYE!"[/italic], and they'd seize me and hold me in place while he doffed his shoes and socks (courtesy 'Billy Jack' or 'Kung Fu', I wasn't sure which), then practiced roundhouse kicking me with his bare feet, aiming for my face. His dad was some big shot who owned a Cadillac dealership, so his behavior elicited little in the way of consequences.

I've had a lifelong hatred of Henry Winkler - even nearly half a century later, his reverse mortgage commercials still trigger me.

The worst place to be driving, behind a Ford Pinto and in front of an Audi 5000.

And then, R115, Dolly wrote this little ol' song for Porter, which did pretty well.

Fritos only came in one flavor, Frito.

"Hey, how'd ya' like a nice Hawiian Punch?"

"Sure!"

POW!!!!!

Farrah Fawcett creaming Joe Namath's face with Noxema.

R119, I'm sorry I didn't realize. The real Fonz would have come to your rescue but he was too busy jumping the shark.

Bottles of coke at service stations for 10 cents. They were super cold.

Penny candy. You got 2 pieces for one penny.

Hamburgers that were 3 for a dollar

I paid 12,000 for my first house, seems unimaginable now...

Gimmie-dat Gimmie-dat

Gimmie-Gimmie-Gimmie-dat

Gimmie-dat-ding

Gimmie-dat

Gimmie-Gimmie-dat

Gimmie-dat-ding

Gimmie-dat Gimmie-Gimmie-dat

Gimmie-Gimmie-Gimmie-dat-ding

(Repeat 1,100 times, or until the neighbors start banging on the wall, whichever happens first.)

When I was in New York for the holidays, the nephew of a friend invited me to his recently purchased apartment for dinner. He lives in the east Village, very near to where I grew up. I hadn’t recognized the address, but when I arrived,, immediately recognized that what is now the entrance to his apartment complex and a bank, , had been the lobby of one of the last of NY’s once thriving Yiddish theatres. I had seen three of my grandparents perform there when I was a boy. While I was in college it became a popular rock concert venue, the Fillmore East, And later one of my favorite dance clubs, the Saint. I had heard the old theatre had been vacant and fallen into disrepair, but hadn’t been back to my old neighborhood since I left NY in the late ‘80s. It was a pleasant, but for me a somewhat eerie evening.

[quote]I had seen three of my grandparents perform there when I was a boy.

Who were your grandparents?

Zorah Plotkin, Levi Feldman and Rivka Seidenberg, R132.

Sea monkeys!

Howdy Doody and Froggy

Betty Boop, CooCoo Fran & Ollie, the Dionne quintuplets....I had all of their paper dolls.

Shari Lewis and Lambchop!

R136, I preferred Kukla, Fran and Ollie.

Cheap weed. A nickle bag really was five bucks. And it was good, too.

Phone calls from phone booths that cost 10 cents. The phones at one point accepted pennies.

Chocolate bars costing 10 cents.

I used to have a Farfel the Dog mug. That was MY mug, and my brother was not allowed to use it.

N-E-S-T-L-E-S...Nestle's makes the very best...chocolate.

Glad I'm not the only old fart here...

Women signing checks using their husband's name. It wasn't Mary Smith, it was Mrs John Smith. Even my Mothers charge cards were in her husband's name. It was like she didn't legally exist.

Banks used to have Christmas Club accounts. You would get a passbook in January, and then every week you would deposit a set amount into your Christmas Club account. $5 per week would give you $250 in the account at Christmas to buy presents with. The banks promoted the Hell out of them. As I remember, if you made all your deposits on time you got some little spiff from the bank, maybe a tin of Christmas cookies or something.

The CB radio talk reminded me that my dad had a police scanner. I can remember him sitting in his chair in the family room listening to the police action in our city. All I could hear was a lot of cracking and popping.

Then one New Years Day I woke up and my mother was crouched on the floor listening (or trying to listen) to it, which I thought was weird. I asked her what she was doing, and she told me that the husband of one of the nurses she worked with (he was a cop) was shot on duty. She was trying to find out if he was ok.

I can't remember the police scanner around much longer after that. Not sure if it broke, just went out of fashion, or maybe one or both of my parents got creeped out by it.

Was he OK?

Cutting the leg hems on jeans so the edge would fringe.

Hippies hitchhiking, holding signs by exits on I-95 that said things like "San Francisco". I remember one really overweight gal who looked utterly desperate, really creepy looking. I always wondered if she made it to San Francisco.

Wire frame granny glasses.

Mummy beads. Today they are called African trade beads.

Hippy girls wearing long granny dresses and army boots.

And from the retro craft thread, the wire dipped flowers. Heck, that entire thread could go here.

FM radio when it was really something better than AM. There was this one HOT sounding bearded guy that had an album rock show on the local radio station.

As for AM, anybody remember WABC in NY, with Don Imus, Cousin Brucie? I can still hear the singers sing that WABC!

It may have been on WABC or another NY radio station that late at night they would do these new agey type things and then have callers share their experiences. This would have been in the early or mid 1970s. I remember things like sit in front of a mirror with a candle and try and do something like maybe see your aura. Another was to be done with a partner about sharing feelings something like that. I think you probably get the picture. It seems like such an innocent, more hopeful time in so many ways.

Love the behind the scenes on Captain Kangaroo, although it's too bad to hear that Bob Keeshan (was that his name?) was such a dick.

I do remember reading a TV Guide piece that mentioned the Mr. Greenjeans actor, Lumpy Barnum. To a kid, that was the funniest name we'd ever heard, and my sister and I will still say it to each other to elicit a laugh.

[quote]As for AM, anybody remember WABC in NY, with Don Imus, Cousin Brucie? I can still hear the singers sing that WABC!

Cousin Brucie, yes. Dan Ingram and Scott Muni, too. Don Imus was after my time. I switched to FM in 1967 and never went back to AM.

[quote]Was he OK?

Sadly, no. The cop was shot and killed. Young guy, too; he and the nurse had just married right before that.

So strange, hadn't thought of that in years, but just the mention of CB radios brought the memory back.

The funky bookstore at the mall selling booklets on how to grow weed. The photos of long-haired stoners and their plants.

Anyone remember Dr. Demento? Every Friday night. I think it was syndicated.

[quote]Sadly, no. The cop was shot and killed. Young guy, too; he and the nurse had just married right before that.

I just googled, and my memory is somewhat good (officer died New Years Day 1977, was married 1 year) and somewhat bad (wasn't shot, but was assaulted by two teens trying to break up some trouble at a New Years Eve party).

Were mothballs a common thing in the 70s? The cottage we used to rent on Cape Cod every summer always had mothballs in the closets and bureau drawers. To this day if I ever get the whiff of mothballs, it reminds me of walking into that cottage on the Cape.

Celebrity-owned restaurants

Lachoy makes Chinese food swing American!!

The tv series Kung Fu.

Nabisco Snaps Cookies! My parents would give us kids boxes of these on long car rides.

Those itchy CPO jackets from the 70s.

R155, any chance you listen to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast? He had a guest on a couple of weeks ago who talked about celebrity restaurants. I never knew it was a thing!

Back before the Tylenol Poisoning case of 1982 (still unsolved) over the counter drugs were sold without those protection seals that we all take for granted now.

Ice cream trucks coming around the neighborhood every night in the Summer.

Lucas chili powder. Kids in my area would sprinkle it on everything. Then a few years later, it was taken off the market because it contained lead!

That was fake news created by the FDA to get Mexico to stop importing their spicy candies to the US, lead in candy...how and why?

R163, I don't know but I miss it, lol. They sell "Tajin" these days but it's not as good!

R163, please don’t bring your idiocy here. “Fake news” - does that mean you heard something you didn’t like? Candy containing tamarind, chili powder or salt that is mined from certain parts of the world may have a higher likelihood of having elevated levels of lead. It’s called science fuckhead, not elaborate government conspiracies to deny you the candy you wanted.

R88 et al, are these words sung to the tune of the Colonel Bogey March aka River Kwai March aka Hitler Has Only Got One Ball?

When I was about 10 years old, my father, a WWII vet, taught me the lyrics, much to my mother’s consternation.

Hitler has only got one ball Goering has two but very small Himmler is somewhat sim’lar And Josef Goebbels has no balls at all

Proud of my newfound risqué knowledge, I told a couple friends, only to find out that they knew the words already. In the mid-60s, there were still lots of little kids with dads who served in World War II ... and who apparently didn't mind teaching slightly dirty songs to their sons.

UGH! Sorry for the formatting!

Milk machines, which were vending machines that dispensed half gallons of milk. You'd see them on street corners.

Well, since we're talking WEIRD cultural things, it doesn't get much weirder than this. And, IIRC, nobody thought it was particularly creepy, just weird. Then again, this was 40 years before Insidious.

Two Saturday morning kid's shows from England- 1. The Bugaloos starring Martha Raye and The Doubledeckers.

Showbiz Babies

R165 I'm mexican so I can pretty much enjoy all the mexican candy I want! You can keep enjoying Turd's administration since you so clearly represent the values and manners of your orange majesty.

Actual news that wasn't spun left or right.

Timmy and Lassie

Flipper

Two words: Trapper Keeper

^^^ Two words and some initials- Trapper John MD, such as daddy! Hope he and his boy, Gonzo Gates, we’re getting it on behind the scenes with lots of dirty role play.

The "daddy/boy" thing makes me want to vomit. It would really have made me vomit when I was a child.

Pernell should have kept his toupee.

R51: The Vatican II accords really liberalized the Catholic church. John the 23rd knew what he was doing. But the backlash to that took nearly 30 year to come to fruition.

Plain clothing for priests and nuns, confession moved from the box to face to face, even the method of receiving communion changed. I didn't like it.

Speaking of Trapper Keepers....I remember its predecessor....

Denim 3-ring binders. I wrote all over mine.

Celebrity-owned restaurants are still a thing, r155.

See Shula’s Steakhouse, Ditka’s Restaurant, Nobu, etc.

For me it was the weird fashions, topped off with plaid pants. I mean what in the actual hell were they thinking?!

I still have pics of me as a kid in these. When you’re that age your parents pick your clothes so it’s not like we had a say in it.

Doesn't Nobu's "celebrity" come from owning restaurants? Different from Ditka.

During Watergate, r181, I bought a plaid suit at an expensive store in Georgetown. The base color was palest beige, with intersecting stripes of pale blue and cafe-au-lait beige. I mostly wore the pants with myriad solid-color blue shirts. I also had a red, white, and blue pair of pants that went so well with Fourth of July.

We had SUCH bad taste. I can't IMAGINE wearing such things today.

R182, Nobu is the name of the restaurant owned by Robert DeNiro.

R183, I will now have recurring nightmares about that time. Once again.

MIA bracelets.

Ohhhhhh...thank you, r184. I guess I'd think of it more as "celebrity" if it were called "De Niro's."

Horror movies that were actually more creepy and unsettling than violent or bloody. ("Let's Scare Jessica to Death" and "The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane" were two examples.) They were truly scary, due to well-written stories and a sense of overall eerieness, rather than graphic violence. This, of course, was a few years prior to the emergence of Freddie Krueger and Jason.

I agree, R188. Alfred Hitchcock was the master at it and he called them “suspense movies.”

Trick or treating for UNICEF.

When my younger brothers were preschool age they had some plaid (Nana bought) pants. My brothers referred to these as their "jazzy pants."

I used to love ding dongs and other hostess desserts. They were individually wrapped in foil and tasted a hell of a lot better back then. They were still using sugar and not HFCS. Maybe that’s what caused the taste/texture change.

Most clothing items that were considered high fashion that we now look back on with horror and derision.

The changeover from black-and-white to color TV in the sixties. "The following program is brought to you in living color."

Gauchos with tall leather boots were a thing for about 5 minutes in the 70s.

Hands Across America

Harmony and diversity in a Coke commercial

[quote]Most clothing items that were considered high fashion that we now look back on with horror and derision.

I don’t know about that. Most styles come back into style (think skinny ties—popular in the ‘60s, back again today), but NOBODY wants to recreate the horror show that was 1970’s fashion.

Playing jacks on the floor as a kid

Playing the board game Sorry, and every time you landed on your opponent's space, screaming "Soooorryyyy!!!!!", like they did in the "Carol Burnett Show" skit.

I remember my brother constantly talking to his gf using "instant messenger".The sound of a door creak would make him jump up,it was mad crazy.He would get SO salty if I snuck up behind him when he was typing to her.

Even Elvis was obsessed with the Kung Fu shit and forced it upon his audience every chance he got.

Talking to your best friend next-door using Walkie-Talkies.

Don't forget Pee-Chees, r179!

I refused to go graphic, r188!

Artificial Christmas trees with silver cellophane "needles".

Granny square afghans.

R206, since you’re the second person to mention that I’ll ask, were those really “big”?

I remember seeing some of them in the stores, but no one I knew had one or would want one. I wonder if they were a regional thing.

Don't you mean aluminum, r206?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from reading this thread, it’s that toys and tv sucked pretty hard in the 60s and 70s.

R208 My grandmother had one. Oddly enough it was decorated entirely with blue Christmas balls. We're not Jewish and even if we were, Hanukkah colors on a Christmas tree?

LOL r211.

I remember them in the store usually decorated that way, too. I wonder if they thought it was an interesting contrast of colors or something.

No aluminum tree was complete without one of these. And yes, the ornaments had to be all one color/size. The people across the street from us in the 60s had pink ornaments. We thought it as tacky.

Well, weren't you all just the callous sophisticates, r213?

Fall season TV promo songs

Kung Fu Fighting, early 70s

R25, like this?

[quote]If there’s one thing I’ve learned from reading this thread, it’s that toys and tv sucked pretty hard in the 60s and 70s.

You're wrong. Quite the opposite.

The artist R214 posted with the 'callow sophisticates' cartoon was ubiquitous, but it was mostly cats he was famous for. I had the red sneakers kitty on a t-shirt.

Barbie was a thespian....

Olivia- Physical. Hearing the single when it first came out in the fall of 1981. I was 9 yrs old and a Olivia fanatic. Seeing the song, album, and music video become hugely popular into 1982.

[quote]Barbie was a thespian....

So? Wasn’t Danny Thomas one?

I had numerous "Cat: one hell of a nice animal, frequently mistaken for a meatloaf" merchandise.

Charo

Wolfman Jack

Saturday morning cartoons

Smokeless ashtrays

"Satanic panic" in the 80's

Donahue

Sports Illustrated Sneaker Phone. I remember hating the people in the commercial even at 8 or 9 years old. " WOW! This shoe is ringing..*GASP* IT"S A PHONE!!".

A friends dad who ordered SI got one and it was a shoddy piece of shit that broke almost immediately.

R225 I currently have a 'Cat Angrily Drumming Its Tail' coffee mug that says "Bah Humbug" in my kitchen cabinet. My ma bought it for me some years ago because of my 70s love of BKliban cats. It's a small cup so I hardly ever cradle it, thus it has lasted many years.

Don't eat the apples. People put razor blades in them.

I remember Kent cigarette commercials (with micronite filters - I think they were supposed to be bad for you but I can’t remember why). My mother smoked Kent.

Who wears short shorts? These nair commercials were nonstop.

R215 and the Fall Preview issue of TV Guide. We kept it all season! Twice as thick as the standard weekly version. And full of info and glossy pics!

Sun-in: I used it the summer I was 13; for some reason my parents didn't rip me a new one they just laughed

Does anyone remember the Beatles cartoon? I loved those!

And as far as creepy tv movies--"Gargoyles" scared the crap out of me

And of course anyone alive in the mid-70's has to remember how the whole country watched "Roots" every night for a week. Epic!

Stores in the mall where you would buy posters.

It's an "S" it's an "O"it's a crazy radio. Toot A Loop.

I had that radio, R235. Mine was orange.

Radio Shack

Segregated Restaurants, bathrooms and movie theaters. Horrible.

Telephone exchanges:

ATlantic 6-2710

MUrrayhill 4-8992

Mad Libs

The Iran Hostage Crisis.

The invention of the wheel.

People subscribing to magazines like Life, Look and National Geographic.

I've written about this before. The marquee for the East 70 drive-in advertised In Car Heaters. One week they were showing Bunny Lake is Missing In Car Heater. The following week was How to Stuff a Wild Bikini In Car Heater.

R15 I was a delivery driver for Chicken Delight. Best pizzas I ever had. Made from scratch.

TV Miniseries events: Roots, Holocaust.

PBS Masterpiece Theatre: The Forsyte Saga, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Elizabeth R, I Claudius.

Platform shoes.

Love beads.

Gold chains.

“Show us your Lark pack!”

(I quit smoking Larks on Aug. 1, 1985. They stopped making them years ago. So much for charcoal filters...)

Sex as you like it. (For about 20 years, from the advent of the Pill to the advent of AIDS, sex seemed like a game. True.)

The herpes epidemic. (Later totally overshadowed.)

Diet drinks: Metrecal, Diet Rite Cola, Tab.

TV Dinners.

Jiffy Pop Popcorn.

[quote] “Show us your Lark pack!” (I quit smoking Larks on Aug. 1, 1985. They stopped making them years ago. So much for charcoal filters...)

I quit smoking in August of 1987. Merit regulars. I had smoked Tareytons, also with charcoal filters, for a few years in the 1960s. I'm currently reading Thomas Mallon's Watergate, and the amount of smoking that goes on so casually makes me want to go back, if not to smoking, then at least to that time, which, compared to now seems so effortless and problem-free. It wasn't, of course. I hadn't even come out yet, but in memory, it exists as an easier time.

Whenever I wanted to quit smoking, I’d stop Larks, and do either Salem or Newport. I hated menthol. And sometimes I’d smoke Tareytons, which had been popular when I was in prep school, along with Marlboro, which I’d never liked.

I also have trouble recalling how immensely popular smoking was. Everywhere. As a child, in the mid-50’s, I flew on a plane with my parents. The stewardess (remember them?) brought me a dinner tray (remember them?), which included a small pack of 4 Winston cigarettes, along with a small book of 6 matches. On every tray.

And, when I saw the tryout of Company in Boston in 1970, Elaine Stritch had a moment in Act II, when she decided everyone should smoke, and ordered the waiters to bring 10 cartons of cigarettes to everyone else in the cocktail lounge set, which was done, taking up a lot of needless time. You can believe that was cut by the time the show went to New York!

Smoking was integral to adult living. And now it’s practically a criminal act. Yikes!

I was in grade school and my Nana sent me to the Skaggs drugstore to buy her a pack of Doral cigarettes. ("Taste me, taste me! Come on and taste me! Take a puff and let me do my stuff!)" They wouldn't let me buy them without a NOTE. I walked home and she wrote me a note, then back to the drugstore to make the purchase without a problem. WTF?

Riding bikes with no helmet. Going to a park without a parent along. Pea shooters.

bump

Ball and chain radios.

Muzak.

Records. Record stores.

The Bump

The ability of critical thinking. The ability to laugh at yourself, life's absurdities (sp?) and its unfairness without being a oversensitive hysterical SJW kill joy, dead weight.

They sure were, R255!

This thread keeps disappearing from my list of saved threads, even though I have left responses. Why is that? How do I stop it from happening?

This awful popcorn maker that scalded your hands when you flipped it.

[quote]And of course anyone alive in the mid-70's has to remember how the whole country watched "Roots" every night for a week. Epic!

Amazing how things have changed. Nowadays we’d all DVR it and binge watch it on Saturday.

I remember my father watching that miniseries and he was NOT to be disturbed by us kids. I know we had the book in the house also, but I don’t know if it was purchased before or after the movie.

And R258, we had that exact popcorn maker. Lmao.

Catalogue shopping.

I remember my sister writing a note and sending me off to the store to buy her cigs. I was about 6 or 7, and this was in the mid 70's. I think she was underage even, but the note seemed to suffice. She bribed me with a pack of Wacky Packages.

You bought those atrocious clothes, r260? Those catalogs were read-only for me.

Again - Afghan Jackets

& Afghan dogs to go with

ALL this shit.

Fun, but disgusting....

Saturday morning children's programming -- when was a kid, it was all cartoons. Now, it is animal shows.

Fizzies were kind of awful, weren't they, r269? Thanks for the memory.

Campus Cuties by Marx

Pac Man & Ms Pac Man fever

[quote]Saturday morning children's programming -- when was a kid, it was all cartoons. Now, it is animal shows.

Agreed. Ratings killed Network Tv.

Lidsville - the trippiest and most unsettling children's show in an era full of them. A screamingly gay villain, a genie of indeterminate gender, and a boy who used to be a vampire, all in a land of walking, talking hats, some of whom were evil.

I'll take a pound of whatever Sid Krofft was smoking.

R87 kenley players interviewed circa '70

R270, "American Bandstand" and "Love Train" followed those cartoons.

What's missing today is a common cultural frame of reference. There was a time when we knew contemporary popular culture, but we were also familiar with the figures and practices of our parents' generation. I was born in 1963, but I knew who many film stars of the 1930s and 1940s. Television certainly helped that, but we were less isolated than today, where everyone is having their own experience.

You'll always know when I'm in a good moos cos I find myself singing "all aboard, all aboard..."

You'll always know when I'm in a good **MOOD** cos I find myself singing "all aboard, all aboard..."

r280 We knew.

"WE" might have known - but not everyone.

The ritual of listening to Casey Kasem's American Top 40 on Saturday morning.

[quote]Here we go with the Top 40 hits of the nation this week on American Top 40, the best-selling and most-played songs from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. This is Casey Kasem in Hollywood, and in the next three hours, we'll count down the 40 most popular hits in the United States this week, hot off the record charts of Billboard magazine for the week ending July 11, 1970. In this hour at #32 in the countdown, a song that's been a hit 4 different times in 19 years! And we're just one tune away from the singer with the $10,000 gold hubcaps on his car! Now, on with the countdown!

The Enjoli ad. On a side note, a woman named Enjoli Chianti checked into my hotel. Love it.

That was Soul Train BPC.

What was, r285?

You said Love Train. The show was Soul Train and far superior to American Bandstand.

Oh, thanks, r287. I'm the one who asked, but I'm not Bonnie Prince Charlie. In fact, since you didn't post a number, I didn't know what "BPC" meant. I was wondering what "Soul Train BPC" was.

Dreamcatchers.

Not only did we listen to Casey Kasem's American Top 40, for us it was Sunday night, we would write them down on a pad. We always had to sneak the last 1/2 hour because it would end at 10:30 and we were supposed to be in bed.

Thanks, R285. Guess i'm showing my age!!! It was far superior.

[quote](I quit smoking Larks on Aug. 1, 1985. They stopped making them years ago. So much for charcoal filters...)

Is that when you switched to Virginia Slims?

r252=Moron

V

3-d in 1982-1983

Hula hoops

[quote]Did people really say that or was it just something that script writers at The Brady Bunch and Dragnet would insert in 1970 to make a character sound hip?

Groovy was tough to pull off even when it was hip, and it was only hip for about 15 minutes before Television and Madison Avenue killed it. You kinda had to be Jerry Garcia to make it work even back in the day. I'm old enough now that very occasionally toss a groovy into a conversation, especially with teenagers, just to enjoy the reaction it gets.

Small Wonder

1-900 numbers

Daytime network sitcom reruns between game shows and soaps

Hypercolor t-shirts that changed color

Book It!

The Miss Rheingold Contest.

Mmmmm......lemony!

R134, The Amazing Live Sea Monkeys Saturday morning TV show.

Diver Dan

Wow, r104, I have fond memories of watching that with my Dad. But we both really loved this:

The whole phone sex phenomenon

You mean like the "1-900" numbers R304? And there were the "1-976" numbers also.

I could swear there used to be a show called Hobby Time With Jane Gray but I can't find a reference to it anywhere. It was a low budget craft show with Jane Gray making things like sock puppets and quilted junk.

Y'all

bitches

are

OLD

Get off my lawn, r307!!

pogs

I don't know why but I always love the stories in threads like this about parents (or relatives) sending kids to the store to buy cigarettes. That just seems inconceivable in today's parenting world.

Cheesy organ music for soap operas, which persisted until the early '70s

As a happy little kid, that organ music creeped me out and I would tune the TV to something seemly, such as The Bob Cummings Show.

How cute, look at R307, an old man most likely, trying so hard to sound young by calling everyone else old. How special. Next.

Plastic covered furniture. My grandparents not only had that, but plastic covered seats in their gold Cadillac.

Darling r314, it's the HEIGHT of elegance! God bless.....

r310, not only did they send me to buy cigs, I had to buy my stepmother's ortho-gyno birth control too.

Love beads

Douche

....

The K-Tel Record Selector. I had one.

Omg, I think I remember going to the corner store to get cigs for friends mother. Her mom and her friend “Aunt Betty” were chain smokers and inseparable. We didn’t care though since we sat downstairs in the basement and did bong hits and watched MTV when it first started.

[quote] I don't know why but I always love the stories in threads like this about parents (or relatives) sending kids to the store to buy cigarettes.

I used to do that until I was around twelve, at which point there was a possibility it was for me, I guess. Before they just assumed the kid was doing it for a parent.

My friend used to pick up his mom's order at the liquor store. They knew his family, but still, they were handing a 16 year old a box of booze once a week.

once one of my aunts gave me a handful of change to get her smokes from a machine. It was located in a cocktail lounge.

As a teen I'd get my cigarettes from the Vickers gas station. The machine was outside and nobody paid attention to who was buying them. They were $.30.

Yeah, I remember getting a lot of cigarettes from vending machines for mom.

Occasionally my dad would take me to his favorite local bar with him and one of my jobs would always be to take two quarters and go buy mom's cigs, her Virginia Slims, which always got stuck in the machine.

I have a memory of my mother picking my dad up at an intersection. This was back when families had one whole car. Ours was a a Ford wood paneled station wagon. Anyway, we went to pick him up and my mother saw a bar called the “Red Baron”, a tittie bar. My mother, pissed off, sent my 5 year old brother inside to “ get your dad out”. My brother went inside and came out, goggle eyed and said “the naked ladies inside said he’s not there but they were nice”. My dad was across the street in an ice cream parlor.

We always got a kick out of that story.

R327, that’s hilarious.

Yeah if I remember my mother was pregnant with my younger brother hence the automatic assumption. My father was always a straight arrow type too which made it funnier.

Nowadays a kid sent into a strip club would be an automatic welfare call. Back then, nah.

The Thunderbirds

The original Batman TV show. BOOM! BAP! POW!!

Eartha Kitt as Cat Woman! Cesar Romero as the Joker!

Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp

Wow, it's great to see a few people discussing Kliban cats!

I used to have quite a number of Kliban items. The ones that remain are pot holders with the sneaker-wearing cat and a cookie jar with the guitar-playing cat (shown at link).

BTW, the cat's song goes:

Love to eat them mousies,

Mousies what I love to eat,

Bite they little heads off,

Nibble on they tiny feet.

LOL, R321, I didn't have the K-Tel record selector but I still have at least three of the records in that commercial.

Lol!!!

Some commercials for some very 70s products:

Body on Tap, the "beer enriched" shampoo. (Featuring an unknown Kim Bassinger.) For some reason, I have a memory of walking home from school with a friend in my neighborhood who was telling me his uncle and aunt bought Body on Tap shampoo. Why this was any interest to a couple of 10-year-olds, I don't know. But we found it fascinating.

And Pearl Drops Tooth Polish. I can remember as a kid running my tongue over my teeth to see if they felt clean, but I don't think I was making the orgasmic noises that the commercial actresses did.

"Disco Duck"

And all this talk of cigarettes reminded me of Topol, the smokers toothpaste. It always grossed me out that the dude in the commercial could blow a brown stain into his handkerchief. Gross. No cigarettes for me!

I do remember this in our bathroom for a bit, so I guess the ad was effective for my parents.

"Sometimes your skin gets so dry, you can scratch the word "dry" right on your hand."

R321--I had one of these. Also an inside the egg egg beater (not sure if it was Ronco or K-Tel but it was "as seen on tv!")

I’m still trying to figure out how to do Bernadette’s arm thing 45+ years later...

R342---She was Bernadette for 17 seconds.

I just saw some guy comment on a news anchor (female) as having a "Pepsodent smile."

It certainly showed everyone his age - but I vaguely remembered that ad campaign (or the concept, anyway).

Bernadette showed you how to do it once!

[quote] Ours was a a Ford wood paneled station wagon.

A Country Squire?

The Man From GLAD

Fake car phones to fool passersby into thinking you were rich and important enough to have a phone in your car.

I'm amused these days when I travel somewhere and see pay phones.

They are all but gone in almost every city. You still see them occasionally here and there.

Is that bitch STILL Bernadette?

According to her Twitter profile photo she is STILL working her arms.

Oh...my...gawd, r342! Totally remember that. I figured out how to do it quickly. I just got up to see if I could still do it.....

Clutch Cargo. Just imagine the blowjobs he could give with that mouth.

r333 is where I discovered my first cultural clash when arriving in the Eastern US. The New York kids would see the cat singing about mousies and just roll on the floor laughing, and I didn't get it.

I love to watch Lloyd Bridges in Sea Hunt, when he got the call that he had to find something under water he would stand up in his boat pull off his shirt, my favorite part of the show.

wow!

R327 My wife had to go drag her father out of the bars in early 1960s Phoenix...courtesy of her mother! (for locale think of opening scenes of Hitchcock's Psycho)

1960s Catholicism. I can remember not eating meat on Friday's.

Having to fast before getting communion. Dark church, smell of incense, flickering candles in red glasses, Latin mass

confession every Friday afternoon in school.

Having to go to church in the morning on the First Friday of every month. We weren't allowed to eat or drink before leaving for school because we were expected to take communion at mass. I remember getting headaches and a stomach ache because of hunger. Lunch was at 12 and was brought to school wrapped in wax paper and placed inside a brown paper bag. Every Monday we brought a placemat to school to put on our desk at lunchtime. It was kept in our desk and taken home to be washed on Friday. All textbooks had to have covers made from a brown paper grocery bag. You couldn't have lunch boxes or store bought book covers because you would be making a spectacle of yourself.

Everything was the same, year after year. In May, we had to make a circle around an outdoor statue of Mary and sing Ave Maria. The prettiest girl in the class would be named Queen of the May and the rest of us were bored to death. We didn't have a gym, so we were made to go run around the school "playground" (a patch of asphalt) no matter how cold or how hot it was outside. There was no library. I don't ever remember learning science until I switched to public school in 6th grade.

I thought the Topol guy was cute back then in my early teens when this commercial was running. Anyone know who he is? Dead of lung cancer or still smokin’?

R357 did we go to the same school? LOL

You should have told them to fuck off and pranced in with this, r357.

R353 - At 13 I loved B Kliban and bought all his books - at Waldenbooks I’m the Mall. I actually found the car stuff the least funny - I don’t like real cats much either - but I loved his deadpan absurdist humor “Never eat anything bigger than your head.” “Cynthia is mistakenly crowned King of Norway.”

I am a New Yorker, so maybe it is regional - or is that just a type of humor that didn’t / doesn’t appeal to you?

In the mall. Cat stuff. Why do I never notice the typos till AFTER I post?

Not quite childhood, but I ordered my first coat as an adult from a Montgomery Ward’s catalog store in San Angelo Texas. These were in towns too small for a regular store. You’d go in, flip through the catalog and place your order which was delivered to the store in a couple of days.

There were no goods sold at this store which was a bit about half the size of a Radio Shack.

I never knew about the Sears Wish catalogue when I was a kid. It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I saw one. My mother gave it to my nephew so he could circle what he wanted for Christmas. Turns out my mother deliberately kept it a secret from us. We were poor and we were girls and girls weren't supposed to be greedy or desirous of consumer goods. We were supposed to be more spiritually and less materially oriented. Boys, on the other hand, were to be given every single thing they desired, plus more. Boys were given books full of wishes to pick from ---- things they hadnt even know existed, but knew they need to have as soon as they saw them in the book.

Buying condoms at service stations for a quarter.

The animated version of Thunderbirds

R311, I remember those. As the World Turns also used organ music well into the ‘70s. Of course, they weren’t all like that. There was this one, for example.

Hearing that music takes me back to my grandmother’s living room on a summer afternoon, sitting cross-legged on the floor, drinking iced tea and watching her “stories” with her. And they were good stories, too! The best was the Bill-Mickey-Laura storyline from DOOL. I was always so excited when you’d see one of them in the opening few scenes because then you knew that subplot would be front-and-center in the episode.

I miss old-fashioned soap operas.

Hal Lindsey and the Late Great Planet Earth. I was so afraid I would get "raptured" when I was masturbating.

You could also buy lipstick out of vending machines at drive in movies

Popeil's pocket fisherman

Late-night or weekend afternoon horror movie hosts on local television channels.

I remember our TV in the 70s. I'm not talking the programs, but the TV itself. It was a big console unit. And there was no remote control, so my father would lie on the couch watching tv, and call one of the kids in to change the channel for him. We got maybe 8 to 10 channels - 2 were ABC, 2 were NBC, 1 was CBS, then 2 PBS and some independents. And there was a big dial on top of the TV hooked up to the antenna on the roof, and depending on what channel you were watching, you'd turn the dial to move the antenna in the best position to get reception.

My parents had completely different taste in tv, so at some point we got a small black and white tv with rabbit ears that went into my parents bedroom. Every year we'd rent a house at the beach for a week, and that little tv would make the trip with us.

[quote]Buying condoms at service stations for a quarter.

My Grandfather's barber sold condoms back in the 60's. He had a little cardboard display rack on the wall next to the pocket combs, hair tonic, and all the other stuff he sold. Seemed odd, but in a way they fit right in considering his magazine selection was piles of magazines like True Detective and Police Journal which seemed devoted to covering crimes against women wearing only underwear.

Before we got cable in 1978, we only got the big three + PBS. Before we got a new color TV around the same time, we had a black-and-white relic from the '60s that had to warm up a minute or so after you turned it on before the picture would come in. Sometimes you would have to bang on it if the reception got messed up (think Onslow on Keeping Up Appearances).

Slightly dusty and quiet museums all around the world. Filled with the same treasures but not a shopping mall tourist extravaganza experience.

Independent clothing boutiques. Boutiques for every niche. On shopping streets, in towns of every size.

Paris was still cruddy. Manhattan was seedy in many neighborhoods..

"Honky tonk" feeling destinations not yet gentrified, yuppified, neutralized, corporatized.

r351 -- I too knew and appreciated, “Cynthia is mistakenly crowned King of Norway.” et al, (and owned several of the books as well) but I just never got the cat thing with the mousies.

That is for r361

Skid Row on the Bowery. My dad would drive us past 1x a year as a warning not to become "an alcoholic bum". There were drinkers on both sides of the family, none o them skid row bums, but my parents specifically followed "moderation" and I never saw my mom drunk and my dad only once.

Flash forward 10 years and I was hanging out in clubs around there.

My uncle was in the Navy then the Merchant Marine and he took me around huge ships and even a nuclear sub. My parents let me take a train to Hamburg to visit him and he took me to the Reeperbahn.

B Kliban always reminds me of college...getting stoned with friends and pretending that we were the callous sophisticates laughing at Judy's tiny head.

T-shirt shops with hundreds of iron-on decals as well as lettering and numbers so you could have your own phrase spelled out on a shirt.

What's especially weird is that this trend embodied the spirit of the 70s, when leftists unashamedly called themselves Liberals and believed in old fashioned American virtues like Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Conscience and Freedom of Speech. Today, leftists cagily call themselves Progressives and they harass people, and try to doxx them and get them fired for wearing shirts and hats that say things that run counter to their opinions.

Pardon my rant, but Free Speech, baby.

Oh those fucking Beanie Babies.

I remember the rooftop antenna that we had when I was a kid. This was in the late 70s/early 80s right before cable and smaller antennas with more boost.

Our rooftop antenna had a direction changer on it. It was a small box, I guess, that the antenna sat in on the roof, and you had a dial on top of the TV that you turned. You'd hear "click clack" and the antenna would change direction, which either improved reception or made it worse.

We usually got the truly local channels in OK so this was always for the ones farther away.

This was also the pre VCR era where my sister would pay me a quarter to record The Hardy Boys for her on a cassette player (audio) while she was at work.

I remember as a young gayling in the Paleolithic Pre Porn era that my choices for visual aids were limited to:

- International Mail catalog

- Sears catalog (underwear pages)

- Australian rules football (and the commercial during games with Paul Hogan in a Speedo)

- Someone's straight porn magazine (but only Hustler, since it would always have one pictorial with a dude in it)

R368 I remember seeing those ads for his book and thinking “why is the guy from Barney Miller selling this?”

Fucking hell R363 San Angelo Texas? Seriously? I thought no one else knew about that rinkydink town. My mother grew up there and I spent time visiting my grandmother in that do nothing place.

R371. That list was obviously compiled by someone unfamiliar with the campy stylings of Philadelphia based Dr. Shock.

How about the ubiquitous David Walsh Naughton? First he was the Dr. Pepper guy, then went on to star in American Werewolf In London. He was everywhere in the 70's!

R379 - I guess the conceit of “if a cat were a folk singer what would he sing about” is funny to people who really know / like cats. I’m much more of a humiliate a salami kinda guy.

R383 - I’m rarely stoned and barely a sophisticate but I laugh at Judy all the time anyway.

I should just keep a copy of the book on me - it would be a surefire way to determine if someone new is friend material or not.

puzzle balls from vending machines in the 90s

R368 yes I remember the Jesus movement and Hal Lindsay.

Love that Katy Perry package!

Did Kathryn Kuhlman have a speech impediment?

My mom watched her show.

Afterschool Specials

No Kathryn was just a very strange individual

She was the Norma Desmond of televangelists.....

She loved catfish and canned peaches.

R399, Agnes Moorhead does a great impersonation of her in the camp classic What's the Matter With Helen?.

R374- I remember the old TVs that you could fix if a tube burned out. You'd take off the back of the TV and see which tube looked burnt out. Then you'd take it to the local drug store and they had a booth set up to test the tube. If the tube was dead, then you'd pull open the drawer in the booth and select a new tube- they had the new ones all boxed up-and you'd just go home and reinstall it.

ah yes AFL When ESPN had hours to fill. I use to watch this whenever I could. My dad was happy that I finally found a sport. LOL

Fascinating, r402.

NOT being snarky. I love hearing how things were “then,” whenever ‘then’ was.

^^^ Yes, I remember that too! It was exciting seeing the insides of the TV and looking for which tube was different. Related to this, in the late 70s and early 80s in Pennsylvania, we had a PRISM TV, which was like an early version of HBO. By twisting aluminum foil around the cable connector you were able to get the channel to come in even if you didn’t subscribe to it. I saw a lot of premium movies that way.

When I was a horny tween in the early '80s, I discovered Nancy Friday's [italic]Men in Love[/italic] and its juicy gay chapter at our neighborhood library, along with [italic]The Spada Report[/italic] at the B. Dalton bookstore at the mall.

I'm not sure they even realized what they were selling, but our neighborhood drugstore stocked Gordon Merrick novels on the paperback racks alongside the Harlequin romances and the straight smut from Harold Robbins and Judith Krantz.

The sleazy true-crime magazines ([italic]True Detective, Shocking Detective,[/italic] etc.) used to run ads for hardcore porn magazines, loops, photo sets, and sex dolls in their back pages. The ads were often as dirty as actual porn, and there was plenty of gay stuff mixed in with the straight.

As a kid I remember running to the candy store around 9 o’clock in the evening to buy the Daily News for my mom. Back in the day, it was published twice a day. My mom and her friends all played the nickel numbers and they could not wait to get that day’s horse racing results. The last three digits of the parimutuel handle was the winning number. If you bet a nickel on a number and it hit, you won $25.

Mom and her friends would then brainstorm for the next day and write up their lists of numbers to play. The bookie would make the rounds every morning to take the bets.

When I got older, I would call the bookie at home on Sunday mornings to place my bets during football season.

This would air after Sermonette.....

The old duck and cover drills so that we would be saved during a nuclear attack

That list of horror hosts left off one of the earliest - Chilly Billy Cardille from WIIC Channel 11 in Pittsburgh.

His sidekick included "Terminal Stare." (That's her shtick in a nutshell.)

I included this clip because of the fabulous Richard Simmons commercial.

The "In the News" theme was a bit unsettling for a kid.

Imogene Coco advertising Prince Spaghetti Sauce - "Busy women love Prince" - apparently my first words in the A&P while sitting in the shopping cart shocking my mother.

That’s pretty cool, R408.

Network sign-offs are definitely relics from another era, before the 24/7 media cycle took hold. I kind of miss them.

Weekly variety shows.

Sometimes amazing, other times not so much, but even the D listers actually tried to entertain us in some way.

(Now our D listers are famous for being reality stars, known for fighting with other no names, or known for the outfits they barely wear and the cocks they suck.)

Speaking of horror movie hosts, after Vampira but before Elvira there was LA's own Sinister Seymour. I loved that guy.

If your folks had cable in the '80s, you no doubt remember TBS's super-annoying Audra Lee and KIDS' BEAT!

Also: [italic]Steampipe Alley[/italic] with Mario Cantone

Debbie Drake!

Polio.

Cue the iron lung jokes.

The miraculous Mark Eden Bust Developer

Tipper Gore’s insane crusade against filthy pop music sent from Satan himself to corrupt America’s pure, Godly youth!

I was young, but very in tune with pop culture and as a future gayling, I was WAY into slutty, trashy (considered by many a Reagan era conservative parent) acts like Madonna, Samantha Fox, Vanity, etc. I loved “Self Control” by Lauren Branigan. I didn’t know exactly what it was about, but I knew she was up to something dirty and I LOVED it. Here’s one of my favorites from that era...

Boy's Life magazine.....

S-S-S-SAMANTHA FOX!

Vincent Price movies; especially Dr. Phibes.

[quote]Tipper Gore’s insane crusade against filthy pop music sent from Satan himself to corrupt America’s pure, Godly youth!

Along the same lines, there was the silly, stupid Meese Report on porn, which served mostly to titillate people with its findings.

Does anyone remember Jack LaLanne and his exercise show?

AIDS

"Does anyone remember Jack LaLanne and his exercise show?"

And his dog, Happy!

Jack

With his dog Happy!

The Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy spots on SNL.

Chicken Fat

I remember Jack used to call out random names to "Get off the couch and get moving".

Jack La Lanne was a piece of work. Huge homophobe despite being as nelly as the day is long and having posed for "physical culture" magazines when he was young and hot.

Jack Labottom

[quote] I loved “Self Control” by Lauren Branigan.

My name is LAURA, you whore!

My mom had this exercise book by Bonnie Prudden, the no-nonsense, fun-free counterpart to Jack and Debbie. She spearheaded the President's Council on Physical Fitness, which created those humiliating baseline fitness tests that made gym class a nightmare.

R414, I do, too, although it wouldn't mean as much to me as an adult. To a kid, it meant you stayed up really, really late. Then, the TV would sign off, the neighborhood would be dark and quiet, and it would feel like you were the only person awake in the entire world.

I remember cigarette machines in various places, usually restaurants, bars, arcades, and movie theatres I believe. They had several selections of cigs and a pull type knob to release them after you inserted your money. I remember my brother getting them while way underage. Those cigs eventually killed him.

There was a cable type t.v. Station that was blurred out unless you paid called spectrum. It was soft core porn. If you adjusted the rabbit ears just right, there would be a moment of clarity and you'd see a boob or naked male butt.

USA's Up All Night and TBS' Dinner and a Movie on Friday nights.

Coin-operated little B&W TVs that we’re mounted to seats in bus stations and airports. I would see them when my grandma came to town on Greyhound and we’d go pick her up. I wanted to use one but never got the chance.

I remember when cable tv was new. Movies like “Tim” and “Time After Time” played over and over along with “Not Necessarily the News”. “Brothers” also rings a bell.

Actually looking back, the stuff on back then was far better than the shit on now. Kardashian’s and real housewives is a major devolution.

[quote]USA's Up All Night

Rhonda on Friday, Gilbert on Saturday, with the Saturday night double feature proceeded by USA Saturday Nightmares... which meant six glorious hours on scares and schlock. Along with Joe Bob Briggs’ Drive-In Theater, I watched some weird, weird movies on those weekends.

Stevie Nick's treadmill.

I remember seeing the Athletic Model Guild magazine in my local suburban newsstand and wondering who in my town of 12,000 is buying these? I stole one by placing it inside a Time magazine and wore out the pages.

I haven't thought of Not Necessarily the News in years, r444!

I remember vividly the first time I saw a black woman with straight blonde hair. She was walking out of a store as I was walking in. Now I see blonde black women everywhere.

Ray one else remember HBO’s “The Hitchhiker” series? Kind of like the Twilight Zone. There was another show called Tales from the Darkside that had some really creepy episodes.

Sorry “anyone else”.

"There was another show called Tales from the Darkside that had some really creepy episodes."

Don't forget Tales From the Crypt with that horrifying Crypt Keeper!

Oh my god, completely forgot about the mousy song. It was hilarious.

Other cultural event, hearing house music for the first time, and loving it.

The Cat Came Back

When networks would promote all of their shows with one song.

Like "Still The One"

The personals columns in the back of "The Village Voice." Hell..."The Village Voice" itself!

There was also some woman who was a clinician or therapist of some sort. She had a cable TV program late at night in the Eighties. It was all about sex and relationships. WASPy name. Anyone remember her?

R457 Is this her?

That's her, R458. Thank you.

Leon Neon was a thing, apparently.

Romper Room. Were you a Do-Bee or a Don't-Be?

In r461, we see an adult host of a kids program. After, kids would host, or adults pretending they were kids (or animals).

Miss Loise - NYC Romper Room Hostess in the late 60’s was my first love. Her replacement, Miss Maryanne, was a no talent tramp.

She was perfect!

Oh god, I remember Chicken Fat! Our teacher told us President Kennedy said Americans are getting soft and that there was going to be a new physical fitness program. Including exercising to that stupid record. I never could stand Robert Preston's voice.

Oh here’s another one. Diaper service at your door and I remember big tin cans of chips and cookies delivered. Can’t remember the name though.

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, too! Oh my god, she was everywhere with her chirpy little German accent - “ he will ezzzzhacooolate”.

We didn't really have a Toys R Us nearby, so it was rare that I'd go. But I always remember their Christmas commercial that aired when I was a kid because it would get me so excited for the holiday.

RIP Toys R Us.

Forgot the link!

R466, are you thinking of Charles Chips?

Waking up and watching Bobby’s World on Saturday morning.

[quote]I remember cigarette machines in various places, usually restaurants, bars, arcades, and movie theatres I believe. They had several selections of cigs and a pull type knob to release them after you inserted your money.

Cigarettes cost $1.75 in machines when I quit in 1987.

I remember smoking being allowed in movie theaters, and how the clouds of smoke would drift up into the light stream going from the projector to the screen. I thought that was pretty wonderful when I was a kid.

[quote]Romper Room. Were you a Do-Bee or a Don't-Be?

I smoke a lot of Do-Bees. Does that count?

For a short time, my Mom was obsessed with topiary trees.

Elaine Powers - Figure Salons

I remember when movie theaters used to actually tell parents to take crying babies out of the theater and into the lobby in their pre-movie intros.

Terrariums were popular maybe in the late 70's early 80's. I remember having to mist the one my mother had.

Cars without seatbelts.

Elaine Power's Figure Salons

[quote] Terrariums were popular maybe in the late 70's early 80's. I remember having to mist the one my mother had.

This reminds me that in the late 70s/early 80s it was very popular in hotels and malls to have plants, especially ivy, everywhere.

Every once in a while I'll stay in an old hotel from that era that has the big old ivy in the center.

I think it is the AMEX Centurion Lounges that all have the same foliage walls, so indoor greenery in the US is making a return.

R481 - they were called “Fern Bars” for a reason.

We had a coffee shop (Was it a chain?) that was decorated with lava lamps in every booth and at every table.

Thank you R470. That’s what I remember. We used to get them delivered.

These weird Thumb Sucker lollipops that were popular in the 80s and 90s. I haven't seen them in stores in years.

We had a milkman and a baked good delivery guy. Fuller brush salesman and my mom bought her brooms from a blind man who went door to door. I don't know if these were delivered, but I love these chip cans and have two of them.

A blind man went door to door?!

LMAO

Yep.

Blind people learned to read using Braille. Now, they listen to books on (tape/disc/HD) and are functionally illiterate.

My Mom bought Funk and Wagnall's Encyclopedias from S&H Green Stamps or Plaid Stamps. A full set. Can't remember which one. My job, as the youngest, was to lick the stamps and put them in the book. Then Mom and me would go to store to redeem them.

Good thing I can’t see you, r490, cause thems fightin’ words!

I always liked the sign at the entrance of the Village Inn Pancake House:

BRAILLE MENUS UPON REQUEST

r491 We got our complete set of Funk & Wagnall's as a supermarket premium. You got a new volume at a reduced price every week with a certain amount of money spent.

[quote]Ray one else remember HBO’s “The Hitchhiker” series? Kind of like the Twilight Zone.

There's this new, VERY low-rent channel called FOLK TV that's been around for a couple of months on Dish Network. It specializes in schlocky old US programs that are now in public domain, such as [italic]My Little Margie, Ozzie & Harriet, Public Defender[/italic] and [italic]The Colgate Comedy Hour.[/italic]

Two weeks or so ago, I noticed that episodes of [italic]The Hitchhiker,[/italic] the Canadian anthology featuring Paige Fletcher in the title role, were scheduled, so I set my DVR accordingly. Two episodes were to be aired one day either this week or next. I double-checked to be sure their recording was set. Today, I noticed that no episodes were to be recorded, and that no episodes are set to be aired AT ALL on FOLK TV.

So folk them. Maybe TVLand or some REAL channel gets the rights to [italic]The Hitchhiker,[/italic] we can see it again.

R469 - Sears Christmas Catalog!!! It would come in October and my mother would hide it in the front hall closet until late November

Sorry - mean R468

R496 If you knew it was in the hall closet all along was it ever really hidden? One year during parent teacher conferences my brother and I were waiting in the car. For some reason we opened the trunk and found Christmas presents from Santa.

Diaphragms

Ads in the back of magazines that sold stuff to children that was supposed to be sold door to door. A portion of the money was supposed to be sent back to the company. Flower seeds was one item.

Trick or treat for UNICEF. Is that still done?

The old Advocate pink pages!

What I remember from the polio era were the warning signs in the windows of some houses. They made those houses scary to pass by.

slap bracelets

Civil defense sirens. One in every neighborhood. Atop a tall yellow pole, as tall as a telephone pole. They were there to warn you of an impending attack. They did test runs of them once every few days.

TV Land hasn’t been a real cable channel in over a decade.

Up With People

R506 When I was a little kid, my folks would house a couple of Up With People youths whenever the troupe was in town, usually about three days. I never understood how that worked, but I think it was connected to church.

Lol the talk about catalogs takes me back. I would spend hours looking through the JCPennys and Sears catalogs, dreaming of a life I didn’t have. TVs, cordless phones, track suits, hot men in underwear, bedspreads, chunky man rings...they had it all!

Astropops!

The song “Senor Don Gato” Houston’s Kitty Kittrick Show

[quote]For some reason we opened the trunk and found Christmas presents from Santa.

Silly, they couldn't have been from Santa if they were in your Mom’s trunk. Santa only delivers on Christmas Eve.

The R507 Those kids had to be molested at some point traveling all over the country and staying in strange peoples homes all the time?

Watching soap operas with my Mother

Housing exchange students/being an exchange student. I was neither but had friends who house an exchange student. I think that's how I learned dirty words in French!

If they tried that now, the hosting family would be accused of trying to bring illegals into the country!

Having the first color TV on the block, all the neighbors were in awe and wanted to see it. One neighbor who was a big beer drinker loved the beer commercials.

You can still find those pull-knob cigarette vending machines in NOLA...probably other places, too.

On the topic of hosting exchange students... the family of one of my friends hosted a minor league baseball player while they played their home games. I don't know if that was a common thing, but my friend was big into baseball, played for the high school team, so maybe that's why his family did it.

We were freshman or sophomores in high school, so I was just figuring out my attraction to guys. And during the day, this guy would sometimes spend an hour or two hanging out by their pool, so I got to see a pro athlete lying by the pool in speedos (it was around 1982, so guys were still wearing speedos). I used to try to figure out how I might catch him changing in or out of his swimwear, but was never successful.

Our neighbors with a big house were the first ones on the block to have a color TV. They invited us kids over to watch The Wizard of Oz. It was the first time I had seen a color TV. When the Wicked Witch came on with her green face and evil cackle I ran out of the room.

R342 Bernadette is a friend of mine (I’ve known her since about 2004.) Bernadette Yao. She’s a musician and music therapist in the Boston MA area. She’s fun, charming, authentic and enjoys it when people remember her from ZOOM. We’ve never talked about the arm thing she did on the show, but the next time I see her I’ll ask about it for you.

Knowing your neighbors. Buying a new car would bring the whole street to your house the first time you drove up in it.

[quote] HBO’s “The Hitchhiker” series? Kind of like the Twilight Zone.

I just remember the hot stud who was the narrator dude.

[quote] Knowing your neighbors. Buying a new car would bring the whole street to your house the first time you drove up in it.

It was nice, though occasionally people would be nosy.

But then there was also caroling, and garage sales, etc.

All the comic sarcastic movies and shows about suburbia have some roots in reality, but there were nice things, too.

The theme song to The Movie of The Week, Nikki by Burt Bacharach.

The Movie of The Week.

Suburban bomb shelters.

I recall there had never been an airplane hijacking until there was a film on tv called Skyjack, and then suddenly there was a number of them.

"Where's the beef ?

The Gong Show The Match Game HR Puffinstuff Time Tunnel Land of the lost Lost in space of course!

McDonalds for a 1.00, a burger , fries, and soft drink. Shotz- You bite into them and they burst with flavor! Pigs in a blanket Fondue Fresca soft drink Disco sucks movement Streaking Disco roller skating

R504 We still have the sirens atop the tall poles and they still go off every Friday morning at 11 AM as a test. But now instead of warning about an impending atomic bomb attack they are mainly only used to warn of an approaching tornado.

Slinky's Etch a sketch Ovaltine Lite Brite Rockin Sockin Robots 8 Ball Richie Rich Comic Books

Disco haters are the scum of the Earth. I wish we could destroy them in a bonfire and start with that breeder scumbag Steve fucking Dahl.

Amen, R531.

I remember that show, too, R532.

My first trip on a jet, it was exciting when plane trips were considered a luxury.

Gomer Pyle

That show made the ban on gays in the military look like the farce it was.

[quote]Disco haters are the scum of the Earth.

Or merely people who have better taste than you.

No one has worse taste than a disco hater. Disco didn’t suck. Your shitty three chord schlock Rock was what sucked. “Last Dance” sounds like Mozart compared to the bland, banal, crass, provincial garbage that replaced it.

R537, boogie on over to the nearest grease fire. Unlike Gloria Gaynor, you won’t survive.

The Gong Show

I think anyone with a distaste for disco can go straight to hell. And don't forget your P.B.R., Marlboro reds, and stash of Oui magazines. Disco had a significant impact on the history of music. Back in the day a lot of musicians who weren't disco were even trying to latch on. That whole burning those records in that stadium, and the whole "disco sucks" crap in general was steeped in racism and homophobia. So go ahead and keep believing that hating disco r537 will make everyone believe you're some kind of a macho top that you're trying to portray.

Religious parades in Ireland each May and June

[quote]I think anyone with a distaste for disco can go straight to hell. And don't forget your P.B.R., Marlboro reds, and stash of Oui magazines.

While I did smoke Marlboros—they were just called Marlboros then—I never had a single Oui magazine, and I don't even know what P.B.R. is.

You and that other idiot mistake me for what, an Allman Brothers fan? Nope. A Lynyrd Skynyrd lover? Nope, not that either. Actually, I was pretty much done with rock at that time, too (other than Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, Talking Heads, the Police). I moved on to classical in the '80s.

What [italic]is[/italic] P.B.R.?

[QUOTE]So go ahead and keep believing that hating disco [R537] will make everyone believe you're some kind of a macho top that you're trying to portray.

"Macho top (I'm) trying to portray"? Oh, honey. When you get it wrong, YOU GET IT WRONG.

[quote] Oh here’s another one. Diaper service at your door

I remember that from when my brother was a baby. The van had a plastic baby on the roof that lit up. My older sister tried to convince me that it was a real dead baby.

Okay, let's not let a fight over disco derail the last 60 replies here.

Disco was great and it's totally under-appreciated. Yes, a little bit of the more mainstream stuff - what I like to call "Fisher Price disco" - got way overplayed and maybe isn't so good. But so much of it was and is so good.

I remember the milk crates on the porch. I think I was too little to remember them coming around, but a lot of people still had it there for things like newspapers and dog leashes.

Drinking out of a Flintstones glass that grape jelly came in. Trying to collect the whole set, which was hard. There seemed to be waaaay too many Fred jelly glasses. Pretty sure there was probably lead in the paint on the outside of the glasses.

Mom getting service for 6 plates when she filled up the gas tanks. I think it was the Hess station.

Y2K

Pigs in a blanket Fondue Fresca soft drink sounds absolutely disgusting, r528!

Dish towels in the laundry soap box.

Toys in the cereal box.

Dogs running around loose. We kids loved it when Tuffy would come pay a visit but he pooped everywhere and tore open garbage bags.

R550 How about the 45 record printed in plastic on the back of the cereal box - you’d cut it out and try to play it — but it never worked.

And mom made you finish all the cereal before you could even try!!

I was a Don't Bee.

R552 flexi dics! They came in magazines too. The original streaming music.

Which Do-bee you be?

These two

Free To Be... You And Me. My school made us watch this every year even though it already felt incredibly dated in the early 80s.

Afterschool Specials, Schoolhouse Rock, Hanker For A Hunk O' Cheese!

Those red and navy striped shirts with the white collar

Weird regional PBS kids' shows

Garbage Pail Kids

Atari and all those old arcade video games. I loved Paperboy, Dig Dug, Q-Bert, etc.

Another for Southern California locals: drive-in dairies. These (pictured below) were still common in suburban LA County when I was a small child. My dad used to call it "the dairy." By the time I was a teen, they were mostly gone, replaced by 7/11s and convenience stores. A few are still around.

Someone upthread mentioned this show "Tales From the Darkside". This is one of the best show intros ever. It's imprinted vividly in my memory because I always thought it was so cool.

Man lives

In the sunlit world

of what he BELIEVES to be reality

BUT

there is, unseen by most

an underworld

a place that is just as real

but not as brightly lit

a DARK SIDE

**(creepy '80s synth music throughout to emphasis the creepiness)**

[quote]Free To Be... You And Me. My school made us watch this every year even though it already felt incredibly dated in the early 80s.

We actually sang the songs in a 2nd grade assembly in the early 1990s. Imagine my shock to learn (thanks to a fellow DLer) what a bitch Marlo Thomas was to her gay majordomo. First time I ever felt sorry for Phil Donahue (other than seeing him reduced to doing shows about adult babies and Barney the Dinosaur to try and compete with Oprah). For someone with a limited range as an actress and a singer, she sure got lucky.

The Magic Cow

Mickey Mouse Disco

I remember something called “atomic gardening” and my mother got seeds and planted a vegetable garden in the backyard.

R248 Smoking was ubiquitous back then; everybody smoked all the time. No one knew it was bad for you. Looking at old newscasts from JFK’s assassination to Watergate, the newscasters chainsmoked on air. I remember doing the weekly food shopping with my mother, cartons of cigs were always a staple.

Prizes in Cracker Jacks

Do they not have them anymore, r565?

Was never really a fan of them, so I haven’t kept up.

Aerobicise. It was watched by far more non-exercising men than exercising women.

white "French provincial"

Arco gas stations gave away pairs of animals and a Noah’s ark in the late 60s for fill-ups. I played with it for hours and hours. I wish gas stations still gave away stuff.

I just looked and they're fairly reasonably priced on eBay, r569.

Why are there 3 gorillas and 3 turtles? A pair is 2.

courtesy cards

R558---We had one like this in Yorba Linda, the Driftwood Drive Thru Dairy. Turned out it was a good place to buy beer in high school! Looking for pics, I saw an article from 1985 outlawing alcohol sales at gas stations and the Driftwood Dairy! The one in YL is gone but this one in San Bernadino looks similar. Funny, when I was about 19 I went around and took black & white photos of all the retro stuff in Olde Yorba Linda cause I knew it wouldn't last.

Will this topic go on to a 2nd post? (I hope so.)

I remember the teacher in 3rd grade playing the "Free to be, you and me" album. (That jingle still plays in my head.) My friends and I couldn't have been less interested. But one of my friends had "The First Family" album by Vaughn Meader, and we would listen to that all the time. Not sure why, this would have been the mid-70s, so it's not like it was of it's time. And for the life of me, I couldn't tell you how Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas were tied to the Kennedy's. I think as a kid I never realized that Jacqueline Kennedy was the same person as Jackie Oh! who was always in the tabloids at that time.

I remember Target selling cigarettes. They were on a big wall sealed behind that weird plexiglass crap

I still have my Noah's ark and a few of the animals. Noah and his wife were made out of glass I believe, because my Noah is missing his foot and staff.

R525 The first aircraft hijacking was in 1931. Skyjacking came out in 1972; there were *a lot* of hijackings by then.

This thread will surely hit 600 tonight. Let's start part 2!!

The $1.98 Beauty Show. The Gong Show. The Carol Burnett Show.

That Aerobicise video is hilarious.

[quote]Why are there 3 gorillas and 3 turtles? A pair is 2.

R571, one of them was trans. Useless for reproduction, but they couldn't leave them out. All of Ur would have been in an uproar on Sumerian Twitter.

I liked those drive through dairies -- we could take our bikes to buy milk or a loaf of bread. When the 7-11s killed all these little dairies, if we wanted to ride our bikes to them, we needed to go in groups because someone needed to stay outside to protect the bikes from being stolen.

R575 - When I was nine I found my dads copy of First Family - this was a decade after the assisation. The picture on the sleeve puzzled me because they didn’t look like the Nixon’s! So I showed it to my father and he explained it was a comedy album about Kennedy. (Even at nine I was well aware my dad was a right wing Republican and not a fan of JFK).

I had just entered my Mad Magazine years so making fun of any President sounded good to me. I asked if I could play the record, but my dad immediately said no. Dissapointed, I asked why and he got a funny look on his face. “Respect,” he replied.

I think First Family is one of the nicer momentous of the JFK administration -- I was 4 when he was assassinated and since then, we mostly hear about his sex life, his political blunders or his death. First Family brings laughter instead of the usual sorrow or anger.

R584 - I don’t disagree with you, especially 50 years and hundreds of tawdry stories later. What is interesting to me about my dad’s reaction, as an adult, is how 1973 was still “too soon,” even for people who really didn’t like the guy. It was a very different world.

I remember footage of the Vietnam war on tv and Watts burning.. But even though I was a small child, I remember it as being a very optimistic time. Now, things are actually much more secure, but everyone seems despairing and doom-laden.

[quote]Now, things are actually much more secure

What, exactly, is much more secure now?

I was taking my blood pressure when I read that, and the number went up ten points compared to three hours ago.

The First Family wasn't funny then and it isn't funny now.

The First Family was funny then and it's funny now.

[quote]Another for Southern California locals: drive-in dairies. These (pictured below) were still common in suburban LA County when I was a small child. My dad used to call it "the dairy." By the time I was a teen, they were mostly gone, replaced by 7/11s and convenience stores. A few are still around.

I've lived across the street from one of these for the past 31 years and I've never once bought anything there. (Mine's an Alta-Dena in the San Gabriel Valley.)

We had an Alta-Dena drive-thru dairy too. They had the best milk I've ever had. Great egg nog too, including honey sweetened. They also sold certified raw milk, which I drank. I was the only person among my family or friends who would drink it.

Among the cultural things at my school was the belief that if a boy eats the Wilmas in the Flintstone vitamins, he will grow up to have man-boobs.

[quote]Among the cultural things at my school was the belief that if a boy eats the Wilmas in the Flintstone vitamins, he will grow up to have man-boobs.

I take Flintstones vitamins and I developed early. Maybe there’s truth to that.

Start a part 2 of this thread!

The Nautilus gyms, in the early 80's?? just before the gym craze began. Body by Nautilus.

Yucky health food that tasted like mud. This would be circa 1970s.

Coin tokens for the subway or tolls.

bye bye

Part 2 ?