Things that stand out most in my mind from growing up in the groovy 70s...
Walter Cronkite, Watergate and Vietnam on the news - we'd watch every night, and my dad would just shake his head and mutter, "Man oh man." Things like the "Saturday Night Massacre" were scary. There was no cable or CNN back then, so every network would break in to regular programming anytime something big happened, and during Watergate, it seemed like they were breaking in every night.
Wacky Races - my sister and I loved this show. I think it's on Boomerang now.
Koogle - flavored peanut butter. Even worse than it sounds.
Grand Funk Railroad - my cousins had all their 8-tracks and "I'm Your Captain/Closer to Home" always had to change program in the middle because it was so F-in long. "I'm getting closer to my hoooo--. Stop. Silence. Click. Silence. Click. Silence. Click. "Hooooooooome...."
The Carol Burnett Show - The best one of the now-defunct "variety hour" genre, with comedy skits and great musical guests every week. It was always sad when she started singing the closing song. "I'm so glad we had this time together...."
The Banana Splits - I still don't know their names. Fleagle, Beagle, Grouper? Snork? I just watched the intro for the first time in 30+ years, and it still made me excited.
A Quinn Martin Production - Cannon, Barnaby Jones, The FBI. Tonight's episode: Crucible of Fear.
The '72 Olympics in Munich - I vividly remember watching the news and seeing the video of the guy in the ski mask on the balcony., and I remember Jim McKay all pale and shellshocked saying, "They're all gone." The world seemed like such a dangerous place.
The Sonny & Cher Show - my dad called them hippies but they made us laugh. My mom had a Cher record with "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves." I thought they were brother and sister. I couldn't imagine either of them marrying the other. I once saw a magazine ad with them that said, Guess who reads the Bible?
The Flip Wilson Show - Flip was the first man I ever saw in drag. Not counting Grandpa. Geraldine killed.
Mood Rings - What a scam. Mine never changed color, and I was a moody little bastard.
The anti-pollution PSA with the crying Indian. You could say "Indian" for Native American in the 70s. Except this Indian, Iron Eyes Cody, was Sicilian.
"The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia" - a scary song for kids growing up in Georgia at the time. Why does the judge have blood stains on his hands?
The Sims - the neighbors who lived behind us. The kids loved our treehouse. Mr. Sims, an attorney, was our landlord, and his daughter Michelle and I were classmates. A few years after we moved away, Mrs. Sims shot and killed her husband.
Vertibird - I wish I still had one. Or at least the hours I spent playing it.
The Donny & Marie Show - when we grew up, my sister Gina was going to marry Donny and I was going to marry Marie. I'm kind of glad now that I didn't.
The Honeycomb Hideout - I had a treehouse and for a while called it The Honeycomb Hideout until Bill Powell told me that was stupid. So I tossed him over the side and renamed it the Bill Powell High Dive.
Battling Tops - My second favorite toy after Vertibird.
Wacky Packages - god I loved these things but could never afford to buy enough to make a complete set. I can now, and they still make them, so I buy ten packs every time I go to Target.
Batman (the live-action TV series with Adam West) - we weren't allowed to watch it after my sister started having nightmares about False Face disguising himself as my mother.
Marathon candy bar - you could eat on that sumbitch for days.
Dark Shadows - another show we were forbidden to watch.. but did anyway. It scared the crap out of us. I wonder if a soap opera about vampires would make it today?
ABBA - the blonde was HOT... well, at least to a 10-year-old.
Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots - the ones they brought back a few years ago were much smaller than the originals, and sucked!
The Six Million Dollar Man - he whupped both Maskatron & Sasquatch, but then cried when his girlfriend Jamie Summers died in a tragic skydiving accident. What a wuss.
Gnip-Gnop - never had it, always wanted it, finally played it at a friend's house and it was lame.
Electronic Football - a game that was absolutely impossible to control, yet we played it for hours on end. The best part was painting the little guys the colors of your favorite team. Mine was the Dallas Cowboys; now I can't stand them.
Leather Bracelets with your name on them - when you were going with someone, you traded bracelets and wore each other's.
The Brady Bunch - every Friday night at 8:00. I still love it, and now my daughter and I watch it together. Yes, it's corny. I don't care.
Lincoln Logs - I liked these a lot better than TinkerToys or Legos.
Stretch Armstrong - unbreakable, but not uncuttable. I could tell you what's inside him, but that's something everyone must find out for him or herself.
Barry Manilow - I write the songs, my ass. He didn't even write THAT song.
The Bionic Woman - Jamie Summers resurrected as a hot teacher who ripped a phone book in half to calm unruly kids. She lived in Ojai, California. I wanted to live in Ojai, California. We parked in front of the TV every Saturday night to watch "The Bionic Woman" at 8, "The Love Boat" at 9 and "Fantasy Island" at 10.
Nothing Left To Say
16 hours ago
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That's my childhood. Right down to the Vertibird & leather bracelets. (though even at the time, I hated the Osmonds).
ReplyDeleteGosh..a lot of that I don't remember. :o( I must've started the drugs early.
ReplyDeleteKidding!
That's a great list. Good times, Good times.
OMG! That was my childhood! You forgot the Big Wheel with the cool brake that made you spin out!
ReplyDeleteI had a Cher doll and she came with a stage and dressing room. Her hair got all tangled and we had to get rid of her.
On a side note, it doesn't have the same name, but the flavored peanut butter is back. I keep seeing it at Kroger and my kids beg for it. I keep trying to tell them that it's really gross, but they don't care.
Cary you are my hero!! Dark Shadows and Koogle!?!?! You da man!
ReplyDeleteI LOVED Dark Shadows, even though it scared the piss out of me. I even had a Dark Shadows game, complete with plastic vampire teeth.
I remember Koogle well, though I never ate it. My cousin, however, named his Chihuahua after it.
I saw the Banana Splits LIVE - LOL, yes, live. They had a "concert" at the local mall just in front of the Montgomery (aka Monkey) Ward.
Here's one - remember Freakies cereal??
Thanks, y'all.
ReplyDeleteYes, the Big Wheel with the brake.. that I never had. Had the Wheel, not the brake.
Tantie, I don't remember Freakies. Gotta look that one up.
Freakies Cereal! Last time I looked, my mom still had Freakies magnets on her refrigerator.
ReplyDeleteI loved Koogle. I have bought the updated stuff and am embarrassed to say it all got eaten at our house. The yummy food from my childhood that disappointed as an adult was CocoWheats.
Dark Shadows was awesome. We named our dog Barnabus and thought we were very clever.
Great list! I would add to it blue jeans with the hem frayed, 45s, and "Chevy Van." Good stuff!
ReplyDeleteoh man - that's my childhood.
ReplyDeleteI had the biggest crush on Marie. In fact, watching Dancing With The Stars this fall, I felt like that dorky 14-year old all over again...
It also seemed like everything happened when we went on vacation - Elvis died, Nixon resigned, the Son Of Sam was caught when we were away somewhere.
I do have to add one more thing - June 15, 1977 - the day the Mets traded Tom Seaver to the Reds... There's special level in Hell reserved for M. Donald Grant for that act alone...
What about all of the TV shows with single parents? "Julia", "Sky King","the Rifleman", "Courtship of Eddies Father","Family Affair" It must have been the beginning of the divorce/widow/orphan era. The kids were always fixing the parents up because they didn't have match.com back then. I wanted my mom to go on a date with someone else too but my dad wouldn't go for it. Love your list.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I have tried to recreate some of the toys with my kid. He wouldn't go for Lincoln logs instead of the gameboy!
I remember a lot of those, but not all. You'd probably like my blog, "I Found My Childhood on eBay".
ReplyDeletehttp://i-found-my-childhood-on-ebay.blogspot.com/
Holy crap Cary, that was a good portion of my childhood too. Battling tops looked so cool in the commercial but in real life, not so much. 2 maybe 3 minutes worth of lame, spinning, semi spinning, battling, then you and your best friend just turned it into a punch fest... which is pretty much how any game turned out that you played when you were 12.
ReplyDeleteJamie Summers. Yes. :-)
J.
I was a huge Dark Shadows fan...I lived in Jersey at the time, and we went to NYC to get the cast's autographs in my cheesy little autograph book. Man, I was cool!
ReplyDeletetantieyaya - Banana Splits LIVE?! I would have killed to see that. Did they have a big slide that they tried to walk up and kept falling down?
ReplyDeleteanonymous - my mom actually had the "Chevy Van" 45, among many others, but my dad would get mad if she played it around us, because it was dirty. We loved it, though.. along with "Seasons In The Sun" and "Billy, Don't Be A Hero."
DWG - I remember the Seaver trade, but that was a good day for me, cuz I was a fan of the Big Red Machine.
Toni - yeah, we watched most of those, but they were always sad to me. My folks were not happy together, so I was always afraid I'd end up in a single-parent home like those shows.. and did, when I was 9.
Cowguy - remember when Jamie died on "The Six Million Dollar Man," and Steve Austin cried/sang "Jaaaaaamieeeeeee... Jaaaamieeee"? It was embarrassing.
Lola - DS shared the bejeezus out of us. For a while, all I had to do was say the name "Barnabas Collins" and my sis would freak out. Of course, I didn't milk that or anything.. heh.
Friday nights didn't you watch The Partridge Family after The Brady Bunch? That was my second favorite night of TV. My favorite was the Saturday line up of Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett.
ReplyDeleteRight you are, Jennifer. Forgot about that. The two families were so different, but we loved both shows. My sis loved David Cassidy, but I thought he was a creep with weird hair. I loved the little chick who held the tamourine and hit it against her leg once or twice a song. Then I found out she was from Columbia, SC, and thought, hey, I can get my parents to drive me there and meet her! Yeah.. early signs of being a celeb stalker.
ReplyDeleteHoly batshit, Robin...you lived my life!
ReplyDelete'cept....I LOVED Koogle and STILL bemoan the loss.....
OMG - what about the Bugaloos! HR Pufnstuff! Sigmund & the Sea Monsters! They are actually remaking Land of the Lost with Will Ferrell. Highwaisted bell bottoms in plaid. Gnip Gnop was my fave game, I even bought it a few years ago for my kids (you can still buy it) and played it. Another great game was Bing Bang Bong, look it up on YouTube. Such complicated games back in those days...
ReplyDeleteThis is so funny. I just mentioned Koogle the other day and no one knew what I was talking about! My mom wouldn't buy it for us, but my friend had some at her house and I was immediately addicted to the chocolate one. I don't remember/didn't like the other kinds. Wacky Races? I had no idea what that was until I click on the link...then it was totally deja vu because I was remembering certain things, but then again not really, so it was weird! I remembered the two hairy caveman things and the snickering dog when I saw them though. At least I think the dog snickered, did he also eat cookies that made him so happy he jumped in the air and floated down? I remember that from some show. Some of the stuff I was too young for, but I remember when Wally Cox who was on the Hollywood Squares died. It was my first taste of being shocked and sad at death.
ReplyDeleteGreat list Cary - for some twisted reason, Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves is one of those songs that will start playing in my head for no apparent reason. I don't know any gysies - although I do know tramps and thieves - it's one of those songs that I think plays in a continuous loop on Hell's Juke Box. Now that's a good idea for a list. If you'll excuse me...
ReplyDeleteThis is so cool since today is my 44th birthday! Have to add Clackers to the list. You never forget the first time you got knocked in the head with them! Another one is the Wheel-O. Also, Wonderful World of Disney was on every Sunday night following Wild Kingdom.
ReplyDeleteDoes *anyone* besides me remember Space Food Sticks? I always wanted my mom to buy them, and when she finally did, they tasted like Play-Doh.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the stroll down memory lane!
ReplyDeleteWhen I had to spend the night at Grandma's house, I was forced to watch "The Lawrence Welk Show" and "Hee Haw", then "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island".
Joe Namath was my absolute favorite football player because he played catch in the back yard with Bobby Brady.
OMG! All priceless memories.
ReplyDeleteAnd what about that song where the kids got stuck in the cave or mineshaft or whatever and only one survived? It was strongly implied that he ate the other kids. Remember? I wish I could think of the name....
They don't write them like that anymore, fer sure. Thankfully.
My parents split in the late 60's so all those single parent shows were my favorites.
Were the Monkees 60's or 70s? Loooved them!
Good times, good times....
My best friend in 6th grade, Jill, had a little brother who was I guess what they'd call adhd, now. Anyway, whenever I'd go over he sang this little song to my name:
ReplyDelete"aymee, aymee, yeee... you look like the bionic woman." ha. They must have had that kid on some good meds.
Guess I am super glad that I was born at the tail end of the 70's
ReplyDeleteMarathon Bars were the best. I was sad when they stopped making them. I am so glad that you mentioned Wacky Races. I could never remember what that show was called, and I've tried to tell my kids about that show. Now I can. I'm sure you'll receive a thank-you from them. ha ha I also remember watching Wonder Woman, though. I loved that show. I rented the series for my kids recently, and they liked them, too, though my five year old son REALLY liked them. I think that was due entirely to Linda Carter. ha ha
ReplyDelete-Confusia
Gblinda - yes, all those Krofft shows were favorites in our house... Sigmund, Pufnstuf, Electra Woman & DynaGirl, Liddsville, Shazam!, Land Of The Lost, The Bugaloos, Far Out Space Nuts. I don't remember Bing Bang Bong, but I remember Operation, Mousetrap, Colorforms, Spirograph, Lite Brite (never had it), Connect Four, Toss Across (remember the commercial where the dog drops the final beanbag and wins the game for the kids?), the Evel Knievel bike that you wound up on a red platform then let it go and it took off).
ReplyDeleteTigergirlM - Wacky Races is a bit obscure, but I remembered the caveman guys, too, and Penelope Pitstop, because my sis always loved her. I don't remember the floting, cookie-eating dog, or when Wally Cox died, although we watched Hollywood Squares. Paul Lynde was hilarious.
Chick - happy birthday.. and yes, Clackers I remember, although we didn't have them. That's not those things that would pop when you threw that at the ground, were they? As for Disney on Sunday nights, I remember getting very excited about that coming on. Wild Kingdom - my granddad used to joke about how Marlin Perkins was standing there talking about Mutual of Omaha life insurance while poor Jim was being eaten by a croc behind him.
B - don't remember space food sticks. Remember King Vitamin cereal?
Bru - you too?! Same here. Lawrence Welk was just awful, but we thought Hee Haw was a stitch. Ever seen it as an adult? Ugggggh. It's painful.
Liz - I don't remember anything like the song you describe. Sounds hilarious though. The weirdest song I remember is "Run, Joey, Run," which I've posted here a couple of times, and the B side of "Seasons In The Sun" (I had the record), which was called -- swear to God -- "Put The Bone In."
Amy - you look like the Bionic Woman? How cool is that? Can you rip a phone book in half, or destroy a tennis ball with just one swing?
Audra - no way, you missed a lot of cool stuff.
Great list, Cary! Wacky Races--a classic! Who could forget Muttley's laugh? I wanted to be Penelope Pitstop with the pink car. I can remember before I was old enough to drive that my dream car was a hot pink Gremlin with denim seats. I never got it, of course! It seemed like everything was about loud neon colors in the seventies. I don't know if they ever made hot pink Gremlins, but I know they had them with the Levis interior trim package that had seats that looked like they were upholstered in denim for a short time. We were all about our denim jeans at the time.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMC_Gremlin
Dream big was my motto, apparently! HA!
I watched all those comedy/music variety shows and loved every one of them too. There's really nothing on tv now that compares to them. Tim Conway on Carol Burnett was an absolute comedic genius. Loved Flip Wilson's Geraldine--"What you see is what you get!" Sonny and Cher, Donny and Marie, Tony Orlando and Dawn, Laugh-in and the Smothers Brothers (they were a little earlier,I guess)---I was right there glued to the tv for all of them and many others.
The silliness and fun and music on tv didn't seem to reflect what was going on in the "real" world, except for the news. I can remember times when the evening news would come on and my parents would send my brother, sister, and I out of the room. Constant footage of the violence of the Vietnam War used to be very upsetting to me, so my mom didn't want me to watch it. There was a lot of scary stuff on there.
Six Million Dollar Man---"Steve Austin, astronaut, a man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him, we have the technology." HA! My brother used to do the slow motion run and pretend he was Steve Austin. I don't remember that particular episode with "Sasquatch," though. ;-) HA HA! I'll just have to take your word for it on that one.
My sister and I used to sing "Seasons in the Sun" and "Billy don't be a hero" over and over again. I remember Vicki Lawrence's song too, "That's the night that they hung an innocent man. Don't trust your soul to no backwoods Southern lawyer."
Batman could do no wrong. I remember going to the theater to see the original Batman movie with Adam West in it when it came out. I got upset with people in the theater audience who laughed at the "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb" bit where Batman is running all around with a live bomb in his hands trying to find someplace to throw it where no one would get hurt. I'll throw it here---no can't throw it there, the Salvation Army band is playing there. How about here? No, not here, here come some nuns. A woman with a baby carriage, lovers kissing in a boat, there are baby ducks down there in the water and so forth. Couldn't they see that Batman was in serious trouble after all? I was downright indignant at the people who laughed. My dad, who took us kids to the movie just laughed at me. So then, I was mad at my dad too! :D Here's the youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoUpF7rvfnk
That says it was from 1966, so guess it was a bit earlier than the 70's. I would have been seven years old then, and I took such things very seriously.
Toys I remember: slinky, silly putty, Lincoln Logs, Creepy Crawler Bug makers, Easy Bake Oven, Troll dolls, Tinker Toys, and the games Operation, Monopoly, Twister, Trouble, and Life, among others.
As for Abba's music, I loved it then and still do!
Great memories! Thanks, Cary. :-)
I never did find out what was inside Stretch Armstrong, and now I'll probably never know.
ReplyDeleteYep, I had that vertibird. Other things I had were those roller skates with the metal wheels you had to strap to your tennis shoes, green machine (my kid has one now, they're much more pimped out than before), etch-a-sketch, and TOUGHSKINS (mine even had elastic in the waistband, thanks mom).
ReplyDeleteI think the collapsed mineshaft song was "Timothy".
ReplyDeleteClackers were insane. We called them ker-knockers. It didn't take long for them to be banned at our school. http://www.bigredtoybox.com/articles/clackersindex.shtml
Speaking of games, who had Mystery Date?? My sister and I used to say "the Dud" was our dad and we dabbed aftershave (ironically belonging to the aforementioned dad) on the guy in the tux.
ReplyDeleteLiz, that song was "Timothy" by the Buoys, and it wasn't kids who got trapped in the mine shaft; it was adults. (And I'm so sorry I know that.) And yes, Cary, I remember that cereal -- except it was King VitaMAN, not Vitamin. I am a veritable fount of useless knowledge.
ReplyDeleteAnd here you go:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGNdvKvbxYQ
Brilliant list! Takes me way back.
ReplyDeleteWe had a stretch Armstrong, and the evil dude too, cant remember his name. We would tie their arms together, and see just how far we could stretch. It always ended up with one of us getting whacked in the head. Then we got bored and cut him open with my mother's sewing sissors. Got his guts all over the carpet. That was a night of beatings. Good times.
My mother used to drive a powder blue Pinto. At the time, we thought it was a cool car. We were 8 or 9. We didnt know jack shit back then.
And Daisy- my brother did the same thing!! Ran in slow motion, and when he would jump, I would go, "nahnahnah" whatever that bionic sound was. We would play it all over the 'hood!!
Cary... No, I don't... Like I said, that kid must have been on some good meds... As for your other questions, well, that's for me to know!!! ;-)
ReplyDeleteOMG- you just summed up my childhood in this post! Yay! I'm with you on every single one...but loathe to admit that I am such a Brady Bunch idiot that we have devised a little game in our house- if it comes on I can 'name-that-episode' within the 1st 5-15 seconds. If I take longer my kids are sooo dissapointed. No matter how long I take to name that episode...they change the channel immediately after :(
ReplyDeleteThey don;t know what they're missing :)
What about "Charlie's Angels'? We use to play that all the time. No one ever wanted to be the Kate Jackson character. We thought she was the ugly one!
ReplyDeleteI watched the Banana Splits on Boomerang the other day and I am not sure why I liked it so much. I think you needed to be high to get it. Ahh, the 70s!
When I'm subbing in a particularly bratty class, I sometimes think of that Bionic Woman episode, and wish I had the ability to rip a phone book in half.
ReplyDeleteSue
Tigergirlm- I think the floating dog was Quick Draw McGraw's dog Snuffles. There's a little clip of him about half way down the page here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wingnuttoons.com/QuickDraw.html
I remember that awful "Timothy" song too--ugh!
This list is fantastic! We would have been best friends back in the day! Thank God for the internet and connecting with other people who remember all the same stuff you do! What the hell did people do before this? HA!
ReplyDeleteAnother great memory I have of the 70s was "Night Gallery" with Rod Serling - the not quite so successful series after the "Twilight Zone." Sure it wasn't the Twilight Zone, but even the intro music scared the crap out of me.
I had totally not thought of those leather bracelets for YEARS! I can't wait to tell my 15 year old daughter about them! Oh, and Klackers - Hell Yes! I love those old toys that could actually kill you. Lawn Darts anyone?
Here's how 70's I was/am:
ReplyDelete- Would get panicky if I wasn't home well in advance of the Hee Haw start time (Saturdays at 4:00 p.m. on ch. 44 - how do I still know this shit?!). Of course, I had to have my Hee Haw overalls on, too. Two pairs I had: blue and green.
- My easy-bake oven was the limited Hollie Hobbie edition and looked like an old cast iron stove.
- I had one of those life-sized doll heads that one could apply makeup to and style the hair of until it was fried beyond recognition. Most girls had the giant Barbie head. Mine was a giant Farrah Fawcett head.
I'm surprised Pong hasn't made the list yet.
I thought I was the only sociopath to cut into Stretch and learn his secrets.
ReplyDeleteI liked Koogle but I admit it was gross. For a while, some food company came out with "Food Sticks" - yes, that was the clever name, they supposedly had vitamins in them - "just like the astronauts" eat and they were really six-inch tootsie rolls. There were flavors but they were all a variation of chocolate or caramel. I would BEG mom to buy them. She rarely did. God knows what chemicals were in them.
I still sometimes hum the Banana Splits theme song. Even now.
Lincoln Logs are still a hit. My son plays with them! http://shalelefferts.blogspot.com/2007/04/father-son-time.html
ReplyDeleteSit N Spin.
ReplyDeleteSlip and Slide.
Blondie.
Hippity Hops.
Cut off shorts.
Tupperware cups.
Original Flintstone Vitamins.
That is all. :-)
mary - my sister and I do the same thing with Brady Bunch episodes. I was in my 20s the first time I ever saw the one where Marcia likes Harold the bug collector, it felt like I was in the Twilight Zone watching a Brady Bunch episode I had never seen.
ReplyDeleteb - I remember the food sticks. I loved them.
Yikes... u just made me feel very old.. I still love the Brady bunch and love Little house on the Praire too.. .sigh....
ReplyDeleteHMM lets see what about..Quisp Cereal .. u know the little UFO cereal, Puffa Puffa rice with the volcano on the cover, what about HR Puffinstuff... all that Sid and Marty Kroft stuff LOL.. ..
ReplyDeletei was born a little late for some of these but i was the runt of the neighborhood so the older kids passed them down and i can still partake in the nostalgia. i would add rock n roll high school, even if it is 1979. and i made those leather bracelets at girl scout camp!
ReplyDeleteYou can still buy Marathon bars (on Amazon.com - try Curly Wurly candy bar if you don't find it right away). I found it while looking for something else. I had completely forgotten about those - I loved 'em! Those and Charleston Chew.
ReplyDelete