This promises to be a never-ending list. Let’s get started. Remember?:
The Mighty 690 on AM radio
94.7 KMET and Dr. Demento
KIQQ (100.3, pre-Pirate Radio)
93 KHJ and KDAY
The Three Stooges
The Little Rascals
Pippi Longstocking
The Incredible Mr. Limpet
Kung Fu Theater on Channel 9
The pre-Pure Rock 105.5 KNAC (slogan: “The Heart of Rock and Roll”)
Popeye on Channel 5 on Sunday mornings (Tom Slick and Super Chicken)
Twilight Zone Marathon on Thanksgiving and July 4th (also on KTLA Channel 5)
Members Only jackets
Le Tigre, the sellable knock-off to the exceedingly elite Izod “Alligator” shirts
Dolfin Shorts
Leg Warmers
Dittos (hurt me!)
Jordache jeans
Chemin de Fer
Gauchos
Girls with strawberry lip gloss
McDonald’s bracelets to hold your lunch money (fifty cents)
Pete Ellis Dodge commercials (“Long Beach Freeway, Firestone exit, Southgate”)
Carpeteria commercials
Phil n’ Jim’s commercials
National Lumber (Shorty!)
Lake Delores (Lake Dolores)
Cal Worthington and his dog Spot! (And no, you weren’t the only kid who thought it went “pussy cow”)
Jack LaLanne
Smog alerts, which called recess off
Earthquake Drills and “Drop Drills”
Heads Up Seven Up on rainy days at school
The Red Balloon
Steal the Bacon
Vans
O.P. shorts
Puka shell necklaces
Unbreakable combs
Switchblade combs
Bolt
Hang Ten
Stubbies
Baja Lopez ponchos
Flojos
Krofft Superstars, the show by Sid and Marty Krofft
POW!, the telephone call-in video game on the Krofft show
Sigmund and the Sea Monsters
The Bugaloos
Lidsville
HR Pufnstuf
Electra Woman and Dyna Girl
The White Shadow
What’s Happening!
S.W.A.T.
CHiPs
Emergency!
Speed Racer on Channel 56 (UHF!)
Wally George on Channel 56
Real People
Bowling for Dollars
The Incredible Hulk
The Love Boat
Fantasy Island
Licorice Pizza
Pup n’ Taco
Sambo’s (renamed to Denny’s for the purpose of political correction)
Disneyland’s Monsanto’s Adventure Thru Inner Space
E tickets, D tickets, C tickets, B tickets, and A tickets
The Marathon Bar
Wax Lips
Candy cigarettes
Fred Rated and the Federated Group
Montgomery Ward (i.e. “Monkey Wards”)
MV3 with Richard Blade
Blue Chip stamp redemption centers
Sears Surplus
Fedco
Gemco
Zody’s
The Treasury
Orbach’s
Kinney’s
Buster Brown
Tom McCann
Farrell’s
Marineland
Skate parks
Top Siders with no socks
Pee-Chee folders
Trapper-Keepers
The denim folder
Pencil fighting
A.Y.S.O.
Shasta soda
Aspen soda (apple flavored)
Fresca
The Nestea plunge
Alba 77
Schwinn Stingrays
Green Machines
G.I. Joes
Army Men
Slime
Speak and Spell
Stop Thief!
Connect Four
Hot Wheels with never enough tongues for the tracks
Eraser Mate
The four colored ball point pen(!!!)
Mattel Football
Rubik’s Cube
Pyraminx
Missing Link
Water Basketball (thumb cramp!)
Sea-Monkeys
V (the series)
Pintos, Gremlins, Datsun B210s, and Volkswagen Squarebacks
Roller Disco
Space Invaders
Asteroids
Asteroids Deluxe (had a shield instead of hyperspace)
Frogger
Seawolf (sucked)
Dragon’s Lair
Centipede
Millipede (with the TNT)
Pengo
Defender
Defender Stargate
Scramble
Galaga
Galaxian
Pac-Man
Super Cobra
Atari 2600
ON TV
SelecTV
Red Devil Fireworks
Cool metal lunchboxes and the lame oddball yellow plastic Snoopy one
Slip n’ Slide
Toss Across (beanbag Tic-Tac-Toe)
Lawn Darts
Stephan! Jack Stephan!
Bandini Mountain
Lolly lolly lolly get your adverbs here (anybody else think it was “f-words here”?)
Did anyone get the ‘special sugar’ it was from Hawaii if I remember correctly. It was dyed different colors to make landscape scenes in blues, reds and greens. It was sold in glass containers we used ours for Cheerios and other cereals like normal sugar, I guess we should have saved it for the novelty aspect. Kind of a colored ant farm with no ants.
Dy-no-mite!
Let’s not forget Freddie Prinze.
“‘Lizabeth, I’m comin’ to join you honey!”
“Signed, Epstein’s mother.” (I never understood how a Puerto Rican could have a Jewish name).
Calgon, take me away!
The New Zoo Revue!!!
Wonderama on Channel 11.
The 1973 earthquake.
Iron On T-Shirt stores.
Rodney on the ROQ (KROQ).
The spray painted Mickey Mouse on the outside of the tunnel in Malibu Canyon.
@Jaced: You mean “Krazy Straws?” I’m trying to get those for my kid.
@Ostermann: What malls didn’t have those iron-on stores back in the day. I remember walls of iron-on images, and even more so, those iron-on felt letters that usually came in that chunky ’70s rounded-serif font or the ever-popular Old English font for breakdancers (so they could put it on the back of their sweatshirts, i.e. “Playboy Breakers” in my junior high).
As time progressed, they started offering air-brushed art at the same stores. Hoo boy, there’s a lost art.
Making your brand new sneakers look dirty for the first day of school.
@Ostermann: Weird, never saw that Mickey Mouse…then again, never went there. What about that huge “200 Years of Freedom 1776-1976” mural adorning the Prado Dam off the 91 FWY over in Corona (still there, fading away ever so slowly)? Every time I see it I think of Pontiac Firebirds, cords and Vans.
The black spray painted skull with the hat that was for years left on the outside circular caged stairway on the transition from the northbound 110 freeway to the 5 freeway around Dodger Stadium, I have searched for years off and on trying to find a pic of that Graffitti it was there for I want to say at least ten years it was a landmark it was there so long….anyone? anyone? Buehler?
@Myk: Dood, do you know the history behind that spiral staircase? Every time I see it I wonder what it was used for…and where it goes (below). The architecture is awesome. But what, did people take strolls on the 110 or something back in the day?
You can walk between the levels of that stretch of road (the river road -Riverside drive and the freeway tunnels) and you can walk over those tunnels they also have stairways to walk from neighborhood to neighborhood also to get around as a pedestrian
Did anyone have the McDonald’s dolls of the 70s?
I think my brother and I had the Ronald McDonalds and I think one of us also had a Hamburgler doll.
This was way before the famed Crocker Spaniels came out from Crocker Bank.
I totally had the Hamburglar doll.
I just had a flashback to elementary school in the 70s.
Remember when ‘they’ told us that EVERYONE was going to the metric system and we wouldn’t be able to buy or sell anything that we all needed to be using centimeters and meters and millimeters. Then that wasn’t good enough a few years later the ‘e’s and the ‘r’s were wrong and needed to be swapped so meters were now metres & centimeters were now centimetres.
I still hate going somewhere and seeing ‘Centre’ up in lights it should be Center. Ok, I am done ranting…
— DeVry
— Barbizon
— Dr. Beauchamp
— Either helping the doctors with patients, OR running the front office!
What was that one rehab commercial of that guy sitting on the porch? Went like this:
“My name is Bob. I guess you can say I had it all. I had a good job, a nice house, a wonderful wife, and two great kids. I also had a cocaine habit. First it cost me my job. Then it cost me my house. And before I could get help and stop, it cost me my family.”
Anybody remember the name of it? New Beginnings, maybe? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Country Time Lemonade: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY_JKz9detM
Stop Thief! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3wpPRdDy4E
Speak and Spell! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM8FcN0aAvU
Caress… BEFORE you dress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQpwf7rdC7k
@jaced: LoL my wife has her old Speak & Spell in mint condition with the box. We discovered it a few years back at her parents’ house but never took it with us. Gotta!
Dood. THE BRYMAN INSTITUTE! “Either helping doctors with patients…or running the front office!”
“Jacoby & Meyers got me 2.1 million dollars.” I remember some rumour saying that guy had no arms and no legs as a result of an accident.
What about the Ginsu Knives…cutting through a tin can then slicing meat like butter. “Can your knives do this?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abLB7aTmnE4
Or the Krazy Glue commercial with that construction guy hanging from his hard hat that’s glued onto a beam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXZv2KZKCCo
@Myk: I saw the spiral staircase you’re talking about and remember that skull now. But that’s not the staircase I’m talking about…the one I’m referring to is at the junction between the 110N and the 5N. It’s a narrow spiral staircase which I’ve never seen a soul on.
Who can forget the classic “crying indian” commercial (“Keep America Beautiful” PSA).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OHG7tHrNM
I read somewhere that the “Crying Indian” was in fact the son of Italian immigrants, and pretty much lived as an Indian to promote himself and made himself famous in Hollywood.
Ad Council
Burning ants and bugs with a magnifying glass was always fun.
— Jell-O cubes
— Homemade Donald Duck popsicles made with Kool-Aid
— Blonde friends who had to put lemon juice in their hair after going swimming
— English muffin pizzas
— Always wondering what your friend’s mom was making for dinner because it smelled so good. It was always goulash. And your mom never made goulash.
— Browsing a copy of that old-fashioned Sears Roebuck catalog and getting all stoked that you could afford everything.
Mopeds were the way to get around, when you wanted to go motorized and didn’t have a license yet.
Puch
Peugeot
Honda Express – top speed 35 mph downhill I had this one
not even a real moped per se , no pedals.
Motobecane
“Lovely, Arthur. You win a silver.”
Harris & Frank
@Myk: LoL. Mopeds. I had a couple of friends who drove those around town. I guess there was that weird loophole back then which allowed one to use a moped in traffic without even having a license. Yeah, try doing that nowadays.
McDonald’s ad:
TwoAllBeefPattiesSpecialSauceLettuceCheesePicklesOnionsOnaASesameSeedBun
“Kids Are People Too”, which features many of the old tunes like “Has Anybody Here Got an Aardvark”, “Exercise”, “Good News” and many of the instrumentals played during the long “putting on a clown face” or other activity times.
Exercise, exercise, everybody do your exercise…..
The show also had cartoons to break up the fun and screaming, but it was the ‘Snake Cans’ that really got ya. Every kid who watched wanted to pick a can and win all of the toys – it was the equivalent of a huge lottery drawing. If a kid picked the right can there was a flower attached instead of the snakes. I really hated this show on Sunday morning but no Superfriends or Looney toons ran on Sunday so you were stuck watching this boring show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq1PMd15iRo
Hobo Kelly & Bozo the Clown
http://www.tvparty.com/70com.html
commercials of the 70s
Jack Stephanovich!
Jack Stephansky!
Jack Stephanino!
Adee Do!
“For plumbing and heating problems in your home, call your man by telephone!…” (Jack Stephan looks annoyed, as if the narrator’s gonna mess his name up again) “…Jaaa-aack STEPHAN!”
Oddly (and I think you guys searched too) there’s no YouTube videos of that old commercial! Although I did find the “modern” version (which paaaales in comparison, but it’s the same truck you have in your pic):
http://www.myspace.com/video/vid/2047651941
Jiffy Pop. I never did this at home, but I vaguely remember my friend’s mom continually moving the pan in circles on the burner in order to pop that stuff when I was at a friend’s for a sleepover.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-An6eaGItk&feature=related
Is this a repeat? Busch Gardens in Van Nuys, CA. Check this out:
http://vintagedisneylandtickets.blogspot.com/2009/05/busch-gardens-van-nuys-california.html
I used to always trip out on that frozen/abandoned “Skyrail” thing in the ’80s when we drove by it on the 405N. Here’s a closer shot of it when it was in service (scroll down the post)
http://vintagedisneylandtickets.blogspot.com/2008/09/captain-eo-premiere-party-and-bonus.html
There was nothing more pathetic than the Laura Scudder’s “Classic Twin Pack” of “Barbecue” potato chips. All dried up and green, from the rejected potato truck. And barbecue, my ass. It was like somebody accidentally spilled Lawry’s Seasoning Salt on them and then tried to shake it off.
Goober
Peanut Butter and Jelly all in one jar, I never had or wanted this but my friends all seemed to have it.
@jaced: LoL my brothers and I used to live on those Laura Scudders twin-bagged things. My parents used to especially stock up on those for my birthday parties. Here’s a shot of me holding up a giant one on my 11th:
http://www.leftylimbo.com/2010/08/1981/
Totally true though, about that BBQ powder stuff. lol
@Myk: I used to wonder how they accomplished that. I also had friends that had that in their cupboards.
Miss Grace Lemon Cakes.
“The Inland Empire’s BEST Rock… 99.9 KOLA…”
Ramona’s Green Chile Burrito w/ Beans!
Back in the late 70’s when you would get one they were so hot and spicy the average Gringo wouldn’t even try it.
Back then I think they grew the Jalapenos in better soil cause the chile was hot back then. So hot your nose would run your eyes would tear up your lips would burn, but they were so good you just wanted another bite!
Nowadays the burritos are still good but the chile are so mild.
Remember the “Sleestaks” from “Land of the Lost”?
Totally. But remember, “Sleestak” is plural.
Some dude has created a video graphic using photos he took on his first visit to LA in 1979, along with radio footage from 94.7 KMET. David Chaney and Jim Ladd! CHECK IT OUT.
→ More KMET clips!
Arcades. On the verge of extinction. I think Westworld in Westwood Village (which finally closed not too long ago) was the last of the species on L.A.’s Westside. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Meanwhile, there’s a great Flickr group—”Growing Up In Arcades: 1979-1989″—that’s posted some awesome pics of arcades nationwide from that awesome decade. Check it out.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/arcades/
The other day, for the first time in maybe 30 years, I used a push broom to clear out some soggy leaves from the gutter in front of my house. The smell.
Who *didn’t* spell out a bad word on the Speak and Spell?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM8FcN0aAvU&feature=feedf
My wife and I found her original Speak and Spell in mint condition, it’s just missing the battery cover =(
Earthquake, in Sensurround! So real, it broke the Richter Scale.