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Growing up in L.A. during the ’70s and ’80s

This promises to be a never-ending list. Let’s get started. Remember?:

Go Climb a Rock Yosemite Mountaineering School

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

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

Licorice Pizza

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)

Pretty sneaky, sis

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”?)

532 comments… add one
  • Myk Now Myk June 15, 2012, 7:49 am

    Trying to stack quarters on your arm and catching them in your hand just like Fonzi did.

  • Myk Now Myk June 15, 2012, 7:52 am

    Yo mama so short she plays handball on the curb..

  • Myk Now Myk June 15, 2012, 7:58 am

    Spork, Spoon or pencil fights.

    Lightbulb, telephone and the spork, what would life be without them?

    Smashing flies into oblivion with a plastic knife by pulling back the blade sideways and letting it go when a fly would land on the table or seat at lunch at school.

  • Myk Now Myk June 15, 2012, 8:31 am

    I am a Bill, yes I’m only a Bill and
    I’m sitting here on Capitol Hill..
    ….
    ….
    Someday I hope and pray I’ll become a La-aw,
    But today I hope and pray,
    but today I am still just a Bill…

    How else did could anyone on earth learn the pre-Amble to the Constitution without Schoolhouse Rock…here goes with no cheating no googling or binging lets go….

    We the people in order to form a more perfect union,
    establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility.
    provide for the common defense promote the general welfare and ( ) ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.

    how’d I do? I think I got at least 90% or betta’

  • Myk Now Myk June 15, 2012, 9:04 am

    What good would a “Lousy D” – LAUSD government school education do me?
    If a didn’t have a Bible, Looney Toons, Davey and Goliath, Gumby and Pokey, the Three Stooges, Our Gang (pc renamed to the Little Rascals), Tom and Jerry, Fractured Fairy Tales, Top Cat, Felix the Cat and Mr. Rogers to teach me about real life?

  • jaced.com June 17, 2012, 1:49 pm

    Before paper towels: that hanging looped cloth to dry your hands on in a cheap Chinese restaurant bathroom. And you use the back of the towel, since you think it’s cleaner, when in fact everybody else before you probably did the same thing.

  • Myk Now Myk June 20, 2012, 1:44 pm

    Before bagging there was capping.

  • jaced.com June 20, 2012, 1:46 pm

    Sneaking a swig of what you thought would be lemonade out of that plastic lemon-size lemon-shaped lemon bottle in the fridge, only to learn it was pure lemon juice.

  • Myk Now Myk June 27, 2012, 5:39 am

    The Pike
    White Front
    cool site for old pictures of and around So-Cal

    http://www.synthetrix.com/vasc/source/n110_n5.htm
    When I was a kid for years in the above picture
    the circular staircase had the coolest large sized skull spray painted on it filling up the whole mid section of that column.
    It appeared to be a skull wearing a WWII helmet.
    I would love to see a captured picture of that! It was left alone for years when I was growing up,,, no other graffitti around or on it either.

  • jaced.com June 27, 2012, 9:06 am

  • jaced.com July 16, 2012, 10:17 am
  • Myk Now Myk July 16, 2012, 11:39 am

    Lion Country Safari

    I remember the gates looked as high as Jurassic Park as a kid.

  • leftylimbo July 19, 2012, 3:24 pm

    Those monthly Troll Books or Goodtime Paperbacks Student Book Club Newsletters/Book Order forms in elementary school. I got these all the time from 3rd to 5th Grade (1979-’81). http://www.leftylimbo.com/2012/07/goodtime-paperbacks-student-book-news-february-1979/

  • Myk Now Myk September 12, 2012, 5:41 pm

    Water Wiennies by Wham-O.

    water weenie

  • Allan Ostermann September 23, 2012, 4:42 pm

    Evelyn Wood Speed Reading classes.

  • jaced.com October 25, 2012, 9:34 am

    Paper Moon Graphics

  • leftylimbo November 23, 2012, 8:22 am

    With Hostess all over the news right now (and Ebay): Taking the white cardboard insert from under the Hostess Chocolate Cupcakes and scraping the stuck chocolatey goodness off of it with your teeth, leaving chocolate “lines” from the gaps in your teeth. Most often, you’d do 2–3 scrapes, shifting your mouth over a little bit to compensate and pick those lines up—no waste!

  • leftylimbo February 8, 2013, 10:20 am

    Getting beach sand stuck (permanently) in the “furry” part of your velcro wallet, which although was slightly annoying, was totally ok because it was cool to be a surfer or have any sort of connection with SoCal beach culture.

  • Myk Now Myk February 19, 2013, 11:49 am

    Speaking of Ding Dongs and Ho-Hos….
    I remember when they were wrapped in real aluminum foil and we would finish the treat inside and then form the foil into a coin.

    Wearing Puka shells even the cheap ones with the “rust spots” on them was cool especially if you brought them back from Hawai’i, which you would just toss that out there as a matter of fact statement.

    Using magnets in the sand/dirt and getting ‘fur’ all over it.

  • leftylimbo February 19, 2013, 1:43 pm

    LoL! I vaguely remember the “foil coin” thing.

    Aw man, Puka shells. Even more effective/convincing if you were Asian or Flip (like me) and had those around your neck…you could easily claim to be Hawaiian and nobody would question it, lol.

  • Myk Now Myk April 5, 2013, 4:56 pm

    1cent CD sale. Get 11 CDs for 1 penny and the 12th for FREE!when you join the Columbia House Music Club. Just buy 5 Cds at the regular Club Price over the next two years. Every month you will be sent our CD of the month, feel free to keep it at our regular price of 24.95 or simply return it. Every month you will be sent a CD until your obligation is fullfilled, after you purchase 5 CDs at our regular Club Price you are free to cancel at anytime, yadda yadda yadda…

  • jaced.com April 12, 2013, 5:34 pm
  • jaced.com April 12, 2013, 5:34 pm

    Chinese,
    Japanese,
    Dirty knees,
    LOOK AT THESE!!!

  • jaced.com April 12, 2013, 5:35 pm

    Coffee, tea, soda pop, pee…

  • Mike April 12, 2013, 6:13 pm

    What about “marriage encounter” stickers on the rear window of the car and when someone else had the same sticker you gave each other the “hand” sign…

  • Leftylimbo April 13, 2013, 8:52 pm

    Bubblegum bubblegum in a dish…how many pieces do you wish?

  • Leftylimbo April 13, 2013, 8:58 pm

    Those Venice beach ponchos (made more famous by Jeff spicoli in Fast Times). Standard issue for surfers and stoners in the ’80s. Just recently found out they were also known as “drug rugs” lol. Check this strip out http://patheticgeekstories.com/archives/page2/drugrug.html

  • jaced.com April 16, 2013, 3:05 pm

    Engine engine number nine,
    Going down Chicago line,
    If the train should jump the track,
    Do you want your money back?

  • Allan Ostermann April 19, 2013, 6:56 pm

    A banana style plastic skateboard with Mag wheels. That’s what I wiped out on, in my hill in Woodland Hills. 20 mph into bushes. I was bruised but okay.

  • jaced.com May 23, 2013, 12:10 pm

    Hungry Tiger seafood restaurant and oyster bar: http://jaced.com/2013/05/22/hungry-tiger/

  • jaced.com May 23, 2013, 12:14 pm

    Lieutenant Hondo Harrelson RIP http://jaced.com/2013/05/23/steve-forrest-rip/

  • Monsuno June 10, 2013, 7:29 am

    Busch Gardens (with Budweiser brewery tour)
    Blacklight Posters
    Mexican Jumping Beans
    Sergio Valente Jeans commercials (“Oh-oh, Serg-ee-ooo”)
    Davey and Goliath on Saturday mornings
    Gumby (after school)
    18 and under danceclubs (like “The Network” in Glendale, “Marylin’s Backstreet” in Pasadena)

  • Myk Now Myk June 10, 2013, 11:37 am

    Favorite blacklight poster was the full sized three foot tall mouse sitting down in orange.

  • Myk Now Myk June 10, 2013, 12:18 pm

    There wasn’t much cooler and darker to do on a hot summer day in ’76 in Glendale or Eagle Rock than going to Spencer’s Gifts, I am talking all the way into the back of the store and going into the Blacklight Poster Room where there were about 100 or more from the top of the ceiling to floor of hand drawn (not computer generated stuff) or painted Blacklight posters from the many different Mice and Rat posters to the top of the world scenes, Castles, not to mention the rock and roll and stright out psychedelic blacklight posters. Seems there were a lot of posters with some really colorful mushrooms on them http://www.flickr.com/photos/31650354@N04/3658169476

    ‘Property of ‘ shirts.

    HAWAII 78 shirts
    MAUI 78 shirtshttp://www.defunkd.com/public/upload/images/product_images/big/fatandyz_20711367770768.JPG

    Frito’s Corn Chips –
    Frito Bandito erasers
    http://img0.etsystatic.com/000/0/6017978/il_fullxfull.213596824.jpg

  • jaced.com June 17, 2013, 10:48 am
  • jaced.com June 20, 2013, 12:22 pm
  • Myk Now Myk June 20, 2013, 2:21 pm

    Did anyone bring up the pastel colored toilet paper from way back when. You would go to Grandma’s house she would have the green bathroom with the matching pastel colored toilet paper or the pink bathroom with the pastel pink TP.

    http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/192x/c1/11/3b/c1113bd7f8f5a192ad34e1292dca2118.jpg

  • jaced.com June 21, 2013, 1:25 pm

    What was the name of that little homemade paper toy thingie that girls did to tell fortunes? Kind of a Japanese flower shape, then you pick a number, then count it out, then unfold it, etc.

  • jaced.com June 21, 2013, 1:26 pm
  • jaced.com June 21, 2013, 1:31 pm
  • jaced.com June 21, 2013, 1:37 pm

    Did we mention Hungry Tiger? http://jaced.com/2013/05/22/hungry-tiger/

  • Monsuno June 28, 2013, 4:44 am

    A slew of toy robots…
    http://theoldrobots.com/robwk4.html

    The shitty old TRS-80 computer from Radio Shack…
    http://oldcomputers.net/trs80i.html

    Speak and Spell from Texas Instruments….
    http://www.speaknspell.co.uk/

  • monsuno June 28, 2013, 11:16 am

    Pong and every other videogame console that followed…
    http://www.thocp.net/software/games/golden_age.htm#Odyssey

  • Myk Now Myk July 2, 2013, 11:36 pm

    Swimming with friends, with a diving board at the pool.
    Get to the end of the diving board turn around and do the “Nestea Plunge”…….ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh………….

  • Myk Now Myk July 2, 2013, 11:52 pm

    MASH game for the girls…tell their future
    where they would live what car they would drive who they would marry and how many kids they would have..

    Mansion. Apartment. Shack. House.
    Ferrari, Cadillac, Corvette, Datsun B210 etc…
    Jed, Gary, John, Chuck…
    0 1 2 3

    http://www.liketotally80s.com/images/mash-game.jpg

  • jaced.com July 31, 2013, 8:34 pm

    Television intros and 18 short-lived sitcoms of the ’70s:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpGybFEcLxA

  • jaced.com August 13, 2013, 2:10 pm
  • jaced.com August 23, 2013, 8:13 am

    Duncan Yo-Yo commercial from 1976: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfqykR14O3Y

  • Myk Now Myk September 5, 2013, 12:35 pm

    TV Flashbacks:
    The Ronco smokeless ashtray.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReYyd6cyNqA

  • jaced.com October 1, 2013, 1:15 pm

    Remember Nick and Murph? Fill ‘er up with spirit. The Spirit of 76…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7p8Ho7F8tc&list=PLWrm8mMQ3T4iGJ0j0k8eBzSmHzJ1Ey8YF

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