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”?)
“How about that girl from the Photomat? You bought forty dollars worth of fucking film, and you didn’t even get her phone number. You don’t even have a camera!”
“You don’t care if she _____, stays, lays or prays…”
I honestly think this would be a heck of a great book, and I’m sure it would sell…
Taco Bell with an actual bell on top of the building
corn dogs
chili fries
Barbazon Academy (name?): Be a model, or just look like one!
Cal Worthington’s “cat”
Mad Libs
Stratego
Connect Four
Mattel electronic football
That horrible electric football game, where the plastic pieces just vibrate (but it looked cool)
HO scale trains
Balsa wood planes
Battery operated DC-10s with stairs that came down.
The Playskool camper and, also, garage
“Muskrat Love”, by Captain and Tennelle
Tonka truck
Bussing to schools
Proposition 14
“The San Pedro Beach Bums”, a very short lived show
The Forest Park Cemetary
See’s lollipops!!!
“Mr. Hand” and Bill Bixby in early morning reruns of My Favorite Martian.
Davey and Goliath (great sendup on The Simpsons).
In-N-Out _URGE_
TOY___ SR5
_ITSUBISH_
Tony Llama boots
Candy cigarettes
“I don’t hear you unless you knock…”
“I don’t hear you unless you knock…”
“You should just be glad I had fast reflexes!”
Your mother’s so low…
Marco….Polo
Fun in the Sun marshmallow candies in Palm Springs
One Adam-12, one Adam-12
Honk if you’re horny
“That’s where I come in. My name’s Sargeant Joe Friday.”
Making a fort by putting a sheet over a table indoors.
Neil Diamond at the Hollywood Bowl
Sleep overs with Jiffy Pop
Day camp when it’s 105 degrees out
Night Gallery with Rod Serling
The Grizzly Adams, Jeremiah Johnson craze
John Denver
Jim Croce, and hearing he died on TV
Sonny and Cher breaking up
UFO craze
Tag, yer it
Chocolate bubble gum
“No Fat Chicks” (sorry, but had to add it)
Aluminum bats
The gas lines during the crisis in around ‘73
Escape From Witch Mountain
The Towering Inferno
The Sting
The Longest Yard (not the lame remake with Adam Sandler); Burt Reynolds and Eddie Albert
Green Acres
Gilligan’s Island
The Electric Company
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
A Star is Born
Three Days of the Condor
DIRTY HARRY
Welcome Back Kotter
“Up your nose with a rubber hose.”
No one mentioned The Fonz, and the origin of the word Nerd.
“AAAAAYYYYY!!!!”
Fritz the Cat
Car Wash
Silly String
Westworld with Yul Brenner as an evil robot
Planet of the Apes
AMF bowling alleys
McMillan and Wife
?, Portrait of a Teenage Alcohol, with Linda Blair
The Afterschool Special
Count Chocula
Frankenberry
KING VITAMIN!
The cool cartoon opening to Soul Train
Lite Brite
Kickball
Handball, with a big red ball against a garage door or playground court
Gnip Gnop
“London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down…”
Hide and (Go) Seek
Erector sets
Those giant Tinker Toys
G.I. Joe with Kung Foo Grip
Girder and Panel construction set
Schick Stop Smoking clinic (with electric shocks)
Patty Hearst on the news
“I’m gonna kick 100 percent of your ass!”
Pixie Sticks (especially the giant plastic ones filled with, like, a foot of pure sugar!).
Pick Up Sticks
— Waldenbooks
— B. Dalton Booksellers
SAMBO’S!!!
(For those who don’t know, Sambo’s was a chain of coffee shops that, for political reasons, was eventually renamed to Denny’s.)
Shotz and Pops Incorporated.
Christmas wasn’t Christmas without ole’ Burl Ives as the showman cruising around the snow covered hills narrating SCICTT. Rankin Bass.
Bob Marley assasinated by the CIA or the FBI or the Secret Service by having poison installed in his sandals.(causing his cancer)
English Ska:
The English Beat
The Specials which led to, say, No Doubt
The LA punk scene: like Henry Rollins before he pumped himself up.
The Ziggy Stardust craze
The rise and fall of Blondie
The song “Cars” by Gary Numan
Also, “Tainted Love”, by Soft Cell (?)
In the heat with a blue jean girl,
Burnin’ love comes once in a lifetime
She found me singin’ by the railroad tracks
Took me home, we danced by the moonlight
Those summer nights are callin’,
STONE IN LOVE…
That’s…. In…. CREDIBLE!!!
Frings. From Jack in the Box. An order of half fries, half onion rings.
Colorforms (”It’s Colorforms fun!”)
Spyrograph
The Holiday Inn in Brentwood (circular, with, I think, a spinning restaurant on top)
Josie and the Pussycats (no, not the movie)
Inch High Private Eye
“Bing-bing-bing..Ricochet Rabbit”
Van Halen
Diving shops (see also Van Halen’s Diver Down for diving sticker logo)
Billy Jack, and the song One Tin Soldier, and the Native American/Indian craze
Toy soldiers
Garter (sp?) snakes
Pollywogs
Kumquats
Dried soybeans
“Hey, kid, Rock and Roll, ROCK ON”
Smoking in the Boys Room
“We don’t need no education…”
“SCHOOL’S OUT FOR SUMMER!!!”—Alice Cooper craze
Conjunction Junction, what’s your function?
Reading is FUNdamental, the Bookmobile
Shin guards for soccer
“Please don’t squeeze the Charmin.”
“Ancient Chinese secret, huh?”
Pogo Sticks
The original “Not Ready for Prime Time” Players, and telling the jokes at school on Monday; with a funny, falling, Gerald Ford; Chevy Chase
Mayor Tom Bradley!
Toy prizes in cereal
Vin Scully ‘pitching’ (sorry) Jimmy Dean sausage
Chastity Bono
The Towering Inferno w/ Bobby Brady, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, OJ, and the song, I Think We Can Make It)
The Jerk with Steve Martin (”This is shit/This is Shine-ola”/”I found my special purpose”/Pizza in a Cup/”He hates these cans”/”Waiter, bring me a FRESH wine”/, “I call your dog, Shithead”/ “All I need is this chair, and this paddle, and my Thermos”)
The Karate Kid
Legos
Three Dog Night (Black and White was my first single ever)
The Jackson Five cartoon
The Flip Wilson Show
The Partridge Family (and their albums) and the David Cassidy craze
Rainbow window stickers
Zeppelin on the radio
Dodger pitchers Tommy John and Andy Messersmith
Relief pitcher Mike Marshall (’Fireman of the Year’ on Topps baseball cards).
Swimming pools with slides
Drumstick ice cream cones
Correction to earlier comment: The Christmas parade w/ Bob Crane
“We want a pitcher, not a belly itcher/ We want a catcher, not a belly scratcher”
Dodger pitcher, the rotund Fernando Valenzuela [”Watching Fernando Valenzuela force himself into a Los Angeles Dodgers uniform is something like seeing Kate Smith struggling to fit into a pair of Brooke Shields’ designer jeans.” – Sportswriter H.G. Reza in the San Francisco Chronicle (1981). Check out this and other roster info. on the Baseball Almanac website; I don’t sponsor it in any way, but it’s fun].
The ‘California Angels’
Intellivision video system, and Coleco Vision w/ keyboard that made it look like a computer
The word “Spaz”
STP stickers
Porsche Targas
Estes model rockets (the fun way to blow yourself up)
Icees
Big League Chew chewing gum
Fruit Stripe gum
Pirates of the Carribean, the ride
Macrame and knitting stuff
Pottery wheels and kilns
Your first look at Playboy (and not reading the interview with Norman Mailer–Candy Loving was my favorite playmate).
Milk carton boats
Lumber stores
Clogs shoes
Tennis shoe roller skates
Glow in the dark Frisbees
Nerf everything
Hot Wheels tracks and those serated pull cords that rip your skin off
The Bad News Bears (the original w/ Walter Matthau, Tatum O’Neil, and that guy who played Kelly, the smoker)
Baseball caps with the plastic mesh
Kneedsfoot oil (sp?) for your Rawlings glove
Pitchbacks
Playing catch
Rubber baseballs
Addidas cleats
Little trophies just for playing on a team
Capture the flag
McDonalds Orange Drink (and little bottles of punch at day camp)
Those frozen fruit flavored sticks
Space Sticks
PEE-CHEE FOLDERS with different athletes (the original Trapper Keeper, as seen on South Park)
5 subject spiral folders
Six Million Dollar Man lunch boxes w/ Thermos)
Striped tube socks
Vegas board game (Dan Tanna)
Chutes and Ladders
50 piece jigsaw puzzles (ages 8 and up)
Hang Ten
Phantasm (shot at Forest Lawn Glendale mausoleum)
kung fu grip
Kwai Chang Caine…& Master Po…& Master Kan
The Rockford Files
Duel (shot on the 118, the 14, & the 138)
Yucca Valley (Hidden Valley)
Alpine Village, in Torrance, when they had the roller coaster…(still there, but no roller coaster…)
sneaking into the Mormon Temple on (big) Santa Monica Blvd.
just where is the ‘Ape City’ set from “Planet of the Apes”??? Somewhere in the Santa Monica Mountains…near where they filmed M*A*S*H
All the drive-in’s turned into swap-meets…
R.E.O. Speedwagon, Styxx, Starland Vocal Band, Chicago, K.C & the Sunshine Band, Fleetwood Mac on a transistor radio…
hearing: “Let’s go…batter up! It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame…for a ballgame…today…” on the radio, “…brought to you by Union 76, and by Farmer John, the eastern most in quality, the western most in flavor…”
Jimmy Wynn’s grand slam
Jerry Doggett’s lame play-by-play after Vin Scully…
The Fabulous Forum and the voice of Chick Hearn…
Iron Eyes Cody
“Only YOU can prevent forest fires…”
“Give a hoot…Don’t pollute!”
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” at midnight at the Nu-Art
Country Bear Jamboree (“…there was blood on the saddle…”)
oh yeah…
Dr. George Fishbeck (“…and the barometer is reading…!!!”)
Telly Savalas’s ad’s for the Players Club (“Who loves ya, baby?”)
Phantom of the Paradise
Death Race 2000
“Stairway to Heaven”, “Fly Like an Eagle”, “Hotel California”
Pink Floyd at the Griffith Park Lazarium
I remember Phantom of the Paradise, with the incomparable Paul Williams; who I might add was in a really, good, funny, twisted cult 60’s film with Jonathon Winters, The Loved Ones; filmed around Forest Park Cemetery, and, or Griffith Park, I think.
Mood Rings
Turquoise everything!!!
TAB cola
Nehi soda
Orange Crush
“Hacksaw” Reynolds, on the LA Rams
The huge swap meet at the Rose Bowl stadium
Getting Buns candy on Halloween. I never understood how they stayed in business. That’s the only day of the year I saw that nasty maple flavored crap.
Urban legend, maybe, of getting an apple with a razor blade in it.
Other urban legend. If you eat Pop Rocks and drink Pepsi, you’ll explode, just like Rodney Allen Rippey did.
$3.35/hr. minimum wage.
The already-mentioned Icee, particularly served at the dedicated stand at K-Mart.
“The coldest drink in town!”
Ape City was at the Fox Movie Ranch in Malibu… now known as Malibu Creek State Park.
From L.A. take the 101 W to the Las Virgenes exit. Head South (left) and the ranch is in the right just after Mulholland Hwy.
There are still some M.A.S.H. remants there.
Mr. Frostee
“I like you, Betty.”
“That’s Danny, sir.”
“Danny.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Judge. You’re a tremendous slouch.”
“Energizer” diet pills commercial. From the mid-eighties, it was on in the afternoons during Mv3, What’s Happening?, and The White Shadow.
I’ve held off on this one, but now it’s time…
Remember the Ayds Diet Plan. That disappeared quickly somewhere in the early 80s.
Cactus Cooler
Allan said “Remember the Ayds Diet Plan”. Yes I do, it was replaced with the AIDS diet plan that wasn’t as popular, but if one was on it they lost A Lot of weight.
Hawaiian Colored Sugars in the glass bottles and containers making different designs, like an edible ant farm – less the ants.
Then at Spillikin’ Corners at Magic Mountain you could make the colored sand creations in the melted used “pop” bottles topped off with a dopey feathery bird’s head, usually having crossed eyes.
Fresca the sugared variety.
Okay, twisted and elongated glass 7-Up bottles, a stoner classic.
Joan Jett and Lita Ford’s band, The Runaways; cerca ’76.
Miss Grace Lemon Cakes (in Beverly Hills and the Valley)
Maui And Sons
Ice Cream Jones Cereal
Mork & Mindy, Voyagers, Fight Back, Silver Spoons, Greatest American Hero, Solid Gold, Electric Company, The Littles cartoon..(tv) ….. Kentucky Fried Chickens- chicken littles(sandwiches)….. Big League Chew(chewing gum)…..Spud Mckenzie(Budweiser Mascot)….Oldsmobile Cutlas,…. Centipede(video game)
The El Camino!
Yes, Chevy should bring the El Co back!!!lol
ASCOT!!!
Slip n’ Slide
“James at 15”, “Kill Dozer”, going to see “The Wall”.
“That was my skull! I’m so wasted!” Jeff Spikoli.
the DeBolt Family
before reality TV
Flying kites
The Flying Nun
Room 222
The Rookies
Anything that was “A Quinn Martin Production”
Curious George and the man in the yellow hat
Jacoby & Myers. “The rest is up to us.”
Twinkies twin packs.
Ken Berry.
Did anyone mention drive in movies, and the kids going to the movies in their jammies, and playing on the playground before the movie started?
Thanks for helping me Rhonda. I remember the playground. The only drive in movie I saw was Return of the Pink Panther with Peter Sellers in around ’75. It may have been in Van Nuys. But I remember the jungle gym the most.
Using the kickboards from swimming lessons to bodysurf at the beach (the original Boogie Board).
Burning stuff with magnifying glasses, and just generally burning stuff.
Surfers Rule, Valley go Home!
Even though I’m not from LA I remember the stuff you’re talking about……all I have to do is substitue radio & tv stations etc from my area!!!! The good old day’s when life was so simple.
I am trying to find the whole catch phrase for the mutual of omaha the commercial played during wild kingdom. I’m just looking for the phrase … can you help ?
@ Agina:
The tagline was “Mutual of Omaha: The People who pay.”
I can vaguely remember the melody in the theme song. I think it began something like:
Mutuaaaal of
Omahaaaa the
Peeeople…
yada yada.
What a show. I wonder if it had anything to do with a general depression I feel on Sunday nights. Perhaps due to all those visions of baby zebras getting torn to shreds.
I actually got more depressed watching “The Wonderful World of Disney.” Was that on Sunday nights too?
uh, we had 95% of this stuff on the East Coast in the 70-80’s also. Just thought i would let you in on that!