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”?)
Drying your front teeth with your index finger.
Pushing your top lip up so it stops high – showing your all of your front top teeth.
Looking in the mirror and saying “Pork Chops and Apple Sauce”
ala Peter Brady.
Going in your bathroom with low light or a candle even better and saying,
“red rum” “red rum””red rum””red rum””red rum” over and over trying to freak yourself and whoever else in there with you out.
I’m pretty sure we’ve already mentioned the dude on the playground who flipped his eyelids inside-out.
I could really go for a big fat Bubble Gum Cigar right now.
Did you know that if your hand is bigger than your face it means you have cancer?
7-11
1970’s
Slurpee Baseball/SuperHeros trading cups
Didanyonemention
Hai Karate cologne?
My dad had four bottles of the stuff Lime, Orange, Ice-Blue and Grape colored sitting in our bathroom cabinet. They sat there throughout the 70s on display, this was even before Jovan Musk for Men came out and the ever studly Soap On A Rope.
Firecracker, firecracker,
Boom boom boom,
The boys got the muscles,
The teachers got the brains,
The girls got the sexy legs and we won the game!
“7-11’s got slurpy rock cups”(i only remember the alice cooper cup)
Repo Man, dude!!! Filmed in East L.A.
If you eat Zotz and drink Pepsi, you’ll die, like Rodney Allen Ripley.
Riding in the bed of your family’s pickup truck, or cargo area of the station wagon with no one even suggesting you putting on your seat belt.
Dressing up as a bum on Halloween.
My skateboard (circa ’74). It was flexible plastic and shaped like a banana; and it had ‘mag’ wheels.
@myk: Dood. My brother and I used to do sleepovers with our cousins during summer vacations in the ’80s. My uncle would pick my brother and I up in his Toyota pickup, and we’d sit in the bed while he drove from Westchester all the way to West Covina on the 10FWY. Could you imagine? Totally beltless going 65-70mph, without a worry. It was totally natural back then, now it gives me the creeps to think about it.
Might be a repeat, but: Playing “Heads Up 7-Up” in class on rainy school days instead of recess, and feeling special ‘coz the cutest girl in class was the one who touched your thumb.
Once we made a run to Magic Mountain (yes before the Six Flags were added and the mascot was the Orange Troll) we packed 9 people into a lime green Pinto at night rolling to the disco they had there nightly 1978 ( I was 12 or so at the time I just hitched a ride with my friends older brother) there were the driver, a 350 lb. girl in the passenger seat and four people in the back seat and three people (me included) in the trunk hatchback area with the hatch wide open and the car bumper was about six inches off the road on the 5 freeway. I had one arm over the back seat holding on for dear life. I think with all weight the car did a max speed uphill of 45MPH pedal to the metal.
@myk: Holy crap, that’s classic. Dood, 1978. What a great year. I can totally picture that, too. Dang man, 350 lbs.??! There’s a true test of American Steel! U-S-A! U-S-A! Go Detroit!
Yet another testament to “Gee it was fun back then but now that I think about it, that was nuts…”—my friends and I used to go up to Mulholland Hills in my buddy’s Isuzu Trooper to look at the city lights and drink our booze. Going back down the hill, three of us would hang on to the back of the truck as we winded down the dark roads; each of us grabbing hold to whatever part we could of the roof rack. It was awesome to be fleeting in the darkness of the woods, wind gushing by and stuff…um, yeah.
The one “bathroom freakout” thing that used to get me was the “Bloody Mary” one, where you go into the bathroom with a candle, face the mirror with your eyes closed and say “Bloody Mary” however many times (it varied from 10 to as much as 50). Afterwards you’re supposed to open your eyes, and presto, she’s supposed to appear right behind you. Imagine?
LoL, did we cover this already? The classic commercial, “Don’t take the car, you’ll kill yourself!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQJzlWFCZto
The commercial that sent shivers down my spine was:
Yul Brynner saying into the camera “Now that I’m gone, I tell you, don’t smoke. Whatever you do, just don’t smoke. If I could take back that smoking, we wouldn’t be talking about any cancer. I’m convinced of that.”
→ Yul Brynner speaks from the grave
Yeah, of all commercials, that was the only one that my smoking friends took seriously. “Did you see that shit?” They’d say. “That was crazy, man!” Then they kept smoking. Heh.
Wanna know which horror movie commercial TERRIFIED me in the ’70s? This one. The beginning of it was enough to send me running off to my room ducking under the covers, trying desperately to forget what I saw. Didn’t work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwA_58KIEcs
There was nothing scarier and more depressing than the seventies. The horror flicks, the overhead incandescent bulb fixture, the Sunday nights, the babysitter in the other room, the theme song to Hill Street Blues and MASH and Taxi, the whole thing. Hated the seventies, but love talking about it now.
For scary trailers, how about this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezkx07HYylo
A few more randoms:
— Constant fear of cyanide in the Halloween candy.
— The stories about the razor blades in the apples.
— JIM JONES.
My Mom lived in Glendale in the Seventies at which time the Hillside Strangler was running amok, I think he even got one his victims at the Eagle Rock Plaza or the Glendale Galleria parking lots, so whenever we went at night to Eagle Rock Plaza me and my little brother would say to my mom, “Look Mom the Hiilllllsiide Stranguulaarr!” and point to the parking lot stairway and she would have a cow.
Shoe Goo!
My first record player was a red soft/hard plastic unit that came with a cover that snapped on with a tackle-box type closeure and the thing was stored on its side the LP would hang over the sides of the unit and the arm would snap into place for storage.
Played mono 33s, 45s and 78s. Had a really cool small bright 78 yellow record that played the mice signing “Cinderelly ,Cinderelly” for the Disney movie Cinderella. high tech! this was ten years before I received my Panasonic 8 track player with the Dynamite plunger on top to change tracks.
Did anyone mention Real Cap guns that had the cap rolls that you would load into the revolver – western style guns.Then when you were bored and wanted a real loud explosion you’d just take the whole roll out set it down on the concrete and smash it with a hammer B O O M ! ! !
Isn’t this thing like pages and pages long now? lol
Those red paper cap rolls were my favorite. I had friends who used to smash rolls with a hammer for the super-loud explosions, but I never liked doing that ‘coz it wasted a whole roll in one pop.
Instead, when I wasn’t firing them off in those silver metal revolvers (and whiffing the delicious smoke), I used to lay out a strip on the ground and take one of my dad’s nails and scrape the edge of one of the gunpowder “bubbles” to make it flare up and go “FFFFFFTTTT!” like thrust coming out of a rocketship. That would keep me occupied for hours. Then one time my finger was too close to the flare-up and it totally burnt the skin right above my nail.
Covering your textbooks with brown grocery bags from Lucky’s or Alpha-Beta.
Terry Fox! The one-legged guy who ran across Canada in the name of cancer awareness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Fox
LoL, brown grocery bag book covers were the mainstay in Junior High for me. I actually didn’t learn how to make one until I was in 7th Grade, ‘coz our Health Education teacher made us put bags on our books in class, handing out scissors and everything. I was totally clueless and would’ve been SOL if it hadn’t been for my classmate who showed me how to do it.
Do you remember the various types of decoration people put on their book covers? I remember nerds being ultra minimal, usually with just their name in small letters on the front; then the “cool” kids with either rock (Def Leppard, Van Halen, Led Zep, AC/DC) logos or “nu-wave” (Duran Duran, Culture Club, Men At Work, etc.) logos drawn on them in markers. Some chicks made them all “girly” with flowers and unicorns or what not, and then the stoners or burnouts would just put MATH SUCKS or whatever topic it was.
I thought the brown paper bags were way cooler than the ones you could buy in the school store line with the schools official logo on them, those really sucked and tore easy. I would try to get my paper bag on as tight as possible.
OZZY ROCKS!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen ‘OZZY ROCKS’ in print. However:
OZZY RULES!
Also:
NEW WAVE SUCKS!!!
“Mommy, mommy! Turn on your headlights! Daddy’s got his Cadillac in your garage!” (Or multiple variations thereof.)
Oh my god, Jace, I used to run out of the room when that Magic commercial came on.
Something more embarrassing. When I was really young, I would run out of the room when the three note siren would go off on Emergency. That meant something was goin’ down at Rampart.
“The phone has been traced. It’s coming from the attic.”
70s Macrame hanging planters for Boston ferns and Creeping Charlies or the Fancy Dark stained stand made out of staircase banister material for the fern
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Macrame_hanger_and_gourd.JPG
70s string art http://lostarts.wikispaces.com/file/view/S3_String_art_Picture_1_web.jpg/32463129/S3_String_art_Picture_1_web.jpg
tree stump tables, the whole stump or a slab varnished to see the trww rings
Cinder block and boards entertainment systems with entertainment system including.. 19 RCA TV, speakers with the console stereo with the clear plastic covered Garrard turntable. Fisher, Magnavox, Pioneer etc.
http://www.fast-autos.net/diecast-cars-models/diecast-car-image-large/vintage-fisher-stereo-w-8-track-record-player_120677077073.jpg
did anyone post yet about seeing beer cans stacked up as pyramids in the windows of apartments sometimes filling the entire window with matching Budweisers or Coors cans?
referring to jace’s much earlier comment no I did not work at Lucky’s.
I worked first at Clark Drugs and then I got a job at Alpha-Beta tell-a-friend
Jace I remember your Dad when I was a kid using gasoline to start up the BBQ ! wow what a flame up!
How about that “Crazy Calls” gag answering machine message infomercial with the “Rap” version?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wewsuLjJpEo
Staying up late (past 11pm) to see The Benny Hill and Paul Hogan shows.
Shōgun!
What’s a matta you – HEY!
Got a no respect,
Whaddya think you do – HEY!
Why you look a so sad?
It’s a not so bad – HEY!
It’s a nice a place,
AH SHUT UP A YOU FACE!
Man, if there was ever a song that screamed 1981, it was that one. Mighty 690 played that song like there was no tomorrow. Did you know that song hit #1 in 11 countries (according to Wikipedia)?
WHAT ABOUT ‘A-TEAM—–BA-BAH BLACK SHEEP–& SEA HUNT
— Brightly colored curly hard plastic (non-disposable) straws.
— Calling 853-1212 to synchronize your Casio watch to the second.