Yeah. I had a thingmaker. Those things were all over elementary school. Everyone had a gila monster. I had one for a skeleton, and with glow in the dark goop it was nifty. I can recall the smell, and the process. Some got overcooked.
How many here can recall the way a show would start when TV was great, where a deep basso profundo masculine voice would say “Brought to you byyyy…” and then it would be “Post!!!” or “Nabisco!”
It was pure pavlov for me. The excitement is still palpable now.
I still recall the theme. I guess it's a good tune.
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Ms. P has the ones she got as a kid. Several years ago one of my students looking at them online. I had recently gotten a book that had all of them, which made me the world’s coolest librarian.
Goody-Goody; “I always do what’s right”. A friend of mine has a refrigerator magnet of her.
Froggy showed up in the Ghoul, the syndicated Kaiser horror host show (The successor to Ghoulardi, in Cleveland) in the early 70s.
I had stuff called “Silly Stuff” or something. It was in the mid late 60s. You added water and it became a big blob. You could play with it. If you let it it just literally ate water and created more stuff. So when you blew bubbles with it it drew the moisture from your face and chapped it.
All you Froggy The Gremlin people need to read “The Armageddon Rag” by George R. R. Martin. 
Universal Studios Monster Models I built quite a few of those when I was 8-9. Made quite a mess of 'em as I recall.
Even the Starland Vocal Band had a variety show, albeit briefly. David Letterman made some cameos on the show, and it looks like much, if not all, of it is on You Tube.
Does anyone remember the mid-00’s Comedy Central series “O’Grady”? I LOVED that show! It features the PG-rated hijinks of four teenagers, and the “weirdness” which accompanied their lives. The theme song was sung by Kelly Osbourne.
AFAIK, it’s never been released on DVD, but you can see at least some of the episodes on You Tube.
ETA: IMDB says it was on the-n, but I seem to remember it having been on Comedy Central. Keep in mind that it was a while ago.
Notorious for the episode where Michael Richards said “fuck” on live network tv.
Sure you’re not thinking of Charles Rocket on SNL?
Sounds familiar. I’m associating it with “Wooly Willy Magnetic Hair”…so maybe its the kinda cheap gift everyone at a 70’s birthday party would get.
You may be thinking of Nancy Olson who played opposite Fred MacMurray in The Absent-Minded Professor[sup]*[/sup] and Son of Flubber. She did a couple other Disney films around that time and was also in Sunset Boulevard.
- Is it worth reporting an error to IMDb? They have the title without a hyphen.
Man, it really hammers home how little there was for entertainment back in the late 50s/early 60s. We spent hours every day, gluing tiny plastic parts together. Making cars, planes, weird-ohs, and Ed “Big Daddy” Roth dragsters.
It was Fridays, I’m pretty sure.
You are correct. For some reason, I’ve always associated Dorothy with Fred. Huh. 
I remember Dorothy from The Roaring Twenties and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Arcades that actually took quarters. Completely replaced by tokens by around 1985. There were a few quarter-operated machines in diners, bowling alleys, convenience stores, etc. up to the early 90’s.
Beanie Babies. Small, completely generic-looking stuffed animals that were supposed to be this great investment for some reason. My parents bought about 30 of them and put them in a display cabinet. If anyone made enough profit off of these to afford a pen and a stack of index cards to write “What the hell was that all about?” on, I’m unaware of it.
Pogs, a.k.a. “milk caps” (that never came within a neighbor island cruise of a milk bottle). Little circular bits of plastic with drawings on them. From beginning to end, this never struck me as anything but a brazen scam that would eat up a lot of cash and then vanish forever practically overnight. They were HUGE for a while. There were NEWS REPORTS on them, for crying out loud.
Tamagotchis. A game, of sorts, in the same sense that a hurricane is a meteorological event, of sorts. An incessantly demanding electronic device where you had to press the right buttons at the right time, over the course of several weeks, and missing even one assigned pressing would lead to an unfavorable ending or even an outright failure. The main reason I never had any issues with Pokemon Go.
Duckman. The only show I’ve ever watched that, in my estimation, got the repulsive-jerk-as-hero formula right. There were a lot of reasons this worked, but in short, the jokes hit, the cast was diverse and interesting, and, most importantly, it knew where to draw the line. It’s so rare nowadays to see any show that manages to show its unpleasant, sordid side without becoming utterly repulsive and unwatchable, and this show nailed the balance perfectly. Definitely deserved more than four seasons.
Son of Zorn (won’t bother linking my thread again; do a search for “Zorn” if for some bizarre reason you’re interested). Was completely bombarded by ads for this for weeks on Kongregate. Then it began, and…liberal bashing? Seriously? That’s the whole concept?? Slimed its way through one season, not renewed. I bring it up every now and then as my go-to “This is why you don’t base anything that’s supposed to be goddam entertaining on liberal bashing!” case, but pretty much the rest of the planet forgot it existed roughly 5 minutes after the final episode. You’d think it’d have a little traction in the Age of Trump, but other than a couple diehards on YouTube, I haven’t heard one person say a word about it.
You may be thinking of this incident, in which Richards was involved:
*Andy Kaufman incident
On the February 20, 1981 episode, Andy Kaufman was the host. During a sketch about couples at dinner sneaking away to the bathroom to smoke marijuana, Kaufman, who was known for causing trouble on live TV, broke character and refused to read his lines (saying “I can’t play stoned”). Michael Richards got up from the table, grabbed the cue cards and threw them down on the table in front of Kaufman, who responded by throwing a glass of water on Richards. Some of the show’s cast and crew members became angry and a small brawl broke out on stage. Since the show was broadcast live, home viewers were able to see most of these events transpire until the network cut the cameras off. Kaufman returned the following week in a taped apology to home viewers. The incident was planned by Kaufman, who concocted it with his sidekick Zmuda, and was meant as a prank. The only individuals aware of the plan were producer/director Moffitt, producer/announcer Burns, and the three comedians acting in the sketch along with Kaufman: Richards, Chartoff and Burrell.[3][4] This incident was reenacted in the 1999 film Man on the Moon, starring Jim Carrey as Kaufman, Bob Zmuda as Burns, Norm Macdonald as Richards, Caroline Rhea as Chartoff and Mary Lynn Rajskub as Burrell. *
This is Charles Rocket’s story:
*Charles Rocket (born Charles Claverie, August 24, 1949-October 7, 2005) was a castmember of SNL in the 1980-1981 season, and was the Weekend Update/Saturday Night NewsLine anchor.
Charles was touted by then-Executive Prodcer Jean Doumanian as “a kind of cross between Chevy Chase and Bill Murray”. He was known for a segment, The Rocket Report, in which he went out into New York City with a camera crew. He, Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo were the stars of the season.
He became infamous for an incident in the March 7, 1981 episode. A recurring set of sketches throughout the episode included a parody of the Dallas episode “Who Shot JR”, titled “Who Shot C.R.?”. At the end of the episode, when asked by Charlene Tilton how he felt after being shot, he responded by saying “Oh, man, this is the first time I’ve ever been shot… I’d like to know who the fuck did it.” When Jean Doumanian was fired after the next episode, Rocket was also let go (along with most of the rest of the cast, save Murphy, Piscopo, Denny Dillon, and Gail Matthius, though the later two only remained for one additional episode).
After SNL, Charlie did some work in independant films and other projects, such as Dumb and Dumber and the SNL movie It’s Pat!. Most recently, Charlie played a Reverend in the independant film Bleach and was in the 2003 movie Shade.
On October 7, 2005, Charlie unexpectedly took his own life for reasons unknown. Initially, there was debate over whether this was true (due to lack of media coverage after the story broke), but former cast mate Denny Dillon confirmed the news. Rocket’s body was found in his Canterbury, Connecticut home; his throat was cut. The Connecticut medical examiner ruled it a suicide. *
Did you know, BTW, that Richards was once a bachelor on The Dating Game?
