For Geezers Only

And then there was the one that was safe to use in “polite company”: Lord Save Me From Truman. That one’s for real geezers.

“Winstons tast good . . . like a cigarette should.”
“Brush-a, brush-a, brush-a” (Bucky Beaver)
Betty Furness and the refrigerator
Teddy Snow-Crop
“Good to the very last drop”
The dancing pack of Old-Golds

The Life of Riley
Oh, Susannah!
My Little Margie
December Bride
Ozzie & Harriet
Arthur Godfrey
Milton Berle
You Bet Your Life

Mr. Bluster and Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring
Jim, Margaret, Betty, Bud & Kathy
Jerry Lewis & Dean Martin
The original Mouseketeers
Davey Crockett, coon-skin caps

Hitching a ride on the back of the milk truck.
“We like Ike!”
Turpin Hydrate & Codeine
Burning your fingers on hot Xmas tree lights
The blizzard of 1950
48-star U.S. flags
Double feature plus newsreels and cartoons . . . for 25 cents
Gas for 25 cents/gallon
“Get a horse!!!”
3-cent stamps, 2-cent postcards
TVs with round screens
School desks with inkwells

Shock Theater - watching it on the couch and then being too scared to get up and go to bed.
Test patterns on the TV
Not knowing anybody who listened to FM - because it was just a couple of classical music stations from Highland Park or somewhere.
Vents in the front windows of the car.

That old Indian head?

Sign-off followed by High Flight and the National Anthem.

Anybody have a Winky-Dink screen?

Bardahl

“You’ll be for B4 before you drive six city blocks.”

The old Indian head!

And being thrilled to be up when the National Anthem played! Because it was so late!!!

Drawing on the screen with crayons when I forgot to put the screen n. not good.

Thinking Miss Frances could see me in the mirror.

Hard rock, Coco and Joe on Frasier Thomas and Garfield Goose.

Winston tastes bad, like the one I just had
No filter, no flavor, tastes like toilet paper.

Again, Junior High.

You geezers are old. I guess I’m just middle aged. Makes me feel good… Keep it up! :smiley:

ETA: Winston was my first brand. I started in 7th grade. It’s all you geezers’ fault I’m going to die of lung cancer.

One shave lasts

All day through.

Face feels

Cool and

Smoother too.

BURMA-SHAVE

Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!

I’m not quite a geezer, but I know a good 80 to 90 percent of these. I owe it all to a wasted youth watching t.v. re-runs and very much not-wasted youth talking with my parents and grandparents. Geezers are cool beans! Time machines who could explain it all. Like why you used the Ameche to call your friend.

Maybe I’m odd, but there’s nothing better than finding the oldest, or most obscure books and magazines, etc. and then spending a bazillion hours reading them. I still remember being fascinated by a sociological perspective of 1880’s Boston-area bars. It was years before Cheers was even a twinkle in the producers’ eyes and a good ten more before I’d be of drinking age, but it was good readin’!

“I Married Joan”
“Circus Boy” I used to love this show, daydreamed about riding my own elephant up and down our suburban San Diego driveway. And as we all know, Corky grew up to become Mickey Dolenz.
.

“Hot dogs, hamburgers, spaghetti and meatballs”
Winston tastes bad, like the one I just had.
No filter, no taste, just a 30 cent waste.

Mercurochrome
Geritol
Doan’s Pills
(“Vitameatavegamine!”)

Shredded Wheat

Beat the Clock

Dark Shadows (except I never got to actually watch “Dark Shadows,” because it was on channel 44, a VHF station, and our TV was UHFit only went up to channel 13. You kids get offa my lawn!)

Tennessee Ernie Ford (but only from being out to pasture on “Hollkywood Squares.” No idea what he was famous for.)

Axolotls
Potrzebies
Moxie
(Spy Vs. Spy! MAD non-conformists! “A Vulcan’s Life Is Nothing But a Drag!” Horrifying Cliches! And of course, the awesome Fold-In!)

Here’s some more:
Sugar Daddies
B-B-Bats
The Banana Bunch
“Emerald” and “Dancerina” dolls
Little Kiddles
Josie And The Pussycats
Mission Magic
Necco Wafers
Walnettos
BlackJack gum
“Sock it to me!”
“I Think I Love You” (“bum, bumbumbum, bumbum bum bumbum…”)

And by the way, Hello there, Zeldar old pal! Long time no see. :slight_smile:

Whoops, looking over the responses above, I can see that we are probably talking about two separate decades, with some overlap. Heh, you geezers get offa my lawn!

Recognized all but the last 5 in the OP’s list. Guess I’m a geezer.

Lunch with Soupy Sales
Toni shampoo and “cream rinse”
The Cisco Kid
Buster Brown and his dog Tide
“I like Ike!”
Adding bluing to your load of whites in the laundry
Using white shoe polish on your tennis shoes
White Bucks (like Pat Boone wore)
Peter Pan collars with circle pins
Dr. Ben Casey shirts
Palladin… Have Gun Will Travel

I forgot J. Fred Muggs!

You just opened the flood gates!

For others, see Burma Shave Signs

Hi, backatcha “friend” (I now have two!)

MAD Magazine’s heyday which included some real jewels from Ernie Kovacs in his section “Ripley’s Strangely Believe It!” (or maybe it was “Believe It Or Else” – not sure):

– Although the moon is not as large as the Earth, it is farther away

– In 28 BC, Hannabalis Maximus led an army of 37 against a horde of 30,000; he was soundly defeated.

– On April 19, 1954, Martin Watson, a bricklayer in New York City, carved his initials MW into a brick he had just kilned. Exactly two years later – to the day – he was fishing off Cape Cod and caught a perch

some of the stuff in the OP and lots of the stuff mentioned later are multigenerational. some stuff would be know to really old geezers (elderly) and some to geezers (late middle aged).

some stuff like Ovaltine have been around a century, though electronic mass media sponsorship of radio in the 30s (USA) into tv in the 50s(USA) might have it best remembered by two geezer generations. it is still a current product.

Chesterfield cigarettes (still a current product) did have an advertising campaign (i’ve heard on the radio Gunsmoke (USA) in archives, not original broadcasts) that it was better because it was made with Accuray (sp?) (my guess was that it was a packing density measurement using visible light).

Excellent points, and the idea for the thread was to try to trigger memories (among anybody willing to admit to “geezer” status however old that really means) of products, programs, fads, whatever, that are worth the trouble to remember.

It is quite true that the ability to remember some of these things applies to anybody familiar with networks that focus on reruns and nostalgia. Basically anybody with a TV!

The thread’s been doing quite well along the lines I had hoped for, and the notion of exclusivity to “old folks” was never a primary concern.

My own history of all this sort of stuff begins in the 50’s on radio and early TV, with some of the products still going strong today. I even had a thread a while back just focusing on old candy. It did equally well in dredging up good old memories from others.

It’s an anti-Alzheimers exercise if nothing else. :wink: