# Stuff the youngsters will scratch their heads over... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 18, 2000, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005 "2000-07-18T19:12:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![jet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@jet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jet)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/161 "2000-07-24T02:39:02Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by jet \* \*\* [QUOTE] \*Originally posted by casdave \* \*\*Torchy torchy the battery boy. That’ll baffle the young 'uns. Whitworth spanners, getting rarer all the time. Magic eye tuners. Radios without FM on them. That’s Wentworth tools. I still have a set AND a pre-unit Triumph, though it was 4 when I was born. Also remember my big brother paying $125. for a calculator when they first came out. Does anyone remember late, late night broadcasts from “KAAY. Beeker Street” in Little Rock? I used to pick it up from almost 500 miles away… Oh Gawd, the first time I’ve “said” anything and I have to eat crow. It IS WHITworth tools! -after a late night trip to the shop. I shoulda checked first! By the way, still available in England a few years back. Mine are the “King Dick” brand, no lie. ---
**Author:** ![Glenn\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bcef8e/32.png) [@Glenn\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glenn_H)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/162 "2000-07-24T03:57:04Z")
Watching Neil Armstong on the TV, then walking outside to look up at the moon, then back to the TV. Ronald Regan on Death Valley Days. Vic Morrow in Combat! War as Television entertainment instead of news. Duck and cover drills. ---
**Author:** ![labdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5fc32e/32.png) [@labdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/labdude)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/163 "2000-07-24T13:22:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Muad’Dib \* > \*\* > Playgrounds just before they had molded plastic and foam rubber covering every surface (What happened to the fifty foot high metal rocket ships!?!?) > \*\* There is a 50 foot triple metal rocketship swing/slide combo at the city park in Iowa, Louisiana. It’s off of I-10 just east of Lake Charles. Just in case your ever passing through. Humm. It might only be 30 feet, now that I think about it. ---
**Author:** ![copy\_ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eb9ed0/32.png) [@copy\_ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/copy_ed)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/164 "2000-07-24T13:59:54Z")
On the old black and white boob tube, I remember seeing, when just a toddler, an adult show called Life of Riley that my father liked. Does anyone remember a cartoon show with a character called Tom Terrific? He wore a funnel on his head and steam (or something) shot out of it? Or am I dreaming these up? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/165 "2000-07-24T14:12:01Z")
Tom Terrific was a cartoon made for Captain Kangaroo. It featured his sidekick, the Mighty Manfred, the Wonder Dog (who mostly slept) and the villain Crabby Appleton “Rotten to the Core”. IIRC, the Captain wanted good role model, non violent cartoons, and his show featured a number of them over the years, usually ones made especially for him. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Griffin-Kentzel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_griffin-kentzel/32/14787_2.png) [@Larry\_Griffin-Kentzel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Griffin-Kentzel)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/166 "2000-07-24T14:24:00Z")
20 Mule Team Borax. Hard contact lenses. When Michael Jackson was black. ---
**Author:** ![jesuslynch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e99b99/32.png) [@jesuslynch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jesuslynch)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/167 "2000-07-24T15:50:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kenobi 65 \* > **Some of the first TV remote controls were sound-based, rather than infrared. You would push the button, it would make a “cla-chunk” sound, and the TV would change channels. I remember a friend who had one of these TVs, and it would change channels whenever his dog would shake his head (thereby jingling his dog-tags).** A friend of mine in college had one of these. Someone on the floor also happened to have a remote set to the same frequency. Made for some interesting TV viewing. > [@](#): > > \*\*Who remembers local afternoon kiddie shows? \*\* We had a local Bozo show that people would sign their kids up for as soon as they got pregnant because it had a two or three year wait list. Kinda fell off after Bozo got arrested for DWI. And this was back in the day when DWI wasn’t a big deal. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by LouisB \* > \*\*I remember watching my father buy cigarettes from a machine. You put in a quarter, pulled the knob under the brand you wanted and got a pack of cigarettes with three new pennies under the celophane outer wrapper. \*\* And you got a box of matches with the smokes. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jet \*\*\* > Does anyone remember late, late night broadcasts from “KAAY. Beeker Street” in Little Rock? I used to pick it up from almost 500 miles away… \*\* Yeah. They used to crank up the wattage at night. I’ve heard some of the old DJ’s claim they got letters from people in Europe (with the skips and all.) It’s still comes on on Sunday Nights from 7 – Midnight on [http://www.magic105fm.cc](http://www.magic105fm.cc). Clyde Clifford still hosts the show. A man that was instrumental in getting my wife and I together, [Bobby J. Hayes](http://bobbyjhayes.com) played lead for Deep Water Reunion that recorded _Cindy’s Crying_. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/168 "2000-07-24T15:57:40Z")
I know someone mentioned these earlier, but - The Wonderful World of Disney when it was hosted by Walt Disney himself (Sunday nights followed by Wild Kingdom). Walking along the rode collecting soda bottles and taking them to the store for the deposit. Buying candy ciagrettes Sleeping on the shelf in the back of the car ('63 Pontiac Bonneville, Midnight Blue, the car that slept 8). “Hey Mabel, another Black Label.” Opening the cans with church keys. “Winston tastes good, like a ciagrette should.” Ed Sullivan Beatle boots “Fill 'er up. And would you check the oil?” Esso gas Huntley and Brinkley Miss Sally on Romper Room (“Are you a Do-Bee, or a Don’t Bee?”) Good to see that Crusader Rabbit got mentioned “The following program is in living color” “This news, just in from Dallas,…” ---
**Author:** ![PStamler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@PStamler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PStamler)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/169 "2000-07-24T16:09:41Z")
Push-button auto transmission on Chrysler cars. Car radios with tubes; they’d fade out when you went under a bridge. The first Volkswagens, and how weird we all thought they were (my uncle had one). Jello molds with unspeakable things inside. Local breweries. A grocery store that wasn’t self-service (the clerks, on ladders, got the stuff off the shelf for you); they would deliver to your house, and bill you at the end of the month. Fluoroscopes in shoe stores. Friden mechanical calculators. SLIDE RULES. ---
**Author:** ![Freyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freyr/32/5763_2.png) [@Freyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freyr)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/170 "2000-07-24T16:17:22Z")
…The Ed Sullivan Show (7PM on Sundays) with Popo Gigo (sp?) the little mouse. …Ronald McDonald and his Flying Hamburger? And The Boss? And I’m not talking about Springsteen! Remember when McDonalds put lids on their drinks and their shakes were so thick you could stand a straw in 'em? … record players with 4 speeds? 16, 33 1/3, 45 and 78 … the war against cyclemates? … programming for the day we pre-empted to show the Gemini and Apollo space launches? ---
**Author:** ![Coffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dc4da7/32.png) [@Coffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coffee)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/171 "2000-07-24T16:55:41Z")
I’m surprised nobody mentioned “Gnip gnop”, that amazing new game you played on your TV where you bounced a beeping blip back and forth across the screen with knob-operated paddles. We really felt we embraced the space age with that one. ---
**Author:** ![jonanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@jonanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jonanners)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/172 "2000-07-24T16:59:59Z")
I’m only 15, but I remember getting wax soda bottles when I was little that were filled with soda. (Also, to me, soda is only ‘pop’ when I go to upstate NY to visit family.) I also remember gummy like soda bottles filled with soda. What about birch beer? Do they even make that stuff any more? ---
**Author:** ![hflathead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecb155/32.png) [@hflathead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hflathead)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/173 "2000-07-24T17:30:15Z")
I can remember checking the little, insulated milkbox outside in the morning to see if the glass milk containers were ‘exchanged’ yet ( REAL cream floating on the top). Maybe mom would have ordered a small (pint?) glass container of chocolate milk for me. grade school milk was in wax/cardboard triangular containers with pull tabs over the strawhole. paper straws, usually had to drink quick, tear off the mushy end, or flip it over. old payphones you could short the receiver to case ground with a paper clip and get a free call! (of course, I wouldn’t do that, it was that other kid) to go along with the elephant cords, remember Senior cords? Those pants with the colorful sayings all over. How about those metal cars with the pedals. It seemed you were either too small to make them go good, or to big to fit in them. Either way, you usually cut yourself on them. later, Tom ---
**Author:** ![Diane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2acd7d/32.png) [@Diane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diane)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/174 "2000-07-24T17:59:09Z")
1. When it was okay for boys to pack BB guns. 2. Tying the 5 gallon water jugs to the front bumper of the car and hanging wet towels in the windows during that long drive through the desert on the way to Disneyland. 3. Having all the neighbor kids over to see our high-tech video game, PONG. 4. Full service gas stations, which included window washing and oil checks. 5. No Tylenol, no Ibuprofren, just plain old Buffern asprin. 6. Nightmare Theater, Night Stalker, and American Bandstand. All equally scary. 7. Big, huge, consol TV with the record player at one end and your mom yelling at you to move back so you don’t get fried or go blind. 8. Soda pop from real soda fountains. 9. Telephone party-lines meant something different. 10. Drive in movies (we still have one - Pthfffffffffff :p) ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/175 "2000-07-24T18:14:06Z")
Ah yes, party line telephones. Diane, what was your “ring?” Our’s was long -short- long. Then it became Murryhill9-4574. Big old black Bakelite (sp?) telephone, the damn thing weighed a ton. My father-in-law, to this day, asks “What’s X’s ring?” if he can’t remember a telephone number. Also, I remember when the dry cleaners came and picked up and dropped off cleaning “This is Sprucy Bruce Shelton of Kenmore Cleaner, at the corner of Lee and Kenmore Avenues. It by 10 dirty, clean by 4:30. Kenmore Cleaners, were at the cleanest corner in town.” ---
**Author:** ![jim32809](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e47774/32.png) [@jim32809](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jim32809)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/176 "2000-07-24T18:23:14Z")
Remember… LED digital watches (the red-light ones) Home milk delivery Learning to swim at the YMCA when it was for men only, and you swam naked. Dressing out for gym in school every day, and the coach would do a ‘strap check’, and then everyone would shower afterwards. When Halloween used to be a night of imagined horrors, not costume parties. And as for trick-or-treating, remember when it was the older kids at night going door-to-door, not the little kids going around the mall during the day? ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/177 "2000-07-24T18:29:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Muad’Dib \* > **Significant Communist countries.** Uh, as opposed to the one that has a quarter of the world’s population? Where is a “fixin’ to put the hurt on you” smilie when you really need one? 😃 Man, crashing waves of nostalgia washing over me. I remembered that my first kiddie show appearance was actually on Bob Love’s first show, _[Marshall Kgun’s Western Circus](http://www.kgun.com/history.asp)_ (scroll down a bit), on KGUN 9, the ABC affiliate in Tucson, Arizona. It wasn’t until the independant KZAZ channel 11 came on the scene that he moved his show there as the _Uncle Bob Show_. I was there at least once in cub scouts where I was a little more aware of things like my own age. If it wasn’t fun enough to be on the show the studio was right next to the one that held the saturday night wrestling matches. The Arabian Assasin and other local favorites wrestled right there! In a semi related bit of trivia my grandmother told the story of when she was working at the meat counter of a grocery store in Tucson when Gorgeous George the wrestler came in and pushed his way to the front of the line. My little, 98lbs soaking wet with $10 in change in her pocket, grandma told him to wait his turn and cowed him enough that he apologized for his rudeness. ---
**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/178 "2000-07-24T18:34:19Z")
\*\* > [@](#): > > The Automat was a restaurant in NYC. Eventually automats were a generic type of restaurant which followed its pattern. Think of it as a giant vending machine powered by humans separated from the customers by a big wall with coin operated windows to get the food out. You looked in the window, saw plate you liked, and put in a few coins to release the window. > > I have heard the original served good food. The knockoffs generally filled the windows up in the morning and things got a bit mature by late lunchtime. \*\* There’s an old Doris Day movie, _A Touch of Mink_, that they play on AMC now and again. Doris and her cynical, wisecracking roommate Audrey Meadows work at one (or at least Audrey does). ---
**Author:** ![labradorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@labradorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/labradorian)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/179 "2000-07-24T18:35:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lucky \* > \*\*Remember the cardboard 45 records that came on the back of cerial boxes as a prize? You had to cut them out. I wonder if any of those have survived. \*\* One word: eBay. [http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=383506095](http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=383506095) ---
**Author:** ![Saysha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Saysha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saysha)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005/180 "2000-07-24T18:43:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kunilou \* > \*\*Big four-engine prop airliners, back when flying was a luxury. \*\* And every chair on that airplane had an ashtray. Just like in the movie theatres. Yeah, occasionally at Laser Floyd, a theatre might get a bit smokey, nowdays, but not like it used to be. Yep, we lil uns choked down that second hand smoke and we LIKED IT! We were glad for that smoke! We were grateful I tell ya, grateful!! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-the-youngsters-will-scratch-their-heads-over/26005.md?page=10)