Names from my ABC Movie-of-the-Week youth:
Arlene Golonka
Monte Markham (sigh!)
Herschel Bernardi
Barbara Sharma
Salome Jens
. . . it wasn’t REALLY an ABC Movie-of-the-Week unless at least one of these people appeared in it!
Ah, yes. They were doubly good if you washed 'em down with Tang®.
And how about:
Ski boots were made out of leather and had laces. Skis were wood, and the edges were a series of four-inch metal strips screwed into the base. Bindings were a coiled metal strap that went around a groove in the boot heel and pushed toe of the boot into a restraint.
When you went to the movies you got two films for the price of admission, plus cartoons and newsreel.
School kids sold candy to fundraise without help from their parents. Honest!
I miss the old cartoons…
Captain CaveMan and The Great Grape Ape were some of my favorites.
~Tracie
8" Floppies.
The NBC peacock.
Walt Disney.
Rambler. Studebaker. American Motors.
Wooden handled tools.
Wooden fishing lures.
Wooden door panels / truck beds.
Crystal Radios.
Erector sets.
Manual Typewriters.
Metal Dashboards.
Gas cap behind the tail light / license plate.
sigh…
Hah! Captain aveman old?
Old cartoons are Crusader Rabbit (pre-Rocky and Bullwinkle Jay Ward!), Commander Bleep!, Space Angel, and Rough & Ready
Remember Marathon Bars - about 13 and a half feet of braided caramel smothered in chocolate that stuck in your teeth for a month.
As a kid, I always enjoyed pushing the reflector button on my grand-dad’s 54 Cadillac taillight and watching the taillight swing up to reveal the gas cap. The car equivalent of a puzzlebox.
And speaking of gas. . . “pumping” gas meant just that: you’d turn the crank on the pump until the gas in the glass reservoir on the top of the pump reached up to the mark for the number of gallons you wanted, and then you’d reverse the cranking direction to have that gas flow down the hose into the tank.
[CalMeacham: Also a Crusader and Rags fan here]
Oooh, Marathon Bars. Loved those.
The ski boot reference reminded me of… Old Roller Skates. Four wheels, toe stop, the whole works. None of these Bladerollers or whatever the whippersnappers are using these days.
I also recall when it was a big deal to say “fuck,” in a movie or real life or whatever. Remember that? All that ruckus over a word?
[cartman] Fuck fuckety fuck-fuck-fuck. [/cartman]
Sure, you heard it now and then in real life, but not with the frequency of today, and certainly not in movies or music (and, if you have cable, on TV). Hell, America’s Sweetheart, Julia Roberts, says it in Notting Hill, if I remember correctly. Nowadays, even the nuns have potty mouths. Today’s kids would be blown away to know that “fuck you, motherfucker” did not used to be an appropriate way to respond to an insult, let alone say hello to a friend or answer the phone.
Which is the way it would be today, if I had anything to say about it.
::reads in disbelief::
How did you people LIVE back then?
No remotes!?!?
Kids today will never know what its like for old people to sit around and get nostalgic about cruddy technology and lousy entertainment while similtaneously complaining about kids general lack of respect for eleders and lack of work ethic. Nope, only our parents’ generation did that, and thankfully kids today will know nothing of it.
Hmm. So far this thread has been more self-deprecating and ironic than preachy and complaining, so I’m not sure why the sarcasm.
Ah to be young again.
ChrisP, IIRC the Constellations were built by Lockheed at their Burbank, California plant.
Eve – how can you even think of a TV movie from that era without Vera Miles (a few years later it would be Lee Remick)
and SouthernStyle, if you’d like to download a peacock suitable for use as wallpaper (it’s very fetching on my laptop) try here:
http://nbcin.nbc5.com/tvsd/inside/history/index.shtml
We’ve covered this in other threads, but did anyone have a. . . fallout shelter?
My Dad started digging one in the back yard, but came to his senses and turned it into our new and improved septic tank. Our neighbors built one, put a cyclone fence around it and promptly bought two Dobermans and a dog house.
Oh, kunilou, speaking of bomb shelters. Remember sonic booms, back when military jets weren’t prohibited from going supersonic over populated areas? At school the windows would bow inward from the shock wave, but we kiddies were well trained and didn’t “duck and cover” because we knew if it had been the bomb the brilliant flash would reach us before the sound.
'57 Chevys were new cars, not classics.
Flathead Fords that weren’t that old.
My Dad’s souped up Hudson.
Drive-in movies with a playground in front of the screen.
5 cent Cokes in 6 ounce bottles.
A John Deere tractor that had a flywheel on the side that you had to spin by hand to start it.
A Schwinn bicycle with the tank looking thing in the frame.
Playing marbles.
“Ain’t Nothing but a Hound Dog” when it first came out.
I was already married and a mom when Monte had his own show. But he was definitely a cutie.
Your taste is much more sophisticated than mine. I drooled over Alan Ladd, and later on, Clint Walker, Ty Hardin, Fess Parker and Tom Tryon. Must be the spurs, or the leather. <shrug>
I learned to drive in grandpa’s '48 Studebaker. And yes, it was green. I think all of them were green.
I have no commercial tie to this site, but I did find my all-time favorite candy there; Wax bottles filled with ‘pop’ that you chewed the top off, drank the liquid, and then chewed the wax. Ahhh…Youth!!!
http://hometownfavorites.com/