Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars in the early and mid-1970s looked like real cars you would see on the road. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, realistic miniature toy cars became rare. Goofy funny cars with engines that pop up a scale meter or two above the hood started to dominate the toy car market.
Did anyone say banana seat bicycles already?
How about cable television systems with only 12 or 24 channels, including channels showing analog clocks and thermometers, and a channel showing psychedelic patterns flashing to the beat of then-popular rock music.
Walkie-talkies were really big back then. Old-school walkie talkies transceived on CB channel 14. Unlike today’s FRS units, you probaly couldn’t communicate if the units were separated by more than a few hundred feet.
Slot cars!
Radio Shack electronic kids designed for kids, which had to be assembled using a soldering iron.
Fanta pop in the United States.
Free maps at gas stations.
Catalog stores like Best, Century House and Service Merchandise peaked in the 1970s. They issued great Christmas toy catalogs
Guess what? One of the brands is back. I just saw Wacky Packs in Wal-Mart, complete with a baby covered in boogers on the package.
YES YES YES!
Thats it! Thanks so muchJeff I knew I could count on the ole SDMB to jump start my memory.
Tho I know I wasnt 21 when I was collecting the stickers so probably the pins on that site are a rerelease of the prior stickers.
I remember Best. My mother hated them cause they were ALWAYS out of whatever she needed.
That’s great to see that we haven’t lost all of our ability to laugh at ourselves, Caricci
Pepsi Twist wasn’t Pepsi Twist, it was Pepsi Light. People had been adding lemon to their diet soda so it would taste better, and Pepsi capitalized on that.
Robin
My favorite candy bar, the Marathon candy bar.
Oh yeah, that’s right - Pepsi Light! The new one is Pepsi Twist.
Do they still have card catalogues at libraries? All the ones around here are computerized now…
Remember those GIANT pixie stix we could get? They were as tall as I was and plastic.
What about those disgusting little wax bottles with that syrupy stuff inside them? Drink the syrup and chew up the bottle. Eww.
I didn’t see em mentioned. But no bicycle was complete w/o the Banana Seat / Sissy Bar combination. I think someone picked this set out of my garbage back in 1979 and put it up on the web.
Oh oh oh! I had a Little Professor, too!!! I used to sneak it to bed with me at night and play it under the covers (so my parents wouldn’t see the light… my mom had super-radar hearing, so I didn’t want to take any chances on super-vision, lol.)
“Once upon a time there was a cat name Krisfer… BOOP!… He would play in a lovely land called the SDMB… BOOP!…”
QUESTION:
“Viewmaster”… is that the red thing that looks like a cross between binoculars and a camera and that had stereoscopic slides inside on cardboard wheel thingy?
Or was it like my yellow cartridges that I’d load into something that looked like a Super 8 camera that I’d crank by hand to watch super-short “movies”?
And my LilMiss also has a Little Professor also (via garage sale for a nickel, I think).
Okay, on the previous page I posted about that outdoor toy that you skip over a plastic lemon… a black plactic cord attached one one ankle and you skipped with the other foot… WHAT WAS IT CALLED? Anyone? It dorve me nuts last night trying to remember!
Another 70’s thing… TANG!!!
Oh, yeahhh… a friend of mine had one of those. Only hers was a big strawberry, and and think it had sand or something in it to make a chakka-chakka noise when she “skipped”.
Ah! It was called “Skip-It” from inthe80s.com:
Oo! Oo! Thought of other stuff (third post in a row? Naughty Crayons!)"
Inchworm - it was a pale green “worm” with a yellow face or hat (that looked kinda like a turtle) and a yellow seat. You sort of had to move up and down to get to to go across the floor on its wheels. Google cached version here.
Mrs. Beasley - Here’s going back to the really early 70s. It used to have yarn hair, but the one my neighbour had had an all-plastic head, a blue polka-dotted dress, and blue spectacles. There was a string in her back that you’d pull and she’d say fussy things like “Don’t forget to wash behind your ears” and “Let’s get some ice cream.” There’s one at eBay here.
I never liked Mrs. Beasley. I already had a mom, for heavens sake!
But now, Holly Hobbie was cool. One friend had her whole room in Holly Hobbie. I was jealous (my room was Raggedy Ann and Andy, of which I still adore)
Yep, that’s Viewmaster. We had a huge collection of cardboard wheels.
I don’t remember what the crank film strip thing was called but we had one of those too, and a Lonesome Ghosts reel for that.
Mrs. Beasley!!! My mom has picture of me at about 4 holding mine. I won a Buffy lookalike contest with that picture!
Ah, I found the other I was thinking of: The Fisher Price Movie Viewer. The one I actually had was the fancier MovieViewer Threater. I could view the movies on a screen or project it onto a wall by flicking a switch that moved a mirror inside.
Oh sure Crayons highlight my one major spelling mistake in this thread. 
peeks in shirt… mmmm I must have not imagined breastfeeding the baby
My Skip it from 1rst grade in 1971 was yellow with a big red plastic bellon it. The plastic bell had a jingle bell inside it. Lord knows WHY I remember it!
Anyone else remember the Pogo cartoon figures that came with dishsoap I think? My Gran had a wholeset for each of us kids… color coded for child with fingernail polish.
You know, in my third year of univeristy I asked for an extension on a ten page essay on Ingmar Berman, promissing my prof I’d hand in something really cool. Instead of an essay I made a filmstrip, view screen/box, and used a studio to record the narration, complete with “BOOP” cues to advance! A+
Found Merlin I understand my Simon confusion. One fo the six games you could play on Merlin was a Simon-like memory game called “echo.”
Speaking of Simon anyone remember the cartoon about the kid whose “things he draws come true” and they’d “take him, take him, take him, over climb the ladder with you”?
Hm. Found a pic of a cat dressed as Mrs. Beasley. Someone has too much time on their hands…
