Does anyone recall getting the polio vaccine in a sugar cube? I remember in the 60s they were mass-vaccinating people against polio the way we’re vaccinating against coronavirus today. They would publicize the vaccination event on TV and you would go to the location and be handed a sugar cube with the polio vaccine.
Here in the Cleveland area, we had Ghoulardi.
Yes. I had both the Salk and Sabin vaccines. Polio was absolutely terrifying to parents when I was small.
Vampira was the original here in L.A. Her show started in 1954. LOTS of innuendo…that’s what finally made the station pull the plug. She later sued Cassandra Peterson when the latter came up with the Elvira Mistress of the Dark character.
The price of a bottle of soda at the machine went from ten cents to fifteen cents. A 50% increase!
I remember the campaign slogan in Germany for polio vaccination in the seventies:
“Schluckimpfung ist süß - Kinderlähmung ist grausam”
“Oral vaccination is sweet - Polio is cruel”
They’re currently national – Svengoolie on MeTV and reruns of Elvira’s Movie Macabre on Comet.
As I remember it: You lifted up the lid and put your 15¢ in the old chest type vending machines. You slid the bottle you wanted down a channel to the gate which was unlocked with the money. If you started to pull out the bottle, and it slipped, you could be out 15¢.
T hen my favorite, the Ghoul
Svengoolie out of Chicago since 1970, and, for you kids in Wisconsin starting in ‘69, Lenny’s Inferno
Separated at birth?
Thanks, all. I had totally forgotten about the sugar cubes that were wrapped in paper. Yes, we certainly did have them in the US, but they weren’t cubes - they were oblong like the German ones in that picture.
IIRC, the ones with the polio vaccine were cubes.
I have seen the oblong ones, but in almost any case these are two sugar cubes wrapped in one piece of paper.
The original H & H was in Philly.
I only experienced the tail end of the Horn & Hardard automat (818 Chestnut St., Philadelphia), but my grandmother rhapsodized about the eatery often. It was the original, and best “fast food” eating establishment. It featured prominently in movies, stage, TV, music and even museum exhibits.
The simple, but tasty and affordable entrees. The iconic “Nickle Throwers” and brass dolphin head coffee dispensers (with really good coffee). The original chocolate vending bar. What’s not to love about this place?
It is the one restaurant that I would love to see return to heyday prominence. They tried a scaled-back return in the mid-80s, but it failed. Alas, H & H’s time has passed.
Now I’ve got a hankerin’ for some H&H mac & cheese, baked beans, creamed spinach, and coffee…
Can’t blame her for suing – she was reported called in about reviving the character ( to be played by a new, younger actress) and they cast the part without her input:
Yes, but is the acting and production value as superlative as Dr. Shock?
We used to watch channel 11 from Pittsburgh, which had Chiller theater starring Bill “Chilly Billy” Cardille. He usually wore a tuxedo on set, which looked like some kind of torture chamber. He had an assistant, “Terminal Stare” who was always silent and had a far away look on her face. The show was the inspiration for the SCTV sketch Monster Chiller Horror Theater starring Joe Flaherty, a Pittsburgh native, as Count Floyd. Chiller Theater ran on Saturday nights at 11:30 PM and was so popular it pre-empted NBC’s Saturday Night Live for SNL’s first four seasons.
Most of the ‘pop’ machines in my area were the upright models, where the bottles laying horizontally. But there were some chest type, as you described. And, yes, it was possible to lose your money if your hand slipped. That was a traumatic experience.
I’m cheating a bit. They’re not from my area, and they’re a bit before my time. But I discovered them recently, and I keep playing the video over and over again.
How’d they come up with a name like “Hardrock” in 1956?
As a kid, I shot up like 6 inches in one year. Mostly my legs grew longer. It hurt bad enough that it became hard for me to handle stairs. My parents where scared I had Polio. I had had the vaccine… but…
Then there was this type, where turning the handle moved the top so the opening was (hopefully) over a cylinder that had a bottle in it. I have no idea whether the mechanism could sense an empty cylinder; if not, it gave a whole new spin 
to “you pays your money and you takes your chances.”
Hard-rock is a mining term. Dwarves have been associated with mining since the Vikings.