Mystery!

'Round about 1980 PBS started airing Mystery! It ran as Mystery! until 2008 when it was absorbed into Masterpiece (formerly Masterpiece Theatre). The point is it had this great intro (see below) that really set the mood for a classic murder mystery full of interesting lurking characters, hidden rooms, maybe even a poisoned pin!!! After the intro it pissed all its potential away by going into an episode of Rumpole of the Bailey or some such cultural dreck that was probably very good, but not nearly as compelling as its intro.

Enquiring Minds

In the 80s, the National Enquirer decided to amp up their public presence through television ads. The ads were priceless. The example below is not the best. My favorite featured the line "Is Marilyn Monroe sending a message from beyond the grave?" Then they cut to a ghostly picture of Marilyn whispering "It was Muh-duh". Alas the intertubes have not yet shown us that gem.

More Toys of my misspent youth

I got a Stretch Monster when I was a kid. I think I used my birthday money, but I can't be sure. I may have wanted a Stretch Armstrong and they were out, I don't know. I prefer to think that Stretch Armstrong was a bit too pro wrestler for me. Either way, it's a lame toy, especially if you're not someone who enjoys playing tug-of-war with a friend... if you have any.




I also had a Six-Million Dollar Man. He came with an engine block to demonstrate his unprecedented strength. He was a 13-inch action figure, which meant he was a bit too big. That didn't stop my sisters from borrowing him for use with barbie (they had no Ken). After a "Barbie date" one afternoon, I came down to the basement to find Steve Austin totally stripped down to his bionic underwear (painted on). Scandalous!

Later I got a Maskatron. While not featured on the series like the bionic bigfoot, he was cool in that he could pose as either Oscar Goldman, Steve Austin, or some generic guy with arched eyebrows. Maskatron had interchangeable arms, featuring a claw-ish thing (possibly for scooping kitty litter), and a suction cup for... erm... picking up Doobie Brothers albums when they fall behind the hi-fi, I guess. He had a compartment in his back for hiding his masks, sort of like Mr. Potatohead does. Of course he had the terrible West World blind robot syndrome. When the mask is removed, the resulting computer-face has no eyes.


I really wanted the Oscar Goldman with exploding briefcase. Goldman was sort of lame in the series. More of a bureaucrat than action dude. He was necessary for exposition and setup of the plot of the show, but hardly worth making into an action figure. The briefcase, though. Wow!

Shrinky-dinks

Back before it was an insult bandied about in the changing room at the public pools, Shrinky-dinks were a do-it-yourself sheet of plastic that turned into a smaller, thicker piece of plastic when placed in the oven. The ones featured in this ad were even radioactive. Fun!

Peanut Butter... Chocolate!

It's delicious!

And believe it or not, this is actually how the Reeses Peanut Butter Cup came into being. Others may have you believe that we took this secret from the Nazis and their unethical experimental test kitchens. Not so. It all started at the Met.

Your teeth and you

It's time to scare kids into brushing their teeth. They'll have to brush after they throw up from some of the startling imagery provided by Yuck Mouth. Yes, that's the immortal Scatman Crothers voicing Yuck, though I'm sure he brushed his teeth. Class act, that one.




Now run to the bathroom to brush, lest the Cavity Creeps come in and conquer toothopolis, plundering the treasury and having their way with the lovely princess Dentin. I'm sorry. I think the analogy broke down on me there somewhere. I get the impression from the commercial that if I keep my mouth full of toothpaste at all times, I'll never get a cavity. I mean if a crack team of fluoride specialists is good, then the a-bomb solution is better. Right?




Now let's round things off with Pearl Drops. Suzie McShinyteeth is assaulted by Goofus McBruceJennerHair. Rather than issuing a restraining order, she gives in to his brutal mating violence.

Not sure what's going on with her accent. I don't know if she's affecting a Farah Faucettesque speech pattern or concealing a deep Scottish brogue. She's hiding something. Perhaps Goofus will be left for dead at the edge of the forest for his crimes against her groceries, while Suzie obsessively licks her shiny teeth all night in her bathroom mirror.

Green Machine! (By Marx)

I SO wanted one of these as a lad. I had a friend or two who had 'em and wouldn't share. Jerks. When the Greeen Machines were the hot thing, I'd already had a full-sized bike with a sweet steel mag wheel, so there's no way in hell my parents would buy me a Green Machine. Sure I could explain all the sweet spin-outs and non-stop fun but that wouldn't change their minds. I could express my concern for safety and the benefits of a lower center of gravity, but they would just pull the ol' "If you're riding that low to the ground, nobody in a car can see you". Stupid logic.

Huffy, the makers of tremendously heavy bicycles, currently makes the Green Machine. Marx went out of business in 1978. Huffy uses too much metal in my opinion. It's just not the same.

When they met, it was murdah!

Like so many other old shows/intros now rediscovered via YouTube, this is so much cheesier than I remembered. I'm not sure which part of the montage of scenes I treasure the most -- the exploding cabin (love those vests), the trap doors, or the trumpet. Fabulous white suit on Robert Wagner, by the way -- no wonder Stefanie Powers ran so quickly into his bed!

What is hamburger?

Chopped ham? What are you, an idiot? It's chopped steak!

Who's selling A1 Steak Sauce? Is it Dick Cavett? No, it's Dick Cavett light. I've got a shiny, new quarter for whoever can tell me who this guy is.

Waffelos and Donutz, yo

I recall getting this as a child.  It seems like it was during a brief time in which my parents would consent to buy any crap cereal we wanted.  The mascot was Waffelo Bill.  Not sure about his horse.  The back of the cereal box had a little cut-out of a western town including livery stable and other things seen in the ol' west.

Martini and Rossi

Well this isn't the first time Jaclyn Smith tried to get me drunk on cheap wine. Seems to me like putting ice in wine is the sort of thing the uncultured do. They might also add a bit of Sprite to give it some zest. Say yes.




Orson freakin' Welles was selling wine later in his career. If you lived during the 70s you saw this or its like a great many times. It bothers me greatly that Welles scared the hell out of the US with his amazing War of the Worlds broadcast, got complete creative control of his first film Citizen Kane, by far one of the best films ever, and finished up his career with a voice role in Transformers: The Movie (not the Michael Bay one, either). I guess it's sort of the Elvis ending. Live an amazing life, then die on the crapper (literally or figuratively).

Who can forget this classic?  It forever cemented a clydesdale/beer connection in so many of us that even now, when I see horses with hairy hooves I just gotta have a beer.  This is back before Spuds Mackenzie stole our hearts and livers.  Before the Bud-Wise-Er frogs... erm... existed.  Before Waaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzzzzzzzzuuuuuuuuuuuuuup made us want to tell co-workers to just shut up, okay?

Enjoli

She can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never never let me forget I'm a man. Now that's a woman. The modern family unit is so diverse that the roles once restricted to gender are performed by either. So often in this fast-paced world I'll loose track of my gender. A woman who wears Enjoli could really help sort things out. Guess I know what Mel's getting for Christmas this year: My gender identity reminder.

Jar Barf

Originally posted 10/29/06: This blog was begging to be updated (poor thing), and what better to grace it than "Jar Barf", which recently amused the kids to no end.

Update: Not long after I posted this video, it was taken off YouTube. I finally found it again! Enjoy it while you can!

The object of the Trix Rabbit's desire

The Trix Rabbit, on the other hand, desperately wants the cereal confection, but it denied at every turn. I'm torn with this. Seeing the way Sonny is enabled by his support group to get the object of his desire, his downfall. Sonny is denied, perhaps because the kids have seen how he gets when hopped up on the Trix. Maybe he can handle it. Maybe he just wants it and the kids are greedy and selfish. I wonder if local supermarkets have a picture of the Trix Rabbit behind the counter with "don't sell to this rabbit" scrawled on it. He can obviously afford disguises and in the above case, an amplifier and guitar. You'd think he could buy his own.

I guess they're just for kids, ask your vet if Trix is right for your rabbit.

Insanity runs rampant in the land of the cereal icons

Everyone knows Sonny is coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs. Alas, this condition has persisted for decades without intervention. Does he have no loved ones, no dear friends who are sensitive to his plight? On the contrary, those he keeps company with taunt him endlessly with large bowls of his sweet, chocolaty Achilles heel. They've never had to deal with him the next day. They've never had to be the ones holding his feathers back from his beak as he vomits cocoa almost endlessly. They've never had to deal with the constant shaking, the tearful promises of 'never again'.




Even in the old days, when his addiction was just beginning to grow, his support group could best be described as enablers. See how they taunt him, knowing full well his weakness for that chocolatey treat. It makes me sad.

Dreamy...

In 1983, I was smack-dab in the middle of my Duran Duran worship phase, and was also quite into taping the videos on late-night shows such as Night Tracks and Friday Night Videos. As luck would have it, one night, while recording Night Tracks, a very rare D2 video, Save a Prayer, aired. To say that I was in heaven would be a complete understatement -- the adolescent girl hormones were raging. I was well aware of the song, having played the album Rio ad nauseum, but the song had not yet been released as a single -- when it was, the video released was a concert video that had shots of the original Russell Mulcahy-directed video on the big screen. Not nearly as cool. I had never seen it the video, and I wouldn't again, without renting Duran Duran's VCH collection, anyway...

Then my world was shattered when my brother, Dave, taped over the beloved and rare Save a Prayer Video. He thought the newly saved program was more worthy of the spot on the tape, and it was really good: An episode of Late Night with David Letterman where the entire show was dedicated to the show's audio assistant -- regular guy Bob Rooney. Given three wishes, Rooney asked for a beer, a submarine sandwich -- and another beer. We had seen it before and were greatly amused, so when it re-aired, taping was in order. Had I been there at the time, I would have agreed with taping it, but not over Save a Prayer. No way.

I got him back by taping something over Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds -- a movie he was quite excited to have caught on video. I'm not sure what I taped over it, but I'm sure it wasn't nearly as good as either Bob Rooney night or The Birds.

25 years later (excuse me while go take my Geritol and fetch my walker), I can see Save a Prayer all I want on YouTube. No such luck with Bob Rooney night -- but we do still have the video tape around here -- maybe some of Bob Rooney night will find it's spot on YouTube one of these days.


Ah, those were the days...


And as an added bonus, here's the opening for Night Tracks.

Radio Shacktastic Christmas!

It's so dreamy, and ten whole numbers? Call your girlfriends!

I Want a Pop!

In case you'd forgotten just how cheesy the '80s were, here's a reminder.

I didn't have very specific memories about this commercial -- I had even forgotten about the "singer's" toothy grin, but every so often, I'd get the tune going through my head. This time, I thought to check out YouTube, and of course, there it was.

Finnish Fun!

This little piece of cheese has been circulating around the web for a while, but I just recently came upon it via a YouTube search for Joy Division videos.

Billed as "The Worst Video Ever", this is actually a segment from a variety show that aired in Finland circa 1978. Danny and Armi are the performers, and Danny's still in the biz and has a website, where you can find out all about the Danny and Armi years (and I'm sure you'll want to).

So, why did I find this while searching for Joy Division?


Someone thought it would be funny to edit this video and put the JD song No Love Lost under it -- and it is funny! This is definitely the preferred version. There are several other versions, including one with Crazy Train.

Aaah, summertime

When I could stay home and watch television without the interruption of social interaction or education. Suffice it to say this commercial was so full of gratuitous sexual innuendo that it soundly carbonated my young, tormented libido.




This next one appealed to my nerdish side. I played a bunch of Atari, and was always interested in more games. Most of all M-Network employed a dreadfully catchy jingle. Still get it going through my head on summer days like this.



I never owned any M-Network games. They seemed pretty lame. Hell, most Atari games are woefully inadequate by today's standard. You can freakin' save a game now days!!! I can't tell you the number of games I forfeited due to bladder issues. High Scores were a matter of hearsay. Sure I turned over Asteroids, but does any one believe me? Where's the proof?