September 2026 - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

Ann Blyth: The Movie Star Hostess Turned Into Mom

A viewer asked for Hostess commercials with Ann Blyth. Fortunately, this one was easy to find.

I do get requests for things that take a lot of digging, and sometimes no matter how detailed the search is, nothing turns up. Maybe our audience can help us locate one for viewer John — “Chick, chick, chiarina soup” from the 1970s. Does that ring a bell with anyone?

As for Ann Blyth and Hostess, I never really stopped to wonder why a major Hollywood movie star wound up selling us Twinkies, CupCakes and Fruit Pies.

Turns out, Hostess chose her pretty cleverly.

By the time this commercial aired in 1972, Blyth was an Academy Award-nominated actress, best remembered for playing Joan Crawford’s spoiled and downright nasty daughter Veda in Mildred Pierce. But away from Hollywood, she had become almost the exact opposite.

Blyth had stepped away from making movies, married Dr. James McNulty and was raising five children. So Hostess wasn’t just hiring a celebrity — they were selling us Ann Blyth the mother.

Some commercials even featured her own children, and her role was basically the sensible mom who knew when to say no and when a Hostess treat was okay.

And this wasn’t a quick celebrity endorsement either. Blyth’s association with Hostess lasted well over a decade, with her appearing in commercials for Twinkies, CupCakes, Fruit Pies and other Hostess products.

That’s a pretty long run for an advertising spokeswoman, and it tells you Hostess clearly liked the image she brought to the brand — wholesome, familiar and believable as a mother.

Quite a contrast when you remember that the young actress who played one of Hollywood’s nastiest daughters eventually became known to another generation as the nice Hostess lady handing out Twinkies.

Do you remember Ann Blyth from Mildred Pierce, or mainly from these Hostess commercials — and can anyone help John find that “Chick, chick, chiarina soup” commercial?

CBS NFL Today 1977 — When Sunday Football Started With Brent, Phyllis and Irv

There are certain sounds that can immediately take you back, and this old CBS NFL opening from 1977 does it for me.

Before RedZone, fantasy-football apps and having practically every game available somewhere, Sunday afternoon football meant turning on one of the three networks. If you were watching the NFC, chances are you were watching CBS.

And The NFL Today had become part of the ritual.

There was Brent Musburger, Irv Cross and Phyllis George, with Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder contributing his predictions. What I never really appreciated at the time was how groundbreaking that desk was. Cross became the first Black man working full-time as a national television sports analyst, while George — the former Miss America — helped open a door for women in network sports broadcasting that had barely existed before.

And then there’s that music. The theme was called “Horizontal Hold,” written by Jan Stoeckart under the name Jack Trombey. Hear a few seconds of it and suddenly it feels like Sunday afternoon again.

The football itself was different too. 1977 was the last 14-game NFL season. The league had already voted that spring to expand to 16 games beginning in 1978, along with an expanded playoff format.

CBS had the NFC, NBC had the AFC, and ABC had Monday Night Football. Pat Summerall and Tom Brookshier were CBS’s top game announcers, and there were no streaming packages or instant access to every matchup.

The NFL Today became so successful that its studio format helped establish the blueprint for the pregame shows we still watch today. CBS eventually lost NFL football when Fox took the NFC package beginning in 1994, but The NFL Today returned in 1998 when CBS came back with the AFC.

Does hearing this opening bring back Sunday afternoons in your house — and who do you remember most: Brent, Phyllis, Irv or Jimmy the Greek?

MIGHTY MOUSE & ZESTABS — WHEN CARTOON HEROES SOLD VITAMINS

Seeing Mighty Mouse selling vitamins takes me right back to an era when our Saturday-morning cartoon heroes seemed capable of selling just about anything. In this commercial, Mighty Mouse gets clobbered by a cat, takes a Zestabs chewable vitamin and suddenly turns the tables — not exactly subtle advertising, but certainly memorable!

There’s actually much more history behind this little commercial than I expected. Zestabs came from Sauter Laboratories, a division of pharmaceutical giant Hoffmann-La Roche. That strange “Mighty Mouse — Nutley, New Jersey” slate at the end makes sense once you learn that Roche’s longtime American headquarters and research complex was in Nutley.

The campaign also arrived just as people were beginning to question how products were marketed to children. Zestabs came in fruit flavors and later chocolate, and groups such as Action for Children’s Television objected to advertisements that made vitamin pills look and taste too much like candy. By 1972, Hoffmann-La Roche said it had stopped placing its vitamin commercials inside children’s programs, although Zestabs advertising continued elsewhere on television.

And here’s one connection I never expected: years before Pretty in Pink or Two and a Half Men, Jon Cryer says his first paying acting job at age four was a Zestabs commercial.

Before Comic-Con: When Batman Took Over Shea Stadium

This ad feels less like a concert promotion and more like somebody accidentally invented a pop-culture convention four years before San Diego Comic-Con began.

It’s 1966, Batman is one of the hottest shows on television, and Shea Stadium is advertising Adam West appearing in person as Batman, Frank Gorshin as the Riddler, 26 Batusi Girls, Cousin Brucie, and then, almost casually, throws in the Young Rascals, the Temptations, Jr. Walker & the All Stars, the Chiffons and Skitch Henderson’s Tonight Show Orchestra.

What gets me is the mixture. Today we’re used to conventions combining television stars, characters, music, celebrity appearances and spectacle under one roof. In 1966, that idea must have seemed completely bizarre — yet here it is at Shea Stadium.

It wasn’t technically a “Comic-Con,” and comic-book fan conventions were already beginning to appear in the 1960s, but this sure looks like an early glimpse of the kind of TV, comics, music and celebrity mash-up that would become commonplace decades later.

And I have to know: if you were a kid in 1966, would Adam West and Frank Gorshin have been enough to get you to Shea Stadium — or were you going for the 26 Batusi Girls?

FUNYUNS — THE SNACK THAT ALMOST WASN’T CALLED FUNYUNS

This commercial takes me right back to when a bag of Funyuns seemed like one of the strangest snacks in the chip aisle. They looked like little onion rings, tasted like onions and even had a name that sounded like somebody made it up on the spot. As it turns out, somebody pretty much did!

Funyuns were introduced by Frito-Lay in 1969, created by employee George Wade Bigner. But here’s something I never knew: Funyuns weren’t supposed to be called Funyuns. The original name was OnYums, but that name was already taken. Advertising copywriter Jim Albright came up with “Funyuns” instead, and more than half a century later we’re still calling them that.

And listen closely to the music in these early commercials. The tune came from “I Love Onions,” a wonderfully odd 1966 novelty song recorded by Susan Christie. The song actually made the Billboard Hot 100 before its melody was adapted to help sell Funyuns.

Another great connection: in 1971, a young Roger Enrico went to work marketing Funyuns. He eventually became CEO of PepsiCo and was one of the men behind Pepsi’s blockbuster Michael Jackson era. Not a bad career beginning for a guy working on onion-flavored rings!

And yes, Funyuns are still around today.

SKITTLE BOWL — BOWLING RIGHT ON THE KITCHEN TABLE!

Remember Skittle Bowl? This was one of those toys that could turn an ordinary kitchen table into your own miniature bowling alley. In my family, we actually had leagues with all my brothers and dad!

Aurora Plastics’ Skittle Bowl gave you ten little pins and a ball suspended from a chain. You lined it up, let it swing, and hoped you had judged the angle just right. Of course, the kids in the commercial make knocking those pins down look a whole lot easier than I suspect it really was!

I love seeing toys like this again because there were no screens, batteries, apps or electronics needed. It was basically plastic, a swinging ball, a score sheet and your determination to beat whoever was sitting across the table from you.

And just like real bowling, I’m guessing there was always somebody who took the scorekeeping far more seriously than everybody else!

This is exactly the kind of toy that can disappear from your memory for decades — and then one old commercial instantly brings it all back.

Did you have Skittle Bowl in your house? And more importantly… were you actually any good at it?

From Frosty to the Lennon Sisters — Jimmy Durante in 1969

Most of us probably know Jimmy Durante’s unmistakable voice as the narrator of Frosty the Snowman. What I didn’t realize was that Frosty first aired in 1969 — the very same year Durante was appearing on ABC with the Lennon Sisters.

It was quite an unusual pairing.

Durante was 76 years old, with a career that stretched back through vaudeville, radio, movies and early television. Dianne, Peggy, Kathy and Janet Lennon had literally grown up on television after joining The Lawrence Welk Show as children in 1955. By the time they left in 1968, they were young women with families and wanted more freedom to pursue other opportunities.

I never realized money was part of their decision too. Kathy Lennon later recalled that for their first ten years with Welk they earned only $110 a week at group scale.

Then ABC gave them their own showcase.

Jimmy Durante Presents the Lennon Sisters combined their beautiful harmonies with Durante’s raspy voice, comedy and piano, backed by Nelson Riddle’s orchestra. Guests included Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Sammy Davis Jr., George Burns, Glen Campbell, Jerry Lewis, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

There was also terrible tragedy behind those smiles. Just weeks before the weekly series premiered, the sisters’ father was murdered by a deranged stalker. They eventually returned to work under heavy security.

The show ultimately lasted just one season, with its final broadcast airing July 4, 1970. Ratings were never strong enough, and the attempt to appeal to both younger viewers and Durante’s older audience apparently left the show caught somewhere between the two.

The Lennon Sisters certainly didn’t disappear, though. They continued performing for decades and later spent years working with Andy Williams.

For me, this clip feels like two generations of entertainment meeting on one stage — and hearing Durante now, it’s almost impossible not to picture Frosty coming to life.

Do you remember Jimmy Durante from shows like this, or will he always be the voice of Frosty the Snowman to you?

“Ever Eat a Pine Tree?” — The Commercial That Turned Euell Gibbons Into a Punchline

This may be one of those commercials where one sentence became much more famous than the product being advertised.

Euell Gibbons looks into the camera and asks:

“Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible.”

And if you were watching television in the early ’70s, apparently there was no escaping what happened next!

I found contemporary FTC records for this exact Grape-Nuts commercial dating it to 1972, even though it’s often identified today as a 1974 spot. Gibbons wasn’t some eccentric actor they hired either. He was a respected author and wild-food expert whose Stalking the Wild Asparagus had been around since 1962.

But that pine-tree line turned him into a pop-culture phenomenon.

John Byner spoofed him on The Carol Burnett Show, Johnny Carson made tree-eating jokes, and Match Game used Euell Gibbons repeatedly as material. One question joked that he had eaten the television camera! Even The Electric Company created “Early Gibbons,” who ate stumps, sticks and stones.

Gibbons even got into the act himself. When Sonny and Cher handed him what appeared to be a wooden plaque, he took a bite out of it. It was actually made to be edible.

And all those jokes certainly didn’t hurt Grape-Nuts. By the end of 1973, the advertising trade press reported that his commercials had increased sales by about 30 percent.

There was one unexpected ending. In 1975, the FTC stopped commercials showing wild plants as edible because regulators worried children might imitate Gibbons and eat something dangerous.

More than 50 years later, say Euell Gibbons to someone who remembers the ’70s and there’s a pretty good chance they’ll answer with something about eating a pine tree.

Do you remember the original commercial — or do you remember all the jokes about Euell Gibbons even more?

Jane Russell Playtex Commercial

Watching this 1981 Jane Russell Playtex commercial, one thing really jumped out at me when I compared it with the bra commercials we see today.

Jane is talking directly to what she calls “full-figured gals,” but she never actually appears in the bra. She stays completely dressed while explaining the support, fit and comfort of the new Playtex 18 Hour Lovely Look.

And there was a reason for that.

At the time, network television still had very strict standards about showing women in underwear. In fact, it wasn’t until 1987 that Playtex helped break a long-standing television taboo by airing commercials showing live women actually wearing bras.

Compare that with today. We routinely see women of all sizes — including larger and plus-size women — actually modeling bras and lingerie on television and in advertising. The whole idea of what can be shown, and who gets shown, has changed dramatically.

In a way, Jane Russell’s campaign feels like a step between those two worlds.

She was almost 60 years old here, talking directly to women who weren’t built like the typical young, thin lingerie model. That alone made the campaign unusual. And Jane certainly had some history with bras — Howard Hughes famously designed one for her while making The Outlaw, although Jane later admitted she hated it and secretly wore her own instead.

Then decades later, she became one of television’s most recognizable bra spokeswomen.

So watching this today isn’t just about remembering Jane Russell or Playtex. It’s also a little snapshot of how much television standards — and ideas about women’s bodies — have changed.

Do you think today’s more open approach to showing women of different sizes is better, or did these older commercials leave a little more to the imagination?

THE JERRY LEWIS TELETHON — A LABOR DAY TRADITION

For a lot of us, Labor Day weekend wasn’t complete without the Jerry Lewis Telethon. You could turn it on Sunday night, go to bed, wake up Monday morning, and somehow Jerry was still there — surrounded by ringing phones, celebrities, Ed McMahon and that famous tote board.

The Labor Day telethon began in 1966 and eventually became a huge national television event. Over the years, stars including Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Johnny Cash, Cher, Michael Jackson, Johnny Carson and Robin Williams stopped by. John Lennon and Yoko Ono even appeared in 1972, with Lennon performing “Imagine.”

But the moment almost everyone remembers came in 1976. Frank Sinatra surprised Jerry by bringing Dean Martin onto the stage. The former comedy partners had gone their separate ways 20 years earlier, and Jerry clearly had no idea Dean was coming out. Watching his face when Dean walks onto that stage is still one of those great live-TV moments.

And if you watched all the way to the end, you knew what was coming — an exhausted and emotional Jerry singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

For me, that song always seemed to signal that Labor Day was ending… and so was another summer.

Do you remember watching the Jerry Lewis Telethon? Who do you remember seeing on it?