Now this is Halloween shopping, 1970s style! Woolworth and Woolco had the costumes, the candy, and even a record to supply the spooky sounds. Complete costumes for $1.83 to $3.99—and somehow those plastic masks could make the Bionic Woman look scarier than the monsters!
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I always get a kick out of those old costumes with the character’s picture printed right on the front. You weren’t simply dressed as Superman—you were wearing an advertisement explaining that you were Superman. There was actually a reason for that: Ben Cooper considered the costume front a wearable billboard, designed to make the character instantly recognizable.
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Those inexpensive costumes took more work than you might think. According to Ira Cooper, whose family ran the company, developing one normally took about nine months. Artists, sculptors, engineers, and fabric workers all had a hand in turning a familiar television or comic-book face into Halloween merchandise.
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And that Sounds to Make You Shiver record wasn’t something created just for the commercial. Pickwick was already promoting it in 1973. Before we could pull up spooky sounds on a phone, we could put a haunted house on the turntable!
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Woolworth’s American stores disappeared in 1997, but commercials like this bring back an entire way of shopping. What was your favorite Halloween costume growing up—and did it come in a box with a plastic mask?
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#Woolworth #Woolco #VintageHalloween #HalloweenNostalgia #BenCooper #1970s #TheRetroSite
Month: October 2026
The Three Stooges Go to Work for Dickies—1969
I vaguely remember this commercial starring the Three Stooges. At the time, I had no idea what Dickies workwear was, but as a kid, it sure had a funny name—fitting for the Three Stooges!
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This commercial premiered on ABC on May 31, 1969, with Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Curly Joe DeRita turning a construction site into the kind of workplace you’d probably want to keep your distance from. If you’re selling clothes that can take a beating, hiring these three makes pretty good sense!
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That’s Curly Joe, who joined the team in 1958. Many of us knew the earlier Stooges from television reruns, so seeing different faces in the third spot could get confusing. Those reruns gave the boys a whole new audience of kids after their long run making movie shorts.
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Dickies was already an established company by then, having started in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1922. The name that made me laugh actually came from founding partner E. E. “Colonel” Dickie. Their famous 874 work pants debuted in 1967, just two years before this commercial.
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There’s something a little bittersweet about watching it now. In January 1970, Larry suffered a stroke while filming Kook’s Tour, effectively bringing this version of the team’s performing career to an end.
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I might not have remembered what they were selling, but I remembered the Stooges—and that funny name. Do you remember this commercial, and who was your favorite Stooge?
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Would You Believe…Don Adams Could Sell Almost Anything?
I was too young to drink beer when I first remember these commercials, and Don Adams wasn’t going to convince my dad to give up his Rheingold or Falstaff! But those Skittle Bowl-type commercials? We did buy those games and enjoyed them in our home.
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That’s what I remember most about Don Adams as a pitchman. The commercials felt like little comedy sketches, with that unmistakable voice and the same confidence that usually got Maxwell Smart into trouble.
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This Schlitz Malt Liquor commercial is dated 1980. Don plays a captured secret agent, and his captor is Leon Askin—General Burkhalter from Hogan’s Heroes. Naturally, the rescue involves the Schlitz bull and a familiar “Would you believe…” punch line.
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But Don’s advertising career went well beyond beer. Aurora used him to promote a whole family of Skittle games, including pool, tennis, baseball, and bingo. Sometimes he was a spy; sometimes the commercials played like little gangster movies. He even appeared on Skittle Pool boxes.
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Here’s something I didn’t know: Don also directed commercials. His Skittle Pool spot reportedly earned him a Clio for commercial direction in 1971. He was helping create the laughs as well as delivering them.
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He also appeared in Hertz commercials with Penny Marshall before Laverne & Shirley made her a household name, and later advertised Ideal’s Electronic Detective with Joey Forman. Advertisers certainly knew how to put that secret-agent reputation to work!
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Don didn’t change Dad’s beer order, but those game commercials got results at our house. Did you have Skittle Bowl or any of the other Skittle games?
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#DonAdams #GetSmart #SkittleBowl #VintageCommercials #TheRetroSite
BLACULA — DRACULA’S SOUL BROTHER
That’s exactly how the 1972 trailer introduces him, and William Marshall makes Prince Mamuwalde much more than just another version of Dracula.
Mamuwalde is an African prince who travels to Count Dracula’s castle with his wife, hoping to enlist Dracula’s help in fighting the slave trade. Dracula refuses, attacks him, turns him into a vampire and gives him the insulting name “Blacula.”
What I found especially interesting is that Marshall helped shape the character into the dignified, tragic prince we see on screen. The original concept was reportedly much more stereotyped, and Marshall wanted Mamuwalde to have intelligence, history and real stature.
Marshall was a classically trained actor who had earned acclaim playing Othello, and that deep voice and commanding presence gave the character a seriousness the title alone probably wouldn’t lead you to expect.
Blacula was also a financial success. Made for roughly $500,000, it earned about $1.2 million in U.S. and Canadian theatrical rentals and did well enough to bring William Marshall back for Scream Blacula Scream the following year.
The soundtrack is another great part of it. Gene Page created the funky soul-horror score, and The Hues Corporation performed three songs for the movie, calling Blacula their first big break before “Rock the Boat” went to number one in 1974.
Blacula even became the first winner of the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film.
And if you want to see the whole movie, it’s still available on several streaming services today.
Do you remember Blacula — or did “Dracula’s Soul Brother” get your attention first?
“Yer Yella!” Guldens Commercial
Another viewer request! “Yer yella!” Only an old mustard commercial could turn lunch into a Wild West confrontation. Gulden’s took that familiar cowboy insult and made it about what was going on your sandwich. Apparently, choosing mustard was serious business in this saloon!
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I love how quickly these commercials could establish a scene and deliver a joke. A couple of cowboy hats, a suspicious look, and a jar of spicy brown mustard were enough. Nobody needed a lengthy explanation—or a celebrity telling us what to eat.
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The history behind the jar goes back much further than this commercial. Charles Gulden learned the mustard business from his uncle and built his company in New York City. At one point, Gulden’s even included a spoon with every jar. By 1883, the company offered 30 varieties of mustard!
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And here’s the funny part: despite making yellow mustard the punchline, Gulden’s introduced its own prepared yellow mustard in 1949. There was room for both colors in the family after all.
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Do you remember this commercial—and are you a spicy brown mustard person or a yellow mustard person?
Betamax: When Watching TV on Your Own Schedule Felt Like Magic
I remember when Betamax came out, before the format wars became something we all worried about. Mine cost almost $1,000, had a wired remote, and those giant piano keys for controls. Depending on the year, that’s roughly $5,500 to $6,200 in today’s money. It was a serious purchase!
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But being able to record television and watch it when I wanted felt incredible. Before that, the television schedule pretty much decided your evening. Miss something, and you could only hope it would come around again.
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Sony introduced Betamax in 1975 and called this freedom “time-shifting.” The early machines recorded only an hour per tape, but even that opened up possibilities we hadn’t had before. This early commercial captures that feeling of bringing a little magic into the living room.
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Then a video store opened about ten miles away, and I thought it was the best thing going! Imagine being able to go pick out a movie, bring it home, and watch it on your own television. Today that sounds ordinary. Back then, it was something to get excited about.
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VHS eventually won the format war, but Betamax lasted longer than many people realize. Sony kept making recorders until 2002 and shipping blank Beta tapes until 2016.
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I remember the excitement of what that machine let me do more than which format eventually won. Did you start with Betamax or VHS, and do you remember your first trip to a video store?
Friday Night 1975
It’s Friday night, 1975. No school tomorrow, the whole weekend is still ahead of you, and the biggest question is: what are you doing tonight?
Maybe you’re staying home with the TV Guide open on the floor, trying to figure out what everybody is watching. Dad already has his chair, somebody’s making popcorn, and once you picked a show, that was it. There was no streaming it later.
Or maybe you’re headed to the roller rink. The music is loud, the lights are flashing, and you’re hoping your favorite song comes on while you’re out there trying not to wipe out in front of everybody.
Maybe it’s the drive-in. A carload of people, the speaker hanging on the window, a trip to the concession stand, and if you were a kid, there was a pretty good chance you were asleep before the second movie ended.
We didn’t have phones in our pockets telling us where everybody was. If you wanted to find your friends, you called their house, made a plan, and hoped somebody’s parents didn’t change it.
Friday night just felt different back then. It felt like the beginning of something.
So let’s go back for a minute. It’s Friday night, 1975. How old are you, where are you going, and what are you doing tonight?
What memories does this conjure up from your past?
When Baby Dolls Rode in Style
Looking at this old Montgomery Ward catalog page, I’m struck by how much detail went into a baby doll’s carriage. Folding hoods, big wheels, curved metal frames and colorful bodies—these were little versions of the carriages adults pushed around town. Wards even called them “Authentic English-Style Prams,” making a toy sound like a luxury purchase.
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But those prices weren’t quite the bargains they appear to be! Using 1955 as a comparison year, the featured $12.99 red-and-white carriage equals roughly $162 in today’s dollars. The $16.88 Deluxe Coach would be about $211. The $7.99 Good Coach comes to around $100, the $9.79 Better Coach about $122, and the $4.98 Economy Coach roughly $62. The catalog’s exact year isn’t confirmed, so these are approximate inflation comparisons.
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That puts things in perspective. A fancy doll carriage could be a substantial birthday or Christmas gift. A child might fall in love with the deluxe model while a parent quietly checked the economy price.
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The play itself was simple. Tuck the doll under a blanket, adjust the hood and head out for a walk. No screen or programmed storyline was needed. The child decided where they were going and what their baby needed.
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Today’s doll strollers can look like the compact models parents use now. The styles have changed, but children still enjoy copying grown-ups and caring for their dolls.
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Shopping has changed even more. We can compare stores and read reviews in minutes now. Back then, a catalog page could hold our attention for weeks. We studied the pictures, circled favorites and hoped someone would take the hint. I think that anticipation was part of the fun.
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Did you have a doll carriage like one of these—or remember leaving a catalog open to the toy you wanted?
DO THE FONZIE — WHEN HAPPY DAYS GAVE THE FONZ HIS OWN DANCE
I had forgotten that Happy Days actually gave Fonzie his own dance.
This is from the 1979 episode “Stolen Melodies,” and the setup is pure Happy Days. Leather Tuscadero, played by real-life rocker Suzi Quatro, has written a song called “Moonlight Love.” After auditioning for the television show National Sok Hop, the song suddenly turns up credited to another group.
Naturally, Fonzie isn’t going to let that slide.
He shows up at the TV studio, confronts the people involved and eventually takes over the microphone himself. Instead of letting the other band introduce its new dance, Fonzie brings out Leather and announces a brand-new one:
“Do the Fonzie.”
And then the Fonz actually has to dance.
The song was written especially for the show by Jim Dunne and performed by Suzi Quatro. The dancing was choreographed by Shirley Kirkes, so somebody really did have the job of figuring out exactly how Fonzie should dance without making the coolest guy on television look completely ridiculous.
Quatro was already a successful rock singer and bass player when she joined Happy Days as Leather Tuscadero. She later recalled that she was touring Japan when the show called her back to audition for the role.
By this point Fonzie had become such a pop-culture phenomenon that Happy Days could invent an entire dance around him and it somehow made perfect sense.
And just about a year later, one of Henry Winkler’s famous Fonzie leather jackets went into the Smithsonian.
Do you remember “Do the Fonzie” — and would you have tried this dance at a sock hop?