Before she became the oldest Brady daughter, Maureen McCormick was causing trouble for Darrin Stephens! In Bewitched’s 1965 Halloween episode “Trick or Treat,” she played Endora disguised as a little girl. That innocent face? Don’t fall for it.
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And she was already selling us toys! Maureen appeared in Barbie and Chatty Cathy commercials before The Brady Bunch. One Chatty Cathy ad even featured her future TV sister, Eve Plumb. Marcia and Jan—before they were Marcia and Jan!
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It’s funny watching these old commercials now and recognizing faces we’d soon know so well. We thought we were watching the dolls!
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Did you recognize Maureen on Bewitched? And do you remember those Barbie and Chatty Cathy commercials?
These Skeletons Terrified Me! Jason and the Argonauts
I was five when I saw this in the theatre, and it terrified me! I mean, if the skeletons are already dead, how do you stop them?
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The skeleton battle in Jason and the Argonauts (1963) stayed with me—and learning how it was made makes it even more remarkable. Ray Harryhausen brought those skeletons to life through stop-motion animation, moving the models a tiny amount between photographs. The sequence took four and a half months to animate. Some days, he produced less than one second of finished footage.
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Four and a half months to make it. About six seconds to scare me!
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But here’s my favorite part: the filmmakers wrestled with the same question I had at five. How DO you kill something that’s already dead?
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Their solution was to have Jason jump off a cliff into the sea, with the skeletons following him. Harryhausen’s explanation? “We assumed that they couldn’t swim.”
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To film the plunge, the crew actually threw seven plaster skeletons off the cliff after the stuntman jumped. They had to get it right the first time because they couldn’t retrieve them. Harryhausen later wrote that those plaster bones were still somewhere down there in the sea.
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So my five-year-old self was asking the same question as the people making the movie. Their solution was to throw the problem into the ocean!
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Do you remember these skeletons? What movie terrified you when you were little?
Johnny Carson The Fashion Diva
I always remember Johnny Carson as one of the best-dressed men on television. His suits, ties, and easy confidence were as much a part of The Tonight Show as the monologue. But this ad reminds me that Johnny’s fashion image went well beyond what he wore behind the desk.
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The Johnny Carson Wardrobe offered some unmistakably ’70s looks: a belted jumpsuit, a safari-style sport jacket, bold patterned shirts, and a neck scarf to pull it all together. Those wide collars and earthy colors certainly take me back! Johnny could make even an outfit like this look relaxed and sophisticated.
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The ad promoted coordinated pieces that men could mix and match, emphasizing easy-to-wear Fortrel polyester double-knits. A shirt was advertised at $27.50 and straight-leg slacks at $37.50. It was selling more than clothing—it offered everyday men a little of the polish associated with television’s king of late night.
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Looking at this, I can understand why Johnny was such a fashion icon. He made dressing well seem approachable, even when the fashions got adventurous. Would you have worn the jumpsuit, or would you have stuck with Johnny’s classic suit and tie?
Halloween at Woolworth’s: Plastic Masks and Five-and-Dime Memories
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
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?