Steve, Author at Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures - Do You Remember

ABC Promotes Combat!

An hour after posting the intro, I thought it would be fitting to share this old ABC commercial for Combat!.

TV promos back then were simple, but they knew how to sell a show. A few dramatic scenes, serious narration, and suddenly you knew Tuesday night meant war drama, danger, and another mission with Sgt. Saunders and Lt. Hanley.

Combat! aired on ABC from 1962 to 1967 and followed a frontline American infantry squad during World War II. The show starred Vic Morrow and Rick Jason, with stories that often went beyond the usual good guys versus bad guys setup. It showed soldiers tired, scared, angry, loyal, and still trying to hold on to their humanity in the middle of war.

This promo is also a time capsule of how television used to treat war dramas. It was entertainment, yes, but it carried a seriousness that made it feel different. The Greatest Generation was still very much present in American life when this aired, and many viewers did not need the show to explain what sacrifice meant.

Posting this on Memorial Day feels right. Not because a TV show can fully capture what they went through, but because it reminds us how much World War II shaped the families, fathers, uncles, neighbors, and veterans many of us grew up around.

Remembering Combat! On Memorial Day

Since this is Memorial Day, I thought the intro to Combat! was worth sharing.

This was another one of those shows a lot of our dads watched. To a kid, it looked like an action show: soldiers, rifles, tanks, explosions, and that serious opening that told you this was not going to be a cartoon-style adventure.

But Combat! was different from a lot of TV war shows. It followed an American infantry squad fighting through Europe during World War II, and it often focused less on glory and more on fear, loss, duty, and the bond between men trying to survive. The series aired on ABC from 1962 to 1967, starring Vic Morrow as Sgt. Saunders and Rick Jason as Lt. Hanley. It ran for five seasons and 152 episodes, making it one of television’s longest-running World War II dramas.

Looking back, I can understand why Dad watched it. Many in that generation either served, knew someone who served, or grew up in the shadow of World War II. For kids, we saw the uniforms and action. For them, there was probably a lot more behind it.

On Memorial Day, Combat! is a reminder that the Greatest Generation was not made up of movie heroes. They were young men asked to do impossible things, many of whom never came home.

You Get A Quick Tan With QT !

1963 was a little early for me to go out and get a quick tan. I just did it the old-fashioned way — by playing outside! But I sure remember the jingle.

Back then, nobody thought much about sunscreen warnings. You went outside, rode bikes, played ball, ran around the neighborhood, and by the end of summer you had the tan lines to prove it.

QT promised color without baking in the sun, which sounds funny now because self-tanners later became famous for streaks, blotches, and that dreaded orange look. But in that era, tanning was sold as healthy, glamorous, and fashionable.

Looking back, QT feels like a perfect little time capsule: a bottle promising summer color on demand, indoor or outdoor, rain or shine. Before spray tans, tanning beds, bronzers, and modern sunscreen warnings, there was Coppertone QT telling everyone they could hurry up and get tan.

The Rat Patrol

The Rat Patrol was another one of those shows Dad loved to watch, and to a kid, it sure looked promising. Jeeps tearing across the desert, guns mounted in the back, bombs going off, aircraft overhead — it had all the ingredients that should have grabbed a young viewer right away.

But at that age, the dialogue went right over my head. I was there for the action, not the strategy. The show followed a small Allied commando unit during World War II, racing through the North African desert and taking on German forces in fast-moving missions. It was part war show, part adventure series, and part Saturday afternoon action movie squeezed into a half-hour.

The Rat Patrol aired from 1966 to 1968 and starred Christopher George as Sgt. Sam Troy. One of the more interesting cast members was Hans Gudegast, who played German Capt. Dietrich. Soap fans would later know him much better as Eric Braeden from The Young and the Restless.

The show was loosely inspired by real desert raiding units like the British SAS and the Long Range Desert Group, but Hollywood gave it a very American spin. That bothered some viewers overseas because the real North African desert raids were largely a British and Commonwealth story, while the TV version put American characters front and center. The BBC reportedly pulled the show after only a few episodes because of complaints about that Americanized version of the war.

Looking back, I can see why Dad liked it. It had action, military drama, and just enough grit to feel grown-up. For us kids, it was the jeeps and explosions that pulled us in, even if we didn’t always understand what they were talking about once the shooting stopped.

From Scary To Racist

Post Rice Krinkles is one of those cereals that makes you wonder what exactly was going on in the advertising room.

It started as Sugar Rice Krinkles, a sweet puffed rice cereal, and Post first sold it with circus-style ads and Krinkles the Clown. Back then, clowns were still considered fun, friendly, and perfect for kids. Looking at him now, though, he has that unsettling “why is this staring at me during breakfast?” energy.

Then around 1960, Post replaced the clown with So-Hi, a small Asian boy character used to sell a rice cereal. The name was a play on “so high,” because he was short, but the character leaned hard into Asian stereotypes that would never fly today. It was the kind of lazy advertising shortcut that was common at the time: rice cereal, so they reached for an Asian caricature.

And no, this did not evolve into Snap, Crackle, and Pop. That was Kellogg’s Rice Krispies, a different cereal from a different company. Post Rice Krinkles was more connected to Post’s later rice cereal ideas, especially the road that eventually led toward Pebbles.

So it basically went from creepy clown to racial stereotype, all in the name of making cereal memorable to kids. And that’s the part that sticks out today. These mascots were meant to be cute and catchy, but looking back, they show how different, and often tone-deaf, advertising could be.

Rice Krinkles eventually faded away by the end of the 1960s, but the mascots are still remembered because they’re so bizarre. One scared kids by accident. The other should have made adults know better.

Stop the Pigeon!

Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines was one of those cartoons built around one simple idea that somehow worked every time: stop the pigeon.

The show came from Hanna-Barbera in 1969 and brought back Dick Dastardly and Muttley from Wacky Races. This time, they were part of the Vulture Squadron, flying ridiculous contraptions and trying every week to catch Yankee Doodle Pigeon.

Of course, they never did.

The real star was Muttley. That wheezy little laugh was funnier than half the script, and his constant demand for medals made him even better. Dastardly would scheme, Muttley would snicker, the plane would fall apart, and the pigeon would fly away.

Looking back, most of us probably weren’t rooting for the pigeon. We were watching for Dastardly to lose his temper, Muttley to laugh, and that theme song to get stuck in our heads all over again.

Stop the pigeon, stop the pigeon!

Speed Racer: Our First Taste of Anime Before We Knew the Word

Speed Racer was one of those cartoons that felt different the second it came on. The theme song hit, the Mach 5 took off, and suddenly we were watching cliffs, crashes, secret buttons, masked racers, gangsters, and more danger than most Saturday morning cartoons dared to show.

The show began in Japan as Mach GoGoGo in 1967 before becoming Speed Racer for American audiences. Most of us didn’t know we were watching anime back then. We just knew it didn’t feel like Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo, or the usual superhero cartoons.

Compared to American cartoons of the time, Speed Racer was faster, stranger, and more dramatic. There were revenge plots, family secrets, real danger, and Racer X lurking around like something out of a spy movie. The animation could be limited, but the style made up for it with speed lines, dramatic close-ups, wild crashes, and that nonstop rapid-fire dialogue.

And of course, there was the Mach 5. What kid didn’t want a car with buttons that could jump, saw through trees, go underwater, and somehow survive every impossible race?

Looking back, Speed Racer was a lot of kids’ first introduction to anime, even if we didn’t have that word yet. It was loud, weird, exciting, and unforgettable.

When Aftershave Came With Self-Defense Instructions

Hai Karate was one of those aftershaves that sold the joke as much as the scent.

It launched in 1967 and the whole idea was that the stuff made a man so irresistible that women would practically attack him. That is why the package and commercials leaned into the gag that every man needed self-defense instructions after putting it on. The famous warning was: “Be careful how you use it.”

The commercials were pure 1960s and early 1970s male fantasy advertising. A regular guy splashes on Hai Karate, and suddenly a woman goes wild for him. He has to use goofy karate moves to fend her off. It was played for broad slapstick laughs, with the martial arts craze and the “irresistible aftershave” idea mashed together into one very memorable campaign.

The campaign came from the ad firm McCaffrey & McCall, and one of the people behind the marketing plan was George Newall, who later became famous as a co-creator and songwriter for Schoolhouse Rock!

Looking back, it feels like the granddaddy of those later body spray ads where one spritz supposedly turns you into a babe magnet. Back then, though, Hai Karate had the extra gimmick: not only would women chase you, but you might need to defend yourself afterward.

It was silly, sexist, over-the-top, and very much of its time. But that is exactly why people remember it. The bottle may have been aftershave, but the real product was the joke.

“Brylcreem, a little dab’ll do ya…”

That line was everywhere. The ads promised you didn’t need much, just a small dab, and suddenly you’d look sharp, smooth, and “debonair.” The jingle was credited to Hanley M. Norins of the Young & Rubicam advertising agency.

Of course, the best part was the promise that “the gals’ll all pursue ya” and love running their fingers through your hair. That was peak old-school advertising: use the product, look handsome, and suddenly romance is chasing you down the street.

By the 1960s, the Beatles and the dry, natural hair look started making heavily slicked hair seem old-fashioned, so Brylcreem had to adjust its pitch. But for anyone who grew up hearing that jingle, “a little dab’ll do ya” is still one of those lines that instantly brings back a whole era of bathroom mirrors, combs, crew cuts, and Dad’s medicine cabinet.

Pop-Tarts were introduced by Kellogg’s in 1964

Pop-Tarts were introduced by Kellogg’s in 1964.

They were first sold as a quick toaster pastry and originally came in four flavors: strawberry, blueberry, brown sugar cinnamon, and apple currant. The frosted versions came a few years later, after Kellogg’s figured out the icing could survive the toaster