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

Pepsi’s “You’ve Got a Lot to Live Campaign

Do you remember this Pepsi jingle? Because this one was designed to do a lot more than sell you a bottle of soda.

This 1970 commercial, called “Portrait of America,” was part of Pepsi’s “You’ve Got a Lot to Live, and Pepsi’s Got a Lot to Give” campaign. Watching it again, what strikes me is how little time they spend actually selling Pepsi. Instead we see racing, boats, city streets, beaches, children, couples and ordinary Americans simply living their lives.

And then there’s that song.

The music was written by Joseph Brooks, who years later wrote “You Light Up My Life.” Pepsi described the sound as “gospel rock” or “jubilation rock,” with a big communal chorus meant to sound hopeful and uplifting. It reportedly grew out of a protest song Brooks had written before being reshaped into the Pepsi theme.

That makes a lot more sense when you remember what America felt like around 1970. BBDO realized that the carefree “beautiful young people doing beautiful things” advertising of the earlier Pepsi Generation no longer completely reflected a country watching war and social unrest every night on television. Their new goal was to be real and involving, even searching the country for real people doing real things.

Maybe that’s why this jingle stuck. It didn’t tell us Pepsi tasted better. It told us we had a lot to live for.

Do you remember hearing this one on television?

Lunch At Woolworth’s….What Are You Having?

Remember when a trip to Woolworth’s could include lunch at the counter and still leave change in your pocket? This F.W. Woolworth menu appears to date to 1960 — the tiny print at the bottom reads “REV. 4-60,” suggesting it was revised in April of that year.

The prices are a time capsule all by themselves. A bacon and tomato triple-decker sandwich was 45¢, a baked ham and cheese was 50¢, a milk shake was 25¢, a slice of apple pie was 15¢, and the “Super Jumbo Banana Split” was just 39¢. Even a king-size Coca-Cola was only a dime.

For a lot of people, the Woolworth lunch counter was every bit as memorable as the store itself — sandwiches, fountain drinks, sundaes and pie served right in the middle of a five-and-dime shopping trip.

It’s also worth remembering that 1960 was a major year in Woolworth history. That February, the Greensboro sit-ins began at a segregated Woolworth lunch counter in North Carolina, becoming an important moment in the civil rights movement.

Did you ever eat at a Woolworth lunch counter — and what did you usually order?

Ford Once Used “Fix It Yourself” to Sell Cars

Could you imagine a car manufacturer running this commercial today?

This is a 1969 commercial introducing the 1970 Ford Maverick, with a group of American Airlines stewardesses practically taking the car apart and putting it back together.

There was actually a reason for it.

Ford marketed the Maverick as “The Simple Machine.” It was supposed to be simple to buy, simple to drive, simple to maintain and — most interesting to me — simple to repair yourself.

And Ford wasn’t kidding.

Period advertising proudly pointed out that the Maverick owner’s manual contained 24 pages explaining maintenance jobs owners could perform themselves, including changing spark plugs and adjusting ignition timing. Ford even advertised that the fenders and grille could be replaced in a matter of minutes.

Think about how different that sales pitch sounds today.

Modern cars are safer, cleaner and far more sophisticated, but they’re also filled with computers, sensors, electronic modules and software. Some repairs now require proprietary diagnostic equipment, programming or electronic authorization. The Federal Trade Commission has even examined manufacturer restrictions involving parts, repair information, diagnostic software and components electronically paired to individual vehicles.

So while you can certainly still work on your own car, there are a lot more barriers between the owner and the machine.

Ford was selling almost the opposite idea in 1969:

Buy our car because you CAN work on it yourself.

The strategy apparently worked. The Maverick started at $1,995, Ford reportedly received more than 22,000 orders in its first three days, and nearly 579,000 were produced during that first model year.

A car company encouraging you to grab a wrench and fix your brand-new car yourself.

Do you miss when cars were simple enough that you could actually work on them in the driveway?

SHOW THE GRANDKIDS HOW IT WAS DONE!

Before stretchy fabric book covers and plastic sleeves, we had the brown paper grocery bag!

Every September, out came the scissors, tape, and a stack of supermarket bags. You cut the bag open, folded the top and bottom to fit the textbook, tucked the covers into the ends, and somehow ended up with a perfectly serviceable book cover.

And the best part? That plain brown paper became your personal bulletin board — your name, doodles, band names, phone numbers, crushes, class schedules and whatever else you could squeeze onto it.

It protected the school’s textbook, cost absolutely nothing, and gave us something to do during a boring class.

Who remembers covering all their schoolbooks this way? And did yours stay neat — or was it covered in writing by the end of the first week?

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?