1970's Archives - Page 2 of 23 - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

HOW DO YOU HANDLE A HUNGRY MAN?

I remember these Campbell’s Manhandlers commercials mostly because of that jingle. It had that big, rugged sound that immediately got your attention:

“How do you handle a hungry man? The Manhandlers!”

And now I know why it sounded so familiar — it was sung by Frankie Laine, the same voice behind Rawhide. Campbell’s deliberately wanted that tough, masculine sound for the campaign.

The idea behind Manhandlers was pretty simple. Campbell’s had several heavier soups with meat, vegetables and potatoes, and they wanted to convince people that soup could be filling enough for a man who had worked hard or, in this commercial, just finished playing soccer.

Instead of inventing a completely new product at first, they grouped some of those heartier soups together under the Manhandlers name and built an entire campaign around the idea of feeding hungry men.

Looking at it today, the advertising is very 1970s. Everything is aimed at being big, hearty and masculine. But the interesting part is that the campaign was successful enough that it helped point Campbell’s toward what would later become Chunky Soup.

And that jingle really did its job. Even after all these years, once you hear those first few words, it comes right back.

Do you remember the Manhandlers commercials — and which Campbell’s soup was always in your house?

Do you like this personality?

Why Did Kids Have to Be Warned About Blasting Caps?

I remember seeing these warnings as a kid. They showed us what blasting caps looked like and told us never to touch one. Even then, I wondered: Why would I ever find one? Why weren’t the adults keeping them locked up?

We recently posted an old public service announcement with Willie Mays warning kids about blasting caps. Seeing it again brought that question right back. The warnings weren’t limited to Boy Scout posters, either. They appeared in films, public service announcements and other safety materials.

The danger was real. An explosives industry report said six boys were injured in five blasting cap incidents in 1989. Its conclusion was that the injuries apparently resulted from adults storing the caps improperly or illegally. A later report described children finding caps beside a road, near a park and even during a school trip to a lighthouse in Connecticut.

Of course kids needed to know: don’t touch one, and tell an adult. But that warning only came into play after someone had left a dangerous explosive where a child could find it.

We don’t see those old television spots much anymore, although the “Don’t Touch” warning still exists. I’m glad Willie Mays told kids to be careful. I just wish the adults handling the blasting caps had always been as careful.

Do you remember seeing these warnings growing up? Did you ever wonder why kids needed them in the first place?

THE NIGHT MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL WAS BORN — SEPTEMBER 21, 1970

Can you imagine the NFL without Monday Night Football?

On September 21, 1970, America sat down for the first regular-season broadcast of ABC’s brand-new Monday Night Football — the New York Jets against the Cleveland Browns.

Now here’s something I didn’t realize: NFL teams had played occasional Monday games before this. CBS and NBC had even experimented with a few Monday-night telecasts during the 1960s. But this was different. This was the beginning of a weekly national television institution.

And ABC didn’t treat it like an ordinary Sunday football game moved to Monday.

Producer Roone Arledge wanted a show. He roughly doubled the usual number of cameras, emphasized instant replay and graphics, and put three personalities in the booth: Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell and former Cowboys quarterback Don Meredith. Frank Gifford, who many of us associate with that classic booth, wouldn’t replace Jackson until 1971.

Then there was the game itself.

A huge 85,703 people packed Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Cleveland jumped out to a 14-0 lead, Homer Jones returned the second-half kickoff 94 yards for a touchdown, and Joe Namath kept fighting back. The Jets actually outgained Cleveland 454 yards to 221.

But with New York trailing 24-21 late in the game, Cleveland’s Billy Andrews intercepted Namath and ran it back 25 yards for the touchdown that sealed a 31-21 Browns victory.

And listen to the music on those early broadcasts. The famous MNF music most of us recognize wasn’t there yet. The original theme was “Score,” written by Charles Fox, with that wonderfully funky Hammond-organ sound of 1970. “Heavy Action” didn’t arrive until years later.

What ABC created that night went far beyond football. Monday night became an event. You knew the voices, you knew the personalities, and if you were a kid, you probably tried negotiating just how much of the game you were allowed to stay awake for.

Were you watching Monday Night Football in those early years — and who do you remember most: Cosell, Meredith, Jackson or Gifford?

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.

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.

“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?