1970's Archives - Page 7 of 23 - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

The Great Grape Ape

Somehow, this cartoon completely escaped my memory, so I’m counting on your memories for this one!

The Great Grape Ape Show debuted in 1975 and followed a friendly, 40-foot-tall purple gorilla who traveled with his small canine friend, Beegle Beagle. Beegle drove their tiny yellow van while Grape Ape rode on top, usually causing confusion wherever they went.

Grape Ape was known for repeating “Grape Ape, Grape Ape!” and calling his friend “Beegly Beagly.” The cartoon originally aired as part of The New Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape Show on Saturday mornings.

Did you watch The Great Grape Ape, and what do you remember most about it?

ABC’s Wide World of Sports

For generations, Saturday afternoons meant watching Jim McKay “span the globe” on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. Beginning in 1961, the program introduced viewers to famous championships, unusual competitions and athletes they might never have seen otherwise. What was supposed to be a one-summer program became a television institution whose traditional anthology format continued until 1997.

Its most famous scene was not a victory. It was Yugoslav ski jumper Vinko Bogataj losing control and crashing through the side of the ramp during a 1970 competition. ABC repeatedly used the frightening tumble beneath the words “the agony of defeat,” making Bogataj one of the most recognized athletes on American television, even though most viewers never knew his name.

Do you remember watching that skier crash every Saturday, and did you ever know his name was Vinko Bogataj?

Josie and the Pussycats

“Long tails and ears for hats!” Josie and the Pussycats brought music, mysteries and wild adventures to CBS Saturday mornings beginning in 1970. Josie, Valerie and Melody traveled around the world performing songs, but they always seemed to run into spies, villains and trouble along the way.

Patrice Holloway, who provided Valerie’s singing voice, sang lead on the unforgettable theme song. The recording group also included Cathy Dougher as Josie and Cherie Moor, later known as Cheryl Ladd, as Melody.

Only 16 original episodes were produced, but the group returned in 1972 for Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space. Thanks to years of reruns, the catchy theme song and those unforgettable leopard-print outfits, the Pussycats remained favorites long after their original run ended.

Did you watch for the music and mysteries, or were you waiting to see what Alexandra and Sebastian would do next?

Marcus Welby

Long before television doctors relied on dramatic emergencies and high-tech machines, Dr. Marcus Welby was the calm, caring family physician who knew his patients personally and still made house calls. Robert Young played Welby alongside James Brolin as the younger Dr. Steven Kiley, giving viewers two generations of medicine working side by side.

The show’s instrumental theme was composed by Leonard Rosenman and is generally known simply as the Marcus Welby, M.D. theme. Welby was also remembered for making his rounds in a series of light-blue Chrysler sedans, including the beautiful 1969 Chrysler 300 used during the first season.

What memories does this show bring?

These Cards Are Marked!

I don’t know why, but this M&M’s commercial was a big hit in my family.

The whole joke was simple: a card game, a suspicious player, and the line, “These cards are marked!” Of course, they were not marked from cheating. They were marked with chocolate fingerprints, which led right back to M&M’s famous selling point: “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.”

For some reason, that one line stuck with us. To this day, anytime someone in the family is playing cards, there is a good chance somebody will say, “These cards are marked!” That is the funny thing about old commercials. Some of them were only 30 seconds long, but they became part of the way families talked to each other for years.

Slip ’N Slide Memories

I’ll never forget when we got our first Slip ’N Slide back in the 1970s. I had to be the first one to go down it. Ours did not have the fancy landing pad like this 1980s version. I slid down, kept right on going onto the lawn, and mud sprayed all over me, including my face! We all laughed! My brother still brings it up to this day!

The original Slip ’N Slide came along in 1961 and gave kids a cheap way to turn the front lawn into a water ride. Hook up the hose, get a running start, and hope you made it all the way down that slick yellow strip without sliding into the grass.

By the 1980s, Wham-O was still trying to keep the idea fresh with versions like Slip ’N Splash. It was the same basic summer fun, but with more emphasis on the splash at the end and the kind of over-the-top commercial that made every kid think they needed one.

Of course, most of us learned pretty quickly that the TV version always looked smoother than the backyard version. But on a hot day, with the hose running and everyone waiting for a turn, it still felt like the next best thing to having a pool.

O.J. Simpson and the Hertz Airport Dash

In the 1970s, O.J. Simpson became one of the most recognizable pitchmen on television thanks to his Hertz commercials. The ads showed him sprinting through airports in a suit, briefcase in hand, while people cheered, “Go, O.J., Go!” It was a perfect use of his football image: fast, famous, smiling, and always on the move.

At the time, the campaign was a huge hit and helped turn Simpson from a football star into a mainstream TV celebrity. It is strange to watch now because the cheerful airport-running image became one of the most famous commercials of its era, long before all the later headlines changed how people looked at him.

For a lot of us, this is the mail truck we remember.

Before the boxy Grumman LLV became the familiar neighborhood mail truck, the Jeep DJ-5 was the little right-hand-drive postal Jeep that seemed to be everywhere. It was simple, tough, and built for curbside delivery, with the driver sitting on the mailbox side and a tray inside for sorting letters.

These Jeeps were a common sight through the 1970s and 1980s, and in some places lasted into the 1990s before finally being replaced. It may not have been fancy, but when you saw one coming down the street, you knew the mail was here.

Tokin’ With Lawrence Welk

Only on The Lawrence Welk Show could “One Toke Over the Line” somehow become a “modern spiritual.”

In 1971, Gail Farrell and Dick Dale performed the Brewer & Shipley song on the show, giving it the clean-cut Welk treatment. The funny part came afterward, when Lawrence Welk referred to it as a modern spiritual, apparently not realizing the “toke” in the title was not exactly Sunday-morning church material.

It does not seem like someone deliberately pulled one over on Welk. It was probably more of a perfect generational misunderstanding: a hit song with the word “Jesus” in the chorus made it onto one of TV’s cleanest shows, and everyone smiled through it like it belonged there.

That is what makes the clip so unforgettable. It is a perfect little time capsule of early 1970s television, where a song with counterculture roots could be polished up, dressed up, and served with champagne bubbles.

Everything’s Archie

There was a time when the back of a cereal box could be almost as exciting as what was inside.

This Everything’s Archie Post Cereal commercial is a perfect example. In the late 1960s, kids could find Archie-themed prizes on specially marked Post cereal boxes, including cardboard records you could actually cut out and play. They were not exactly hi-fi, but to a kid, getting music from the back of a cereal box felt like magic.

The timing was perfect. The Archies were everywhere, with the cartoon band becoming a Saturday morning favorite and “Sugar, Sugar” turning into one of the biggest songs of 1969. So Post put Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Reggie, Sugar Bear, cereal, cartoons, and music all into one kid-friendly promotion.

Who else remembers cereal boxes that gave you something to do after breakfast?