Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures – Do You Remember
online community focused on sharing and reminiscing about video, audio, and images that stir our memories of the past – old television, theme songs, commercials, print advertisements, the sights and sounds you remember
Actor Paul Sorvino, known for his roles in Goodfellas and Law and Order passed at the age of 83. His wife Dee Dee Sorvino said in a statement “Our hearts are broken, there will never be another Paul Sorvino, he was the love of my life, and one of the greatest performers to ever grace the screen and stage.”
Another star from Good Fellas, Ray Liotta passed away two months ago at the age of 67.
Not all memories are happy ones. I remember as a kid thinking to myself that if McDonald’s was mostly for kids, why did they have smoking in the restaurants? I hated when they were at a table we were at or near! The glass ones were really old school with the tin ones taking over in the 80’s. Smoking was banned in 1994.
I was in a restaurant with my wife celebrating our anniversary and there was a table with kids. All were well mannered but one kid was just so loud I said he reminded me of the cartoon character Vavoom which gave me the inspiration for this post.
Vavoom was an Inuit (Alaskan indigenous person) on the Felix the Cat cartoon who used his voice to get them out of situations, like blasting rocks away in this video.
I grew up watching Felix The Cat on the Saturday morning cartoons. Surprisingly Felix The Cat only ran from 1958 to 1960 for a total of 126 episodes. CBS revived in the 90’s from 1995 to 1997 under the name The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat for just 21 episodes.
Did you ever give someone the nickname Vavoom. Please tell!
Question: If an athlete gets athletes foot, what do astronauts get?
Answer: Missile Toe!
This was one of the many jokes feature on the Dixie Riddle Cups introduced in 1970. From a family of seven there wasn’t a lot of extra money for “luxuries” like disposable cups but it was one our family enjoyed. Growing up in the 70’s a come back line if you told a joke like this was “What? Did you read that on a Dixie Riddle Cup?
The Riddle Cups became popular, the cups were brightly colored and had a series of jokes that sadly repeated in the box of cups, usually containing one hundred cups. Dixie then introduced a full line of Riddle Plates and Riddle Bowls. Paper dishes were too much of a luxury for our family so I don’t recall these nor the Knock Knock Riddle Cups. By 1978 the novelty wore off and Dixie discontinued printing them.
In 1997 Dixie revitalized the cups with a contest for kids to submit their own jokes. If selected they would be printed on the cups with the child’s name, hometown and they would win a $1,000 savings bond. Dixie capitalized on this even more by having America’s favorite “Riddler,” actor Frank Gorshin who played the Riddler in the 1960’s TV show Batman.
Its easy to want to remember a person from the character they played on TV not realizing they actually grow up. This was the case back in 2010 when child actress Erica Rhodes, now known as Danielle Vega who played Kim on Barney and Friends. She tried to shake her little girl image when she appeared on American Idol. She wanted to show the world that “little girls do grow up”. She made it through the first round but was later cut.
She was born on February 4, 1986 and at the time of this writing (March 2021) is 35 years old. She is currently playing the role of Ceci on Hulu’s drama series East Los High.
March 30, 1999
Busch Gardens, Williamsburg, Virginia introduces to the public their new rollercoaster they named Apollo’s Chariot. What better way to promote it than to hire Fabio who has graced numerous romance novels and has been compared to Apollo. The press was invited, and the cameras rolled as Fabio donned in a red velvet cape was led to the rollercoaster with women dressed as goddesses, two on each side of him to the front car for the inaugural ride.
As the rollercoaster zoomed at 70mph down the first drop of the ride, a goose nesting nearby flew into the speeding ride hitting the front of the car and bouncing off and hitting Fabio in the face. In full view of the media, the cameras show the ride coming to an end with Fabio’s face all bloodied. No bones were broken but there was swelling. The goose however died from the impact. The press was then ushered from the event.
Busch Gardens released a statement saying: “Safety is our number one priority, and our ride engineers are examining ways to enhance the safety of an already safe ride.” Fabio went on Good Morning America and stated “”It was not a freak accident, and it’s going to happen again,” Fabio said. “A person — or even a child — can be killed.” It’s been over 20 years since the incident and not one person was ever struck by a bird. If you go on YouTube you sill see a couple of incidents but it is very rare. I’d love to know the odds of this happening.
On April 1, 1996, the Cincinnati Reds opened the Major League Baseball season by hosting the Montreal Expos. Seven pitches into the game, 51-year-old umpire John McSherry staggered away from home plate on unsteady legs and collapsed face-first to the ground. He likely died immediately of a massive heart attack, but he was officially pronounced dead an hour later. Another umpire, Tom Hallion, accompanied McSherry to a Cincinnati hospital. The remaining two umpires, after consulting with the Reds and Expos, decided to postpone the game. The decision did not sit well with outspoken Reds’ owner Marge Schott who was unhappy about having to issue rainchecks to the 50,000 spectators. (She later sent flowers to McSherry’s funeral, but reports claimed they were second-hand flowers she herself had received on Opening Day from a local TV station.) McSherry, who tipped the scales at over 300 pounds, was a stereotypical out-of-shape MLB umpire. Beginning in 1997, MLB insisted on tough new physical fitness standards for its arbiters.
Watch Jose Canseco of the Texas Rangers commit a classic baseball blunder against the Cleveland Indians.
This is sort of a history of cereals we enjoyed as kids. Cereal actually started as a granola style concoction in the 1800’s that needed to be soaked in liquid to soften it up. Water made it soggy but the milk did the trick!
So which was your favorite as a kid? How about now as an adult? My all-time favorite is probably Lucky Charms. I also like Count Chocula from time to time. Cheerios, Frosted Flakes, Wheaties have stood the test of time unlike fad cereals like Mr. T and CP3Os . But what about Crispy Critters? Wow, think about that!
In September 1993 still fresh off Johnny Carson’s retirement Fox Network wanted to get in the late-night talk show circuit. Dolly Parton was considered but her agent said no but recommended Chevy Chase who signs a $3 million contract. Chevy also secured the ownership right like Carson.
Fox was so confident in the show’s success they even went so far as to spend $1 million in renovating the old Aquarius Theater on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, then renaming it the Chevy Chase Theater.
Chase found it difficult to connect with his guests but was comfortable with his skits. The biggest issue was that he had trouble connecting with the audience which was apparent with many of the skits falling flat with them.
After five weeks or 29 shows, Fox pulled the plug. They promised sponsors 5-6 million viewers nightly but the average was fewer than 3 million. In the last week, it dropped below 2 million viewers.
Within 2 days of the show’s cancellation workers dismantled and painted over the Chevy Chase Theater sign. It is currently known as the Nickelodeon on Sunset and at the time of the writing, Google says it is permanently closed.
In an interview with A&E Biography interview “an entirely different concept than what was pushed on me. I would never do it again. What I wanted to have a whole different feel to it, much darker and more improv. But we never got there.”
