Uncategorized Archives - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

Major Matt Mason: When the Moon Was Every Kid’s Next Adventure

This may be one of the most optimistic toy commercials of the 1960s.

“He lives on the Moon, we may all be there soon…”

This 60-second Major Matt Mason commercial dates to around 1967, and think about that line for a moment. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin wouldn’t actually walk on the Moon until July 20, 1969.

But Mattel was already letting kids live there.

Major Matt Mason was “Mattel’s Man in Space,” complete with a Moon base, jet pack, lunar vehicles and fellow astronaut Sgt. Storm. This commercial even introduces the giant Captain Lazer, supposedly powered by energy from the stars.

What surprised me is how much of the original toy wasn’t simply made-up science fiction.

Mattel studied real aerospace concepts, and Major Matt’s strange Moon Suit was actually based on a 200-pound experimental lunar suit designed in the early 1960s. The real thing appeared on the cover of LIFE magazine in 1962.

Even one of the men behind the toy had genuine aerospace credentials. Mattel designer Jack Ryan had previously worked at Raytheon on missile systems, and he and Ralph Dunn patented Major Matt Mason’s unusual wire-supported bendable body.

Of course, Mattel eventually let its imagination run wild. Captain Lazer arrived from Mars, other aliens followed, and a Major Matt Mason book even featured giant genetically engineered Moon rabbits.

That closing “This world is swell, it’s made by Mattel” has an interesting connection: Mattel’s famous “Mattel — it’s swell!” slogan was created by Tony Asher, who also co-wrote several songs on the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.

For a kid watching television in 1967, though, none of this probably seemed that far-fetched.

We were going to the Moon — why wouldn’t we be living there next?

Did you have Major Matt Mason, or was this one of those toys you desperately wanted for Christmas?

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?

Dolly Parton, Breeze and the Free Towel in the Detergent Box

This old Breeze detergent commercial with Dolly Parton sent me down a rabbit hole, because I remembered detergent boxes with glasses and dishes inside too. I assumed somewhere along the way they switched to towels.

Turns out, that’s not quite what happened.

The glasses and famous Golden Wheat dishes were associated with Duz, a Procter & Gamble detergent. Breeze was made by rival Lever Brothers, and its specialty was towels. Breeze was putting genuine Cannon towels and washcloths in detergent boxes by at least 1956. So what many of us may remember as one promotion changing over the years was actually several detergent companies competing to see who could put the most tempting “free” premium in the box.

And apparently those giveaways really worked. In 1966, Lever Brothers told a Canadian government committee that it had distributed around 170 million towels in detergent packages over 15 years. When the company tried selling detergent at a lower price without the towel, sales dropped so badly they abandoned the idea.

Then along came Dolly Parton. She joined The Porter Wagoner Show in 1967, and Breeze became one of the products Dolly and Porter promoted during those years. Dolly later remembered that they had to do their own commercials on the show, pulling those enormous towels right out of the Breeze boxes. She even said she still had some of the towels years later.

So Mom wasn’t necessarily choosing detergent just because it got the clothes clean. Sometimes she was working on a new set of glasses, dishes or towels too!

What did your family collect from detergent boxes — glasses, Golden Wheat dishes, towels, or something else?

Gumby!

I think Gumby is one of those characters where several different generations can honestly say, “I grew up watching him.”

He actually goes all the way back to 1955, first appearing on Howdy Doody before getting his own NBC show. But what surprised me was how many little pieces of Art Clokey’s own life ended up in that simple green character. Gumby’s head was patterned after his father’s hairstyle in an old photograph, his big feet helped keep him standing during stop-motion filming, and Clokey chose green partly because he saw it as a color that didn’t represent any particular race.

Even the name has a story. Clokey’s father used the word “gumbo” for the clay-filled mud around Michigan farms, which eventually led to Gumbo, Gumba and little Gumby.

And Gumby almost came about accidentally. Clokey had made an experimental clay film called Gumbasia in 1953 after first working with clay professionally on a Budweiser commercial where he animated bites disappearing from a Swiss cheese sandwich. A producer saw Gumbasia and encouraged him to make clay characters for children’s television.

Then came another generation. College kids rediscovered Gumby, and in the early ’80s Eddie Murphy turned him into one of his memorable Saturday Night Live characters. That parody actually helped put the real Gumby back into the public eye.

So depending on your age, you might remember Gumby from the ’50s, the ’60s, reruns in the ’70s or his big ’80s comeback.

What era of Gumby do you remember watching?

Tareyton Smokers Would Rather Fight Than Switch!

Who remembers those Tareyton smokers with the black eyes? “Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch” became one of those advertising lines you didn’t have to smoke to recognize

The campaign began in 1963 and was created at BBDO by advertising legend James Jordan, who later gave us other memorable lines including Wisk’s “Ring Around the Collar.” The idea was simple: Tareyton smokers were so loyal to their brand that they would supposedly take a punch before switching cigarettes. The black eye made the joke instantly recognizable, although I think we can all agree the imagery hits a little differently today.

It worked. Company records show Tareyton sales jumping from 16.1 billion cigarettes in 1964 to 18.5 billion in 1965, while its market share increased from 3.2 to 3.6 percent. By 1967, Tareyton still controlled more than half of the charcoal-filter segment.

The slogan became bigger than the product. MAD magazine spoofed it, politicians borrowed it, and a young Martha Stewart even appeared in Tareyton advertising before any of us knew her for decorating or cooking.

Television cigarette advertising ended in January 1971, so Tareyton’s black-eyed “unswitchables” continued primarily in print. Internal tobacco-industry histories show the main campaign being discontinued in 1976, although versions of the famous slogan lingered afterward.

Do you remember the Tareyton commercials — and did you ever hear someone use “I’d rather fight than switch” without even thinking about where it came from?

Shopping For Phones

Who remembers when we were finally able to go shopping for our own telephone?

For years, the telephone was basically part of your phone service. Ma Bell supplied it, you paid for it every month, and there usually wasn’t much reason to think of the phone itself as something you would go shopping for

That began changing in the 1970s with Bell PhoneCenters and all those new colors and styles. The transition was actually a little strange — with some early Design Line phones, you bought the decorative outer housing while Bell still owned and maintained the working parts inside. Eventually, complete customer-owned phones became the norm

And I’m sure many of us made sure that second or third phone had all the new bells and whistles — almost literally! Touch-Tone buttons, last-number redial, programmable memory dialing, speakerphone, mute, hold and answering machines became things to look for. Then there were telephone-company features like Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, Three-Way Calling and Speed Calling. Caller ID came later and suddenly knowing who was calling before answering seemed absolutely amazing

What surprised me is how successful the shopping concept was. Bell reported in 1974 that 73 percent of PhoneCenter customers selected an extension phone, compared with 58 percent of customers using the old sales method. The stores let you actually see and touch dozens of phones instead of having somebody describe them over the telephone

And look at the variety in this commercial — colorful phones, fancy phones, character phones and phones designed to match the furniture. Bell even sold Mickey Mouse, Snoopy, Winnie-the-Pooh and that unforgettable doughnut-shaped Sculptura phone

Then almost overnight it seemed every department store had phones, and eventually nearly every phone came loaded with features we once thought were something special

What was the first telephone you remember actually buying instead of renting from the phone company?

The Second Hundred Years

I remember really enjoying The Second Hundred Years as a kid, although I must have caught it during the summer reruns. When it originally aired Wednesday nights at 8:30, it went directly against The Beverly Hillbillies, and that was one show our family never missed.

This was also a great time for those wonderfully strange fantasy sitcoms. We had I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, My Mother the Car, It’s About Time and The Flying Nun, so a comedy about a man being frozen for 67 years probably didn’t seem nearly as crazy then as it does today.

Monte Markham played Luke Carpenter, a 33-year-old gold prospector who disappeared in Alaska in 1900 and was thawed out in 1967. Technically, he was now 101 years old, but he still looked 33.

Arthur O’Connell played Luke’s 67-year-old son Edwin, while Markham also played Edwin’s 33-year-old son Ken. That meant grandfather and grandson looked almost identical, while Luke’s own son looked decades older than he did.

The series actually got off to an impressive start. Its premiere reportedly beat The Beverly Hillbillies in the ratings, but the audience dropped quickly and only 26 episodes were produced during the 1967-68 season.

The cast went on to some familiar places. Monte Markham later played Perry Mason, appeared on Baywatch and turned up on The Golden Girls as Blanche’s brother Clayton. Bridget Hanley soon became Candy Pruitt on Here Come the Brides, while Frank Maxwell later appeared for years on General Hospital.

It lasted only one season, but this is one of those forgotten shows that somehow stayed in my memory.

Does anyone else remember The Second Hundred Years, or did you discover this one later in reruns?

F Troop

There’s no special birthday or anniversary behind today’s Ken Berry clips. They just happened to come up, and after seeing him in Mayberry R.F.D., it seemed only right to go back to the role that first made him a television star, Captain Wilton Parmenter on F Troop

Parmenter was a well-meaning but accident-prone officer who became a Civil War hero completely by mistake after his sneezes were misunderstood as orders to charge. From there, he was placed in command of Fort Courage, where Sergeant O’Rourke and Corporal Agarn ran their own questionable business deals while trying to keep the captain out of trouble

Ken Berry’s background as a singer and dancer helped make his falls, reactions and physical comedy look effortless. Before F Troop, he served in the Army with Leonard Nimoy and later became part of Desilu’s talent-development program after attracting the attention of Lucille Ball.

Melody Patterson was only 15 when she auditioned for Wrangler Jane after claiming she was 18, although she had turned 16 by the time filming began. Jane could ride and shoot better than most of Fort Courage’s soldiers, but Captain Parmenter somehow remained completely unaware that she was in love with him.

And then there was that unforgettable opening theme. William Lava composed the music and Irving Taylor wrote the lyrics, creating a song that quickly explained how Parmenter accidentally became a hero and ended up commanding F Troop. It was almost a miniature episode before the show even began.

F Troop lasted only two seasons, from 1965 through 1967, but Ken Berry, Forrest Tucker, Larry Storch, Frank de Kova and Melody Patterson created the kind of cast chemistry that kept the show popular through decades of reruns

Thumbelina

How many of you remember Thumbelina, or perhaps one of the many different versions that followed her?

This commercial appears to come from the early 1970s, when Ideal was turning Thumbelina into much more than one familiar baby doll. There were smaller versions, newborn versions, walking dolls, kissing dolls and even In-a-Minute Thumbelina, who sat in her high chair and impatiently rattled her cup against the tray

What made the original Thumbelina so different was the movement. A wind-up mechanism inside her body made her head and limbs slowly squirm, giving children the feeling that they were holding a restless baby rather than an ordinary doll. The Strong National Museum of Play considers her an important early step in the development of animated baby dolls.

Ideal kept adding new actions, outfits and accessories as the years went on. By the time of this commercial, Thumbelina had become an entire doll family, with each version offering children another little piece of pretend motherhood

Every Girl Can Be Popular… According to Marcia Brady!

At the height of The Brady Bunch, Maureen McCormick was not just playing one of television’s most popular teenagers. She was also offering advice on how other girls could become popular too.

This early 1970s advertisement promoted Every Girl Can Be Popular!, a mail-order booklet credited to McCormick. It promised 60 tips on meeting boys, dating, grooming, clothing and gaining confidence in relationships.

Of course, the advice reflects its time. Much of the booklet focused on dressing properly, attracting boys and avoiding mistakes that might “turn boys off.” The advertisement even promised that Maureen’s self-improvement plan could surprise everyone, including the reader herself.

Teen magazines frequently used young television stars to sell beauty tips, dating advice, posters and fan merchandise. With Marcia Brady considered the ideal American teenager, Maureen was the perfect celebrity to convince readers that popularity could be learned.

Would you have ordered this booklet, or did you already think Marcia Brady was a little too perfect?