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
Before Donny & Marie became a TV variety-show staple, the Osmonds had their own Saturday morning cartoon. The Osmonds aired on ABC in 1972 and followed Alan, Wayne, Merrill, Jay, Donny, and Jimmy as they traveled the world, sang songs, and got into animated adventures.
It was very much a product of its time, when pop groups could become cartoons and Saturday mornings were packed with music, mystery, comedy, and cereal commercials. For Osmond fans, it was another way to see the brothers, even if it only lasted one season.
Some toy commercials age gracefully. Others come back years later and make you wonder how nobody in the room stopped and said, “Maybe we should rethink that name.”
Ball Buster was a real 1970s tabletop game from Mego, the same company many of us remember for action figures. The game itself was pretty simple. Players had plastic balls mounted on springy stems, and the object was to knock your opponent’s pieces out.
Of course, what people remember now is not really the strategy. It is the name. The commercial leaned right into it, making the whole thing sound far more questionable than a family game probably should have. Today, it plays more like a comedy sketch than a toy ad.
But that was also part of the 1970s. Toy companies were trying anything to stand out. Strange names, loud commercials, plastic pieces flying around, and announcers treating every game like it was the most exciting thing ever invented.
Ball Buster may not have become a household classic, but it definitely became one of those “wait, that was real?” games. And yes, it was real.
This old Dairy Queen ad has that familiar feel of a commercial trying to grab kids fast. Instead of just showing ice cream, they used animation to make it feel fun, quick, and a little more exciting.
That was probably the point of the cartoon. A regular person talking about Dairy Queen might have felt too ordinary, but a cartoon could bounce around, move fast, and make it seem like something fun was happening.
And of course, there had to be that twangy guitar. It seemed like every ad trying to appeal to the youngsters needed some version of the “new rock and roll sound.” It was not always real rock and roll, but advertisers knew a little guitar twang made things feel younger and cooler.
Simple ad, simple idea: a cartoon, a catchy sound, and the promise of ice cream. That was enough to get Dairy Queen stuck in your head.
ABC 40th Anniversary. How many faces or shows from the past do you recognize? 33 years later, do you think they maintained their reputation for quality and innovative television as they brag in this promotion?
Before TV westerns took over the 1950s, The Lone Ranger was already riding across the small screen.
The series premiered on ABC on Thursday, September 15, 1949, making it one of the early major television westerns. It ran until 1957, with 221 episodes over five seasons. Clayton Moore played the Lone Ranger for most of the series, with Jay Silverheels as Tonto. John Hart briefly took over the role of the Lone Ranger during part of the run.
The character had already been famous from radio, but television gave kids the mask, the white horse, the silver bullets, and that famous call: “Hi-Yo, Silver!” The setup was simple and memorable. A Texas Ranger survives an ambush, puts on a mask, and rides with Tonto to fight outlaws and help people in trouble.
Looking back, The Lone Ranger had everything a kid could want in a western: a hero with a secret identity, a loyal horse, a trusted partner, clear-cut villains, and a story where good usually won before the half hour was over. It wasn’t complicated, and that was part of the appeal.
For many viewers, Clayton Moore became the Lone Ranger. He carried the role so strongly that even decades later, people still pictured him when they heard the William Tell Overture or the words, “Who was that masked man?”
Did you watch The Lone Ranger when it first aired, or did you catch it later in reruns? And when you heard “Hi-Yo, Silver, away!” did you want a mask and a horse of your own?
Sugar Jets was a General Mills cereal from the 1950s and 1960s, right when everything “space age” seemed exciting to kids.
It actually started in 1953 as Sugar Smiles, a mix of sugar-coated Kix-style puffs and plain Wheaties flakes. Within about a year, General Mills dropped the flakes and renamed it Sugar Jets, giving it a much cooler, rocket-age identity.
The cereal fit perfectly with the times. Rockets, jets, astronauts, and outer space were everywhere in kids’ advertising, so a cereal called Sugar Jets sounded fast, modern, and fun before you even opened the box.
Its mascot was Major Jet, and later the cereal also had connections to cartoon advertising, including promotions with Rocky and Bullwinkle characters.
Betty Crocker didn’t become a cereal giant on her own. She was the trusted General Mills kitchen personality sometimes used to help sell foods, while General Mills handled the cereal aisle.
Looking back, Sugar Jets feels like pure mid-century breakfast marketing: lots of sugar, space-age excitement, cartoon tie-ins, and a name that made cereal sound like it could blast off from the kitchen table.
This Cracker Jack commercial brings back so many memories for me personally. I was about the same age as the boy in the ad, and I’m pretty sure I had the same kind of treasures crammed into my pockets. Marbles, string, maybe a toy car, a whistle, or whatever else seemed important that day.
One of the best parts is the way Jack Gilford accepts the marble as partial payment. He doesn’t just take it and move on. He looks at it like it actually has value, which is exactly how a kid would have seen it. That little moment made the commercial feel warm and believable.
And then there’s the ending, where they remind us there were two sizes: regular and the pass-around-pack. That was such a simple way to sell it. A kid could remember it, repeat it, and probably ask for the bigger one because it sounded like something meant to be shared.
Cracker Jack already had the prize inside, the molasses-coated popcorn and peanuts, and that sense that you were getting more than just a snack. This commercial captured that perfectly. It wasn’t just about buying Cracker Jack. It was about being a kid, having pockets full of “valuable” stuff, and knowing that even a marble could be worth something in the right hands.
“Candy-coated popcorn, peanuts and a prize. That’s what you get in Cracker Jacks!”
As The Rookies came on the air, I was entering my teen years, and this mature adult show fit right in for Monday nights on ABC.
The series aired from 1972 to 1976 and followed three young police officers learning the job the hard way. It wasn’t just car chases and arrests. The show gave viewers a look at pressure, responsibility, danger, mistakes, and the working world that many of us never really got to see up close.
For me, that was part of the appeal. I was old enough to understand that there was a bigger world out there, but young enough that shows like this helped explain it. The Rookies showed people doing a difficult job, dealing with real problems, and trying to figure things out as they went.
Looking back, I can see how shows like this helped shape my interest in what happens behind the scenes in police work, emergency calls, and the stories most people never see. In its own way, The Rookies helped lead me toward becoming a reporter.
Before Robert Stack showed up in Airplane! as Rex Kramer, he was dead serious as Eliot Ness in The Untouchables.
The show aired on ABC from 1959 to 1963 and gave TV viewers a gritty trip back to Prohibition-era Chicago. Stack played Ness as the calm, tough, incorruptible federal agent leading his team against gangsters, bootleggers, and mob bosses.
It had tommy guns, raids, speakeasies, gangland hits, and that hard-boiled narration from Walter Winchell that made every episode feel like a crime file being opened.
And here’s a fun connection: Leslie Nielsen, who later co-starred with Stack in Airplane!, also guest-starred on The Untouchables in the episode “Three Thousand Suspects.” So before they helped make deadpan comedy history, they were both part of this very serious crime-drama world.
Looking back, The Untouchables helped shape the TV crime drama: sharp suits, mob danger, straight-faced lawmen, and the kind of dramatic seriousness that made Airplane! even funnier years later.
