Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures - Do You Remember - Page 5 of 53 - 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

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

Mayberry R.F.D.

How many of you kept watching Mayberry after Andy Griffith left? Mayberry R.F.D. continued the familiar small-town setting, but shifted the focus to farmer and town councilman Sam Jones, played by Ken Berry, and his young son Mike

The series still included many familiar faces, including Aunt Bee, Goober, Howard and Emmett. Its first episode even featured the long-awaited wedding of Andy Taylor and Helen Crump, giving longtime viewers a proper goodbye before the new chapter began

What may surprise many of us is how successful the show remained. Mayberry R.F.D. ranked among television’s top ten during its first two seasons and was still number 15 when CBS canceled it as part of the network’s move away from rural programming

This short clip also reminds us of the days when sponsors like Sanka and Post were announced as part of the program itself. Did Mayberry still feel the same to you after Andy left, or was something important missing?

I Can’t Believe I Ate That Whole Thing!

“I can’t believe I ate that whole thing!” became one of those commercial lines everyone seemed to repeat, even if they had forgotten it came from Alka-Seltzer. Milt Moss played the painfully overstuffed Ralph, while Lynn Whinic delivered the perfectly dry response that made the 1972 spot so memorable.

The idea reportedly came after advertising writer Howie Cohen overate at a celebration dinner and complained about eating the whole thing. The commercial later entered the Clio Awards Hall of Fame and was even recreated decades later with Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts. Do you remember quoting this commercial around the house?

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

We’re Having Beefaroni !!

How many of you remember hearing “Hooray for Beefaroni” and suddenly wanting a bowl? This 1970s commercial turns a simple ride home for lunch into a little Italian adventure, with the young bicyclist speeding past markets, crowds and landmarks before finally reaching his Beefaroni

The commercial was part of a much larger campaign created by Young & Rubicam. Composer Roy Eaton wrote the memorable Beefaroni jingle, and it remained connected to the product for more than 30 years. An earlier commercial featured children charging through Venice while singing, creating an image that advertising writers later compared to the running of the bulls

The chef pictured on the can was not an invented mascot. Ettore Boiardi was a successful Italian-born chef who opened a Cleveland restaurant in 1924. Customers enjoyed his sauce so much that they began asking to take it home, eventually helping turn his restaurant recipes into a nationwide grocery brand. The spelling “Boy-Ar-Dee” was created simply to help Americans pronounce Boiardi correctly

Was Beefaroni a regular lunch in your house? Are you singing the jingle now?

7 UP the Uncola

How many of you can still hear Geoffrey Holder’s booming voice and unforgettable laugh before this commercial even gets going? This 1983 spot came during the later years of his long association with 7UP, when he reminded viewers that the Uncola was “crisp and clean” with no caffeine.

Holder was much more than a memorable commercial spokesman. He was a Trinidad-born dancer, painter, choreographer, actor and director who played Baron Samedi in the James Bond film Live and Let Die. He also won two Tony Awards in 1975 for directing and designing the costumes for The Wiz. That voice and laugh were entirely his own, and they gave these commercials a personality few soft-drink campaigns could match.

The name 7UP remains one of the interesting mysteries in advertising history. Creator Charles Leiper Grigg apparently never explained it. The most repeated theories involve seven ingredients, the original seven-ounce bottle or lithium’s approximate atomic mass, but none has been conclusively proven. Even the familiar story that its original name was “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda” has been challenged because researchers found little historical evidence that it was ever the product’s official name.

Did your family regularly buy 7UP, or was it something you mostly remember being served when someone had an upset stomach?

Butter or Parkay?

How many of you immediately heard that little tub say “butter” before Vic Tayback even finished arguing with it? This 1976 Parkay commercial is one of those advertisements where a single word can bring the entire routine back

Tayback appeared in the commercial during the same year Alice premiered on CBS, introducing television audiences to Mel Sharples and his famously short temper. What many of us probably never knew was that Michael Bell supplied the voice of the Parkay tub. He later became one of animation’s busiest performers, voicing characters in G.I. Joe, The Transformers, The Smurfs and Rugrats

What I love about this campaign is how simple it was. A person said “Parkay,” the package insisted it was “butter,” and eventually the person became convinced. The tub then switched sides and proudly announced “Parkay!” That little argument became so recognizable that other television programs began parodying it

Parkay kept bringing the talking package back for decades. In 2002, the company even placed computer chips under thousands of lids so selected tubs could actually say “butter.” Did anyone in your family ever repeat the commercial whenever Parkay appeared on the breakfast table?

This Ad Introduced Visa’s New Name

Yes, this commercial was introducing what looked like a new credit card, but it was actually announcing that BankAmericard was becoming Visa. The ad shows the new Visa card placed directly over the older BankAmericard and ends with the line, “We’re keeping up with you.”

Bank of America had introduced BankAmericard in 1958. By the 1970s, many banks inside and outside the United States were issuing versions of the card, sometimes under different regional names. The organization adopted Visa in 1976 because it was a simple international name that sounded similar in different languages.

This appears to be the 1977 “Becoming Visa” campaign. The scenes of travel, restaurants, boating and shopping were meant to show that the card was becoming more modern and useful wherever customers went.

Existing BankAmericard holders did not need to open a completely new account. New cards gradually carried the Visa name, while older BankAmericards remained valid during the transition, reportedly until October 1, 1979.

CBS Sunday Nights 1978

This short CBS promo was advertising a surprisingly historic Sunday night on March 19, 1978. All in the Family said goodbye to Mike and Gloria as regular characters, Alice welcomed country star Jerry Reed as himself, and The Carol Burnett Show featured Steve Lawrence and Bernadette Peters in a musical salute to Cole Porter

The three programs represented an incredible stretch of television history. All in the Family aired from 1971 to 1979, Alice from 1976 to 1985 and The Carol Burnett Show from 1967 to 1978. Carol’s series was nearing its emotional finale, while CBS was still using Archie Bunker and Alice Hyatt to build one of Sunday television’s strongest comedy blocks

Even the music carried impressive credentials. Broadway composers Charles Strouse and Lee Adams created “Those Were the Days,” Linda Lavin sang an Alice theme written by David Shire and the Bergmans, and Carol’s familiar closing song was written by her husband and producer, Joe Hamilton

CBS Sports Spectacular

Do you remember when CBS Sports Spectacular could fill an afternoon with sports we rarely saw anywhere else? This short promo is a perfect example, jumping from championship boxing and roaring NHRA dragsters to the brand-new World’s Strongest Man competition

Carlos Palomino was defending his welterweight title, Shirley Muldowney had just become the first woman to win an NHRA Top Fuel championship, and future Incredible Hulk star Lou Ferrigno was testing his strength against athletes from several different sports

What made CBS Sports Spectacular so much fun was never knowing what might come next. It could feature a major championship one week and something completely unusual the next. Long before we had cable sports channels running around the clock, programs like this introduced us to athletes, competitions and entire sports we might never have discovered otherwise

Did you watch CBS Sports Spectacular regularly, or did you usually tune in only when a favorite sport was featured?