Before we needed a screen to keep us occupied, Mattel could sell us a little spinning top and let us supply the afternoon!
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This 1971 Mini Wizzzer commercial brings back a simpler challenge: get it spinning, try a trick, then see whether you could do it again. Stack two together and suddenly you were putting on a show.
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The original Wizzzer arrived in 1969. No batteries or winding string required. You revved it up by rolling its rubber tip against a flat surface, then tried to make it balance like the ones in the commercial.
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Mattel certainly found ways to keep the idea spinning. There were trick sets, a hockey game and even Spin-Buggy vehicles powered by a Wizzzer. Other versions looked like tiny cans of Campbell’s soup, Pepsi or Hawaiian Punch. Apparently, even the groceries wanted in on the fun!
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And the name didn’t disappear with our childhoods. Duncan, the yo-yo company, acquired Wizzzer rights in 1997, and new versions are still being sold today.
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Looking back, there was something satisfying about a toy that only asked you to get a little better at playing with it.
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Did you have a Mini Wizzzer, one of the bigger models, or a whole collection?
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Tag: 1969
The Three Stooges Go to Work for Dickies—1969
I vaguely remember this commercial starring the Three Stooges. At the time, I had no idea what Dickies workwear was, but as a kid, it sure had a funny name—fitting for the Three Stooges!
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This commercial premiered on ABC on May 31, 1969, with Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Curly Joe DeRita turning a construction site into the kind of workplace you’d probably want to keep your distance from. If you’re selling clothes that can take a beating, hiring these three makes pretty good sense!
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That’s Curly Joe, who joined the team in 1958. Many of us knew the earlier Stooges from television reruns, so seeing different faces in the third spot could get confusing. Those reruns gave the boys a whole new audience of kids after their long run making movie shorts.
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Dickies was already an established company by then, having started in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1922. The name that made me laugh actually came from founding partner E. E. “Colonel” Dickie. Their famous 874 work pants debuted in 1967, just two years before this commercial.
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There’s something a little bittersweet about watching it now. In January 1970, Larry suffered a stroke while filming Kook’s Tour, effectively bringing this version of the team’s performing career to an end.
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I might not have remembered what they were selling, but I remembered the Stooges—and that funny name. Do you remember this commercial, and who was your favorite Stooge?
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The Internet in 1969: They Got There… Sort Of
This 1969 look at the future is fascinating because, in a way, they really did predict where we were going. Shopping from home, checking accounts, paying bills, ordering things through a screen — all of that eventually became part of everyday life. The funny part is that they imagined it happening through a giant home computer setup that looked more like mission control than the phone in your pocket.
And you have to love the very 1969 version of household roles. The wife uses the futuristic computer to shop for clothes and groceries, while the husband comes in later to handle the bills and finances. It is such a perfect little time capsule of how the future was imagined through the lens of that era.
They were right about the destination, just not the road we took to get there. No big computer room in the house, no dedicated shopping console, and thankfully no need to dress up just to order something online. But watching this now, it is still impressive how close they came to predicting the basic idea of the online world we use every day.