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
I’ll never forget when my mom pointed out during an episode of Hollywood Squares that Wally Cox was the voice of Underdog. Oh, the world was so complicated back then, so many thanks to our moms who had the patience and love to guide us through the important stuff, like cartoon trivia.
Underdog debuted in 1964 and gave us Shoeshine Boy, the mild-mannered little dog who became a rhyming superhero whenever trouble showed up. With Sweet Polly Purebred usually in danger and villains like Simon Bar Sinister causing trouble, Underdog would come flying in with that famous line that still sticks in our heads all these years later.
Oh, the magical opening for The Wonderful World of Disney and the wonderful world of color! This was the time when we got our first color TV, and we would sing this whenever a TV show was in color. Growing up, we didn’t have much money on Dad’s salary as a Marine, but we had one of the first color TVs on the market. What a hero he was bringing this big 21-inch console into our home! Between our toys and TV, we were all set.
We always looked forward to Sundays with The Wonderful World Of Disney to wrap up our weekend. Then came that sad little realization: the show was ending, bedtime was coming, and school was waiting for us the next morning.
The Disney anthology show first began on ABC in 1954 as Walt Disney’s Disneyland. It later became Walt Disney Presents, then moved to NBC in 1961 as Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, which was a perfect title for the era when color TV still felt like magic. By 1969, it became The Wonderful World of Disney, the name so many of us remember. Over the years it moved between ABC, NBC, and CBS, with different titles including The Disney Sunday Movie and The Magical World of Disney. The series has continued in different forms and special presentations for decades, making it one of the longest-running prime-time programs in American television history.
For a lot of us, it wasn’t just a TV show. It was part of the Sunday night routine, that last bit of weekend magic before Monday morning came knocking.
My Mother The Car is another show that kept parents explaining what is fake, even though we were seeing it with our own eyes! We had a talking horse with Mister Ed, a witch with Bewitched, a genie with I Dream of Jeannie, a Martian with My Favorite Martian, and then somehow NBC said, “What about your mother… but as a car?”
The show aired on NBC from 1965 to 1966 and only lasted one season with 30 episodes. It starred Jerry Van Dyke as Dave Crabtree, a man who buys an old 1928 Porter automobile and discovers that his late mother has been reincarnated as the car. She talks to him through the radio, because apparently in the 1960s even the afterlife had AM reception.
The voice of the mother was Ann Sothern, which gave the whole thing a little more class than the idea probably deserved. But that was 1960s television for you. If a show had a wild enough gimmick, somebody was willing to put it on the air and see if families would go along with it.
Of course, My Mother The Car became famous, but not exactly in the way anyone at NBC probably hoped. For years it was used as the punchline for bad TV, often showing up whenever people talked about the worst sitcoms ever made. But looking back now, there is something wonderfully ridiculous about it. It was silly, strange, and very 1965. You almost have to admire a show that went all-in on a talking mother-car and expected America to just ride along.
Did you ever watch My Mother The Car, or was this one of those shows you only heard people joke about later?
It amazes me how we hear a sound, song, or even a phrase like “It’s Shake and Bake and I Helped in an adorable southern accent. No real story comes to mind for me. How about you?
I remember wanting Mouse Trap so bad because it looked so cool in the commercial. What kid wouldn’t want their very own Rube Goldberg machine right there on the kitchen table?
Mouse Trap came out in 1963, and the whole attraction wasn’t just the board game itself. It was that crazy contraption you built while playing. The crank, the gears, the marble, the bathtub, the diving man, the cage, and all those little plastic pieces that had to line up just right. On TV, it looked like the greatest thing ever invented.
The neighbor kid had one, we played it, and I was excited to try it for real. It was fun, but I’ll be honest, it wasn’t quite as exciting as I had built it up to be in my head. Maybe it needed that wacky music from the commercial playing in the background! Without the TV magic, it was still a neat game, but the commercial may have sold it better than the actual game.
Still, you have to give Mouse Trap credit. Every kid who saw that commercial wanted to see that trap go off. Whether it worked perfectly or needed a little help, it was one of those games that made you say, “I want that!”
We had this canister set, but ours was brown, or whatever that official 1970s brown color was called. You know the one, somewhere between chocolate, coffee, and “everything in the kitchen must look like earth tones.”
Seeing something like this is funny because it is just a simple photo, but it brings back a flood of childhood memories. I remember our tea canister stacked on top of the coffee canister, and the other three were all the same size. For some reason, I thought that was pretty cool. Then again, back then, most things seemed pretty cool.
The 1970s kitchen definitely had its own look. Avocado green, harvest gold, burnt orange, and those deep browns seemed to be everywhere, from appliances to countertops to dishes and canister sets like these. Nothing matched today’s idea of “modern,” but somehow it all felt warm, familiar, and homey.
It is amazing how one little thing from the kitchen counter can take you right back. You can almost picture the percolator, the Tupperware, the patterned wallpaper, and someone telling you not to touch anything because company was coming over.
Did your family have a canister set like this, and what color was yours?
After posting about Lassie, many of you asked about Jeff’s Collie, which I was totally unfamiliar with, so please share your memories about this one! I don’t know if it wasn’t shown in our area or if somehow this got by me.
When Lassie first came to television in 1954, the boy was not Timmy. It was Jeff Miller, played by Tommy Rettig. Jeff lived on a farm with his widowed mother, Ellen Miller, played by Jan Clayton, and his grandfather, George “Gramps” Miller, played by George Cleveland. Those early years are often called Jeff’s Collie, especially in reruns and DVD releases.
That version ran from 1954 to 1957, covering the first several seasons of the show. The setup was still the same basic formula we all remember: a boy, a farm, a loyal collie, and some kind of trouble that Lassie had to fix before the episode ended. Jeff would get into scrapes, someone would need help, and Lassie would bark, run, and somehow explain the whole emergency better than most adults could.
The show changed after actor George Cleveland, who played Gramps, died in 1957. His death was written into the series, and the Miller family eventually left the farm. That opened the door for Timmy Martin, played by Jon Provost, to become Lassie’s new boy. From there, the show became the more famous Timmy and Lassie era.
So Jeff’s Collie is basically the “before Timmy” Lassie. Same famous dog, same wholesome adventure style, but with Tommy Rettig as Jeff instead of Jon Provost as Timmy. For people who watched the reruns, it could be confusing because one day Lassie belonged to Jeff, and another day she belonged to Timmy, and as kids we probably just accepted that Lassie had more family changes than most soap operas.
Summary: Before Timmy became Lassie’s best-known TV companion, there was Jeff Miller in the early years of the series, often remembered as Jeff’s Collie. It was the original boy-and-his-dog era of Lassie, and somehow this one got by me, so I’d love to hear who remembers watching it.
I’d hear that song from upstairs, and I’d sneak halfway down the stairs just to peek at Mom’s show. I remember asking why he was sitting there all alone in that big room, because I didn’t understand what a courtroom was or why everyone looked so serious. Mom still tried to explain it to me, even though I’m sure I was bugging her. All she wanted to do was relax and watch a little TV before her own bedtime.
As a kid, I could not understand why Mom watched such a boring show. There were no monsters, no cartoons, no spaceships, and nobody was falling down a well for Lassie to rescue. Just Raymond Burr sitting there as Perry Mason, calmly figuring out who really did it while everyone else in the courtroom waited for him to prove it.
The show originally ran on CBS from 1957 to 1966, with Raymond Burr as defense attorney Perry Mason, Barbara Hale as his secretary Della Street, William Hopper as private detective Paul Drake, and William Talman as district attorney Hamilton Burger. The famous theme was called “Park Avenue Beat” and was written by Fred Steiner. That opening music had a cool, jazzy, serious sound that basically told every kid in the house, “Fun time is over. The adults have taken over the TV.”
The funny part is, despite the show being around forever and becoming one of the most famous courtroom dramas in television history, I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and watched a single full episode. But I still remember that theme like it was yesterday. That was the sound of Mom’s TV time, the sound of being told to go back upstairs, and the sound of knowing bedtime was coming whether I liked it or not.
Just hearing the opening whistle brings back a flood of childhood memories of Lassie. As a kid, I vowed that one day I would get a collie and name her Lassie. Yeah, that never happened. I also didn’t get a dolphin and name it Flipper. But back then, Lassie made it seem like every problem could be solved with loyalty, courage, and a very smart dog who somehow always knew exactly where to go for help. By 1959, Lassie was deep into the Timmy Martin years, with Jon Provost playing Timmy, June Lockhart as his mother, Ruth Martin, and Hugh Reilly as his father, Paul Martin. June Lockhart would later become another famous TV mom as Maureen Robinson on Lost in Space, but to me, she would always be Lassie and Timmy’s mom. No matter how serious the problem was, everything seemed to get wrapped up neatly within the 22 minutes of the show. Someone could be lost, trapped, injured, or in danger, and somehow Lassie would bark, run, lead the adults to the right place, and make everything okay again. And yes, Timmy actually did fall down a well, even though the old joke makes it sound like it happened every week. It happened in the 1960 episode “The Well,” where Timmy ends up trapped and, of course, Lassie has to get help. That one moment became the running gag everyone remembers: “What’s that, Lassie? Timmy fell down the well?” Having a rough childhood, I always wished I had Timmy’s family. There was something comforting about that show, even if life was not really like anything we saw on TV. The Martins seemed steady, kind, and safe, and Lassie was always there watching over everyone. For a kid, that kind of world was easy to want. Well, at least I have my cat Chassie, and yes, calling her reminds me of Lassie.
Before LED light strips and remotes, we had to do it the old-school way in the 1970s. If you wanted to make your room look cool, you went with black lights, lava lamps, strobe lights, flicker lights, and if you were really lucky, a color organ. This old Spiegel catalog page is a great reminder of just how different mood lighting was back then.
For me, it was number 7, the Listen-Light, also known as a color organ. You plugged it in, played your music, and the lights changed with the sound. Back then, that felt futuristic. Today it seems simple compared to all the LED lighting options out there, but in the 70s this stuff was magic. Which lights did you own?
