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
Hey, it’s Saturday, and for a lot of us, that used to mean bath night!
Mr. Bubble made bath time feel less like a chore and more like something to look forward to. The famous line, “Mr. Bubble gets you so clean, your mother won’t know you,” worked because it sounded like it was made just for kids. It turned a regular bath into a funny little promise: you would come out so clean, you might look like a different kid.
It was also classic 1960s advertising. The line was simple, catchy, easy to repeat, and just exaggerated enough to stick in your head. Kids heard “bubbles and fun,” while mothers heard “clean child, no bathtub ring, and inexpensive.”
And for anyone who remembers Saturday night baths, there was nothing quite like a tub full of Mr. Bubble.
With four other brothers to keep busy, Mom and Dad scored big with all of us when they brought home the Carry-All Action Playsets by Marx. These kept us entertained, and probably more importantly, quiet for hours.
You had to be careful with the pivot joints and mounting points, but other than that, these playsets could take a lot of abuse. I had Fort Apache, and one of my younger brothers had the Fighting Knights set.
Surprisingly, my Marine sergeant dad did not get us the Army Men set, but it did not matter much. No matter which one you had, these Carry-All playsets brought hours and hours of fun.
Small Shots was one of those 1971 toy ideas that sounds strange now, but made sense once you see it. Mattel basically took the Hot Wheels idea and put little dolls on skates, wagons, carts, and other rolling stands that could run on Hot Wheels-style track.
The commercial is pure early ’70s toy advertising. Everything moves fast, the kids act amazed, and the announcer makes it sound like this was the next big thing. It was not just a doll, and it was not just a car. It was Mattel trying to mix both worlds together.
That was probably the real idea. Hot Wheels was huge with boys, while dolls were usually marketed to girls. Small Shots tried to pull both sides together — little fashion-style figures that could race, roll, and crash down a track. It was a clever idea, even if it also feels a little odd today.
Another interesting note: one of the early Small Shots commercials is listed among Jodie Foster’s early TV commercial work. She was still a child actor at the time, years before most people knew her name.
Small Shots did not last very long, but it is a great example of how toy companies in the 1970s were willing to try almost anything. Dolls on Hot Wheels track? Why not. In that era, if it rolled, launched, flipped, or crashed, somebody was going to put it in a commercial.
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.
Bugles were introduced by General Mills in 1964, first showing up in a handful of test markets before going national in 1966. The crunchy little horn-shaped corn snacks were part of a new wave of fun-shaped snack foods, but Bugles were the one that really lasted.
Of course, for a lot of us, the real fun was putting them on the tips of your fingers before eating them. Some snacks were made to taste good. Bugles were made to play with first.
I’m posting the trailer for Cocoon, and it is strange to say this about such a well-known 1980s movie, but today the trailer may be easier to find than the movie itself.
Released in 1985 and directed by Ron Howard, Cocoon was one of those movies that felt different. It was science fiction, but not the laser-blasting kind. It was warm, funny, and surprisingly emotional — a story about growing older, feeling young again, and wondering what you would do if life suddenly offered you more time.
The cast was loaded with familiar faces: Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Jack Gilford, Gwen Verdon, Maureen Stapleton, Brian Dennehy, and Steve Guttenberg. The story followed a group of seniors who discover that swimming in a certain pool gives them new energy, thanks to alien cocoons hidden beneath the water.
For a movie about aging, it had a magical feeling. It made older characters the center of the story, not the background, and that helped make it stand out.
What makes it even stranger now is how hard Cocoon has become to watch. It was released on DVD, but it is not currently streaming in the U.S. and is not sitting there waiting on the usual rental or purchase services like so many other ’80s movies. For most people, that old physical DVD is still the only practical way to see it legally.
Why? No one seems to have given a clear official answer. The likely reasons are the usual modern mess: old rights agreements, possible music clearance issues, studio ownership changes, and maybe simple corporate neglect. It was a 20th Century Fox movie, and after the Fox library ended up under Disney, this Oscar-winning hit somehow became one of those films that just fell through the cracks.
That makes Cocoon a perfect reminder of why physical media still matters. If you have the DVD, you can watch it. If you do not, you may be stuck waiting and wondering why a hit movie with this cast has almost disappeared from everyday viewing.
I was not even born when The Adventures of Superman first aired, but it still became one of my favorite TV shows.
The series starred George Reeves as Clark Kent and Superman, and for a generation of kids, he was the Man of Steel. The show originally ran in the 1950s, but because it was syndicated, it did not belong to one single night across the country. Local stations could run it whenever they wanted.
That is how I remember it — turning up before or after cartoons, rarely getting in the way of them, even on Sundays. Superman just seemed to be there, flying into the living room when you least expected it.
Looking back, the show was simple, but that was part of the charm. Clark Kent worked at the Daily Planet, Lois and Jimmy got into trouble, Perry White barked orders, and sooner or later Superman showed up to save the day. There were no giant special effects or complicated superhero universes. Just good guys, bad guys, and George Reeves making you believe a man could stand for truth and justice.
I also remember being devastated when my dad told me George Reeves had died by suicide. As a kid, that made no sense to me. How could the Man of Steel die?
That is the strange thing about childhood TV heroes. We know they are actors, but part of us still believes in them. And for many of us, George Reeves will always be Superman.
Do you remember watching The Adventures of Superman in reruns?
The newspaper shown here is the actual paper I brought home for my family and saved because it marked the Bicentennial of the United States.
Back then, bringing the newspaper home was part of the routine, and the comics were always one of the first places I looked. I remember reading Dondi on those walks home from the store. I enjoyed it, maybe not as much as some of the others, but it still stayed with me. It certainly caught me more than Dick Tracy, which I never really got into.
At the time, I was about the same age as Dondi, so I think that made him stand out. He looked like a kid I could understand — wide-eyed, innocent, and always seeming like he needed someone to look out for him. What I did not understand then was the deeper background of the strip.
Dondi was a long-running newspaper comic about a war orphan taken in by American soldiers. It was created by Gus Edson and Irwin Hasen and ran from 1955 to 1986. The story changed with the times, but the heart of it stayed the same: a young boy trying to find safety, kindness, and a place to belong.
I’ll be sharing more from this saved Bicentennial newspaper, including how the newspapers and the comics celebrated America’s 200th birthday. Looking back now, it is not just a newspaper anymore. It is a little piece of the country, the comics page, and my own childhood all folded together.
Do you remember saving a special newspaper or reading the comics before anyone else got to them?
The Road Runner was already a Saturday morning favorite before Plymouth got involved. Kids knew the bird, the desert, the endless chase, and that famous “Beep Beep!”
Then Plymouth did something that still feels almost unbelievable: they named a real muscle car after the cartoon.
The Plymouth Road Runner arrived for 1968, and it was not just a car with a cute name. Plymouth actually licensed the Warner Bros. character, put the bird on the car, and even gave it a horn that went “Beep Beep.” How many cars can say their personality came from a cartoon?
That was the genius of it. The Road Runner cartoon meant speed, fun, and always staying one step ahead. That fit perfectly with a stripped-down, affordable muscle car built for younger drivers who wanted performance without a lot of fancy extras.
So when Plymouth used the Road Runner in commercials, it was more than a gimmick. It connected Saturday morning cartoons to the muscle car era in a way that made instant sense. The bird was fast on TV, and now Plymouth was saying their car was fast on the street.
Looking back, it may be one of the best matches between pop culture and automobiles ever made. A cartoon character, a muscle car, and a horn that could make everybody smile.
This clip from 1966 comes from The Road Runner Show, when Warner Bros. gave Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner their own Saturday morning showcase. The formula could not have been simpler: a hungry coyote, a bird who was always one step ahead, a desert full of cliffs, tunnels, rockets, spring-loaded traps, and of course, plenty of bad ideas from Acme.
What made it work was that we knew exactly what was coming, and somehow it was still funny every time. Wile E. Coyote would carefully build the perfect plan, the Road Runner would zip by with a “beep beep,” and gravity would usually handle the rest. For kids watching in 1966, this was Saturday morning cartoon comfort food — fast, colorful, silly, and impossible not to watch.
And speaking of Road Runners, we’ll be staying in the fast lane for the next post — but this time, we’re trading the cartoon desert for one of the most memorable muscle cars to ever borrow a cartoon name.
