Nostalgia Archives - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

Scarecrow- When Disney Scared Me!

I’ll never forget this episode. It was right after Jason and the Argonauts in the theatre—and now TV wasn’t even safe for me!

Most people thought of Disney as talking animals, happy songs, and safe Sunday-night entertainment. Then this guy showed up.

The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh was actually Dr. Christopher Syn—a respected vicar by day and a masked smuggler by night.

That frightening mask was made from an ordinary dishcloth, with thicker artificial straws added because real straw didn’t photograph properly. But it was the laugh that got me.

The show aired as a three-part story on three consecutive Sunday nights: February 9, 16, and 23, 1964.

After Jason and the Argonauts, I thought television was supposed to be safe. Then Disney sent the Scarecrow riding out of the darkness.

Do you remember The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh?

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She Was a Witch Before Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!

Before she became the oldest Brady daughter, Maureen McCormick was causing trouble for Darrin Stephens! In Bewitched’s 1965 Halloween episode “Trick or Treat,” she played Endora disguised as a little girl. That innocent face? Don’t fall for it.
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And she was already selling us toys! Maureen appeared in Barbie and Chatty Cathy commercials before The Brady Bunch. One Chatty Cathy ad even featured her future TV sister, Eve Plumb. Marcia and Jan—before they were Marcia and Jan!
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It’s funny watching these old commercials now and recognizing faces we’d soon know so well. We thought we were watching the dolls!
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Did you recognize Maureen on Bewitched? And do you remember those Barbie and Chatty Cathy commercials?

Pepsi’s “You’ve Got a Lot to Live Campaign

Do you remember this Pepsi jingle? Because this one was designed to do a lot more than sell you a bottle of soda.

This 1970 commercial, called “Portrait of America,” was part of Pepsi’s “You’ve Got a Lot to Live, and Pepsi’s Got a Lot to Give” campaign. Watching it again, what strikes me is how little time they spend actually selling Pepsi. Instead we see racing, boats, city streets, beaches, children, couples and ordinary Americans simply living their lives.

And then there’s that song.

The music was written by Joseph Brooks, who years later wrote “You Light Up My Life.” Pepsi described the sound as “gospel rock” or “jubilation rock,” with a big communal chorus meant to sound hopeful and uplifting. It reportedly grew out of a protest song Brooks had written before being reshaped into the Pepsi theme.

That makes a lot more sense when you remember what America felt like around 1970. BBDO realized that the carefree “beautiful young people doing beautiful things” advertising of the earlier Pepsi Generation no longer completely reflected a country watching war and social unrest every night on television. Their new goal was to be real and involving, even searching the country for real people doing real things.

Maybe that’s why this jingle stuck. It didn’t tell us Pepsi tasted better. It told us we had a lot to live for.

Do you remember hearing this one on television?

Remember the Fruit of the Loom Lady?

A lot of us remember Fruit of the Loom commercials because they were just plain fun, but this one has an extra connection many people may not realize. The woman in the commercial is Loretta Tupper, a veteran actress who became one of television’s most recognizable commercial performers. Kids remembered her as the Fruit of the Loom lady, while older viewers may have spotted her in all kinds of other ads during the 1970s and ’80s.

What made these commercials so memorable was the simple but clever idea of bringing the Fruit of the Loom characters right into an everyday home setting. It gave the brand a playful personality and helped make those fruit costumes instantly unforgettable. Looking back now, it’s another reminder of how much charm older commercials had, when a funny concept and one memorable performer could make an ad stick in your mind for years.

Do you remember seeing these Fruit of the Loom commercials when they first aired, and did you recognize Loretta Tupper?

Whoop-dee-doo for my Subaru Midas Ad

I recognized Midas right away, but the lady driving the Subaru is another familiar part of this commercial. That’s Loretta Tupper, one of those faces we saw over and over again in commercials during the 1970s and ’80s. I’m going to save more about her for another commercial later, because she had quite an interesting career.

Midas itself started back in 1956 and, for its first few years, was basically all about mufflers and exhaust systems. One of its biggest selling points was the famous guarantee that covered the muffler for as long as you owned the car. The company gradually expanded, adding shocks in 1960 and brakes in 1979 before eventually becoming the full-service auto repair chain we know today.

It’s also a reminder of how common muffler shops once were. Replacing an exhaust system was simply a much more routine part of owning a car than it is today.

Do you remember going to Midas for a muffler, and did you recognize Loretta Tupper when she appeared?

O.J. Simpson and the Hertz Airport Dash

In the 1970s, O.J. Simpson became one of the most recognizable pitchmen on television thanks to his Hertz commercials. The ads showed him sprinting through airports in a suit, briefcase in hand, while people cheered, “Go, O.J., Go!” It was a perfect use of his football image: fast, famous, smiling, and always on the move.

At the time, the campaign was a huge hit and helped turn Simpson from a football star into a mainstream TV celebrity. It is strange to watch now because the cheerful airport-running image became one of the most famous commercials of its era, long before all the later headlines changed how people looked at him.

Tokin’ With Lawrence Welk

Only on The Lawrence Welk Show could “One Toke Over the Line” somehow become a “modern spiritual.”

In 1971, Gail Farrell and Dick Dale performed the Brewer & Shipley song on the show, giving it the clean-cut Welk treatment. The funny part came afterward, when Lawrence Welk referred to it as a modern spiritual, apparently not realizing the “toke” in the title was not exactly Sunday-morning church material.

It does not seem like someone deliberately pulled one over on Welk. It was probably more of a perfect generational misunderstanding: a hit song with the word “Jesus” in the chorus made it onto one of TV’s cleanest shows, and everyone smiled through it like it belonged there.

That is what makes the clip so unforgettable. It is a perfect little time capsule of early 1970s television, where a song with counterculture roots could be polished up, dressed up, and served with champagne bubbles.

Everything’s Archie

There was a time when the back of a cereal box could be almost as exciting as what was inside.

This Everything’s Archie Post Cereal commercial is a perfect example. In the late 1960s, kids could find Archie-themed prizes on specially marked Post cereal boxes, including cardboard records you could actually cut out and play. They were not exactly hi-fi, but to a kid, getting music from the back of a cereal box felt like magic.

The timing was perfect. The Archies were everywhere, with the cartoon band becoming a Saturday morning favorite and “Sugar, Sugar” turning into one of the biggest songs of 1969. So Post put Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Reggie, Sugar Bear, cereal, cartoons, and music all into one kid-friendly promotion.

Who else remembers cereal boxes that gave you something to do after breakfast?

Rocky and Bullwinkle

Rocky and Bullwinkle was one of those cartoons that worked on two levels. Kids saw a flying squirrel, a goofy moose, spies, fairy tales, and silly adventures. Adults heard the puns, political jokes, Cold War humor, and smart little digs that went right over a lot of kids’ heads.

The show began in 1959 as Rocky and His Friends on ABC, then moved to NBC in 1961 as The Bullwinkle Show. Rocky was Rocket J. Squirrel, the brave flying squirrel, and Bullwinkle J. Moose was his well-meaning but not always brilliant best friend from Frostbite Falls, Minnesota. The show originally ran until 1964, with reruns continuing for years, including ABC Sunday mornings into the early 1970s.

What made it different was the variety-show style. You did not just get Rocky and Bullwinkle fighting Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. You also got Fractured Fairy Tales, Peabody’s Improbable History with Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Aesop and Son, Dudley Do-Right, Bullwinkle’s Corner, and all those cliffhanger endings with ridiculous titles.

The animation was not fancy, even for its time, but the writing was the real star. Jay Ward and Bill Scott leaned into wordplay, satire, narrator jokes, and absurd situations. That is why Rocky and Bullwinkle still feels different from a lot of old cartoons. It was funny for kids, but it was also sneaky smart for the adults in the room. UCLA’s Hammer Museum called the series a “rare gem” and credited its wit to the Jay Ward team, including Bill Scott, June Foray, and the show’s writers and animators.

Mr. Bubble Gets You So Clean, Your Mother Won’t Know You

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.