retro television Archives - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

Saturday Morning Cartoons in 1965

It’s Saturday morning in 1965. You’ve got a bowl of your favorite cereal in front of you, the cartoons are on, and you have absolutely nowhere else you need to be.

So what are you watching?

The Beatles had become so huge that by 1965 they had their own Saturday morning cartoon. The funny part? John, Paul, George and Ringo didn’t provide their speaking voices — although when the music started, you heard the real Beatles recordings.

Then there was Atom Ant — “Up and at ’em, Atom Ant!” — a tiny Hanna-Barbera superhero with enough strength to take on just about anything.

Secret Squirrel gave us Agent 000, essentially a kid-friendly James Bond complete with trench coat, gadgets and Morocco Mole by his side.

And Milton the Monster may have had my favorite premise of the bunch. Professor Weirdo tried to create the perfect frightening monster, but accidentally added too much “tincture of tenderness.” The result was Milton — a monster who looked scary but was really a big softie.

Saturday mornings were different then. You watched what was on when it was on, and if you missed it, you waited until it came around again.

The Beatles, Atom Ant, Secret Squirrel or Milton the Monster — which one would you have been watching?

And what cereal was in your bowl?

Why Did Kids Have to Be Warned About Blasting Caps?

I remember seeing these warnings as a kid. They showed us what blasting caps looked like and told us never to touch one. Even then, I wondered: Why would I ever find one? Why weren’t the adults keeping them locked up?

We recently posted an old public service announcement with Willie Mays warning kids about blasting caps. Seeing it again brought that question right back. The warnings weren’t limited to Boy Scout posters, either. They appeared in films, public service announcements and other safety materials.

The danger was real. An explosives industry report said six boys were injured in five blasting cap incidents in 1989. Its conclusion was that the injuries apparently resulted from adults storing the caps improperly or illegally. A later report described children finding caps beside a road, near a park and even during a school trip to a lighthouse in Connecticut.

Of course kids needed to know: don’t touch one, and tell an adult. But that warning only came into play after someone had left a dangerous explosive where a child could find it.

We don’t see those old television spots much anymore, although the “Don’t Touch” warning still exists. I’m glad Willie Mays told kids to be careful. I just wish the adults handling the blasting caps had always been as careful.

Do you remember seeing these warnings growing up? Did you ever wonder why kids needed them in the first place?

“WHAT IS THIS, SOME SORT OF PEYTON PLACE?”

This was a little before my time, but I certainly remember my parents and other adults saying, “What is this, some sort of Peyton Place?”

For years I understood what they meant even if I didn’t really know why they were saying it.

Take a look at this 1964-65 opening to Peyton Place. A church steeple. Bells ringing. A peaceful little New England town. Then that wonderfully serious voice announces, “This is the continuing story of Peyton Place.”

Everything looks so respectable.

And that was the joke.

Behind those neat houses and small-town manners were affairs, family secrets, violence, alcoholism, mental breakdowns and murder. Peyton Place became so culturally famous that the name itself turned into shorthand for a seemingly respectable place where everybody had something going on behind closed doors. New Hampshire Magazine notes that “Peyton Place” had already become a synonym for scandal after Grace Metalious’ hugely successful 1956 novel.

The television version arrived on ABC on September 15, 1964, starring Dorothy Malone, Mia Farrow, Ryan O’Neal, Barbara Parkins and Ed Nelson. It was revolutionary television — a continuing prime-time story airing not once but twice each week. It became so popular that ABC eventually bumped it up to three nights a week.

And here’s something I never knew about this opening. The announcer is Dick Tufeld. One year later, television audiences would know that same voice as the Robot on Lost in Space — yes, the man behind “Danger, Will Robinson!”

Even the music has history. The theme was composed by Franz Waxman, who had also scored the 1957 Peyton Place movie.

The series lasted until June 2, 1969, producing an incredible 514 episodes.

But I think its greatest legacy may be that the show’s name escaped television entirely.

For a whole generation, you didn’t need to explain the gossip, secrets or drama.

You just called the place “Peyton Place.”

Do you remember your parents saying that — and did you know what they meant even if you’d never watched the show?

Who Remembers “The New People”?

I remember The New People, but oddly enough I remember the sound of the show more than I remember the stories. There was this strange little segue or transition sound they used between scenes that somehow stuck with me all these years. Hearing it again instantly brought the show back.

The New People premiered on ABC in September 1969 with a very late-’60s premise: a group of college students survives a plane crash on a deserted South Pacific island that had been prepared for an atomic test. The island came complete with buildings, supplies and even nuclear-test mannequins, giving the young survivors everything they needed to try building a new society from scratch.

There were some impressive names behind it. Aaron Spelling helped create the series, and Rod Serling wrote the original pilot. ABC also gave the show an unusual 45-minute time slot and paired it with The Music Scene in an effort to attract younger viewers.

The series only lasted 17 episodes, airing from September 1969 to January 1970, but it had some interesting future stars pass through. Richard Dreyfuss, Billy Dee Williams, Tyne Daly, Susan Howard and A Martinez all appeared during its short run.

The regular cast never produced a huge breakout star, although Tiffany Bolling went on to become a familiar face in cult films and television.

And then there’s that sound.

Does anybody else remember The New People — and do you remember that strange little transition sound too?

ABC “Meet Us in September” — 1969

I remember this song like it was yesterday, played dozens of times a day on ABC to promote the new season. I was hoping to find the writer or performer of the song, but no luck this time.

“Meet Us in September” was ABC’s big promotional campaign for the fall of 1969, and looking back at what ABC was introducing that season, they had plenty to promote. The Brady Bunch, Marcus Welby, M.D., Room 222, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, Love, American Style and ABC’s Movie of the Week were all part of that new season.

The graphics in this clip were created by Harry Marks, one of the pioneers of television motion graphics. That same year Marks worked with Douglas Trumbull, who had done groundbreaking visual-effects work on 2001: A Space Odyssey, to create the memorable opening for ABC’s Movie of the Week.

I really thought finding out who wrote and sang the catchy “Meet Us in September” jingle would be the easy part. Surprisingly, the surviving archival material credits Marks for the visuals but doesn’t identify a songwriter or the studio singers. Rather than guess and attach somebody’s name to it, we’ll have to leave that one a mystery for now.

ABC was still battling CBS and NBC for viewers, but this season brought some major successes. Marcus Welby finished #8 during its first season and, the following year, became the first ABC series ever to finish #1 in the ratings.

It’s funny how a little network promo like this can stick in your head for more than half a century. Does anyone else remember ABC playing “Meet Us in September” over and over as the new fall season approached?

Muriel Cigars — Edie Adams Made “Hey Big Spender” Her Own

Here’s one where the commercial spokeswoman may have become better remembered than the product.

Edie Adams spent an incredible 19 years selling Muriel cigars on television, and the Television Academy says Muriel’s sales increased more than tenfold during the years her commercials ran.

This spot uses “Hey, Big Spender” from the Broadway musical Sweet Charity, but with one perfect advertising change: instead of “spend a little time with me,” Edie sings “spend a little dime with me” because a Muriel Corona cost ten cents.

And apparently that little change caused quite a stir. I found that Universal filed suit in 1968 trying to stop the cigar company from using the Big Spender parody in its advertising.

Edie herself had quite a résumé. She was Juilliard-trained, won a Tony Award for Li’l Abner, appeared in movies including The Apartment and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, and was married to television comedy pioneer Ernie Kovacs.

Here’s the part I really didn’t know: she never smoked. Adams later said the Muriel cigars never even touched her lips, and she devised a special ring to hold one convincingly for the commercials.

She also did something television historians owe her a lot for. After Kovacs died, Edie fought to locate and preserve his old programs at a time when networks were routinely erasing or throwing television recordings away. More than 1,200 items from the Kovacs-Adams collection eventually went to the Library of Congress.

Not bad for someone many people simply remember as “the Muriel cigar lady.”

Do you remember Edie Adams herself, or is it “Hey, Big Spender” that immediately brings these commercials back?

Did You Walk A Mile For A Camel?

If you grew up watching television in the 1950s or ’60s, cigarette commercials weren’t unusual or something that jumped out at you — everybody saw them. Camel, Winston, Marlboro, Salem and the rest were mixed right in with the cereal, cars and laundry detergent.

And Camel was certainly no little brand. It was introduced by R.J. Reynolds in 1913, became the company’s first nationally marketed cigarette and within four years was America’s number-one seller.

The commercial I’m showing comes from Camel’s revival of one of advertising’s most famous lines: “I’d Walk a Mile for a Camel.” What surprised me is how old that slogan actually was. Smithsonian records show it appearing in Camel advertising back in the 1920s, and Reynolds brought the idea back again near the end of the 1960s.

There’s also a future TV connection. Geoffrey Scott, who later played Mark Jennings on Dynasty, became one of the faces of the “Walk a Mile” Camel campaign. Scott made nearly 100 commercials during his career and also wound up doing ads for Old Spice and even portraying a Marlboro Man.

Then everything changed. Federal law ended cigarette advertising on American radio and television after January 1, 1971.

Do you remember the Camel commercials themselves, or mostly just the line “I’d Walk a Mile for a Camel”?

Peabody and Sherman

Peabody and Sherman were one of those great little pieces of Rocky and Bullwinkle that managed to sneak some history in between all the jokes. Officially called Peabody’s Improbable History, the series followed the unbelievably intelligent Mr. Peabody and his adopted boy Sherman as they traveled through time using the WABAC Machine.

What surprised me is just how many of these they made — 91 separate adventures, most only about four-and-a-half minutes long. Bill Scott supplied Peabody’s voice, and he was also the voice of Bullwinkle and Dudley Do-Right. Sherman was voiced by Walter Tetley, who was already 44 years old when the series debuted in 1959, despite sounding completely believable as a young boy.

The supporting voices were just as impressive. Paul Frees, better known around the Bullwinkle universe as Boris Badenov, handled many of the historical characters, while June Foray turned up in numerous female roles.

And then there was that wonderful WABAC Machine. The name became so closely associated with traveling into the past that decades later the Internet Archive borrowed the idea for its own Wayback Machine.

The history was usually twisted, the situations were ridiculous, and Peabody somehow always managed to finish everything off with a terrible pun. That’s probably exactly why we remember them so well.

Liberace Feelin’ Groovy

This may be one of the strangest—and most wonderfully 1968—things I’ve come across in a while. That’s Liberace getting “groovy” with The Youngfolk on The Red Skelton Hour on March 5, 1968.

And The Youngfolk weren’t just a bunch of dancers thrown together for the show. They were an actual seven-member Los Angeles folk group who recorded for United Artists and had already made several appearances with Red Skelton.

The song, of course, was Paul Simon’s “The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy).” Simon & Garfunkel recorded it on August 16, 1966—which, amazingly, was 60 years ago this week. Their version wasn’t originally the big single, though. Harpers Bizarre turned it into a #13 hit in 1967 with an arrangement by Leon Russell.

What I love about this clip is watching television try to interpret the whole flower-power generation for a mainstream audience. Giant flowers, bright colors, “groovy” slang—and right in the middle of it all is Liberace, completely committing to the bit.

Even better, Paul Simon eventually admitted he really didn’t care for this song and once jokingly used it as his own punishment after making a mistake onstage!

Do you remember seeing variety shows trying to get “hip” like this back in the late ’60s?

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?