vintage commercials Archives - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

MARX ELECTRO SHOT — WHEN YOUR LIVING ROOM BECAME A SHOOTING GALLERY!

We actually had one of these in our family! I can’t remember whether it belonged to me or one of my brothers, but there’s one thing I definitely remember. This thing was NOISY!

Before video games took over our living rooms, we had toys like Marx’s Electro Shot Shooting Gallery, complete with an electrically powered rifle, moving targets and rapid-fire action.

According to the commercial, you could flip a switch and turn the rifle into a submachine gun that automatically reloaded!

Pretty impressive stuff for a 1960s toy.
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And I can tell you firsthand, with that motor running and the metal pellets rattling around inside the gallery, this wasn’t exactly a quiet afternoon activity!
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The company behind it has quite a history, too.

Louis Marx started his toy business in 1919 and eventually became known as the Toy King. By the 1950s, Marx had become the world’s largest toy manufacturer, making everything from toy soldiers and trains to elaborate playsets.

The company later gave us the famous Big Wheel in 1969 and another shooting gallery called Magic Shot in 1973.

Quaker Oats bought Marx in 1972, but after several ownership changes, the original company went out of business in 1980.
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Looking back, it’s amazing how much action manufacturers packed into these toys before home video games became popular.

I don’t remember which of us boys owned it, but I’m pretty sure Mom remembered the noise!

Did your family have an Electro Shot Shooting Gallery, or another noisy toy that drove your parents crazy?

#MarxToys #ElectroShot #ShootingGallery #VintageToys #1960sToys #ToyCommercials #VintageCommercials #RetroCommercials #ClassicToys #ToyHistory #1960sNostalgia #ChildhoodMemories #TheRetroSite

THE 64-COUNT CRAYOLA BOX — OUR CHILDHOOD’S ULTIMATE UPGRADE!

That meme about kids today wanting the latest electronics is so true. Back when I was a kid, all I wanted was that big box of 64 Crayola crayons!

It took a lot of begging, but I do remember finally getting one. Mom knew I’d be quiet with those crayons!
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And remember that built-in sharpener on the back? That alone made the big box something special.
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I did some digging and discovered Crayola introduced the 64-count box in 1958. Before that, the company’s original box back in 1903 had only eight colors.
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I even found a 1962 newspaper advertisement selling the big 64-count box for 57 cents on sale, regularly $1. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $6.35 on sale or $11.15 at regular price in 2026 dollars.
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And here is something I never knew. In 1990, Crayola retired eight of its old colors, including Maize, Raw Umber and Lemon Yellow.
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People were actually upset enough to protest! There was even a Raw Umber and Maize Preservation Society trying to save those childhood favorites.
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In 2025, Crayola brought back eight retired colors for a limited time. Apparently, some of us never outgrew our attachment to those little sticks of wax.
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Of course, eventually some crayons broke, the paper wrappers disappeared and the sharpener filled up with colorful wax shavings.
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But opening that big box and seeing all 64 colors lined up was something special.
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Forget the latest electronics. Give me a coloring book and that big box of Crayolas!
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Did you have the 64-count box, or were you stuck with the little box of eight?
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#Crayola #CrayolaCrayons #64Crayons #VintageCrayola #1960s #1960sNostalgia #ChildhoodMemories #VintageToys #RetroCommercials #VintageCommercials #ColoringBooks #BabyBoomerMemories #RetroToys #TheRetroSite

WATCH JOE NAMATH GET CREAMED!

Only in the 1970s could a shaving cream commercial turn something as ordinary as shaving into entertainment!

And who better to star in it than Broadway Joe Namath?

By this time, Joe had already guaranteed a victory over the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III and then delivered. He was one of the biggest personalities in football, and his fame extended well beyond the playing field.

Then Noxzema came along and made getting creamed part of the act!
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What really makes this commercial memorable is that catchy jingle. The music has a funky, almost theatrical sound, with a singer enthusiastically encouraging us to let Noxzema cream our faces so our razors wouldn’t.

I did some digging and found that an advertising-music retrospective identifies an uncredited studio singer behind the famous Namath jingle, although I couldn’t establish the singer’s name for this particular recording.
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And the advertising worked well enough that Noxzema continued running Joe Namath commercials for more than three years.

According to the advertising agency’s historical account, they received surprisingly few complaints about the suggestive humor.

Another interesting thing is how many commercials Joe made over the years. In 1974, he even appeared in an advertisement for Beautymist pantyhose, wearing a pair himself!

That’s how big Broadway Joe had become. He could sell shaving cream, pantyhose and just about anything else advertisers put in front of him.

And more than 50 years later, we’re still watching him get creamed.

Do you remember these Noxzema commercials?

#JoeNamath #BroadwayJoe #Noxzema #NewYorkJets #SuperBowlIII #1970sCommercials #VintageCommercials #RetroCommercials #AdvertisingJingles #ClassicAdvertising #1970sNostalgia #VintageTelevision #TheRetroSite

FREDDY KRUEGER HAD A 900 NUMBER — AND THE PHONE BILL WAS THE REAL NIGHTMARE!

Remember when you could call your favorite celebrities on a 900 number? Well, back in the late 1980s, you could even call Freddy Krueger!

That’s right. Dial 1-900-909-FRED and Freddy would entertain you with his horrifying bedtime stories.

Of course, it wasn’t free. The first minute cost $2, and every additional minute was another 45 cents.

Imagine explaining THAT phone bill to your parents!
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I did some digging and discovered there were actually several Freddy hotlines. Some offered scary stories, others had trivia challenges, and one promotion even offered a chance to appear in a future Nightmare on Elm Street movie.
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And Freddy was everywhere back then. The original 1984 movie cost about $1.8 million and made more than $25 million at the American box office. By 1988, Freddy even had his own television series, Freddy’s Nightmares, which ran for 44 episodes.
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The man behind the glove, Robert Englund, had an interesting career before Freddy. He played Willie, the friendly alien on V. Talk about going from one extreme to another!
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And that creepy music from the original movie? It was written by Charles Bernstein, who helped make Freddy’s world almost as frightening to listen to as it was to watch.
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Today we can watch all sorts of horror videos on our phones for practically nothing. Back then, you paid by the minute just to have Freddy tell you a bedtime story.
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Did you ever call Freddy’s hotline — or any of those old celebrity 900 numbers?
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#FreddyKrueger #NightmareOnElmStreet #RobertEnglund #FreddysNightmares #900Numbers #1980s #1980sNostalgia #VintageCommercials #HorrorMovies #HalloweenNostalgia #RetroTV #ClassicHorror #TheRetroSite

Only Vincent Price Could Make a VHS Tape Sound Terrifying

Only in the 1980s could Vincent Price sit in a creepy castle and convince us to buy blank VHS tapes by telling us he wanted to clean our heads.
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This 1985 commercial was for Polaroid videocassettes, and the funny thing is they weren’t advertising a separate VCR head cleaner.
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Polaroid actually claimed its regular videotapes helped keep your VCR heads clean while you played them.
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Remember when dirty VCR heads were actually something we worried about?
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Using Vincent Price was perfect casting. Just a couple of years earlier, millions of younger viewers had heard that unmistakable voice at the end of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Price recorded that famous narration in only two takes.
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And 1985 was also the year he became Vincent Van Ghoul on The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
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What I always find interesting about Vincent Price is how much more there was to him than horror movies. He studied art history, became a serious art collector and helped build the collection that eventually became the Vincent Price Art Museum.
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He even spent years helping Sears select original artwork that ordinary customers could buy in their stores.
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Price was also a gourmet cook and co-wrote A Treasury of Great Recipes with his wife Mary.
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But put him in an old castle, light a few candles and let that voice loose, and suddenly even a blank VHS tape became creepy.
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And apparently it cleaned your head, too.
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Do you remember Polaroid selling VHS tapes?
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#VincentPrice #Polaroid #VHS #VHSTapes #VCR #1980s #1985 #VintageCommercials #RetroCommercials #ClassicHorror #Thriller #MichaelJackson #1980sNostalgia #HomeVideo #TheRetroSite

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?

Halloween at Woolworth’s: Plastic Masks and Five-and-Dime Memories

Now this is Halloween shopping, 1970s style! Woolworth and Woolco had the costumes, the candy, and even a record to supply the spooky sounds. Complete costumes for $1.83 to $3.99—and somehow those plastic masks could make the Bionic Woman look scarier than the monsters!
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I always get a kick out of those old costumes with the character’s picture printed right on the front. You weren’t simply dressed as Superman—you were wearing an advertisement explaining that you were Superman. There was actually a reason for that: Ben Cooper considered the costume front a wearable billboard, designed to make the character instantly recognizable.
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Those inexpensive costumes took more work than you might think. According to Ira Cooper, whose family ran the company, developing one normally took about nine months. Artists, sculptors, engineers, and fabric workers all had a hand in turning a familiar television or comic-book face into Halloween merchandise.
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And that Sounds to Make You Shiver record wasn’t something created just for the commercial. Pickwick was already promoting it in 1973. Before we could pull up spooky sounds on a phone, we could put a haunted house on the turntable!
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Woolworth’s American stores disappeared in 1997, but commercials like this bring back an entire way of shopping. What was your favorite Halloween costume growing up—and did it come in a box with a plastic mask?
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#Woolworth #Woolco #VintageHalloween #HalloweenNostalgia #BenCooper #1970s #TheRetroSite

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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Would You Believe…Don Adams Could Sell Almost Anything?

I was too young to drink beer when I first remember these commercials, and Don Adams wasn’t going to convince my dad to give up his Rheingold or Falstaff! But those Skittle Bowl-type commercials? We did buy those games and enjoyed them in our home.
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That’s what I remember most about Don Adams as a pitchman. The commercials felt like little comedy sketches, with that unmistakable voice and the same confidence that usually got Maxwell Smart into trouble.
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This Schlitz Malt Liquor commercial is dated 1980. Don plays a captured secret agent, and his captor is Leon Askin—General Burkhalter from Hogan’s Heroes. Naturally, the rescue involves the Schlitz bull and a familiar “Would you believe…” punch line.
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But Don’s advertising career went well beyond beer. Aurora used him to promote a whole family of Skittle games, including pool, tennis, baseball, and bingo. Sometimes he was a spy; sometimes the commercials played like little gangster movies. He even appeared on Skittle Pool boxes.
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Here’s something I didn’t know: Don also directed commercials. His Skittle Pool spot reportedly earned him a Clio for commercial direction in 1971. He was helping create the laughs as well as delivering them.
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He also appeared in Hertz commercials with Penny Marshall before Laverne & Shirley made her a household name, and later advertised Ideal’s Electronic Detective with Joey Forman. Advertisers certainly knew how to put that secret-agent reputation to work!
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Don didn’t change Dad’s beer order, but those game commercials got results at our house. Did you have Skittle Bowl or any of the other Skittle games?
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#DonAdams #GetSmart #SkittleBowl #VintageCommercials #TheRetroSite

“Yer Yella!” Guldens Commercial

Another viewer request! “Yer yella!” Only an old mustard commercial could turn lunch into a Wild West confrontation. Gulden’s took that familiar cowboy insult and made it about what was going on your sandwich. Apparently, choosing mustard was serious business in this saloon!

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I love how quickly these commercials could establish a scene and deliver a joke. A couple of cowboy hats, a suspicious look, and a jar of spicy brown mustard were enough. Nobody needed a lengthy explanation—or a celebrity telling us what to eat.

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The history behind the jar goes back much further than this commercial. Charles Gulden learned the mustard business from his uncle and built his company in New York City. At one point, Gulden’s even included a spoon with every jar. By 1883, the company offered 30 varieties of mustard!

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And here’s the funny part: despite making yellow mustard the punchline, Gulden’s introduced its own prepared yellow mustard in 1949. There was room for both colors in the family after all.

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Do you remember this commercial—and are you a spicy brown mustard person or a yellow mustard person?