For nine seasons, television viewers tuned in to follow the travels, trials and tribulation of the Ingalls family as they made a life for themselves in the American frontier on Little House on the Prairie. Loosely based upon the popular series of Little House books by author Laura Ingalls Wilder, the weekly prime-time adventures of the Ingalls family proved to be a huge hit for NBC.
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A good field trip could bring otherwise deadly boring classroom lessons to life, or at least provide students with an opportunity to play a little hooky. Often tied in with lesson plans, educational field trips brought us to museums, parks, nature conservatories, zoos, aquariums, the theater, even space centers and planetariums. What better ways to learn a subject than getting to see it first-hand, or at least as close up as a school budget would allow.
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No other “boy and his dog” film has ever unleashed a collective waterfall of tears like the classic 1957 Walt Disney production, Old Yeller. Based upon a novel of the same name (written by Fred Gipson), Old Yeller is a touching, coming-of-age story that rarely leaves a dry eye in the house. Let's take a look back at this memorable film.
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Finding one’s niche in the highly competitive market of breakfast cereals can be a daunting task. There are only a few specific grains used and only so many shapes they can be formed into. Sure, you can add some colored marshmallows to the mix, but beyond that, there is little that hasn’t already been tried. General Mills, however, slyly decided to take the focus off the cereal and put it on the milk, in a delightful concoction known as Crazy Cow cereal.
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There seems to be an unwritten rule that anyone who is a genius must also be eccentric. The same holds true for the duck with all the answers, Ludwig Von Drake. While he may never have possessed the same star power as his beloved nephew, Donald, he is certainly enough of a character to warrant his inclusion as a Retroland icon. Let’s take a look back.
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Ever since its debut in 1952, fans of American pop music could tune in weekly to American Bandstand and keep themselves current on all of the latest artists and trends. But it would be almost two decades later before fans of rhythm and blues were given their own weekly outlet. They would forever owe their thanks to a Chicago DJ named Don Cornelius, the creator of Soul Train, for letting their voices be heard. Soul Train showcased all of the up-and-coming artists of the genre, put a spotlight on all the current dance moves, and, very quickly, became an enduring hit.
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Children are not afraid of the dark. They are afraid of what is hiding in the dark, waiting to devour them whole once the last electric light has been shut off by a parent's treasonous hand. Possibly there is the faintest glimmer of a streetlamp's light slipping through the child's Strawberry Shortcake curtains, but the light is too diffused to overcome the inky darkness with all its hidden horrors.
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Friends to the end, Gumby and Pokey, the clay-made cohorts of green boy and orange pony have been entertaining kids ever since Art Clokey created the malleable characters back in the early 50s, utilizing a strange new technique called 3-D Claymation. Gumby first appeared in the 1953 short, Gumbasia, and within four years was a regular on the highly-popular Howdy Doody. Following his success, the Gumbster was given a short-lived series of his own called The Gumby Show, which lasted a mere six months and was hosted by Howdy Doody’s own Bobby Nicholson and later, Pinky Lee.
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Perhaps if they had paid a bit more attention in their prep school biology classes, one of the millions of students sporting their prized “alligator” shirts would have noticed at some point that the emblem adorning their apparel wasn’t an alligator. Maybe nobody ever really gave it a close look, blinded instead by the vast palette of pastel colors to choose from. Whatever the reason, the poor misinterpreted crocodile would have suffer this indignation while teens went crazy for alligator shirts, a mascot for the 80s generation.
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It’s a snack so decadent that one might immediately assume that the King of Rock and Roll first concocted it. Two simple slices of bread, coated with equal and generous amounts of peanut butter and a delightful product called Marshmallow Fluff. To many kids of generations past, it was the perfect afterschool snack; to those with less-nutritionally-minded parents, it was occasionally a resident of the lunchbox. And, to anyone who ever had the privilege of crossing paths with a Fluffernutter, it was a sandwich that seemed as if it was created through divine intervention.
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