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1971
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Hot Wheels
Those bright orange Hot Wheels tracks with the pinkish/red connector pieces were a common sight to many kids in the 70's. Here I am excitedly opening my first Hot Wheels track on Christmas. I think the date stamped on the picture is when the film was made, not the date the film was developed. My guess is this was Christmas of '71. That's my aunt on the left, my grandpa behind me, my mom and my grandma. I love this picture.
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Hot Wheels
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1972
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Tonka Trucks
Christmas 1972. Here I am opening up what would become one of my favorite toys of all time. The pale green Tonka crane. That same Christmas I also got the matching pale green Tonka cement mixer which may very well be what's waiting in the box in the lower left corner. Many years later sometime in the 80's I sold those trucks in a rummage sale to make some extra money. Luckily my next door neighbor bought them for her grandkids to play with whenever they'd visit. From time to time I'd see those trucks make another appearance in her driveway or garage with another generation of kids enjoying them.
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Tonka Trucks
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1973
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Pufnstuf
Every Thanksgiving one of the big networks would play the Pufnstuf movie during the day. I remember sitting down to watch it, must have been Thanksgiving of '73 or '74, at grandma's house. She and my mom were in the kitchen prepping the turkey while I got cozy on the couch and started to watch the Pufnstuf movie. Even as a kid I knew it was weird but I still couldn't look away for some reason. I watched about 15 minutes of it when my grandpa and uncle commandeered the TV and said they were putting on the football game. "But it's Pufnstuf." They didn't care. Football won.
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Pufnstuf
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1974
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A freak for Freakies
It's 1974 and I start many a day with a big bowl of Freakies cereal. With mom's help I'm able to finally save up enough cereal box tops and send in for my coveted Freakies refrigerator magnet. You don't even want to know what I spent on eBay many years later to buy back that same Freaky magnet. Today it stares back at me from my cabinet at work.
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1975
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Monster Movies
It's Saturday night and the entire family gathers around the 13" blue & white TV for another monster movie. Dad popped a big bowl of popcorn and my 7-year old hands dart in and out of that big, wooden popcorn bowl trying to claim my share of the salty treats. At first I'd take one piece at a time until I noticed my dad taking fistfuls at once. I quickly adopt his strategy as the evening's monster movie begins. Milwaukee channel 18 was tuned into our TV and the unmistakable intro to WVTV's Saturday Night at the Movies would begin. A tarantula would slowly and creepily crawl over a book that featured the show's title as eerie music played in the background. Whether it was a rubber-suited Godzilla or Gamera stomping Tokyo yet again, or the mythical monsters of another world brought to life through the talents of Ray Harryhausen, monster movies never failed to entertain. At the conclusion of each Saturday Night at the Movies they'd announce next week's feature. If you were lucky it would be another monster flick that you could look forward to all week long!
SEE ALSO:
Godzilla (series)
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1978
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Battlestar Galactica
In addition to all the cool spaceships, special effects and action this series also gave me one of my first crushes. Athena (Maren Jensen) was hott!
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Battlestar Galactica
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1978
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Smokey and the Bandit
The neighbor girl's boyfriend had a black Trans Am. We'd all ooo and aaah over it whenever he'd come around. It was black just like in the movie except his didn't have the big firebird decal on the hood. When we asked him why it didn't have it he said it was "too tacky." Pffft. What does a 10-year old know about tacky? It was cool!
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Smokey and the Bandit (series)
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1978
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Star Wars toys
The Boba Fett action figure was originally available via mail order only. I think it was early in '78 or '79 that I sent in my order and waited for him to arrive. Days, weeks, months went by and nothing. Eventually Boba Fett showed up in the stores and I bought one with my birthday money in August. The very next day he arrived in the mail. After waiting for what seemed like ages I was the proud owner of 2 Boba Fetts! I wonder what happened to them?
SEE ALSO:
Star Wars
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1979
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Lunar Lander
Lunar Lander was the highlight of my 6th grade trip to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. I don't recall if it was tied to an exhibit or it was just in the vending area but whatever lunch money I had that day went to this game. It was one of the first video games I remember, and the first fun video game I remember playing. Prior to Lunar Lander all I really recall was those mechanical arcade driving games and a crude shark-themed b/w video game I think was called Shark Jaws, probably an attempt at cashing in on the success of the Jaws movie.
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Lunar Lander
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1979
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Asteroids
This was the game that really started it all for me. There was one at the neighborhood bowling alley I'd sneak off and play weekend mornings. The bowling alley would still smell of beer and cigarettes from the previous night. They would open the front door in the late morning when the bar opened and begin the process of airing out the place from the previous night. That was my invitation to walk in and plunk down some coin on the games they had, including Asteroids. It's so hard to describe how new and cool this game was by today's standards. At the time the graphics were something straight out of sci-fi movies as if I was controlling the action on a galactic radar screen. The cabinet itself seemed to draw you into the game with it's shape and colorful artwork. The cardboard bezel that surrounded the screen was a painted space scene with asteroids breaking out of the frame and intruding onto the screen giving it a dimensional appearance. The backlit marquee, the buttons that blinked when a coin was inserted, the high tech controls, and the thumping sound effects all came together into a package no 11-year old could resist in 1979.
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Asteroids
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