There are few things that so define the shared experience of a generation like the toys we all played with (yeah I know, I ended a sentence with a preposition, take it up with Merriam Webster).
Especially those of us in the U.S. who grew up when the commercials played during children’s TV programming were nothing but wall-to-wall toy ads. We sang the jingles and could recite the dialogue. Brand names like Fischer-Price, Wham-O, Mattel, and Hasbro promised delight and thrills.
There’s so much to choose from in the sea of toys from the 70s, so for We Were Toys R Us Kids, we’ll just stick with the ones we loved the most. Follow this fancy tree to all our links to the PODCAST.
On to the Show Notes…
Magic Window & Etch-a Sketch Tibetan Buddhists
The Hippity Hop Commute – ParcoAnn
Behold the Spanish 1700 military man – ParcoAnn
ParcoAnn’s neighborhood man who dresses like a Spanish military man has a costume in between the one on the left with the helmet like the one on the right.
The Bald Redhead and the Barbie-Q Ban – ParcoSam
I can’t blame my childhood friend for banning me from her Barbie-Qs; I was crap at it. I do wonder if a bit of my acting out was due to feeling like I had a second-class doll in Stacey rather than all those first-class blonde Barbies.
It’s not that I have anything against redheads. I’ve been one myself for fairly long stretches of my adult life. I just desperately wanted to style her hair into a different ‘do. Was that so wrong? But somehow her hair just got shorter and shorter and shorter until we were down to the nubbins.
Well, well, well, who gets the last laugh here? Turns out that my bald Stacey doll, far from being the so-called “cheapo, knock-off Barbie” that I claimed, is actually a rare collectible who was considered Barbie’s cool British Mod friend. Issued only from 1968 to 1971, she had one of the shortest production runs of a Barbie-related doll.
Why oh why did I cut off all her beautiful red hair and lose her somewhere in my 40+ lifetime moves?
Puberty Skipper & the Potted Meat Hypothesis – ParcoAnn
By the way, did you know (according to Wikipedia):
“William Underwood first canned deviled ham in 1868 as a mixture of ground ham with seasonings; deviling would also be done with other meat and seafood products, including turkey, chicken, tongue and lobster. Deviling consists of adding such spices as pepper sauce, cayenne pepper, Dijon mustard, or chopped chili peppers. Deviled eggs are one well-known example of this process. The devil logo was trademarked in 1870 and the company claims in its own literature that it is the oldest food trademark still in use in the United States. The red devil that debuted in 1895 and started as a demonic figure evolved into a much friendlier version when compared to the original.”
Also the Deviled Ham logo is the oldest trademark logo used in the good ol’ USofA. That said, I think I went off Deviled Ham sandwiches when I became fearful of the logo during the height of the Exorcist craze. Sunday school damage gave me (ParcoAnn) great fears of devil movies and logos apparently.
Well this is a very interesting link about growth hormones in meat production. Read it, make your decision. Basically after reading this information (steroid growth hormones are not allowed in chickens or pork, according to the USDA). However hormone production, according to the FDA, in cattle and sheep have been around since the 1950s.
I guess it wasn’t Spam or Deviled Ham, but growing up too fast being a damn latchkey kid. 😉