And Now, A Word From Our Sponsor...

Commercial Break
CLASSIC BOOMER COMMERCIALS

The other day, the old Henry Mancini theme for The Pink Panther movies began looping in my head. (Yeah, these things happen all the time once you're on this side of the hill). So I hummed along, "Doo doo doo doo, do do, doo do doo do doo doo..."

"What's that?" my daughter asked.

"The Pink Panther song," I told her. Then the words of the old ad came back to me:

"Pink panther flakes are pink and sweet as you can tell
The color of pink tickles me pink."

Pink Panther Flakes, the cereal introduced by Post in 1973  to coincide with the feline's Saturday morning cartoon, were actually frosted flakes with a pink coating which turned the milk in our cereal bowl pink. I remember the commercial in more detail than the actual cereal, and I found it on YouTube to appease my curious child:




So I got to thinking about the other commercials of my youth, back in the day when we couldn't TIVO the show and fast-forward through the advertising. Remember the Frito Bandito?



How about when Hawaiian Punch was downright violent?



And this ad for Good N Plenty must be one of my earliest memories...I remember it distinctly, yet it ran in the very early '60's:



What are the favorite commercials of your youth? We'll revisit this topic later, so let me know what you'd like to see!

The Sound Waves

Things Boomers Loved
DOCTOR DEMENTO

Once upon a time, long long ago, we listened to AM radio.

No, really, I'm serious. The FM band was just coming into its own, back then in the 60's. Most of the boomers grew up listening to the pop sounds over their AM dials. Here in the Delaware Valley, we tuned in to the latest and the greatest coming from the boss jocks at WFIL (560 on the AM dial) or to Hy Lit and Joe Niagra over at WIBBAGE (that's WIBG, 99). That was the way it was, at least until WMMR opened its FM doors and opened our teenybooper minds to progressive rock.

But whatever your musical preference, in 1974 you were introduced to something completely different. That was the year Barrett Eugene Hansen - better known as "Dr. Demento" - started syndicating his four year old all-novelty radio program. For two hours every Sunday night (later it went to four), my friends and I would tune in to to hear such classics as the Monty Python crew's "Spam," "The Time Warp" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, silly favorites like "The Monster Mash," and the latest efforts by an unknown (but crazy funny) songwriter/mimic who called himself Weird Al Yankovich.

I remember listening to the Dr. Demento show on Sunday nights, waiting for the Funny Five (the final countdown) and hoping for an Allan Sherman or Kip Addotta song to close out the weekend and put me in the proper frame of mind for the next day's Bio test. The old Doc was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2009, and his show can still be heard...though now, he's streaming over the internet.

Where can I put in a request for "The Lumberjack Song"?

Four Dead In Ohio

This Day In Boomer History

THE KENT STATE SHOOTINGS

May 4, 1970

"Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming

We're finally on our own.

This summer I hear the drumming

Four dead in Ohio..."

Allison Krause, 19. Honor student and daughter of a Holocaust survivor.

"Four dead in Ohio..."

Jeffrey Miller, 20. A recent tranfer to Kent State from Michigan State University. Member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. An active demonstrator against the war in Vietnam.

"Four dead in Ohio..."

William Knox Schroeder, 19. Eagle Scout. Psychology major. Recipient of the Association of the United States Army award for excellence in History.

"How many more?"

Sandra Scheuer, 20. Honors student in speech therapy. Not a demonstrator, but killed as she walked across the college green between classes.

"Four dead in Ohio."

(OHIO by Neil Young)

Kent State University, 40 years ago today. In 13 seconds, the Ohio National Guard shot 67 shots into a group of college students protesting the Vietnam War. In13 seconds, four were dead and nine were wounded, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis as a result of his injuries. College students across the country protested the actions during the following days. Five days later, 100,000 converged on Washington, protesting the war and the killing of unarmed college students.