Back In My Day...

[knapplc]

 

 

Pong.

 

Nolan Bushnell, the creator of Pong, was on our board at the dot-com startup I worked at in California. Met him many times. He's a very regular dude

 

Knapp I think you & are must be about the same age - I remember all your stuff too. Fondly.

 

 

Yeah, the age I put on my About Me page may not be accurate.

 

A friend had the Bionic Man with the telescope eye. That thing was awesome.

 

Another friend had the GI Joe aircraft carrier and I burned with jealousy any time he let us play with it.

[Redux]

Back in my day sloots had to have a webcam and MSN messenger to send booby pics.

[Saunders]

There were Saturday morning cartoons on regular TV channels.

[BIGREDIOWAN]

 

We had cable TV when I was a kid, but we had the selector that was connected to the TV by a long cord with these huge selector buttons on it.

 

Snap bracelets

 

Pencil fighting

 

Big Wheels, my kids don't really get into these, but that's because the ones we have are boring, I had a GI Joe one that was bada$$!

Did you have the original big GI Joe or the ones of my generation that were smaller and millions of different characters?

 

I was saying I had a GI Joe Big Wheel, but I also had GI Joe's, but they were the smaller ones.

[BIGREDIOWAN]

Shoot, I take that back, it was a Rambo one. http://www.joeaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Rambo-Power-Cycle1.jpg

[Moiraine]

One of the best games out there was Electric Football with the metal vibrating field.

 

Making your own tape of a copy of your friend's copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of some song you liked. Sounded like you were rubbing a steel wool Q-tip your ears as you listened to it.

 

 

We had the metal football field.

 

The first cassette I remember listening to was my brother's mix of They Might Be Giants, Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan. Weird combo. When I had enough money to buy my own cassettes there were a few in gas stations and Best Buy had a selection of about 20. I bought Michael Jackson - Dangerous and Counting Crows - August and Everything After and then graduated to CDs.

 

First CD I bought was Natalie Merchant - Tigerlily. Then I discovered The Beatles and bought all of their studio albums and a few others. Took me 2-3 years worth of birthdays and Christmases to get them all.

[krc1995]

I remember when the first music video came out and we would stay up late to watch Friday Night Videos.

 

When only one of my "rich" friends had a VHS recorder and it was HUGE.

 

Two words - Trapper Keeper. I never actually owned one ... too expensive.

 

There were Saturday morning cartoons on regular TV channels.

and you never heard the words "I'll go get Mr. Dangle!" on any those cartoons either

[krc1995]

Pong.

 

6 Million Dollar Man doll (the one where you could look through his bionic eye through the back of his head - ok, it was my brothers, but was cool).

 

When the theatre actually popped the popcorn on site, and used real butter.

I think our theater still does that- both pop on site and use butter

[krc1995]

 

I remember when the first music video came out and we would stay up late to watch Friday Night Videos.

 

When only one of my "rich" friends had a VHS recorder and it was HUGE.

 

Two words - Trapper Keeper. I never actually owned one ... too expensive.

Young pup. I was in college at UNL when MTV started.

 

but did you stay home to watch Head Bangers Ball on Saturday nights?

[Bowfin]

Ringer washers.

 

Mom did laundry for a family of nine with one of those for a long time. I remember being showed to hit the top catch as hard as I could if anybody ever got their fingers caught.

 

I remember watching astronauts splash down in the ocean.

 

Looking at the S&H green stamps catalog and getting the job of pasting those stamps all into the books.

 

Looking at the Herter's outdoors catalog and making long lists for my wilderness journeys.

 

Everybody hurrying to get supper dishes done and homework finished the night "Charlie Brown's Christmas" was on television. If you missed it, you wouldn't see it until next year.

 

When Jack Brickhouse was the REAL voice of the Chicago Cubs, not that Johnny Come Lately guy named Harry Carey.

 

When all the World War II vets were younger than I am now.

[huKSer]

Dr Sanguinary on Creature Feature on Saturday night.

[knapplc]

Otis Twelve and Diver Dan Doomey, with Space Commander Whack and Glorf the dead Martian dog, and the Mean Farmer.

[Landlord]

 

Pong.

 

6 Million Dollar Man doll (the one where you could look through his bionic eye through the back of his head - ok, it was my brothers, but was cool).

 

When the theatre actually popped the popcorn on site, and used real butter.

I think our theater still does that- both pop on site and use butter

 

 

 

I don't think I've ever been to a movie theater that doesn't pop it's own popcorn.

[NM11046]

 

Pong.

 

6 Million Dollar Man doll (the one where you could look through his bionic eye through the back of his head - ok, it was my brothers, but was cool).

 

When the theatre actually popped the popcorn on site, and used real butter.

I think our theater still does that- both pop on site and use butter

 

LUCKY! If you show up early enough at most of them you can see them dumping huge bags of popped corn into the bins.

[NM11046]

"Man, woman & child!" was a normal thing to hear on a Saturday on the radio.