Ronco's Mr. Microphone

Borrowed from my vinyl blog...

Wish I had one!

See the TV ad here. :)

Me as Bowzer

No, not Mario and Luigi's enemy. ;) That's Bowser.

I'm talking about Jon "Bowzer" Bauman, of 50's revival group Sha Na Na! This picture is from around 1980.

Uncanny? :p Bowzer has had quite a career, including doing great work for the Truth in Music Act.

Baby in 50s pedal car

My mother's first—and hopefully only—car. ;)

Old school farming

Cool picture of a horse-drawn land roller I found in one of my grandmother's old photo albums. Dunno who either of the people are. My aunt might know.

Drug lord cars

Remember these ads from old car magazines?


I would see these and think 'that's so awesome! I could get a Porsche for $100!' But now that I'm a lot older, I think 'oh, FREE information, huh? Giveaway prices? Pass.' :p

I wonder if that phone number still works...

My brother the tissue thief

Thought I'd add a funny old picture of my brother being a mischievous toddler...

Hard to be angry about that, especially if you go get a camera and come back to take his picture. :p This would've been from mid to late 1983.

Here's a Family Circus comic my grandmother sent after she saw what he did:

Don't mess with me!

Or I'll poke you with my poking stick!


Got this neat-o scythe from a friend at the corner of my street. When they moved in, he found a bunch of old implements in the shed that the old fella before them had left. He said there's a second scythe in there. I keep forgetting to go look. I think he said I can have it too. :) Anyway, the handle on this one is around 5 feet and the blade is around 40 inches.

This reminds me that I saw a sickle at Goodwill not long ago. Who donates something like that?!

Moe Knows...

...lots of things, apparently!


This is a t-shirt I wore in the early 90's. I still have it! :) It's a play on "Bo Knows", a Nike catchphrase associated with professional football and baseball player Bo Jackson.

More chippy goodness!

Remember these guys? :)

"If I give one to you, I have to give one to everybody else."


I've always loved that commercial. Simple, funny and incredibly effective, the way an ad should be. A friend at high school loved it too, and would sometimes say that famous catchphrase.

Watch the ad here if you'd like to refresh your memory or just see whatever it is I'm talking about! ;)

Newfangled Pringle's!

Another treasure from my grandparents' basement, and this one is absolutely minty fresh, despite the latest trademark date being 1974! :o


Yes, Pringle's rather than Pringles. Interesting change... Here's the current logo for comparison:

Is it just me, or does what was once hair now look more like bushy eyebrows?



I like that simple little drawing of the can with the chips spilling out. :)


Even the inside is fancy! There's no lining in current cans. BOOOOOOOOO!

Retro future glue

Remember when everything was space age? I don't! :p

Found this in a box in my grandparents' basement. Probably from the early 60's.

Beer!

This mini keg (which is built like a tank!) belonged to my grandfather, most likely obtained on a visit to us in New Brunswick in the mid 80s, and I have to think there are VERY few out there nowadays. I always knew of the company, as I lived not too far from the factory, which was in Dieppe. I saw it many times whilst we drove down the highway beside the industrial park it was situated in. They were right at the side of the road and I remember the big Hanshaus letters.

It's kind of a sad story, actually... Read a short history of Hanshaus here.

Prohibition

My brother sent me this as a forward a few years ago:


I'll let you make your own jokes...

Christian Hosoi

From the back of an old NSA tape from 1986, I believe:


Always thought this was an excellent shot. "Holmes" was something else! :) His Hammerhead board was always my favorite, too. Tony Hawk ended up winning this contest, with Hosoi in second and Mike McGill in third, I believe.

Star Wars Super 8 ad

Found in an old sci-fi magazine of mine called Fantastic Films from 1978:


They actually call them 'home movies!' :p


Yikes, I'd have to sell a kidney to buy those 8 minutes worth of the movie! (sorry, I should say ALMOST 8 minutes...)

I've consulted an Inflation Calculator, and the 2012 prices are as follows:

B&W silent version: $30.64
Color silent: $61.46
Color & sound: $102.54

I bet there are people on eBay selling them for more than that now, actually!

Bat Boy!

*can't remember where I found this, but I don't have a copy to scan myself...*


Used to love looking at these at the checkout throughout the 80's and into the early 90's. I still remember one from the "dark ages" of Star Wars when they used a picture of Chewbacca on the cover and said it was an alien invasion in Africa. :D

The Bat Boy thing became an ongoing saga. He stole a Mini and led police on a 3 state chase (did they let him stop to refuel?), the FBI caught him and locked him up, and he even voluntarily became a Marine! And all the while having the exact same expression on his face! :p

Classic car

Another great shot from my grandmother's photo albums.


No idea who he is. Maybe they were just down near the beach and thought it would be a nice picture. *shrug* Just a young man proud of his new car, I guess.

Nintendo PlayStation

Remember this potentially great machine?



I forget what magazine this was in, unfortunately (Electronic Gaming Monthly, maybe?), but I kept the article all this time. Over 20 years ago already!

At the time, that line about Star Fox got me wondering how awesome this machine would be. I mean, the main memory is the size of the entire game of Star Fox?! :o Could've been great, but their relationship broke down and Sony made their own awesome machines...so not a huge loss, really. ;)

[LOTS] More info here: Nintendo PlayStation

More fake ghosts

Another from my grandmother's albums. That's her at the bottom left in the red dress and her husband to her left of her. Well, part of his head, anyway. ;)

I love this kind of picture. These are the ones where you'd get them processed and they'd probably ask if you want it and possibly give it to you for free. Well...I guess this one isn't too bad, but you know what I mean.

Mmm, lard...

A longtime favorite picture of mine. I've had this on 3 different hard drives. Haha.


The secret to family happiness! :p

Dream job?

This was in an old magazine my mother had. Unreal! (but real) :p


Curse those disreputable barber shops!

Action 52

Ah, Action 52. A plethora of mediocre NES games. :p I pretty much forgot I had this until the subject of valuable games came up at a forum I post at. Apparently, people are selling this for upwards of $300. I think I paid $5 for it. Ha! They used to sell stuff like this on QVC and The Home Shopping Network too.


Here we see such amazing characters as um...flying eyeball robot, generic dragon, generic spaceship, generic ninja, generic chef, uh...is that Saddam Hussein on the left?, some crocodile gangster?, some fancy assassin?, and last but not least, The Cheetahmen! (yes, THE Cheetahmen!)

Here's the original box cover (thanks to wikipedia):


$199.00! :o

More info here, including list of games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_52

What could've been...

I like it! They would have used these for the 1995-96 season but, of course, became the Colorado Avalanche instead.

I know the post isn't too retro, but it's kinda neat in a retro-future-never-happened kind of way. :p

Grandpa's balancing act

What a ham! :)

Yvon "The Beast" Cormier

Picture of Yvon "The Beast" Cormier my mother took at a fair in Memramcook, New Brunswick in 1974. She could only remember his nickname at first, so I had to look up the rest. :p The beard reminds me of the Vachons, whom I'm sure he worked with many, many times. The name Leo Burke and Emile Dupre came up a lot in research too.

Here's an article on him from 1999: http://www.canoe.ca/SlamWrestlingBios/beast_cormier.html

And one from 2006 about he and his family: http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2006/05/13/1578648.html

Squalor

Found this amongst my grandmother's pictures. No idea what's going on here or who that is. "Play in this mud while we go scavenge for parts"?! :p

That washing machine and mangle combo would be worth serious money to a collector nowadays, as would that trike. ;)

Retro...ghost?

Nope, just a double exposure. Looks like he was bored to death at that party. ;) Found the picture in my grandmother's photo album. That's her second from the right.

1967 Kennedy Space Center tour book

Found this neat-o tour book among my grandparents' things in late summer 2010. I don't know if this was from a trip specifically to Florida (from Ontario, Canada), or part of a larger, multi-state adventure.


Here's the intro to the NASA Visitor Information Center and Kennedy Space Center portion of the tour:


What follows is a multi-page review of what you'll see, designated as 'tour points,' with small pictures accompanying some of them. The highlight is this nice picture at the end of that section:


And here are the maps of the area:


Finally, an introduction to the Air Force Eastern Test Range, the Department of Defense part of the tour (with highlights in the pages afterwards, called 'check points' this time):


Rust in peace, Polaris...

First post!

And for that first post, I thought 'why not that nice picture of my grandfather beside his Valley View Dairy truck in Toronto?' This would've been in the early 1950s.


Does anyone out there still have a milk truck come around to their home? Let me know!