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Remember Planters Potato Chips?

The Retroist — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:00:35 +0000

I seem to recall eating these at some point in my life even though my family was usually a strict Pringles household. They tasted pretty good and I especially enjoyed the ones with ridges. I have no idea why the ridged canned chip never caught on, the plain ones are fine, but ridged is the express train to flavor town. Where was I? Oh yeah, Planters Chips.

So I was looking for info on the chip and the web is actually pretty void of details. Even the Wikipedia page fails to mention them. Conspiracy? Perhaps? It could just be that these chips were too delicious. After all, when you polled Nuns. Nuns! They overwhelmingly chose the Planters over that other canned chip. They even compare them to the potatoes they got back in Ireland (sigh).

Act now (if this is 1976) and get 10 cents off your next purchase of a can of Planters Potato Chips.

What’s on NBC’s Saturday Mornings for the 1975-1976 Season?

The Retroist — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:00:58 +0000

Here is a great scan and upload by JMANCHA2010 (looks like he got it from WingnutToons), that shows that the Saturdays in the fall of 75 has were pretty great for kids entertainment. You have some memorable titles running that year and they are a good mix of live action and animation.

The Pink Panther, Land of the Lost, Plant of the Apes and Josie and the Pussycats are some of my childhood favorites, but what caught my attention is The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty. This concept seems so familiar, yet I cannot remember watching an episode. Even the opening sequence seems familiar.

Of course, now I must find this series and posses it.

Are you a 1962 Square? Order Your Beatnik Kit Today!

The Retroist — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:00:57 +0000

Hey all you chicks and kats! Are you tired of being square? Is reality a total drag and you just want to escape? Well order the Beatnik Kit and you will find yourself cruising the krazy kofee kafes of lower Gotham and snapping your paws to music that your Moms and Dads warned you about. Oh do not pay attention to all the stares and jeers from your fellow Beatniks, they are just jealous of how amazing you look now.

I imagine most of these were ordered as part of a Halloween costume or for a party, but I would like to think at least one or two people took it seriously. I would like to know those people. Thanks to Harald Häfker for the upload.

[via] Harald Häfker

The Commodore VIC-20 Computes at Our Everyday Low Price $59.97

The Retroist — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:00:03 +0000

When this ad ran in the Toronto Star in 1984, the VIC-20 had already been out for almost 4 years. While other computers were more powerful, 60 bucks Canadian for this machine was a bargain in my opinion. Especially when you could load up on carts fro $7 a piece.

[via] reinap

My Whistle Pop Memories

The Retroist — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:00:03 +0000

The elementary school I attended was pretty quaint. We had big trees in the front and a playground that would draw blood, and lots of it. It was so wonderfully dangerous, that at least one time each semester it sent a kid to the hospital. When you could avoid the bullies, that school was a pretty alright place to spend the day.

One of the off campus highlights was a corner store about 100 feet from the entrance. It sold newspapers, cigarettes and had a couple of arcade games, but most importantly, it had candy. Which is why to this day I still refer to it , as does the rest of my family, as the “candy store”.

The candy store had a wall of candy to choose from which is good because on the playground, candy buying and consuming came in waves. Sometimes the choices was based on novelty, but most often candy came riding into the school on an inexplicable magic breeze of kid sugar cravings that defied marketing. One of the candy trends that hit hard was the Whistle Pop.

We could not get enough of them and by the end of each morning, before school started, the box they put out each morning, would be sold out. I remember it hit in the fall, because the warmth our breaths made steam come off the whistles when we blew them and blow them we did. The schoolyard was an out of tune sticky symphony.

I had a real problem with the whistle pops. It is the same problem I have with all suckers. I just eat them. I have always strongly identified with that Owl who did not have the patience to lick his way to the center of the pop.

The whistle pop trend did not last very long. By the spring we had moved onto flavored toothpicks, but the memories of those pops stick with me and while I have not been able to get a Peter Paul Whistle Pop in a very long time. I have picked up some imitators. How do they sound? I really cannot tell you. I get one note out of them and… crunch.

Thanks to plaidman for posting this ad and triggering the good memories.