I have to admit, I am a hippie who is aging. I believe , once a hippie, always a hippie. I am proud to say, I was part of that era. I hitched throughout the country at 19, protested the Vietanam war, became a non-conformist and did everything a hippie was supposed to do. Those days taught me much about the world. I traveled on my journey to the now times. Where do I go from here? It's a magical mystery tour!
Did you honestly think I would forget about this? August 15, 1969 was one of America's biggest parties. The music, the mud all took place at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in New York. What better reason, other than a terrorist attack, to close the NY freeway. The Hog Farm Commune helped organize the campgrounds, operate free kitchens set up bad trip tents and introduce yoga and granola bars to the masses. A half a million strong! There weren't cell phones or the Internet back then, but the underground press spread the word. Originally, Abbie Hoffman referred to the concert as Woodstock Nation, now in the 21st century, it is known as The Woodstock Moment. Checkout the website woodstock.com for great memories of this great 3 days in our history. Meanwhile, I would like to hear about your experiences at Woodstock. Peace.
This video was taken from the Red Skelton Hour show January 14,1969. He touched the hearts of Americans with his Pledge of Allegiance, explaining the meaning of each and every word. Things have certainly changed since then and it seems to me that we as a nation have somehow gotten off track. Perhaps this video can show us the way back.
I really loved (and still do) Soupy Sales. Once in my travels, I saw him in the San Francisco airport. I thought I just saw God! It was truly a rush! From 1959-1961, on Saturday's at noon, it was the Lunch With Soupy show. You could have lunch with him right in your living room! His friends were White Fang. You could only see his big paw because he was the biggest dog in the world. Also, there was Black Tooth, Pookie the Lion, Hippy the Hippo, and Herman the Flea. All of these voices were done by Clyde Adler. Born Milton Soupman in 1926, his family gave him his nickname. His older brothers were Ham Bone, Chicken Bone and he was Soup Bone, which was shortened to Soupy. Sales came from the name of an Ohio comedian. While attending grad school, Soupy worked in night clubs as a comedian, singer and dancer. He began his television career with station WKRC-TV with his show, Soupy's Soda Shop. It was TV's first teen dance program. He was best know for Lunch With Soupy Sales. It was filled with rapid fire jokes and gags and his best known trademark, a pie in the face, He claims to be hit by over 25,000 pies. Later in his career, Sales had a radio show on WNBG-AM in New York. On New Years Day in 1965, he was upset about having to work. At the end of the show, he told the kids to tiptoe in to their parents bedroom when they were sleeping and take the funny green pieces of paper with the presidents faces on them and send them to him. He in return, would mail them a post card from Puerto Rice. Well, the plan worked and Soupy ended up getting alot of money, which he donated to charity. The station was so upset over the matter and let him go. With so many kids ending up picketing the station, they had no choice but to bring him back. Howard Sterns had a show at the same station and they did not get along. Sterns cut the strings of Soupy's studio piano just to torture him. In his career, Soupy did several games shows which I am sure will become future blog posts here. They were, What's My Line, To Tell The Truth, and Hollywood Squares. No doubt about it, Soupy is one great talent with lots of stories to tell. In fact, you can even follow him on Twitter!
You have to remember The Whole Earth Catalog! It was the bible of the American counterculture. Published in 1968 by Steward Brand, his goal was to have anyone to be able to pick up a telephone and find complete information on anything. The publication was an access to tools and education for the reader to shape his own environment and find some inspiration. This was a large book and later editions were an inch thick. In 1972, the catalog won the National Book Award, the first time ever for a catalog. In 1966, Steward Brand initiated a public campaign to have NASA release the rumored satellite image of earth as seen from space. He felt this image of our planet would be a powerful symbol. In 2005, the catalog was compared to Google search engines in paperback form. In the 1960's, there was no Internet or hundreds of cable channels. As the web and blogs arrived, Whole Earth Catalogs disappeared. Everything The Whole Earth Catalog did, the web did better. It became a transfer from counterculture to cyberculture. There were seven sections in the 1968 catalog: ~Understanding Whole Systems ~Shelter And Land Use ~Industry And Craft ~Communications ~Community ~Nomadics ~Learning In each section, the best tools and books were listed by the editors. This included reviews, images, uses, supplies and prices. The catalog was a huge success for hippies and survivalists. The publication was not intended for very long, just long enough for the editors to complete a good overview of available tools and resources for everyone that needed them. In these times, I think The Whole Earth Catalog is just the ticket. It will take you back to the times when life was a bit more wholesome and basic. I found my old original copy. It's got the whole earth in my hands.
I bet you remember Tom Terrific. I just loved it! What a great cartoon. My friend once gave me a brand new giant red plastic funnel and I wore it like a hat, just like Tom Terrific. This was about 5 years ago. Simple and sweet, in case you have forgotten, Tom Terrific was a boy hero who lived in a tree house. Thanks to his magic funnel cap, he could transform himself into anything and also became smarter. Tom Terrific debuted in 1957 on the Captain Kangaroo show. The budget was small, but the imaginative scripts and stylized designs hid this fact. The scripts were simple and the music was minimal too, mostly just an accordion. Lionel Wilson did all of the voices. Each episode on the Captain Kangaroo show consisted of a 5 minute cliff hanger everyday and in a week the story was completed. Confident, but never violent, Tom Terrific took on a variety of criminals. They were Sweet Tooth Sam, The Gravity Maker,The Silly Sandman, Captain Kidney Bean and his arch enemy, Crabby Appleton who was rotten to the core. Here is a flash back for you: My name is Crabby Appleton, and I am simply awful. It does my heart a lot of good to do a deed unlawful! I'm fond of gloom, impending doom, I think good deeds are sappy! I laugh with glee. It pleases me when everyone's unhappy! Mighty Manfred The Wonder Dog was always at Toms side. Manfred really never liked the whole crime busting routine. He was a big baggy-eyed pooch who would rather avoid trouble than stop it. To him, a big long nap would beat a good deed any day. There were twenty-six full adventures or 130 episodes of the cartoon over a four year period. "When there is trouble, I'm there on the double, From Atlantic to Pacific, They know Tom Terrific!
One of my readers alterted me to the fact that there is a Tang Pie. Well, I couldn't let that get by me so I did a search. Just in time for tomorrow. Impress your friends with this all American (sorry cherries and apples) pie! Be brave and go for it. Your friends and family will love you for it!
Ingredients: 1/4 cup Tang orange drink powder 8 oz. sour cream 12 oz. Cool Whip 1 can sweetened condensed milk 2 graham cracker pie crusts Preparation: Mix all ingredients together well. Pour in the 2 pie crusts and set in refrigerator overnight. Put a twist of an orange slice in the middle of each pie for decoration.
Beware of the Blob! It creeps and leaps and glides across the floor. It crawls... It creeps... It eats you alive! Don't you just love it? It doesn't get any better than this! In 1958, this independently made science fiction/horror film depicted a giant amoeba alien that terrorizes the small town of Downington, Pennsylvania. Today this film is a cult classic. The film was Steve McQueen's third feature film, but his first starring role. Because of him, this film became a hit in the drive-in theaters. Aneta Corsaut played his girlfriend and Olin Howland was the elderly old man. In the film, the Blob comes from outer space and lands on earth inside a meteor. The two teenagers, McQueen and Corsaut drive the car to find out where it landed. Meanwhile, the elderly man heard the crash too, finds it and pokes it with a stick. The rock breaks open and voila! There's the blob which crawls up the stick and attaches itself to his hand. It's all over from there. By the time the teenagers get the old guy to the doctor's office, it engulfs him and eats the doctor and nurse too. The film ends with the words, "The End", which then morphs into a question mark. Will the Blob return? Only time will tell. The blob was filmed in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania and several scenes were filmed in Downington. If you are around that area on July 10Th, don't miss the Blob Fest and Ball in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. During this movie, Steve McQueen was offered $2,500 or 10% of the profits. He took the $2,500 for food and rent,not thinking this film would be a hit. Little did he know, this film ended up grossing $4 million. What was the Blob made of, you ask? It was originally created with a modified weather balloon for the sky shots and later made from silicone gel. Wes Hark, a horror movie fan and collector, actually owns the Blob. It was love at first fright!
Tang is short for tangy and is supposed to have the flavor of tangerines. With more vitamin C than oranges, Tang was the breakfast drink of choice during the 1960's. Tang was introduced to the public in 1959 and was marketed as the modern breakfast beverage. In 1965 the Gemini astronauts took the drink into outer space and made Tang a household name. Made by General Foods, Tang is a sweetened drink powder, artificially flavored and colored. It's one of America's favorite chemically treated foods. The Apollo and Gemini missions took the drink into space and drank it out of silver pouches. Just add water and you can have a days worth of vitamin C. Actually, Tang had nothing to do with the space program and was developed by General Foods in 1957, 12 years before anyone went into space. But, because of the advertising, "Tang Takes Off," the space program became a valuable asset to the marketing and sales of the drink. Sales of the drink today are not what they were back then. I'm sure most people decided that drinking real orange juice instead of mixing tangerine flavored chemical powder with water with a six year shelf life was much better for you. One household tip is that Tang is an excellent cleaning agent and can be used to clean your dishwasher. Just run Tang through the cycle instead of soap.
Wasn't Kookie the ginchiest? Born July 30, 1933, Edward Byrne Breitenberger starred in the TV series 77 Sunset Strip as Gerald Lloyd "Kookie" Kookson. He was a valet at Dean Martins "Dino's Lodge" restaurant next to 77 Sunset Strip. Sometimes he helped out the PI's trying to solve their cases. He knew the word on the street and called everyone "dad." Always snapping his fingers he had a cool beatnik style. He was constantly combing his dovetail hair which led him to become a teenage idol heartthrob. Later in his career, Edd Byrnes was hired to host the pilot of the "Wheel of Fortune" game show. That didn't work out for him and was replaced by Chuck Woolery. Recently, Byrnes traveled to car shows selling his autographed pictures. But because of his unprofessional behavior and charging above average rates for his photos, many car shows have banned him. In 2007, at the Blast From The Past car show in Texas, Edd Byrnes started yelling obscenities at a little girl and her father for videotaping him. He doesn't want anyone recording him for free. Well there you have it. Kookie, the cool cat turned into a guy with a big ego. In my opinion, the dude is just grasping at straws and living in a moment somewhere in time. If you would like to read more about the life of Ed Byrnes, he wrote an autobiography in 1996 called, "Kookie No More."
In the 1940's and 1950's Sky King was a radio and television adventure series. Schuyler (Skyler) King was an Arizona rancher and aircraft pilot living on the Flying Crown Ranch in the town of Grover, Arizona. The show had strong cowboy elements and Sky always captured criminals, spies and also helped lost hikers in his plane. Songbird was the name of his aircraft. In the beginning of the series, Sky flew a Cessna T-50, owned by the star who was a pilot in real life. The plane was made out of wood and became unsafe to fly and was replaced. Sky King's niece Penny and sometimes his nephew Clipper also lived on the ranch. Penny and Clipper were pilots too, but somewhat inexperienced. Penny raced planes and Sky trusted her to fly Songbird. Now, I find that highly unfair. As you read in my Camero post, being the aspiring racer I was, my dad would not let me use his car and I am positive a plane would have been out of the question. In the show, Kirby Grant played Sky King, Gloria Winters as Penny and Ron Hagerty was Clipper. Like most cowboy hero's, Sky never killed the bad guys. It was largely a show for kids, but became an icon for the aviator community. Many pilots, growing up were influenced by the show. One memorable feature of the series was Penny's radio calls from the ranch. She always said, "Flying Crown to Songbird, Flying Crown to Songbird, Come in Uncle Sky." A unique introduction to the show featured the triangular Nabisco logo flying across the screen. Nabisco put plastic characters of the series in packages of Wheat and Rice Honey's. The series was filmed in the high desert of California. It was expensive for a kids show because most of the budget went into the aircraft shots and vehicles. The show features low level flying, a way to show the speed of the plane as the desert flashed by. In my search for Sky King, I came across a very cool web site which you can watch all the episodes of this series. To check it out go to: http://www.americanflyers.net/entertainment/skyking.asp
