Category Archives: Nostalgia

Were we really once so easily amazed?

Technology has come a long way since the ’80s. I remember this commercial. I don’t remember it seeming so utterly stupid. Maybe that’s because I was only about 10 when it originally aired. Or maybe it’s because back then this was cutting-edge.

All I know is, the phrase “sneaker phone” sounds way more natural to me than it should. I guess this commercial embedded itself in my subconscious all those years ago, permanently tainting my worldview.

Source: Merlin Mann

Update: 1991? Holy crap. Yeah, I didn’t watch it far enough when I first posted this to hear the voice-over guy say, in a semi-lewd tone, “the revealing 1991 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue” (cue whistles). Since that comes out in February (or so I’m told), that would mean this commercial is most likely from 1990 or very early 1991, meaning I was 16 when it aired. You’d think by then I’d have been old enough, or at least jaded adolescent enough, to see how utterly stupid it was. Maybe.

What year did you watch the most Sesame Street?

To those who question the value of Twitter, I finally have a retort: this tweet led me to the invaluable (seriously, you try to put a value on this) discovery that someone has posted the extended Friday end credits from many (most? all?) seasons of Sesame Street on YouTube.

It certainly takes me back, and is also a helpful tool to identify the year when you watched the most Sesame Street. OK, maybe most people weren’t as obsessed with this show as kids as I was, but… well… I was. I watched it three to four times a day. Seriously. Even once I was in school, I’d get in at least an episode and a half before or after school up until probably about third grade. (Yeah, having an Atari is probably what killed it.)

Watching these clips, I’ve determined, not too surprisingly, that it was season 9, 1977-1978, when I watched it the most. I turned 4 during that season. I do remember the credits from the next few seasons after that, but this one is most firmly etched into my mind:

Here’s a handy guide to the first ten seasons:

Beep for Breakfast ×2!

Regular reader(s) of this blog will remember my quest last year to acquire a “Beep for Breakfast” cup like the one my grandfather had on his basement sink when I was a kid.

The quest came to a conclusion just under a year ago when an anonymous benefactor (who, it turned out, was one of the regular reader[s] himself) bought one on eBay and sent it to me.

I was thrilled to receive the cup, identical to the one I remembered. I was even more thrilled a couple weeks ago when, while sorting through the mountain of crap I’ve indiscriminately accumulated in my basement, I found the original cup my grandfather had owned — I actually did have it all along!

Beep for Breakfast ×2

I suppose it is now my duty to pass on one of these cups to another nostalgic fool such as myself. But I think I’ll just horde them both, thank you very much.

By the way, Grandpa’s cup is on the left. I have no idea how he kept it so pristine for all those years decades. Oh wait, yes I do. This is the same guy who neatly folded cereal boxes and carefully filed them in the trashcan. His trash was neater than anything in my house.

On knowing your target market, and knowing when you’re in the target market

Venture Bros. Season 3I’ve never really watched Venture Bros. on Adult Swim, although I’ve long suspected that I might like it if I gave it a chance.

That suspicion was heightened tonight as I perused the DVDs at Target. To any average person, this cover design may fall somewhere between inexplicably weird and just generally poor. But to me, and to many other 30-somethings like me, it grabs you by the eyeballs and drags you over to pick it up. So authentic! Did they carry it over on the ba– oh holy crap, they did! Fake ’80s video game screenshot and all!

Yes, the package design for the Venture Bros. Season 3 DVD set is a faithful — no, absolutely dead on — reference to the classic package designs of late ’70s/early ’80s box designs for games from the Atari 2600. Or, to speak more accurately to the time period of the designs, the Atari Video Computer System. The solid, garish box color; the font; the overall layout; the watercolor collage art. It’s all vintage ’70s, vintage Atari, 100% perfect. They even faithfully reproduced (graphically, not physically) the fact that the boxes were always already smashed when you bought them at the store.

If you’re not familiar with those box designs, here are a few reference points for you (from AtariAge):

Vintage Atari game boxes

(And yes, since you’re wondering, I did go out of my way to pick six of the lamest Atari games I could think of.)