pop cultured

I love celebrity tell-all books, so when I heard Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia Brady on the classic TV series “The Brady Bunch”, finally wrote a book about her life, I was more than excited.

Growing up in the 70’s, what girl didn’t want to be like Marcia Brady? She was pretty and popular, the all-American girl who dated the high school football quarterback. So imagine my shock (and believe me, it was shock!) when I discovered that McCormick’s book,  “Here’s the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice”,  is chock full of……well, shockers!

In real life Maureen McCormick didn’t live the wholesome, all-American teen hood that she portrayed on TV.  Instead, Maureen battled serious drug problems, bulimia and depression.

“Here’s the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice” is definitely an interesting read for any fan of The Brady Bunch. It deals with some serious stuff though, so be warned.

McDonald’s must be doing alright. Back in the day (meaning the 1970’s) I remember seeing tons of McDonald’s commercials on TV.  All the time. I knew all of the McDonaldland characters—Ronald McDonald, the Hamburglar, Grimace, Captain Cook, The Fry Kids, Birdie the Early Bird, Mayor McCheese.

These days, I rarely see a Mickey D’s ad and if I do it usually just has Ronald in it. The poor kids of today barely know who the rest of the gang is! And do they even know the ingredients in a Big Mac? I do, and I can sing it in a song:

Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun

Okay, so I have a thing about discontinued beauty products. As in, why are they discontinued?! Especially shampoos, because the fragrances bring back so many memories. I posted about my all time favorite shampoo, Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific, a few weeks ago. But now I’m wondering whatever happened to some of my other favorite shampoos from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.

Agree Shampoo was a definite favorite, with a great smell. Then there was Faberge Organics and Body on Tap. Do you remember that one? The formula for it was 1/3 beer. I also liked a shampoo called Flex– it had a very distinct smell that reminds me of 10^th grade.  The there was Wella Balsam and Protein 21, which claimed to repair split ends.

Back in the day there were so many choices! Today I just buy Pantene.

Who doesn’t remember the Life Cereal commercials from the early 1970’s? The cherubic young star of the commercials, Mikey, didn’t like to eat anything- but he chowed down on that Life cereal! He became a pop culture icon, especially in the late 70’s when a rumor spread that he died (the rumor was that his stomach exploded after eating Pop Rocks, a popular candy, and drinking soda).

The child actor who played Mikey was named John Gilchrist. The “Mikey” Life cereal commercials aired for 12 years- an unprecedented amount of time for a TV commercial. Oh, one other fun fact. Gilchrist’s 2 brothers played his brothers in the commercial. Remember them?

“He likes it, hey Mikey!”

Youtube it if you’re too young to remember this classic commercial.

One of my favorite Scholastic books from the 1970’s was Truth and Consequences by Miriam Young. Young, who was best known for her early childhood books and whose book “Miss Suzy” was also one of my childhood favorites, delved into the pre-teen scene with “Truth and Consequences”.

It was the story of Kim, a precocious pre-teen gal, and her best friend Alison. Disgusted with all the little white lies she hears from the adults around her, Kim decides to go on a campaign to tell the complete truth all the time. But things go awry when she’s a little too truthful to her friend Alison. The book is set around Fall and the Christmas season, which makes for a nice background. And although Truth and Consequences in no longer in print, I found a copy on Ebay to add to my collection (my beloved original copy is long gone, donated to a  church bazaar, I think).

When recollecting favorite childhood books, this one brings back a ton of memories for me because it was one that I picked out and bought at the school Scholastic book fair.  For me, some books just never go out of style.

When I was a kid, my dad would take the family out on Sundays to a local farmer’s market. They sold barrels of fruit and fresh homemade pies, but my favorite part of the market was a section where they sold discount books and magazines. Back then, they sold Archie series comic books for 6 for $1.00. I had quite a collection at the time. If you’re a collector, these were the Bronze series comics. I wasn’t a collector, though- just a kid looking for a few laughs.

I owned a huge stack of Archie’ Pals ‘N Gals, Betty and Veronica, Reggie and Me, Jughead and Me, Pep and more titles. I’m not sure what happened to my comic book collection when I moved out on my own, but now of course I’ve scoured Ebay, trying to replace a few of my favorite titles.

Today, modern Archie comics are still in print. But if you’re looking for a little nostalgia, complete with the characters wearing Nehru jackets and saying words like “groovy”, then check out some of the old Bronze age series comics.

The scent wafted through the halls of my junior high school. Every girl I knew wore the telltale fragrance of Love’s Baby Soft. The bottle was pretty and pink.

The ad’s tagline ‘Because innocence is sexier than you think” was over my head at age 12. I just knew I liked the clean, baby powdery smell and the way the cute bottle looked on my dresser.

But here’s the thing. Although this stuff is a major 1970’s blast from the past, turns out it’s not completely discontinued like I thought it was. I did a quick web search and it appears you can still buy “Love’s Baby Soft” from a few places. So if you’re looking for a nostalgic lift, remember that fragrance is a powerful way to take yourself back!

I remember the smell and the feel of it well. The halls of my junior high school were filled with girls standing at their lockers, slathering on another application of Maybelline’s Kissing Potion lipgloss. We were only 12 years old at the time– too young to seriously think of kissing anyone, but Kissing Potion made us feel glamorous.

It  felt like an oil slick on our lips and it came in a ton of flavors. My favorites were Cinnamon Stick and Cherry Smash. Big ads for Kissing Potion were splashed across teen magazines like Seventeen. It was the hot  beauty product of the late 1970’s.

And although I didn’t kiss a boy until several years later, Kissing Potion made it worth the wait!

A wonderful children’s book from the 1960’s, “Old Black Witch” gets pulled off of my bookshelf and reread every Halloween. Written by husband and wife team Wende and Harry Devlin, “Old Black Witch” is a story about an old witch who haunts a tearoom.  She doesn’t much appreciate the mother and son who decide to convert her old New England house into a tearoom, and she wants them out of there! But in the end, the unlikely trio combines their efforts.

One of my favorite parts of the book is the recipe for blueberry pancakes, which is at the end of the book. This is a highly collectible book, no longer in print. You can find it on EBay or at your local library. Definitely worth a read- and not just at Halloween time!

If you haven’t yet figured it out from this blog so far, I’m a huge fan of the television series, Bewitched. I was on Ebay a while back and for some reason I came across an interesting item for sale:  a replica of my favorite Halloween costume I wore as a child!

My old Bewitched costume was one that I cherished. If I close my eyes and think for a minute, I can still remember the plastic smell of the mask.

This particular costume was a popular one in the late 60’s and in 1970. It came with a Samantha Stevens mask and a black cape that had gold images of her all over it.  The costume was manufactured by Ben Cooper and today it is highly collectible. So if you have one in your closet…

Photo Credit: Bewitched.net