Does anyone else remember...

... the episode of The Partridge Family, when Laurie had gotten braces, and one day the family was rehearsing in the garage and Laurie was "off" while playing the keyboard. And when they asked her about it she said she was "hearing music in her head", and it turns out her braces were picking up radio signals from somewhere else??? When I was a teenager I had to get braces, and I had remembered that episode hoping it would happen to me. And I used to hold my head near the radio hoping I could pick something up, but it never happened. Talk about a major let-down..

Interjections show excitement or emotion...

.. they're generally set apart from a sentence by an exclamation point or by a comma when the feeling's not as strong.

So when you're happy (Hooray!)

Or sad (Aw!)

Or frightened (Eeeeeek!)

Or mad (Rats!)

Or excited (Wow!)

Or glad (Hey!)

An interjection starts a sentence right.

Connect Four:

This was one of the few games that my folks and I could agree on. Nobody in our house didn't like playing it. Once in awhile you'd play with a poor loser and just as you're about to drop the winning checker the loser would move the trap bar so all the checkers would fall out so you couldn't actually claim victory. Of course, I never did that...

Goodbye Robert Hegyes:

Marco just emailed me to let me know he passed away.

Random find:

I like the hood ornament.. and basically that's all I like about it... ..

Question:

Does anyone remember the episode of Gilligan's Island when Gilligan suggests a beauty contest to decide which of the three female castaways will become "Ms. Castaway"? And Mr. Howell really wants his wife to win, so he spreads glue on the stage before mary Ann's dance routine, and shot spit-wads at Ginger while she performed?? Then the Professor distorted the music when it was Mrs. Howell's turn??? Then when all three competed Gilligan had to decide the winner???? And I believe he chose a chimpanzee instead????? Well, neither did I. I cheated for this post (although, in my defense I did remember Gilligan choosing the chimp). I found it all HERE.

Did you know:

The Carpenters weren't the first to record "Top Of The World". Lynn Anderson recorded it a year or two before. I heard it for the first time a few days ago on a country oldies station. It was just as good as The Carpenters' version - I almost like it a little better. Lynn's an old favorite of mine. I loved her voice and a few of her old hits. I wonder what she's been up to lately.

Gnip Gnop:

I had this game but I didn't like it because I wasn't any good at it and I always lost. I've always been somewhat of a poor loser.. okay an incredibly poor loser. I'm surprised anybody played anything with me back in the day.....

Misc. Remembrance:

I really hate shopping, especially clothes shopping. Even more so when I was a kid and mom would take me clothes shopping for back to school, etc. I couldn't wait to get out of those stores. Basically the conversation would go something like the following:

Mom: "How about this shirt? It'd look great on you."

Me: "Fine. I'll take it. Let's go."

Mom: "And how about these pants??? They'd go great with that shirt."

Me: "Fine. Great. Let's go."

Mom: "Oh and look at these great shoes, they're just perfect for that outfit."

Me: "Okay already. Let's go."

Mom: "Oh and look at this rack over here, I didn't see that before. Here honey, take these 4 shirts into the dressing room and try them all on."

Me: "I like 'em all. Let's go"...

Random observance:

Women say they'd like men to be comfortable enough to be able to cry once in a while, but I don't think they really mean it...

Random Find:

Remember these? I've posted about Herbal Essence and Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific, but I'd forgotten about the others. I can still hear the Faberge commercial: "You'll tell your friends and they'll tell their friends and they'll tell their friends too". That's gonna be stuck in my head all day now..

If you liked Wacky Packs:

http://lostwackys.com

Three is a magic number, Yes it is, it's a magic number. Somewhere in the ancient, mystic trinity You get three as a magic number.

A man and a woman had a little baby,

Yes they did.

They had three in the family,

And that's a magic number.

So how many of you out there had...

... Spirograph? I did but it was never really my "thing". Alot of kids loved it, though. Sometimes friends would come over and we'd use it but mostly it just sat in the box. I much preferred Lite Brite than Spirograph, but that's just me. I never had the multi-color pen, btw, but then again you can't have everything...

Random fact:

I never really cared for Chef Boyardee, but I always loved ravioli.

Did you know...

... that the set of the Brady's house was used in an episode of Mannix?? You can find it here.

Random find:

Mego Corporation's 1975 game: Ball Buster. I'm not making this up, people..

Question:

So did anyone out there actually enter the sweepstakes? And did anyone out there actually win anything?? And was anyone out there who entered naive enough to actually think you were going to win anything???

Um, okay...

I found the above pic when I did a Google image search for "Mr. Green Jeans" from the old Kaptain Kangaroo show. I must say I had no idea he was that popular..

Back in 1974 (or was it '73???)..

.. I used to watch Villa Alegre on PBS. I was fascinated by the model village they showed at the opening and closing of the show. And how the word "Villa Alegre" would light up over the village like fireworks. I wanted to live there. I didn't learn any Spanish, but still I liked the show.

A little "creative marketing" from Madison Avenue:

What was advertised:

What you got:

Random find:

While the summer of '67 was "The Summer Of Love", apparantly the summer of '76 was "The Summer Of Fun". Somehow I missed out on both; not to say that I didn't have a great summer in '76, it just wasn't Kool-Aid-themed.

Question:

Does Tony Orlando look like he's totally wasted, or is it just me???

For the record:

While I admit that I loved Tony Orlando and Dawn, 30 million people might've watched The Tony Orlando And Dawn Show back in July of 1974 but our family wasn't one of them. I loved them, but my folks didn't. And since it was their house and we only had one TV at the time, I was over-ruled 2 to 1.

"Santa Maria" by Trooper:

With only fear and good judgement holding us back, we sailed out on the Northern Sea with a boatload of crazy people (including the shotgun and me). "Does anybody know how to drive this thing?", yelled the Captain as he fell to his knees, "I think I mighta had a little too much today, take me to my cabin please". Cruisin' on a sardine boat loaded with crazy people. And we shall be the Santa Maria looking for a brave new world. The First Mate shouted from the crow's nest: "I think I might see land out there". Nobody moved from where they were laying, 'cause nobody really cared. Cruisin' on a sardine boat loaded with crazy people. And we shall be the Santa Maria looking for a brave new world.

"That's funny, Frank never has a second cup at home..."

Does anyone remember the coffee commercials (I think it was Folgers) where a married couple is having coffee with Mrs. Olsen and the husband asks for a second cup of coffee while the wife looks on in disbelief that her husband actually wants a second cup because he doesn't ask for a second cup at home. And she seems to get a sort of inferiority complex because she can't seem to make a decent cup of coffee to satisfy her man?? Then she asks Mrs. Olsen what her secret is, and I believe it's the "flavor crystals" that makes Mrs. Olsen's coffee better than the wife's. So Mrs. Olsen tells the wife her secret and probably saves their marriage??? It was an ad campaign that ran pretty much throughout the decade. I'm guessing Mrs. Olsen isn't with us anymore; it's been almost 30 years.

It's a new day and a new year:

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.