This sort of thing is what made watching Back to the Future with my dad so much fun.

Sky King! Be still my foolish heart. I wanted him for an uncle.

Brylcreem - A little dab'll do ya'!!

That's my life you've laid out in those pictures. My grandfather bought a new Studebaker every year or so. He never had a Golden Hawk though. I used to listen to Sky King and Sgt Preston of the Yukon on the radio until we got our first TV. We would watch the test pattern in the afternoon until Howdy Doody came on. Thanks Roger. A little nostalgia is good for the spirit.

I remember, Oh, too many of them. LOL

Time must have moved slower back then, or maybe my family was behind the times, because I remember almost all of those things despite being born in 1960. Speedy and Sky King were history to me, but pretty much everything else was current events.

I'm amazed that one can find a photo of Christmas tree with a rotating color wheel on the internet.

Oh my. I still love Topo Gigio. I was born in 1959 and recognize all of these except the building (a school?) under Chef Boyardee.

Thanks for the dose of nostalgia!

Ebert: it so much a school as a tube-style fire escape.

Oh, wow. My entire childhood just passed before my eyes! Wonderful!!

And if you weren't, you have no idea what most of these things even are...

I think it's a bit off.
I was born in 1965 in Boston and I've only missed a couple.
Thanks especially for Santa with the Camel!
All the best for the coming year.

We still have that Christmas tree.

Well, I was born in 1980 and was at least familiar with most of them. But then my dad and I are pretty close so I remember him sitting me down and showing me Sky King and Beany and Cecil. My little sister was given an old Brownie camera when she was young and took some pictures with it.

I was born in '73 so I have first-hand memories of some of these (Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, A&W Drive-In, bottle openers, drive-ins). We even had a Green Stamps store in my town until the late '80s. And I'm certainly familiar with everything else through movies & TV. But what is the coiled green and blue thing?

Ebert: This is Mr. Science here, Jeff.

That's known as a Finger Trap. Stick your fingers in, and the harder you pull, the more you can't get them out.

Ah.....hahahahahahaha!

That oh so merry
Chuckleberry
Huckleberry Hound

Some things you never forget. It's the EMINENTLY FORGETTABLE stuff you never forget that proves how absurd Life is.

I had a dream about getting a package of Chuckles with all licorice squares. I've been wanting one since I was 7. In my dream, I said, "finally!"

Hmmm, I *think* the coiled green and blue thing is actually a gum wrapper chain. (I made lots of those in the olden days.)

I sent the link to my mom (born 1950). She responds, "I remember about 90% of those things. I had completely forgotten that there used to be a Chef Boy Ar Dee. Good to see him again. Your
father's parents had that tree. I use to think it was so tacky. It's still tacky but it's a good memory"

Ebert: Back in the day, Chef Boy Ar Dee was the creme de la creme of cuisine Italiano.

Anyone remember the name of Sky Kings plane?

Songbird - there you go.

Well, that was great! But are you sure about the McDonald's picture being from the 50's? I remember paying 12 and 15 cents (at Sandy's and Griff's) in 1964 - one had 15 cent hamburgers and 12 cent fries, and the other reversed those prices. We'd visit both, then go to Allen's (the place to be seen) to eat (and be seen). It seems the Mickey's would have been less expensive that many years earlier.

I wasn't around in the 1950's but I remember some of those things. Is that Red Skelton below my grandmother's washing machine? The last movie I saw at a drive-in theater was either Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn or Purple Rain. My father used blue flash bulbs. And I believe my mother got the bread box from the Green Stamps Store.

I got a Chuckle out of the italicized Chuckles comment. Indeed, the Licorice Chuckle is the gold to the other flavors' base metal. That way with jelly beans and Neccos too (I did a tribute to Neccos a couple years back; if I can find it I'll URL it . . .)--I even had a thing for the Licorice flavor of Baskin-Robbins ice cream, though the ice cream was an unappealing gloss-gray. And Good & Plenty was my movie candy of choice: crunch away the candy-shell enamel and the fresh, miniature-ink-brayer licorice core was there in all its fresh-flexible glory.

And the best licorice of all was Lic-Ris-Ets. Nubs were OK, but Lic-Ris-Ets were the best flavor AND the best solid-yet-yielding consistency.

Ebert: Yes. Yes. And these will send you over the moon:

http://www.retrocandyonline.com/licadrcloldf.html

Looking at the pictures and reading the comments brought back memories of the mill coin or perhaps the 5 mill coin (1/10 or 1/2 of 1 cent) with the hole in it. They were only used for sales tax and parking meters as I recall. I was pretty young when the went away, so it's a vague memory.

A lot of great stuff here!

Before Beany & Cecil were animated on TV and appeared in comic books, they were live hand puppets M-F afternoons on Channel 5 in Los Angeles, with Stan Freberg and Daws Butler doing all the characters and Korla Pandit providing the Hammond accompaniment.

How to feel old: I was a fan of the Sky King radio show, and the boy who played Clipper (plus Jack Armstrong ["The All-American Boy]" and a bunch of other youth voices) later directed Camera Three and Soul Train -- he just retired from teaching at Cal State LA.

My mother bought my first tennis racket with S&H Green stamps. I got Lincoln Logs for xmas, too.

Yes, all of it.

Erector Sets should have come with a box of bandaids and some iodine. They cut fingers to shreds.

Hee! I was born in 1978, but I looooooooved my Tinker Toys :D

I also had Lincoln Logs (and Maccano!), watched Lassie after school, and wanted to play with Beanie and Cecil. These are all fabulous! :)

I was born in the mid-sixties and I remember several of these things. Roughly half, I suppose. Of course, the last time I saw a movie at a drive-in was in 2000. Now light pollution has gotten so bad that that screen will be going dark permanently before too long as well.

Love it!

And how many Chicagoans remember Clutch Cargo or BJ & Dirty Dragon?

I remember almost everything on the list. I actually had that Beany & Cecil comic. I had Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys. I not only watched the Red Skelton Show, I saw him in concert in the 80s. I remember watching Chatty Cathy ads on TV, and watching Sky King and Lassie. I remember Brylcreem "a little dab will do ya" ads. There is even a book of S&H Green Stamps behind me right now, with some stamps not stuck on yet. The flashbulbs are funny because a couple of days ago on the Bonnie Hunt Show, she showed an Instamatic flash cube to some twenty-somethings and they had no idea what it was.

Roger, you had me on the ropes but then . . . Ernie Banks! I had that card!

KO! Down and out.

Thank you.

Very cool! I was born in 1959, and had a "Cecil" Jack in the Box toy. And remember most of that stuff- I can still hear "I came back!" "I came back!" "I came back- to Brill Cream!". Which is gonna haunt me because now I'm profoundly deaf. I remember when McDonalds commercials boasted hamburgers being fifteen cents....this stuff is all very cool. Thanks for the memories!

I still have actual S&H Green Stamps and books, as well as some for the yellow Top Value stamps! If this recession gets much worse, might not be a bad idea to go back to buying stuff with something besides money!

I was a young housewife in the mid-50s and remember all of them. I have a picture of me coming out of one of those fire escape tubes at our elementary school. I'll have to look it up. You can still buy Jiffy Pops. My grandkids love watching that aluminum foil dome rise.

Cracker Barrel stores sell "nostalgic" candy in boxes marked The 50s, The 60s, The 70s. Fun!

I knew that I was getting old when I referred to Burma Shave signs in a discussion with a coworker about advertisng, and she had no idea what I was talking about.

Mmmmm ... chewing Lincoln Logs ... sorry, did I say that out loud?

Red Skelton as The Fuller Brush Man?

I remember sitting at the dining room table with my mom (the wet sponge in a bowl) Made the task of filling the green stamps books up much more pleasant. You had to be careful not to get them too wet and they fell apart..oy!

Thank you for the great memories. I miss those days. What will my kids have to remember?

Wellsir? By the time "Old Yeller" come out, my daddy had already shot so many dawgs which had displeased him, we wunnered what all the caterwaulin' in that movie was for.

Lit a match
Too near the tank
And now they call him
Skinless Frank
Burma Shave

These are great! I was born in 1946, so I remember most of them. The funny thing is, my son who was born in 1965, probably does, too. I kept my tinker toys, (and Lincoln Logs) so he played with them. We lived modestly in small-town Missouri, so we didn't throw much away. Things didn't change or go out of style as quickly as in some parts of the country. Plus, If I loved it, I wanted my kids to enjoy it, too. Did some dating at A&W, also. These pics bring back lovely memories. Thank you.

Hi Mom. Yes, I remember darn near all of these except for the fire escape slide.

To bridge the generations, I'll mention that Chef Boiardi was eulogized by Henry Rollins in the first issue of Spin magazine. Until then I had no idea he was a real person.

I was a kid in the 80s, and I remember some of these things. I had Tinkertoys (lots of fun), and Lincoln Logs, and if that's the Modesto A&W, it was open well into the 90s!

Takes me back, it does...

Great stuff, Roger. On Lassie, I was more a Jeff Rettig fan than a Jon Provost fan, but they were both good.

I thought you might be interested in this movie-based Rorschach test I devised. Old Yeller plays a role, at least for me: http://su.pr/3Khz5n

I loved Topo Gigio but where's Clutch Cargo and Paddlefoot?

I was born in 1968 and am at least familiar with most of them. I think the second is an ice cube tray - though you can still get plastic ones you twist.

But what is the fourth item? The metal thing...

I've seen these images before, received them in emails, but they are always fun to see again. Thank you for posting them, Roger. Glad to see you, too. All the best.

Was born in 60 and remember quite a few of these. The ice cube tray makes me laugh - my depression-era mother treated those trays like they were incredibly classy compared to the plastic ones. She still uses the same ones we had in the 60s and 70s.

That's not a bottle opener, it's a skate key

Ahh, the memories of growing up in the 50's and 60's. I still remember asking my mother why she didn't wear high-heels when she made breakfast like Donna Reed did on "The Donna Reed Show." Yes, I was a saucy lad.

From the above, I most remember S&H stamps (and Gold Bond stamps too) and watching the road while traveling in order to read those Burma-Shave signs.

I was born in 1951 and can recall all of the items pictured. I still, on occasion, buy a can of the Chef's ravioli.
Thank you Roger for bringing back memories of a great time in my life.

Loved those! The first one was best -- oh, those afternoons, dreaming over the Green Stamps catalogue with my sister --

Suggest adding Sing Along with Mitch on TV!

I did it again. More enthusiasm than sense, or at least, than accuracy. Sing Along With Mitch didn't start until 1961.

Sorry.

ok i wonder what you thought of andy devines raspy "wait for me wild bill and billy gilberts exasperation with froggy of the gremlin?seems wierd now but 50 years ago i loved all that stuff.

I am amazed that I was born in 1982 and remember a number of these, as well as being familiar with several more. Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, the washing machine, the flash bulbs, the ice cube tray, the candy (and the candy store! We had a candy store--in the 80s! Makes me think of Sugardaddies and Bit O' Honeys.) I even recognized the fire escape straightaway, though I can't remember where I first saw one. Sometimes I wonder how much of my memories are my own, and how much I've osmosed from my older relatives. Was I really raised in a time warp? Sometimes I half think so. I recognize things many people my age don't, but am clueless on things I ought to know--pop music in the early nineties?--Haven't a clue.

for the chicago crowd.....

"Lunchtime Little Theater" at Lunchtime, and you could send in your name to be read aloud, by one of two uncles, my fave being Uncle Bucky.
Run home, eat a quick sandwich, and hear your name, and run back to school!

Bozo the circus clown!! A show with Miss Fran, and the goose. I can't remember the goose's name!!! He was a puppet.

Plus.."American Bandstand", the show out of Philadelphia, with Dick Clark asking the teenagers what they liked about that last song...they always said "the beat". Gosh, I loved watching that, I was too little to dance, but then came of age, and decided the "three stooges" were much funnier....

Movie Magazines, True Love Magazines, and the Best of all..."Mad Magazine"....

wow, this started so many memories, but I'll stop now, thanks for starting this, life was simple and very different than it is now. Yes, what will our kids and grandkids remember with this same fondness? I sure hope its something that gives them the same feeling we all have right now!
In fact, I think I am going to ask my adult kids...what do you remember with fondness, or is it too early for them to realize that their childhood things, are now extinct? ie..the skate key!!

See ya later alligators!

Chalk me up as another 60's child (the youngest--that probably explains it) who remembers most of these things.
Except I had no idea there were still Burma Shave signs in the 50s. I think of them as a 20s-30s thing.
And yes, the coiled blue and green thing is a gum-wrpper chain (they make beautiful necklaces and bracelets, if you're 10). Finger traps have a similar weave, but are tube-shaped.
Ahhh, the Green Stamps. And Plaid Stamps and some third purple-y kind I don't recall the name of. My main memory is the school collecting them. I have no idea what the nuns got with them--perhaps the silver Christmas tree they put up by the auditorium every year!

You forgot my FIZZIES!!

It all puts a big "smile" on my face!!! I remember Chatty Cathy under the Christmas tree and making the chewing gum wrapper chains. I'm looking for the plastic square hand puzzle with numbers (out of order) that had to be slide around till they were put in order. There was one space missing so they could be moved. Do you remember?

I believe the car is a Henry J?

Having gown up in New York City, the first time I saw a McDonald's was while visiting a college friend in Puerto Rico. I remarked that McDonald's would probably be a big hit in the continental USA and I could not figure out why no one had brought this Puerto Rican outfit to the mainland. New York city did not have McDonalds for a long time.

And it was not weird to consider that a Puerto Rican company would have a name like McDonald's. Seven or so of the "original Spanish families" had Irish names. The "new square" (1700s) in Mayaguez, the old capital, has shamrocks embedded in the marble sidewalks and the cathedral is St. Patrick's.

Ah, trading stamps! I remember:
MacDonald Plaid stamps - from the A&P
Triple SSS Blue stamps - from Grand Union

Great pictures.
Add Captain Kangaroo, Prell, and "You'll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!" (my son cracks up when I sing this one to him)

That is, indeed, a gum wrapper braid. But we can't blame you, Roger Ebert, for not knowing that. Most toys and games were stringently divided by sex. An All-American boy would never have made a gum wrapper braid, but would have had at least one "Chinese finger trap."

This seems to be the place to put this ...

The Emmy Awards were last night.

At my age, the part of greatest interest to me is the In Memoriam segment (aka Dead Guys On Parade).

They only set aside three minutes or so, so naturally many deserving people fail to make the celestial cut; this year was no exception.

As I watched, I kept track of the included names; When the seg was over I had 33 names, and I was prepared to go back over my issues of Classic Images to tote up who was omitted.

Well, I did that eventually, but only after my immediate outrage when the segment was just finished:

WHERE THE HELL WAS MITCH MILLER?

I mean, he lived to 99.
His show entered the language.
They remembered Art Linkletter, but not Mitch Miller?
Come On.

In fairness, I did feel good that Maury Chaykin (Nero Wolfe Forever) was remembered.

(But not Dorothy Provine or Connie Hines? Jeez.)

not to mention the Fuller Brushes themselves that Red was selling

And people think that credit card points and airline miles are so modern! Green Stamps, baby. I can still taste them, because we kids were the ones who pasted them in the books!

I remember all of them. But where's Romper Room and Tom Terrific with Manfred the Mighty Wonder Dog :)

Here it is, a half century plus later, and I can only think about how we were so happy with the simple things. Playing outside all day all summer with things like roller skates that needed a key, bicycles with two speeds (stop and start), red wagons and, when none of those were available, played games like Hide 'n Seek, Red-Light Green-Light and Red Rover.

I wish things could be as simple and homely again.

I was born in '72, but have very clear memories of playing with my TinkerToys. They recently came up for sale at Costco - but I opened a can and they were not at all the same :( I also looked forward to the treat that my grandpa would make of my visit by taking me to the A&W drive-in. The Chatty Cathy doll was forever out of reach on my granmother's spare room closet shelf (that's ok, I preferred the TinkerToys anyway). I still buy Jiffy Pop for camping.
And sadly, or luckily, I was able to take my two girls to see Spiderman 2 at the last drive-in theatre in Alberta before it closed its gates forever. They lay on top of the car in their jammies under a blanket with a big ice cream bucket of homemade popcorn and watched in awe as the biggest screen they'd ever seen came to life.

I was a kid in the 70's and I remember Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys and Erector Sets. We still had Green Stamps back then as well. There are still a few A&W drive in's in Ohio. And I'm lucky enough to live in a small town that still has Drive In theater, with two screens.

Each of these images evokes a specific memory: getting my tongue stuck to the aluminum ice cube tray, lying in the back of the station wagon at the drive-in theater, getting a gallon of root beer in the glass jug at A&W. I remember when my sister accidentally sent her arm through the wringer on the washer, my granddad cooling his case of Falstaff (in bottles, not cans) on the attic steps, and burning my fingers on a hot flash bulb.

I wouldn't trade those memories for the world.

I was born in 1962, but I remember most of these. I suppose because people didn't throw things away as readily as they do now. S&H green stamps! I used to love daydreaming and flipping through the catalog of goodies to save up for. I don't think we ever actually got anything.

The old building - is that a fire escape slide? Is that what the kids are playing on in Where The Red Fern Grows? I'm not of that generation (born 1983), and I have tried to picture that scene with no luck since we read it in school in the 4th grade.

I'm sorry Mr Ebert but you got it wrong.....

the picture of the blue-green coiled thing is a gum wrapper chain.
http://ballpointbliss.blogspot.com/2010/02/gum-wrapper-chain.html

and Chinese Finger trap looks like this (with directions how to make one)
http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Chinese-Finger-Trap

Just so you know.....hee, hee, hee

I recalled each one. I grew up in Kansas in the 1970's so it was still the '50's here.

--m.

Love the list, but you forgot Kukla, Fran & Ollie! http://kukla.tv/

I remember them all, and thank you for reviving those memories. I took over laundry duties when I was pretty young; I loved our wringer washing machine. It had a lever on the side to set the wash cycle - I would pretend that I was driving a stick shift with appropriate vroom-vroom noises. And putting the pillow cases through the wringer and watching them balloon up on end and deflate on the other? Never got old.

I remember that McDonald's had the slogan ". . . and change back from your dollar." I believe it was fifteen cents for a burger, 10 cents for fries and a quarter for a milkshake by the time it finally came to central Connecticut.

Skate keys! I'm sure I'm not the only who learned early on not to attach your skates to your sneakers. Do they even make sneakers anymore?

One last thing: Sky King's plane was the Song Bird. And the show was brought to you by Nabisco.

Did I miss the raccoon cap?
And neccos?
And that dalmatian with his ear cocked to a phonograph????

Go Roy and Dale!!!

Is that the WCIA test pattern? With Chief Illiwek?
My grade school also had a tube fire escape. We 3rd grade girls all wore dresses (remember?) and DID NOT want to go down it. Even with girls first.

Lassie and Timmy!!!

:D

Does your shoe have a boy inside? What a funny place for a boy to hide. Does your shoe have a dog there, too? A boy and a dog and a foot in a shoe. The boy is Buster Brown. The dog is Ty his friend. It's really only a picture, but it's fun to play present. So if boys and girls like you want some fun get the shoe with the picture of the boy and the dog inside and you can put your foot into: Buster Brown shoes, Arf Arf! (Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!)

My 50's #1. The TV Guide.

Not to quibble, but the Tinker Toys pictured are re-designed plastic ones that came out in the 90s. That's what my son played with. The brighter colors (including purple) and shape of the yellow disks gives it away. The Tinker Toys we played with in the 50s were wooden. On another note, oh, how we loved it when an AV kid would wheel the reel-to-reel projector into the classroom. That meant movie day! The bigger the reel, the longer the movie. The jackpot was the two-reeler, which meant either "Donald Duck in Mathemagic Land" or "Hemo, the Magnificent." These generally only came out when the teacher had a headache. :)

The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason's threat to Alice "...one of these days... Pow! Right in the kisser! One of these days Alice, straight to the Moon!" Such great family shows came out of that era. ;-)

Thanks for the skate key correction. I couldn't quite remember but of course I used to have one on a string around my neck. It was sort of a status symbol to have your very own skate key, at least while you were skating. I was born in 49 and remember waiting for TV to come on at 11am with "Love of Life". How about "The Life of Riley" or Phil Silvers or Jimmy Dean's variety show along with Diana Shore but every Sat. night was spent watching resling and the Gillette commercials and the cute Hams beer bears "In the land of sky blue wa-a-ters". How about Pinky Lee and the Little Rascals every Sat. morning, or "The Adventures of Superman" with George Reeves. And one of my favorites, "Father Knows Best" as well as the Loretta Young show. I think she was my Dad's favorite. As for the wringer washer. I still have scars from that one. At three I tried to help mom with the wash when she went to answer the phone. I caught my fingers in it and ran my entire arm into the wringer. I didn't try that one again. Thanks for the memories, really.

Thank you ... my Huckleberry friend.

Green Stamps! Beany and Cecil! Sky King! My grandmother's wash tub and Red Skelton! And what is that paper chain... we used to make them with gum wrappers! You're pushing my buttons, man. Oh, geez, and an aluminum Christmas tree.

Said Farmer Brown
Who's bald on top
Wish I could
Rotate the crop

I remember Grandma Van Dyke's silver Christmas Tree..
McDonald's was too expensive and too far for us in Chico, Ca... We ate at the Snow White Drive-In... on the Esplanade.

I forgot that Santa Claus had a smoking habit! Thank God he quit!

Come to Carlsbad, NM. There is a beautiful three screen drive in theater there (http://www.fiestadrivein.com). They broadcast the soundtracks over fm, so bring lawn chairs and a boombox. It's lovely to sit out on a summer evening in the desert and enjoy a movie. The snack bar even has reasonable prices.

I love drive ins. If we ever get to Carlsbad we'll include it on our tour. I wonder if there are any others out there. When I was a kid I even thought watching it from outside somewhere was entertaining -watching the big people on the big screen and guessing what was going on. ???

I have one of those metal ice cube makers that my mother gave me years ago. I didn't know they were from the Fifties. Used to sit at the kitchen table and spend hours sticking in Green Shield stamps under my mother's supervision. Needed a water soaked sponge as tongues became dry very quickly. It was torture. Jiffy pop was allowed as a treat when we had babysitters. I also remember going to drive in movies with my parents and then later with my friends in the Sixties and Seventies. I also wanted to point out how different rough collie dogs look now compared to the way Lassie was then. They were much more attractive then. Now their eyes are smaller and muzzles more pointy. Breeders?

Oh, to be back in Ding-Dong School with Miss Frances!! Thanks for the memories.

I fondly remember almost all of these items except for Chef Boy Ar Dee. I still have nightmares of eating that chalky slop.

There is still an old fashioned drive-in theater in Mendon, Mass complete with a food stand. And Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright's son. If you were a proper girl growing up in Chicago your mother took you to Harrington's upstairs on Wabash Street with the ceiling to floor windows and where the waitresses wore long swishy skirts to the floor and you could pick out a toy from the "treasure chest" after your delicious home made hamburger lunch.

Born in 1950, I remember every single one like it was yesterday! Only two comments:

1) That Brownie is not 1950's. Mid-late 1940's, yeah.

2) The actress who played "Penny" in "Sky King"
was The. Worst. Actress. In. History. I'm not kidding. For any aviation buffs out there, Sky's plane was a Cessna 210-B.

As a '42 "war baby" I remember nearly everything, but not the tube slide. I am missing "Boston Blackie" and "20th Century." "John Cameron Swayze and the News," a 15-minute broadcast sponsored by the watch that "takes a licking and keeps on ticking." Paint-by-numbers. Toy soldiers made of metal, not plastic. Lots of WWII movies. No color TV's. The Dumont TV network. Blackboards, not greenboards, in classrooms. "Duck and cover." Iron lungs and The March of Dimes. Whooping cough as a killer disease. The Army-McCarthy hearings.

If I'm not mistaken, Roger, you snuck in a very local reference: the old St. Mary's school in Champaign, just across the C-U border. I remember it because we went to St. Pat's, and my older brother had the misfortune of spending his lower grade school years there. I remember watching him through the fence, and being mesmerized by the huge fire chute on the side of the building.

Statistics prove
that near and far
Folks who drive like crazy
Are
Burma Shave

There's a drive-in movie theatre (now closed for the winter)in Plentywood, Montana.

Great List Roger! I was born in '48, and recognized everyone of the items by name except for the gum wrapper chain - knew I had seen it before but couldn't recall its name. My sister and her friends made them all the time. Fun comments by all, and to fill one blank - the Goose was Garfield Goose of "Garfield Goose and Friends" with Frazier Thomas.

I still have that Ernie Banks trading card, and remember the Cubs telecast pre-game show was sponsored by H A Hair Arranger (Bylcreem competitor). As an alum of the U of Illinois. I also recognized the Champaign school and fire escape slide. BTW, I couldn't stand watching Topo Gigio.

The color wheel shining on the artificial Christmas tree made me laugh out loud. Many of us 1950's kids became 1960's Beatle wannabes, letting our hair grow long and forming noisy rock bands. When we played the high school dance, we took those old Christmas color wheels with us and let them shine on the silver fronts of our Fender amplifiers. Thanks for the memories!

I remember all of them. Loved Lincoln Logs--even remember the taste of them! And for those of us who grew up in the Chicago area, who can forget WGN's Frazier Thomas and Garfield Goose?

RE above poster about WGN's Lunchtime Little Theater, with Aunt Dody, Uncle Bucky and Uncle Ned Locke! The highlight of my fifth birthday was tickets to the show. A cabdriver sang Happy Birthday to me as we drove down Michigan Avenue and then at the TV studio Uncle Bucky, in his striped jacket, said hello to me on the way into the TV studio. Heaven! Oh, and the puppets you were trying to remember were from the show Kukla, Fran & Ollie. Fran was the human in the trio!

Perfect. I debuted in the late 1850s and there might be two items in that photo array that are unfamiliar to me.

I'd include pics of a milkman doing a home delivery and Captain Kangaroo. As it is, though, the pictures made me quite misty as they are.

Ebert: You were quite open to the decade even as you passed 100.

The square hole on the skate key loosend/tightened the clamps that held the sole of your shoe up by your toes, while the hexagon holed end loosend/tightened the nut on the footplate that permitted you to make the skate fit your size shoe (we had to share the skates with our siblings......) - don't forget that the wheels of the skates were made of metal and made a glorious vrim-vrim sound as kids skated down the sidewalk. No helmets, knee or elbow pads. And the girls wore dresses with waist sashes that would fly behind them.......Fun times!!!!!

I happened on this serendipitously, trawling for entertainment early on Boxing Day 2010. I love the wooden logs, and remember something very similar in South Africa. I do recall wooden Tinkertoy as well. But where is Bayco, of which I retain a few bases, rods and bricks and windows surreptitiously removed from family home (surreptitious because they had been my brother's, not mine)? When you get on to the 70s, I'll be a delphic oracle, with my English toy trade knowlege covering 1967 to 1979. This is a really fun blog.

Ebert: Amazon is selling gift baskets of 1950s candy. Necco wafers, jawbreakers..

Do you remember the guy from Red Skelton's show who played the drunk? I think it was Frank something. Then one night, Red had him sing and he had an amazing voice! Kind of like what happened later to Jim Nabors (Goemr Pyle) when he first let it be known that he could sing. BTW, I was born in 1940 so I remember stuff like blackouts during WWII and hiding uner the desks at school for A-bomb drills during the Cold War. As if the desk would save us!

The guy on Red Skelton's show who played the drunk was Red Skelton. You're thinking of Frank Fontaine, who played Crazy Guggenheim on the Jackie Gleason show. He also showed up as a drunk in one of the early Martin and Lewis comedies.

How about The Cinammon Bear with the shoebutton eyes, I Remember Mama, Mrs. Goldberg, Top It Off at Top Hat drive-in (Chicago), the Catholic nuns who taught us so well in classes of 40+ kids, with no discipline problems (not when you wrote J.M.J. on the top of each page, for Jesus, Mary, Joseph--who would dare misbehave?). I'm a 1943 baby.

To Rhoda Auerbach from Mr. KnowItAll:

I believe that the singer-comic you're thinking of is the late Frank Fontaine, but it was Jackie Gleason's show he appeared on, not Red Skelton's.

(Disclaimer: Fontaine had been doing the "Crazy" character for many years before joining Gleason; he may very well have appeared with Skelton at some point, as I recall he was on Jack Benny's show a few times.)

*More than you wanted to know, eh?*

always good to reminesce, but you forgot the obvious treasures.....little orphan anny secret decoder and oscar meyer weiner whistle, with of course Little Oscar and the weinermobile!
(actually have a picture of Little oscar and my sis and I)

Dear Loverboy
Your picture came,
But your doggone beard
Won't fit the frame.
Burma Shave

Mr Ebert, I was born in 1953 and I remembered every one. I thought that was a gum wrapper chain. I was right. I was just reading your different posts and came upon this one. God I'm old! The Chatty Cathy was one of the best Christmas presents I ever got. Except they spelled her name wrong.I opened her on Christmas morning and my Dad had been at the hospital where my little brother was born. I screamed so loud, he jumped out of bed and almost broke his leg.I more excited about the doll than my baby brother!

Sorry I'm late.

Peashooters and slingshots, kids' eye-safety be damned.

And a fond shout-out to Jimmy Buffett's Pencil-Thin Moustache, featuring Stan & Ollie.

I was born in 1969 (in Decatur, IL) and I have first hand knowledge of about half of these.

Skate Key! That tool was so important to those of us who rode the cement sidewalks we would wear one on a string around our neck. Couldn't get those skates or or off without one! Now mine resides with the Christmas decorations and hangs proudly on our Christmas tree as a conversation piece for the generations.

The first series of Sky KIng had him flying a Cessna T-50, a twin engine trainer from WWII that was known as a "Bamboo Bomber" because it was made largely from wood and fabric. Although Kirby Grant, the actor who played Sky King was in fact a pilot, the insurance company wouldn't let him do his own flying so most of it was done by the legendary Paul Mantz (who died years later in a crash during the filming of "Flight of the Pheonix" with James Stewart). I made the error of watching an old episode recently...oooh, so lame. While some TV standards have gone to hell (Jersey Shore???) you've got to admit the overall quality of TV drama has improved.

That Skelly gas station is the winner, for me. My dad had one that was exactly like that, though there was no way he would have bothered with the pot of flowers. That little station, in a town of 1300 people, allowed him, with help from mom at one point, to raise 8 kids. Hardly possible anymore.

Working at that station, I remember when they modified the cigarette machine so that it took quarters. And we always had to record the sale of gas in dad's book, normal sale being 3.4 gallons for a Dollar's worth.

Two things you missed on your list, Roger:

Cinerama and other film processes (3-D, CinemaScope, Vista Vision, Naturama, Technirama, Camera 65, SuperScope, etc.)designed to get people out of their easy chairs and into the air-conditioned theaters of their home town. My home town was Hammond, Indiana, so going to a theater in either Hammond or nearby Chicago was relatively easy for me and my family and friends.

Ray Harryhausen's films (four of them in the summer ----------1953's "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms," 1955's "IT Came from Beneath the Sea," 1956's "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers," 1957's "20 Million Miles to Earth") and one at Christmas, 1958's legendary "7th Voyage of Sinbad." Harryhausen was my greatest film hero in the 1950s and I was lucky to be able to pay him back for all of the "air-conditioned joy" he gave me by successfully campaigning to get him both an Honorary Oscar in 1992 and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003.

Ah, the 1950s, those halcyon days of many good things, including Ray Harryhausen movies.

Strolling down memory lane for this Baby Boomer born in Pittsburgh, Pa. in 1956! What a treat! I had a Chatty Cathy doll and it was something I still remember and haven't seen since the 1960's! I remember the first McDonald's which my mother piled all 4 of us kids into her Pontiac car, with winged backed tails, and drove for miles to go to it and a hamburger was 15cents! I also remember the candy, Topo Gigo on the Ed Sullivan Show and the end of transmission screen on tv with the Indian head on it! Maybe a mention of the music of the times would have completed the whole list? Thinking of Elvis, appearing on Ed Sullivan and the whole start of Rock n Roll, also movie Icons who were all over the screens and tv. Red Skelton's show was a must in our house as well as Lassie Come Home! I had a brownie camera and you had to look on top of the view finder away from your eye to focus and take the picture! Sounds strange now, eh? My brothers had the erecter sets and collected baseball cards aplenty. They were gold to the local boys in the neighborhood who were always bargaining and exchanging them. And my Dad combing his hair back with Brylcreme! What a time it was.He also smoked Lucky Strike cigarettes! Kids could play in each other's homes and know they were safe in their neighborhood and we all knew each other's families well. They were innocent and sweet times, the likes of which we will not see again, I am sure! Thanks for the memories, Mr. Ebert!