Shocking Memories of the 70s

In this video I discuss some of my shocking childhood memories of the 70s that you may or may not share and remember. The 70s were a wild time filled with fun and a lot fewer rules than what we have today. Some of the wild changes from the 1970's to today can be shocking and quite jarring like the crazy amount people smoked back then compared to today, the sheer lack of entertainment options, cigarettes and trash everywhere and yet somehow it all seemed so much more fun back then.

When I was a kid, television consisted of 4 channels which had the big three networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, and then there was PBS for moments of utter desperation.

I remember before I was even old enough to go to school waking up on a typical day to watch Sesame Street and the Electric Company. Some days though PBS wouldn’t come in and I would have to go outside and use what little strength I had at that age to twist the antenna that was on a pole in the ground next to my parent’s single wide trailer.  

So, if I managed to get the antenna in the right place or a good gust of wind helped get the antenna in the right spot I got to watch PBS educational programming. O boy, right?

I wonder if Cookie Monster is partly responsible for the obesity epidemic?

I think the only thing I really liked about the Electric Company was Spider-man. It was Spider-man’s first live action appearance in anything, and did you know Morgan Freeman the actor was on the Electric Company? 

After those shows went off in the morning, PBS got so boring even I couldn’t watch it as a kid. I don’t remember what came on next, but I’m sure it was about like watching golf which for a kid is about he most boring thing you could watch. I remember game shows being on until noon or so, and then soap operas. The only game show that really sticks in my mind is the Price is Right with Bob Barker, but that show has been on my entire life and we watched it regularly for years.

At 4 o'clock finally something good would come on. That was the time for reruns of something like Gilligan’s Island or the Adam West Batman show. Of course, my dad had to watch Walter Cronkite every night on the news if he was home from work, and that was the way it was. 

Prime time I could go on forever about, I’ll have to do other videos on just that subject alone, but as far as I remember the most it was Emergency and the Six Million Dollar Man I remember in those really early years of the 70’s and the shows my mom made me watch like Little House on the Prairie and the Waltons.

 I have a vague recollection of discovering the phenomenon of cartoons on Saturday somehow when I happened to be up early one Saturday like around 6:30 in the morning and discovered Casper the Friendly Ghost re-runs that came on before the new shows. Wow for a kid, Saturday was heaven, but I must have been nuts to wake up that early on a Saturday for Casper re-runs as much as I still like Casper, but then you got most of your cartoons on Saturday. If you were lucky there might be a cartoon special on in prime time like Peanuts and that was if your parents didn’t want to watch something else. After all we only had the one TV.

Thursdays was payday, and I remember my mom taking me to eat out at such wonderfully healthy spots like Kentucky Fried Chicken and Dairy Queen. I think their food tasted better back then, but even so, it took my years to figure out the reason I got the shakes after every KFC meal was likely the huge amount of grease they put into their food. Probably, a good thing I got into health and fitness or my arteries would be so clogged now my blood would look like 10W-40 oil.

But sometimes, I do miss the taste and Dairy Queen’s ice cream and onion rings. Boy, they tasted so good back then and there was nothing in the world like a cold coke on a hot summer day in a glass bottle. I seriously think they must have watered sodas down by the 80’s because I never got that same taste that I had as a small child for cokes. That’s another thing I gave up for health. For decades I drank sodas like water and water was what you drank only after playing in the hot sun to the point of dying.

The other thing about payday was I usually got a toy, which most of the time was bubbles, toys with magnets, a squirt gun, cap gun, or one of those cheap paper airplanes that brake as soon as you hit a wall. They had a rubber band operated propellor, and the wings would snap in about 2 hours or less of play time no matter how careful you were. I think the biggest thing I got back then was a shiny red tricycle for one of my birthdays. 

Oh, I do remember that the 70’s were filthy compared to today. People littered everywhere. I mean everywhere. Driving down the road people wouldn’t think twice to throw out what was left of their fast food meals and their containers all along the road.

I’m not sure if was all the pubic service announcements that slowed that down or the big fines.

And ash trays were everywhere. I think almost every adult human on the planet must have smoked back then at least in the south. I could be wrong about this, but I seem to remember that people would literally, throw their cigarettes down on the floor in a store and squish them and just leave them for the store workers to sweep up. I can’t imagine that now because I guess the police would show up and throw you in jail or something for even smoking indoors much less littering inside.

And then they were those old soda can lid tops back then, that you would tear off the can and usually throw onto the ground. The neat thing was you could collect them and turn them into a chain. Hey there was not a lot of toys for kids back then, especially poor kids.

Oh, but the crazy thing was too that back then you could find money all over the place I’m talking cash money occasionally, but every payday I used to at least find some change on the ground. I guess, people don’t carry money around anymore so they don’t ever drop it.

One thing I'll always remember about the 70's is how I started comic book collecting. I found some old comics in my Grandma's trash cans. Why were grandmother's always throwing away comics? Anyway, I pulled them out like I had found hidden treasure and still collect to this day.

Not only do I still collect comics today, I’ve even written and drawn some that I have on sale at Amazon including Caveman Comics, Monkey Monster Man, the Suburbanimals, and I’ve written a sci-fi novel series called the Time Cruisers based off of a superhero storyline I had created a year or so before. In fact, today I’m working on a brand new superhero called Liberty Ace. Hey, somebody has to put the truth, justice, and the American way back into comics not to mention the fun action and adventure.

To my Author's page at Amazon.