Mandy asks: Hey Rhonda, how did you celebrate the New Year? Rhonda and her holiday guests celebrated with an evening of their favorite 60s movies. First, they chose the 1963 classic horror film by Alfred J Hitchcock, “The Birds”. The movie’s cast includes Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, and Suzanne Pleshette to name a […]
Rhonda loves these 1960’s Christmas TV favorites.
Rhonda and her family traditionally have celebrated these two classic
60s animated holiday children’s movies. And we’ll bet your family
still enjoys them as much as hers!
The first of nearly 50 Peanuts television movies, “A Charlie Brown
Christmas” is the longest-running cartoon special in history, airing
every year since its debut in 1965. Whimsical, melancholy, and
ultimately full of wonder, it is a holiday favorite for countless
families. For Peanuts fans everywhere, it just wouldn’t be Christmas
without this classic holiday delight. Christmas lights may be
twinkling red and green, but Charlie Brown has the Yuletide blues. To
get in the holiday spirit, he takes Lucy’s advice and directs the
Christmas play. And what’s a Christmas play without a Christmas tree?
But everyone makes fun of the short, spindly evergreen Charlie Brown
brings back – until the real meaning of Christmas works its magic once
again.
In mid-1963, nearly 30 years after Montgomery Wards produced an
illustrated storybook, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” as a marketing
giveaway to children, the movie version was officially in production.
Over the next 18 months, GE poured the equivalent of more than $4.5
million into the special’s innovative stop-motion animation also as a
marketing tool for homemakers. GE developed four accompanying
commercials featuring characters from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
These ads pushed new products like an electric toaster, an electric
can opener, and an electric blanket, and who could forget Santa riding
a Norelco Triple Header?
A Charlie Brown Christmas
John Asks Rhonda: Rhonda, do you like Turkey TV dinners?
“When TV dinners first arrived in our grocer’s freezers in the mid 1950’s my mom was ecstatic! So, she bought 13 complete turkey dinners and we had ourselves a mid-century modern Thanksgiving celebration. Clean-up was a breeze but alas, there were no leftovers.”
What was YOUR favorite TV dinner?
Monica Asks Rhonda:
Rhonda – what was the crazy inspiration behind the creation of the 1960’s TV show, The Munsters?
Frankenstein Monster
The hilarious 1964 TV show “The Munsters” was actually created as somewhat of a parody of the 1954 television show, “The Donna Reed” show’s opening credits. The comedy, The Munsters were a weird but underlying wholesome family comprised of Herman (the father) a Frankenstein monster. Lily (his wife) and Grandpa (her father) were vampires. Eddie (their little son) was a werewolf. And their tongue-in-cheek humor suggests Marilyn (their pretty niece) was the only normal one who was considered the family’s ugly duckling. They lived in the “typical” haunted house, drove a hot rod funeral hearse, and were endlessly trying to fit in with the neighborhood. My family religiously watched it every week.
Here’s a 5- minute sample! Happy Halloween everyone!
Tiki skull cocktail at a bar.
Robert says, “Hey Rhonda – I hear a lot of people in the 1960s talking about a Mai Tai Cocktail? What the heck is a Mai Tai?”
Robert, A Mai Tai Cocktail is a traditional “Tiki Bar” rum cocktail served in the summer. The man who invented the Mai Tai, Victor Bergeron, is better known as Trader Vic! Vic was inspired by a Jamaican rum and it’s a classic 60s drink. It was traditionally made with rum, Cointreau, Orgeat Syrup, Lime and garnished with pineapple.
Carla asks: What dance move was Popular in 1964?
Well, Carla, that’s easy to answer… It’s Almost Summer so hey, everybody! Let’s do the “Swim”!
The 1964 tune “C’mon and Swim,” by Bobby Freeman inspired a 60’s dance craze that combined dancing with swimming! “The Swim” was basically “swimming on the dance floor”. To do the “Swim,” you just swing your arms and shoulders in an alternating pattern to the beat of the music. Toss in a few hip swaggers and you’ll have it down. And, if you wanted to switch things up a bit, you could mimic a treading water motion with both arms out to their sides or pull out your ‘I’m drowning’ nose plug while one arm sinks to the floor. Try it!
Lindt Bunnies
Samantha asks, “Why are chocolate rabbits hollow?”
Hello Samantha, The real reason they’re hollow? So they can actually be eaten! Biting into a 5 or 6-inch tall SOLID chocolate rabbit is not easy because the chocolate has to have a certain hardness to retain its shape.
As a child, did you ever try to take a bite of your mom’s semi-sweet chocolate baking blocks in the kitchen, thinking they were candy? Not an easy bite. And those were only about 3/4 of an inch thick. Imagine a big, solid bunny who’s 2 inches wide at the base? It would like biting into a brick.
Marketing studies have shown hollow bunnies are far more preferred by consumers than solid, simply because they’re easier to eat. The only types of solid bunnies that sell well are the very small, almost bite-size types that can easily be bitten through.
Image of Lindt Bunnies by Tammy Green of Chicago. Shared under Creative Commons-Share Alike 2.0 license.
Alicia asks: What’s Your Favorite St Paddy’s Day Recipe and Centerpiece?
Well Alicia, “THE FLAMING CABBAGE” is impressive AND entertaining!
Clean a large cabbage, curling outer leaves back from the top. Carve out a hole in the top, about 6” deep. Place a sterno lamp in the cavity (so flame comes to the top of the cavity). Place the cabbage on a serving plate and surround with a lovely frill of parsley. Now, thrust wooden picks through cocktail sausages and stick randomly into the cabbage. Stick an olive onto the end of each to protect fingers as guests broil their own sausages! Now you have a fun AND decorative appetizer on St Patrick’s Day, compliments of Mr. and Mrs. Phil Hindley’s charming Oakland, CA home, and the Betty Crocker’s 1950s 1st Edition Picture Cookbook.
Try making yours and post a pic on our FB page.
Rodney asks: Who invented the SuperBall?
Rhonda answers: Wham-O released the SuperBall in the summer of 1965, and the reigning kings of toy fads had yet another winner. Dropped from an outstretched hand, the SuperBall would bounce almost all the way back up, but that was only the beginning of the physics-defying fun.
Thrown with a bit of force (or a lot), the ball would bounce over roofs, across city blocks, or right up to the fragile lights at the top of the gymnasium.
Thanks to the ball’s remarkable friction, it could bounce back toward you or even up a wall with the right spin. At times, it seemed the SuperBall followed its own internal compass, and while that may have led to a few black eyes and bruised bodies, the danger only added to the fun. Source: Nostalgia Central, The Way Things Used to Be
I want to know if you were lucky enough to have one in the 60s. And tell us… did you break anything with it?
Fast Food was a FAD FOOD in the 1960s! Just as the Roadrunner Lodge Motel was born in the mid 60s, many American “Icons of Fast Food” were also being born all across our country throughout the decade. The moniker “Fast Food” was based on the use of the “assembly-line system” which was first introduced by McDonald’s in 1948 but it wasn’t until the 1960s that it really took off from coast to coast. If you traveled the country on road trips you may have delighted in choices of “FAST FOOD” ranging from the then bright and shiny new restaurants like pizza from Domino’s, Blimpie’s and Subway sub sandwiches, burgers and beef sandwiches from Hardees or Arby’s, or Mexican fare from Del Taco… all of which have successfully stood the test of time. Try to choose one of these icons on your next road trip and tell us where you ate!
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0