Parker Stevenson, Shaun Cassidy as The Hardy Boys, 1977. Spooky!
Seeing as how we’re pushing into late October let’s look at a slightly spooky spot. Click below to enjoy the ABC intro for the The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. The show ran from January’77 to January ’79 and starred Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevenson as the Hardy Boys and Pamela Sue Martin as Nancy Drew. Enjoy “An adventure into suspense!”
Wonderbug, 1976. Never underestimate a Schlepcar.
Wonderbug ran for 22 episodes as 15 minute segments during the first two seasons (’76-’78) of The Krofft Supershow. The car was a beat up old dune buggy (known as “Schlepcar”) which transformed into a shiny “Wonderbug” when its magic horn was used. Barry, C.C and Susan were the fun-lovin’ “youngsters” who drove around outwitting the bad guys.
Enjoy the tap-along intro (with a theme song co-written by The Osmonds) below.
Space Mountain ride, 1977. Nice looks of terror from the stylish young couple!
Disneyland’s Space Mountain ride opened in 1977 and blew our little childhood minds. The opening was attended by numerous astronauts, including Sen. John Glenn and Alan Shepard, and helped Disneyland set an attendance record over the long Memorial Day weekend. The ride was, and still is, fast and fantastic. The lines, however, were incredibly long for years after launch. I could barely stand to wait in them but I did. Two hours wait for a two minute, 45 second trip.
Catch a Space Mountain TV spot from 1977 below.
If you’d like you can also grab a look at a Disneyland Thunder Mountain spot we posted a few days back.
Al Pacino as Sonny Wortzik in 'Dog Day Afternoon', 1975
In September of 1975 Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon was released. The film garnered excellent reviews and was based on a LIFE Magazine article describing a Brooklyn bank robbery in 1972. Al Pacino starred in the film as Sonny and John Cazale co-starred in the role of Sal. Dog Day Afternoon won the Academy Award for “Writing – Original Screenplay” for Frank Pierson.
Pacino and Cazale had appeared together a few years earlier in both The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. Sadly, John Cazale died (at age 42, from cancer) in 1978.
Killer! Queen in late 1974
Happy Monday, lads & lasses. Open your ears and relax your minds – it’s time for a spot o’ Queen to get the week started with a kick! Hit the clicker below to witness Queen performing “Killer Queen” on European TV in 1974. “Killer Queen” appeared on the Sheer Heart Attack L.P and hit #12 on the US Billboard charts (their first top 20 showing) and #2 in the U.K.
*Note: The beginning of the song is clipped but the overall quality is decent, so we’ll take what we can get.*
Steve Jobs, 1970s
The article describes how Jobs first arrived at Atari looking “scuzzy” and that the company’s Pong engineer, Al Alcorn, said “He really doesn’t have much skills at all.” Nevertheless, the future visionary was hired and did fairly well for himself. Here’s a tasty quote:
“Jobs was hired as Atari employee #40, as a technician fixing up and tweaking circuit board designs. One of his first roles was finishing the technical design of Touch Me, a simple arcade memory game similar to Ralph Baer’s later Simon toy. He more than likely helped out on other games that year, such as racer Gran Trak 20 and the odd experiment Puppy Pong…
After about five or six months of saving money and working the night shift (often inviting friend, collaborator and eventual Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak into the office to help him with engineering challenges), Jobs approached Alcorn to let him know he was quitting the company to go to India, meet his guru, and conduct what he referred to as ‘spiritual research.'”