70s Spots: Disneyland’s Space Mountain (’77)

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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.

Trailer Tuesday: Dog Day Afternoon

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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.

Dog Day Afternoon Wiki, IMDb

Music for Mondays: Queen, ‘Killer Queen’

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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, Atari Employee (1974)

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Steve Jobs, 1970s

Frank Cifaldi, at video game industry Web Site Gamasutra, has published a fascinating look at the early years of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Jobs, who passed away last week at age 56, worked as a technician for Atari in Los Gatos, CA after dropping out of college in 1974.

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.'”

70s Spots: Disneyland’s Big Thunder Mountain (’79)

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Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain debut September, 1979

The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride made its Disneyland debut in September of 1979. As you might imagine the ride was advertised aggressively on TV sets – at least in Southern California. I can remember the excitement surrounding the opening and waiting in very long lines once I eventually made it to the park and had a chance to hop on. You’ll also notice that in the 70s Disneyland was generally only open Wednesday through Sunday during the off-season.

Check out a 30 second spot from ’79 below.

Funshine Friday: Pink Panther in ‘Psst Pink’

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The Pink Panther rides uphill before it all goes downhill in 'Psst Pink' (1971)

Happy Funshine Friday, folks! It’s time to take a well-earned break and watch an episode of DePatie-Freleng’s Pink Panther. The cartoon on tap today is Psst Pink from 1971 (that’d be MCMLXXI). Throughout the 70s Pink Panther cartoons could be found on both TV and movie screens. Enjoy.