Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? (19 page)

F
AMOUS pop-culture wars include Spy vs. Spy, Itchy vs. Scratchy, and, of course, Quisp vs. Quake. The sugary cereals tasted exactly the same, but creator Quaker Oats was smart enough to release them both in 1966 and set off a memorable advertising war that wouldn't end until Quake was voted out of existence in 1972.

Quisp, a tiny pink alien from the Planet Q, flew around via a beanie built into his head. He bragged that his flying saucer–shaped cereal was “vitamin powered.” Which it probably was, if sugar is a vitamin. Strongman Quake's gear-shaped cereal was supposedly “earthquake powered.” That doesn't really make sense, but apparently Ma and Pa Quaker were looking for any excuse to name all their kids something starting with the letter Q. No sense remonogramming the towels.

Nothing was left but for the two tribes to go to war, which they did via a 1972 vote. The deck was stacked from the beginning: Who are kids going to love more, a dorky, cross-eyed li'l alien, or a muscly miner? Quisp won in a landslide, and the official Quaker line was that Quake retreated back into his underground mines. (He resurfaced a few years later as an Australian cowboy hawking Quake's Orange Quangaroos.) Quisp had little time to savor his victory—his cereal sailed home to Planet Q by the end of the 1970s. But like John Travolta, this 1970s icon would eventually strut back into the limelight.

T
HEY weren't cartoons, and they sure weren't live-action or claymation. Rankin/Bass's stop-action TV specials were immediately recognizable and always just a little weird. The characters walked as if their ginormous bobbleheads might fall off their neck stalks at any moment, and even the evil dudes had doe-like, googly Muppet eyes that made it hard to take their villainy seriously.

The plots were positively Krofftian in their insanity, and keeping them straight was impossible.Was it
Rudolph
or
Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town
that featured Hermey, the elf who wanted to be a dentist? Was that the same one with the Island of Misfit Toys? Which one had Burgermeister Meisterburger? Heat Miser and Snow Miser? Eh, who cares? They were awesome.

Not all the specials were Christmas-themed.
Here Comes Peter Cottontail
celebrated Easter. And
Mad Monster Party
was that rare bird indeed—a Halloween special, remembered best for chesty, redheaded bombshell Francesca. But all Rankin/Bass specials shared a cheerful, awshucks outlook and a fierce love for the underdog that resonated with kids.We're all misfit toys at heart.

B
ACK when reality shows were still fresh and new, watching them didn't make you want to scrub yourself raw with a Brillo pad. NBC's
Real People
kicked off the trend in 1979 by combining taped features with interviews in front of a live studio audience.

Preternaturally perky Sarah Purcell and Skip Stephenson played the flirty mom and dad to an ever-expanding gaggle of correspondents (including a young Peter Billingsley, who would go on to shoot his eye out as Ralphie in
A Christmas Story
), who reported from such breaking-news hotspots as turkey-calling contests, zucchini festivals, and roller coasters. If not for
Real People
, how would Americans have known about the eighty-five-year-old Oklahoma waitress who hosted a popular radio show from a phone booth?

In 1980, ABC leaped into the reality fray, introducing
That's Incredible!
, which featured more stunts than human-interest stories.Yep, it had knife jugglers and a guy catching a bullet in his mouth. But the random collection of big-haired hosts was its greatest appeal: John Davidson, Cathy Lee Crosby, and Minnesota Viking great Fran Tarkenton in the same room at the same time? And people wanted to watch? That really
was
incredible.

A
S a kid, you had two choices if you wanted to listen to your beloved copy of Meco's disco-riffic
Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk
LP over and over again. You could plead with your older brother to let you use the record player in his room. Or you could take the route that didn't end in a punch in the arm: ask Santa for the holy grail of middle-school music players—the almighty Fisher-Price record player.

Record players were amazing things. No wonder your older brother protected his precious stereo equipment like it was a bag full of weed.The record would drop, and the arm would fluidly leap into action—a little robot that loved Supertramp.

When your brother wasn't around, you'd kick up the speed to 78 RPM and make Rush sound like a hard-driving Alvin and the Chipmunks. You'd also take the liberty to play a 45, but since you were too lazy to go find the little plastic snap-in adapter, the record would stagger as it spun, as if it had just downed a six-pack of record beer.

The kid-friendlier Fisher-Price player was portable, which meant you could cart it to parties or sleepovers. Eventually, Fisher-Price introduced an even-more-portable battery-powered version, which let kids pretend they were Wolfman Jack anytime or anyplace—on a camping trip, in the car, during a power outage—as long as the Duracells held out.

B
ACK when parents weren't the least bit concerned about buying murderous toys for their kids, three-dimensional boxing game Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots was all about the vicarious violence. We couldn't haul off on our brother in the living room (not without a spanking, anyway), but we could face off in the ring. Two kids would grip joysticks positioned on either side of the toy, and their plastic proxies would beat the nuts and bolts out of each other, uppercutting and jabbing with such verve that the boxing ring would often lift right off the table. Ah, the satisfying
kzzzz
as your robotic rival's head popped into the air. Even more satisfying: hearing your opponent wail, “You knocked my block off!”

Kids loved the instant gratification:You pressed the plunger, the robot moved.You bobbed and weaved, so did your 'bot. Rock 'Em Sock 'Em was the red-and-teal plastic ancestor of the modern video game, preparing us for a future full of brightly colored killing machines that, thankfully, never came to be. It did teach important lessons, though, like how to settle conflict, that getting smacked in the jaw had consequences, and, most important, that robotic decapitation was a whole lot of fun.

T
HE lights were dim, the music was thumpin', and the pants were tight. Your local roller rink was a cross between a bowling alley and a Persian prince's palace: Every surface was covered in carpet, and it smelled a little bit like cloves.

Birthday parties and weekends were happily spent getting dizzy at joints like the Skatin' Place, Skate Teen, and Skate World.The biggest challenge: finding just the right second to step into the swirling current of skaters. Time it perfectly, or like a newbie hockey player, you'd get checked into the boards.

Once we were rolling wobbly along, we'd act out scenes from
Xanadu
and marvel at the high-tech mood-setting wizardry, which included strobe lights, disco balls, and dry ice. Gaggles of teenage girls dressed in rainbow shirts would shuffle by in clumps, holding hands and giggling. Hotshot figure skaters with feathered Farrah hair would scream past, then twirl in circles in the free-skate area of the rink. Depending on the year, we did the Hustle, grooved to “A Fifth of Beethoven,” or sang along with “Mickey” at the top of our adolescent lungs. When the terrifying Couples Skate came up, we suddenly found it the perfect time to hide out in the bathroom.

We'd limp home six hours later, feet raw, hopped up on Sugar Babies, and giddy with momentum—and ready to roll back and do it all again.

R
ONDO soda, available from 1978 into the 1980s, was kind of like the weird new kid in school who actually turns out to be pretty cool. It was a citrus soda, and citrus was always the class geek next to the cheerleaders of the cola world. It also dressed kinda funny, in a yellow can decked out with a lemon tree and old-fashioned writing. Rondo looked less like pop and more like a lemon-based patent medicine created in the
Magnificent Ambersons
era.

But Rondo almost made up for its geekiness with its fresh, sweet taste and its commercials.The ads showed two guys doing something manly and working up a “Rondo thirst.”They then pounded down cans of Rondo, as if it were going to turn into battery acid if they didn't chug it in three seconds flat. The voice-over praised the drink not for its taste but for the fact that it was only lightly carbonated, “so you can slam it down fast.” Yes, poor Rondo, whose main feature was apparently the speed with which it could be consumed.

S
OME Muppets are permanent residents of
Sesame Street
—Oscar's past forty now, and you're never getting him outta that trash can. Roosevelt Franklin only lived on the Street for a few early seasons, but the engaging little guy forever bops on in fans' memories.

Roosevelt was a cool little guy with a striped shirt and black hair that stood up straight as a paintbrush. Was he a kid? He looked like one, and his mom appeared in some skits. Was he a teacher? He stood in front of the classroom and taught about Africa, or loud versus soft, or why you shouldn't call your friend Cantaloupe Head. Whatever his role, he was so beloved that the school where he taught/attended/hung out was named Roosevelt Franklin Elementary. Named for him or an ancestor? Homage or coincidence? Don't ask; it's a chicken-egg thing.

Muppets don't really have race—Roosevelt was purple—but he definitely spoke with African-American style. According to the fabulous
Sesame
history
Street Gang
, outside forces decided he promoted negative racial stereotypes and the character was quietly dumped. It's OK, Roosevelt.You were too cool for school anyway.