I'm not sure how often saw these things. The main grocery store in my town for years was a locally owned one and I can't recall if they had things like this. But this does seem familiar. This is one of many things that seem to pop up as memes on Facebook. I know I would have had fun digging through this, like the proverbial kid in a candy store--almost literally in this instance.
And there were these things:
Did these really encourage smoking real cigarettes and cigars? I know I chewed on some of these (mostly the candy cigarettes) at some point. At my 30-year high school reunion in 2019, the attendees were presented with a goodie bag of 80s candy, including the candy cigarettes, which I did not think were still around!
And this gave me flashbacks as well:
Ah, the candy buttons. I'm not sure how many of these I ever had, if I did at all. I did have plenty of the Fun Dip, though. And root beer and grape juice.
What was your favorite candy as a child?
COLORFORMS:
One of my favorite toys was Colorforms. I had several of these sets, one of my favorites being the Holly Hobbie General Store set.
It was always fun sticking the vinyl pieces on the surfaces without needing adhesives. The fun was endless.
I know I had other Colorforms sets, but can't think off-hand which ones. It's possible a Snoopy (I loved the Peanuts strip) one might have been in my collection, but I am not so sure.
CASSETTES TO CDs:
For my music enjoyment, cassette tapes were my primary mode. I used my mom's old tape recorder to play them before getting a tape player. Even when my mom got a record and tape player, tapes were still my primary mode of collecting my favorite tunes.
I did have this sort of tape holder, though not many of the tapes seen in the photo were in my collection. In fact, I don't think any of them ever were! But this picture sums up how most people collected tapes at that time.
Also remember blank tapes and making mixed tapes. And calling the radio station to record a song on a blank tape, and trying to fix an unwound tape with a pencil.
It was in 1991 that made the transition to CDs. I still have my tall standing rack of CDs, but have not listened to them in years. I'm hesitant to let them go, however. And I still have my players, but am not sure if it still works. I recently found some CD audiobooks at a thrift store, and am wondering if I can play them. I my have to try using my DVD player for that. I'm also reluctant to give up my DVDs as well and am still getting them from Netflix, even with my new smart TV. But that's a story for another time...
CATALOGS:
Memes like these have come up many times on Facebook:
Yes, I always enjoyed looking through the annual Christmas catalog. We always got the JC Penney one. It would arrive as early as September, when Christmas seemed like an eternity away. Looking for toys was what I mostly looked at. I loved seeing pages like this:
These were one of my favorite toys. Speaking of which...
CABBAGE PATCH KIDS:
Yes, I got one of those, even though I was a teenager when they became popular and easier to obtain. This was two years after the fights over the toys that occurred in 1983 as many parents scrambled to find one of these for their children, causing riots at retail stores. This was parodied in the 90s holiday film Jingle All the Way, and was even made into an HBO film itself.
I know I still have my doll. It's outside in the garage in one of the plastic storage bins.
COSTUMES:
Remember when kids' costumes for Halloween looked like this?
Costumes packaged in boxes that consisted of a vinyl smock and plastic mask with a rubber band that would break in no time, and the name and picture of the character on the smock. Some of the characters depicted were questionable--did anyone ever say they wanted to be Father Murphy or Captain Stubing? These sound like some of the least popular ones that would left over for those waiting until the last minute to buy one of these costumes.
I cannot recall ever wearing one of these, despite how long they were around. I loved Strawberry Shortcake and the Smurfs, but don't recall seeing either of those costumes for sale. My mom must have been great at making costumes.
COLA WARS:
Remember the Cola Wars of the 1980s? I seem to recall drinking some Pepsi then, but today I'm Team Coca-Cola! No Pepsi for me now!
Team Coca-Cola forever!
And I have a vague recollection of these sweatshirts:
I never went after these, though I don't know why. Though I do remember some girls at school wearing them, once on Homecoming Day, since red and white are my high school's colors.
There was a time when free toys could be found inside cereal boxes. Many kids would dig through the box to find the toy. According to this, some boxes had records on the backs. This must've been before I was born, because I don't think I ever saw a cereal box with record on it. And I don't know how many cereal box toys I ever had. Often it would be a promo for a movie or something and people would try to collect all the toys in the series. Chances were many got the same toy more than once. I know had one or more of these license plates from Honeycomb Cereal.
There were also mail-in offers from cereals. There was one I got that I will be taking about in another A to Z post. Stay tuned.
My childhood certainly would not have felt complete with coloring books and a set of crayons. I cannot even speculate how many different coloring books I could have had over the years. And how many boxes of crayons. I know I once had Crayola, back when they had the built-in sharpener in the box. And when at day care, they would also have crayons, most of which would be worn down to a stub, with the labels torn off. It was always hard to tell the dark blue, black and purple crayons apart when this happened.
One coloring book I remember was the Baby Alive one. And I had at least one of Barbie, The Smurfs, Strawberry Shortcake, Snoopy and some Disney one.
CALIFORNIA RAISINS:
A series of raisin commercials featuring animated anthropomorphic raisins dancing to "I Heard Through the Grapevine," this promo lasted until 1994. Toys, books, and even a cartoon series (which didn't last long) all came out of these promos. The origin of the promos can be read about here.
COMICS:
I wasn't too big on comic books. My primary source of comics was in newspapers. I especially loved seeing them in color on Sundays. I did have a Peanuts comic collection, though (more on that to come). I regularly read the San Francisco Chronicle.
Everyone seemed to have had one of these in the 1980s, mostly large ones that looked like the ones in the pictures. I know I had one that was somewhere along the lines of this design.
Soon I transitioned to CDs (more on this to come).
More like 40 years later! Strange how technology has evolved, and how times have changed! Back in the day, we could not take items like these to school, as the school would not be responsible for such things getting stolen or lost. Now kids have to take laptops to school for work, and no one seems worried about those getting stolen!
BABY DOLLS:
I had a few of these as a little girl before outgrowing toys completely. I never had Baby Alive, though I can now see myself wearing the doll out, trying to make it poop, thus running out of the baby food mixes. Though I did have the Baby Alive coloring book. I do have to say the Baby Alive dolls today are quite creepy. They looked much better back in the day.
There were several other I remember seeing advertised but never got, though I don't recall ever asking for them to begin with.
One was this one:
I could see myself running out of the baby lotion by continually giving her a bottle just to see the rash happening!
And this one. I don't know why, if at all, I never asked this one:
At least I wouldn't have run out of the "milk," though the pull string might have worn out. It would have been too tempting to hear the slurping sounds.
Here is one I did have, called Baby, Be Good! As I recall, you squeezed her stomach as she sucked her thumb or drank her bottle.
BOOK ORDERS AND BOOK FAIRS:
Many will remember getting order forms for books each month in grade school. It was from these order forms that I got my first Mad Libs book, my copy of Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, and my first teen romance books (more on this genre to come), among other things. The monthly order forms looked like this:
It was always fun to browse through the order form to decide what to get.
We also had book fairs where could also get books. They were usually set up in the library, like this. And they're still happening.
I will be discussing different kinds of books in upcoming A to Z posts.
BRACES:
How many of you had to go through that? Yes, I did. It was quite rough having to give up gum and candy for a while. And I don't even want to get started on that awful thing called a headgear!
My 80s teen book (that I'm still trying to send out) is about a boy having to get braces. This was the shoutout this blog did about my book after I left the comments below:
Check out my blog archives for more info on my book, You Can't Hide From the Teeth. I was originally going to use a title with the phrase "behind bars," after the cartoon below. This analogy somehow never occurred to me back in the day or seemingly to anyone else either.
BENNETON:
Who remembers this line of clothes? I know I went out looking for this and found a shirt something like this:
I know I saw at least one other person wearing this and other popular clothes brands back in my teens. This often made me want to get in on the clothes as well. More to come on others.
BARRETTES:
Many a girl will remember wearing barrettes, particularly ones like these:
And there were those that got creative:
I was never big on barrettes, though I do know I had some of the plastic ones pictured above, and remember snapping them open and shut just for the fun of it.
Drums of Autumn--Diana Gabaldon (12 squares): In a Series, Shelf Love, Physical Book, Time Travel, Book Club Read, Trope, Nickname, Big City, Free Space, Undead/Ghost, Morgue, Book Club Read
Welcome to Blogging A to Z 2023. My theme for this year is Childhood Flashbacks/Memories. For Day One, I present....
ALBUMS:
The word album had many meanings when I was a child. For one thing, it could mean a photo album of family pictures:
Though it's been years since I've looked at them, the photo albums in my house are still in the hall closet on the shelf above the bed sheets. It seems almost shameful that this is one of the lost arts caused by the Internet. I do kind of miss actual photos. The only good thing I have found about digital photos is not having to buy film, taking a few extra shots just to use up the rest of the roll, and waiting a week or so for the photos to be done.
Another kind of album I had a child was one for autographs by people from school. I had this one:
I'm not sure how many others had one of these things. Of course in junior high school and high school, we got autographs from fellow students in our yearbooks. I now wonder if this is still a thing today.
And there were albums for collecting stickers (I will discuss more about stickers in another post):
And of course, everyone remembers this kind of album:
Though I was mainly a cassette listener, transitioning to CDs in the 1990s. I still have many of my CDs (more on this to come).
APPLE COMPUTER:
This of course, is an old Apple Computer, with its former colorful logo. My first exposure to Apple Computers was in school. We would go to the computer lab for math or English class, and sometimes to play games. I seemed to be the only one who did not play Snoggle, a Pac-Man knockoff. Others seemed excited that it had come, but I stayed with playing Hangman.
I did not have an actual computer until I was in college, as I needed one for typing papers. I have been Apple Macintosh user ever since.
AFTERSCHOOL SPECIALS:
Anyone who grew in the 1980s (and also in the 70s) will remember these occasionally airing programs for kids on ABC. I can only recall a few right off hand. I was rarely ever home when they were on. Though I can recall the series intros:
The specials were released on DVD, and I rented one or two the seasons that I could find when I first signed up for Netflix in 2007. Kristy McNichol was in at least two of the ones I saw then.
Airing these specials meant ABC stations would pre-empt their normal afternoon programming. Often during that time of day, it was soap operas and syndicated programs. When syndicated talk shows, like Oprah Winfrey's, started becoming popular and profitable, the Afterschool Specials became less frequent, eventually disappearing altogether. Some can be seen on Youtube.
ANIMATED SHOWS:
Of course, my childhood would not have been complete without watching animated shows. From the ones on Saturday morning, to reruns of shows like The Flintstones on weekdays afternoons. I also liked the Schoolhouse Rock segments in between cartoons on Saturday on ABC (more on this to come). One of my most watched Saturday doing cartoon was The Smurfs. I had the stuffed and miniature toys of the characters, among other things.
And way too many other most-watched cartoons to mention!
ANIMAL CRACKERS:
One of my favorite snacks as a child. This was the box design I grew up with:
