What happened to the Modem Guy? A great story on two partners and personal computer pioneers, Hayes (who got the fame) and Heatherington (who got the money).
posted by falameufilho on Dec 1, 2003 - 18 comments

Beeman's
Brillo
Cream of Wheat
Classic American consumer products in 3-D
posted by putzface_dickman on Oct 1, 2003 - 16 comments

Now Albums have only recently been introduced in the US, but for British children of the 1980s they were a cost effective way of getting decent recordings to replace the taped off the radio copies of popular chart tracks. I'm awash with nostalgia as I glance through TV Cream's survey of the first twenty; come on, surely you remember Men Without Hats and Fiction Factory?
posted by feelinglistless on Apr 19, 2003 - 6 comments

Show and Tell Music - Thrift Store Vinyl. There are lots of vinyl sites out there, but some of the items in this collection had me floored. And the quantity is just as impressive as the quality -- several pages of unintentionally funny Christian vinyl you have to see to believe. MP3 samples too! Via BoingBoing, but got lost under a lengthy EFF post (which was also good).
posted by condour75 on Dec 5, 2002 - 26 comments

Did The Good Old Days Really Exist or was it just the iconography that was cute? Not to mention the cars. Or the clothes. Or the refrigerators. And the music. Or the supermarkets.... But were any of these commodities and comforts actually any good? Could we live with them today? Accomplished websites like Ephemera Now and Fifties Boulevard give the impression of an increasingly unrealistic American Dream that's still fighting against waking up. Is there - can there be - any equivalent nowadays? [First two links from today's Bifurcated Rivets.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Nov 11, 2002 - 20 comments

Obsolecence and adolescence I came of musical age during the beginning of the tectonic shift between cassette/vinyl/CD (vinyl on the way out, cassette taking precedence and CD waiting in the wings). Crushes, science and lots of bad music I still love (yeah, too much Anglophilian pop) was spooled on those tapes. This story about the demise of the cassette has it all! And it's a great bit of writing, too...
posted by chandy72 on Oct 30, 2002 - 26 comments

Well, I know somebody out there in Mefi land will find some use for fifty years of underwear advertising and packaging... I know I did.
posted by Newbornstranger on Sep 16, 2002 - 6 comments

A Scranton, PA man is auctioning 250,000 pieces of software mostly games from the 80s and early 90s composed of around 20,000 unique titles (2MB Excel Spreadsheet) for $250,000. He says its the worlds biggest collection and many games are rare and in demand. You will need trucks and warehouse. If anyone can afford to sit on these for a few decades untill the 80s generation gets old and nostalgic it could be the Schoyen of early computer gameing software.
posted by stbalbach on Sep 8, 2002 - 16 comments

Saturday morning TV schedules from the 1950s to today. TV Guide presents the saturday morning schedules for the big three ABC, NBC, and CBS. Although looking through the listings is a nice bit of nostalgia, what's really interesting is watching the rise and fall of pop culture over the listings. From The Beatles to I am the Greatest: The Adventures of Muhammad Ali to Mr. T to Ace Ventura.

Also starting in the 1990s, you can see the networks moving away from saturday morning cartoons. There are several factors, the main two being the Children's Television Act (enacted in 1990), and cable television. Which unfortunately has led to the births of such monsters as Saved by the Bell.
posted by patrickje on Aug 6, 2002 - 58 comments

Save pinball! "It's an American icon," said Stern, ever the salesman. "Pinball is cool because it is retro. It's a Volkswagen bug, a PT Cruiser, khaki pants."
posted by justgary on Aug 3, 2002 - 23 comments

The Accidental Video Game Porn Archive.
I don't really need to say anything else, do I? Didn't think so.
posted by Su on Jun 6, 2002 - 7 comments

When I was a newspaper-slinger back as a youngster, I became acquainted with that odd funnypages subgenre-the soap opera comic strip(i.e. Winnie Winkle,Rex Morgan, M.D. and the pinnacle of the genre Gasoline Alley). Moving at the brisk pace of 4 panels a day, these entertainments must have seemed quaint even in their early radio days infancy, yet they gained devoted followings and Dr. Rex and Skeezix and the Gang are actually still active. While the strips are published on the web, I'm surprised that there hasn't been a whole-hog revival of the genre. Heck, Brenda Starr could be truly funky hip modern woman if the right person retooled her a bit and I imagine many web community administrators could relate to Mary Worth at times.
posted by jonmc on Apr 28, 2002 - 25 comments

Enter ... The Tickler! A page documenting all the villians that Spider-Man faced on that classic Tv Show The Electric Company. Among them "The Mouse: A happy-go-lucky man until an errant associate at McDonald's forgets to put cheese on a specially-ordered Big Mac.He dons a mouse costume and becomes a glutton for cheese."
posted by Shadowkeeper on Apr 19, 2002 - 13 comments

During my day's aimless surfing I was feeling a mite wistful, and it did my heart a load of good to stumble on the internet home of Funny Face mugs. I also found the Mr. Men and Little Miss Club. Both of these bits of pop culture were objects of devotion to me as a tyke. Looking at the sweet simplicity of the products today, it amazes me how easy it was to invest plastic mugs and simple line drawings with meaning and personality. I wish there was a place for them in today's Kiddie Kulture which seems to be about filling in all the blanks before the kids get to use there imaginations.
posted by jonmc on Feb 24, 2002 - 7 comments

Pitfall. Hard to believe it's been twenty years.
posted by ig on Jan 11, 2002 - 6 comments

MAME - I'm Gonna Live Forever (Flash link) I found this on the author's Tehkan World Cup site. It's an amusing trip down the MAMEory lane of classic arcade games. How many can you name?
posted by SiW on Nov 1, 2001 - 8 comments

I can't believe no one has posted this... but if I had a cool ten-grand, this set of Generation One Transformers would definitely be mine.
posted by hobbes on Jan 26, 2001 - 13 comments

"A pizza is something, a traditional thing. I am a pizza lover. And I like to eat a real pizza." As It Happens, everybody's (second) favorite CBC show is playing classic bits from 5, 15 and 25 years and letting listeners vote on which ones get rebroadcast. In this 1996 excerpt (.ra), Michael Enright interviews Eugenio Ghezzi about pizza. Gradevole! Quintessential Italian charm; you can't help but love him.
posted by sylloge on Jan 23, 2001 - 7 comments

Wacky Packages! Of course, all the cool kids called them Wacky Packs. It's odd to recognize that I was sticking these on notebooks, walls, doors and lockers when a lot of my coworkers were in diapers. I remember series 3 the best.
posted by plinth on Apr 14, 2000 - 0 comments