Let's play!

Remember these Disco Years toys?

I dug the gooey, icky feel and even the chemical smell of Slime, but it’s one of those toys that you say ‘hey, cool!’, then 3 minutes later you put it aside and never think about it again. I guess if you were into pranks involving…oh, I don’t know…snot...then maybe you’d get a little more charge out of it.


Rock’em-Sock’em Robots! Got’em for Christmas one year. Remember the commercials? ‘You knocked my block off!’

Simon is a toy that my parents liked as much as I did…actually, we got the cheaper knock-off called Einstein…but it was still the same memory/copy-cat game. Pretty addictive...and frustrating!


Only a little more engaging than Slime…the ever popular Slinky was a biggie in the Disco Years…

Okay, I bet most folks don’t remember this one, but it was an awesome toy…Spirograph! Who needs talent? Just stick your colored pen (conveniently included) into the little whirly-gig. wiggle it around, and you can make perfect curly-cue design thingies. Excellent...unless you do it on the dining room table and the pen cuts into the wood... (My dad did it...not me...I swear!)

When in the course of human events...

I can remember what a big deal the bicentennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence was in 1976. There were big celebrations in New York, Washington and Philadelphia, which we watched on TV.


My grandmother gave the grandkids commemorative sets of the special bicentennial quarter (designed by Jack L. Ahr), half dollar and dollar coins. I even have a 1976 2 dollar bill! Not sure how much they’re worth now, but they’re cool things to have.


I remember hearing about the American Freedom Train, which carried over 20 cars containing pieces of Americana like Dorothy’s ruby slippers from ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and a lunar rover from one of the moon missions.

As part of the celebration on July 4th it would have been amazing to see the fleet of revolutionary era-styled ships that sailed in New York Harbor and then later in Boston.

CBS aired a series of Emmy winning ‘Bicentennial Moments’ that highlighted historical events surrounding America’s fight for independence. Check out this link to see some of them on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bicentennial+minute&search_type=&aq=5&oq=bicentennial+m


It was an exciting, patriotic Disco Year...

Good morning, angels!

One of my favorite shows during the Disco Years was ‘Charlie’s Angels’. It came on past my bedtime, so I didn’t get to see it often. Luckily in this age of DVDs, I’ve recently been able to watch all of season 1…and had a great time doing it.

The show, which ran from 1976 – 1981, featured three beautiful women who were private investigators working for an unseen mystery man….Charlie, of course. What’s not to love about that premise?

Jaclyn Smith was my favorite angel as a kid, but in watching the show now it’s hard to deny how magnetic Farrah is on film. You can’t take your eyes off of her. She’s beautiful, sure, but she also had some sort of magic sparkle about her. She’ll certainly be missed.

Some favorite episodes from season 1:
- The Pilot – We first meet the angels in a cool whodunit murder mystery.
- The Séance – The angels go undercover to catch a jewel thief who’s a fake medium. Kelly blows her cover while under hypnosis and even tries to kill Jill!
- Angels on a String – The angels rescue an international political leader at a fancy resort. There’s a whole ‘identical imposter’ thing going on. Fun.

Some cool guest stars over the run of the show: Kim Basinger (before she was famous), Tom Selleck, Jamie Lee Curtis (before she was famous), Jim Backus (of Mr. Howell fame), Dean Martin, Robert Englund (aka Freddy Krueger!) and Barbara Stanwyck.

'Charlie's Angels' has one of the best fan websites I've seen. It's at http://www.charliesangels.com/.

Here are some great pics . . .

The original cast: Jaclyn Smith as Kelly, Kate Jackson as Sabrina and Farrah Fawcett-Majors as Jill.

In the second season, Cheryl Ladd replaced Farrah. She played Kris.

A more recent pic of the original angels, at the 2006 Emmy Award ceremony. They still looked awesome!

Spooooky

October seems like a good time to share some of my favorite Disco Years horror films. I consider myself quite the horror flick aficionado . . .

- The Omen (1976) and Damien: Omen II (1978) – These movies did such an excellent job of creating an uneasy, tense vibe that I found myself scared even during the non-scary parts. Two of the best movies ever, horror or not.


- Halloween (1978) – Jamie Lee Curtis’ first movie. I felt like I was running from bad old Michael Myers right there with her!


- Jaws 2 (1978) – I’m probably one of the only people who liked this sequel as much as the classic original, maybe because I was a kid when I first saw it and this one had more teenagers in it. The scene with Ann Dusenberry and her boyfriend on that little boat when you-know-who attacks really got me!


Carrie (1977) – A truly twisted, scary movie. It’s a little disturbing that I was actually glad when Carrie started racking up the corpse count in the third act…except when it looked like she was getting poor Amy Irving!


Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) – Excellent re-make. I promise you’ll lose your breath during the last 5 seconds of this movie.