Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? (12 page)

In the News
aired on CBS from 1971 to 1985 in between Saturday cartoons and, for some kids, announced the perfect time to take a bathroom break before
The Shazam!/Isis Hour
returned. But for those who stayed, the reasoned and sonorous voice of journalist Christopher Glenn led them through a simple two-minute summary of a major news story. Well, usually a major news story. Once they did a segment on ketchup. But generally, topics were pretty serious— everything from the fortieth anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing to the hole in the ozone layer to the stampede at a 1979 Who concert.

In the News
was written for kids, but it never talked down to them. No euphemisms, no ginned-up happy endings. Glenn sounded like the neighborhood's most reasonable dad, who was neither going to lie to you nor hype things unfairly. And if kids got a little glimpse at the real world to go along with the latest episode of
Far Out Space Nuts
, well, it was like a bite of a crisp apple in the middle of a meal of Ding Dongs: different but not altogether unwelcome.

I
RON-ON patches were hard, like a scab, and utilitarian. What kid didn't wipe out on his bike, tear his Toughskins, and beg his mom to affix these poor-man's knee pads? But T-shirt iron-ons were a whole other thing—frivolous, fun, and purely personal.

Kids made pilgrimages to mall stores with names like Shirt Shack, where they thumbed through hundreds of iron-on options. They ranged from 1970s swinger-style disturbing (“I'm warm for your form”) to outright lies (“Behind this shirt is a winner”) to blunt truths (“I'm with Stupid”).

You could also set aside convention and create your own message by invoking the pinnacle of individuality: iron-on letters—some stores had as many as three or four different fonts to choose from! A bored teenage employee would arrange the words on the blank T-shirt, then press them in a giant panini maker. Sure, the little felt letters would eventually peel off, leaving behind an incomplete message, which often spelled trouble. “Keep on Truckin'” was allowed in school. “Keep on uckin'”? Not so much.

And, ah, the odor. We breathed it in. It smelled like burning. And fashion.

J
ELL-O 1-2-3 involved manipulation similar to a super-complicated science experiment. You had to add boiling water to the fruity powder, put the mix in a blender, add ice water, fill your serving dishes half full, then fill them again. Eventually, magical Jell-O elves broke into your fridge and manually separated the dessert into three layers—regular Jell-O on the bottom, a mousse-like middle layer, and a frothy, foamy top layer.

Digging a spoon through all three layers was like going on an archaeological dig.The lowest level was like regular Jell-O, while level two was thicker, like pudding. But oh, the wonder that was level three. It had the texture of attic insulation and the appearance of an especially cratery part of the moon, but it floated off your tongue and down your throat as smoothly as a toboggan down a hill of fresh snow. Jell-O 1-2-3 was a chemistry experiment gone gloriously right.

T
HERE are many unanswered questions about
Jem and the Holograms
. Did no one ever realize how saccharine and preachy their songs were compared to much catchier tunes by the supposed evil band, the Misfits? (Sample Jem lyric: “Open a book and open up your mind!” Sample Misfits lyric: “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! I want it!”) Were viewers supposed to root for Jerrica and boyfriend Rio when he was pretty much cheating on her with her own secret identity? Did Rio color his hair with grape Kool-Aid? Who had the best name—Kimber, Aja, Pizzazz, or Stormer?

Sure, the show was partially developed by Hasbro to sell toys, but so what? It earned a devoted following that Barbie and the Rockers could only dream of. Who wouldn't want to be a cotton candy–haired rock star by night and an heiress running a girls' foster home by day? Jem was talented, beautiful, and altruistic, but none of it explained why she and her band insisted on wearing eye shadow smeared in weird, tribal patterns across their faces. It was kind of like they wanted to be KISS but didn't actually own a single mirror.

M
AYBE your high school didn't actually look anything like the cushy suburban worlds of John Hughes's movies. But that didn't mean he got things wrong. Sure, we may have never been stuck in Saturday detention with a girl who made art from her dandruff, or given our underwear to a geek. But Hughes set up universes we could all relate to. The villain in your life didn't have to sneer like James Spader. Maybe it was the sour-faced cheerleader in your Spanish class who was never going to drop her grudge. And you might not have had a best friend as cool and yet impressively geeky as Duckie, or as neurotic and moody as Cameron. It didn't matter.

The hearts of Hughes's characters—their loyalty, their wit, and that killer Ferris Bueller ingenuity—these were things we recognized and responded to. Who hasn't felt as forgotten as Samantha in
Sixteen Candles
? Or like the one ragamuffin in a school of Vanderbilts, like Andie in
Pretty in Pink
?

Hughes's movies nailed it: Even the pretty girls and the jocks sometimes slogged through the day as if it were a bowl of wet cereal. The song that rang through the halls of detention in
The Breakfast Club
might as well be every teen's anthem. “Don't you forget about me. Don't, don't, don't, don't.”

Hughes's movies didn't, and neither did he.

B
EFORE Jolt Cola came out, there seemed to be a gentlemen's agreement that food products would at least pretend to be good for you. But when Jolt poured onto shelves in 1985, all bets were off. It was a coiled snake in a can, packed with almost twice the buzzy goodness of Mountain Dew, the former peak of caffeine-y refreshment.

Even the slogan,“all the sugar and twice the caffeine,” just dared you to object. Keep your health drinks, Jolt's ad campaign seemed to say.We'll jack you up like Speedy Gonzales—and you'll like it!

Sure, kids already knew about energy-boosting secrets, like eating a case of Pixy Stix or downing a six-pack of Coke. But it wasn't socially acceptable for minors to intentionally mess with their body chemistry in public until Jolt made it OK. Just strutting around with the lightning bolt–struck can made you look like a rebel.

Jolt was all about the buzz. Although some thought it tasted like carbonated maple syrup, the bite-into-a-power-line high kept them coming back for more.

W
HEN we had questions about sex, menstruation, masturbation, bodily changes, or just plain growing up, we went straight to our parents or a trusted teacher for straight answers and sensible advice. Right? HA! Instead, we whispered and giggled with our friends, snuck into R-rated movies, and gawked at that copy of
The Joy of Sex
our friend's hippie mom kept in her nightstand.

Thank heaven for Judy Blume. Her books tackled those topics that we were too embarrassed to bring up with anyone, but never did so in an exploitative or lurid way.
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret
wasn't just about buying a bra or getting your period; it was about finding out who you are, religiously and otherwise.
Then Again, Maybe I Won't
is remembered as the “wet dream book,” but Tony also struggled with the agony of moving, sibling issues, and a friend's shoplifting. And Blume could write for all ages—little kids identified with the hilarious
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
, our moms hid
Wifey
under their mattress, and the much-banned
Forever
was the book someone inevitably stole from a cheerleader and passed around the school bus.

In an era where it felt like grown-ups were still hiding a lot from kids, Blume was the big sister who spelled out the truth. And also taught us that classic playground chant,“We must, we must, we must increase our bust.”

I
N the '70s and '80s, our friends the animals turned on us.There was a whole genre of films where anonymous actors were eaten alive by critters that had somehow mutated into killers.

Sometimes the animals were exposed to nuclear waste or experimented on and got huge, like the giant mutant rabbits in
Night of the Lepus
or the creepy-crawlies in
Empire of the Ants
. Occasionally simple electricity ticked them off, like the earthworms in
Squirm
. Sometimes the film just wanted to freak us out about a prediction that had yet to come to pass. We're looking at you, terrifying killer bee hordes in
The Swarm
.

These Mother Nature's revenge flicks were all pretty similar. Lots of spooky music infusing dull setup scenes where characters miss the warning signs that herald the upcoming destruction. Lots of great payoff shots where the audience sees the worms wriggling their way out of the showerhead, or the ants flooding their way up through the sink drain. Gloriously cheapo special effects where normal-sized grasshoppers were made to look as if they towered over cars and homes, or where prop guys tossed stuffed bunnies at actors' jugulars from off-screen. They were no
Jaws
, but they were awesome in their innocence.

E
VER since George Washington Carver ground up some goober peas into a paste, kids have been nuts for peanut butter. So is it any wonder that peanut butter jacked up with their favorite candy flavors grabbed children by the throat like crack? Enter the 1970s' answer to Red Bull: Koogle, a jar of sweet, sweet deliciousness that led to an entire generation of vibrating children. Perhaps the googly pair of peepers on the jar and the “Koo-Koo-Koogle with the Koo-Koo-Koogly eyes” jingle were a wink to the wide-eyed crazy gaze of kids hooked on the stuff.

Koogle was simply glorified frosting. And kids knew it. Sure, they may have started with just a taste, maybe on a cracker or a celery stick. But then it got bad, man—real bad—and kids found themselves graduating to an inch-thick slathering between two pieces of bread or two glazed donuts.And when the butter knife clinked against the side of the empty jar, roving gangs of children took to the streets to score some more. Chocolate one day, cinnamon the next. Banana after that. Then probably meth.

H
EY, Kool-Aid!” dehydrated kids would yell, and he'd come a-runnin'—a giant anthropomorphic drink pitcher with elephant legs and no pants. Kool-Aid Man would burst through walls, fences, and ceilings with blatant disregard for the damage he left in his fat-bottomed wake. Is there a series of commercials somewhere where he apologizes and sets to work fixing the destruction? Probably not. Hope those kids' parents had Kool-Aid insurance.

When he appeared, boys and girls grabbed and chugged the refreshing sugar water instead of dropping their skateboards and running shrieking to the nearest police station, which is what they should have done. The kids were so thirsty, they never seemed to question exactly where Kool-Aid Man got the drink he was serving up. Our theory: He scooped out some of his liquid insides and poured it into the kids' waiting glasses.