Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? (14 page)

There were enough familiar faces among the guest stars to make an episode feel like a family reunion (Hi, Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie! Lookin' good, Annette Funicello!), and even if there weren't, the crew made up for it. It was hard not to love goofy Gopher, although what exactly a “yeoman purser” did was never clear. Julie and Isaac had the coolest jobs on the ship, playing games and making drinks, and Doc was the gentlest of lechers. But Captain Stubing's daughter,Vicki, was the luckiest, as she apparently got to live on the ship and skip school.

E
VEN protective moms were OK with their girls wearing Love's Baby Soft. It was practice perfume, smelling a bit like baby powder, a bit like soap, and a lot like what we imagined pink unicorns sunning themselves on rainbows would smell like. It was adulthood in a tiny bottle. Girls bought it at Wool-worth's, but they might as well have picked it up on the Champs-Elysées.

The pink round-topped bottles were a fixture on preteen dressing tables, sharing space with Goody hairbrushes, a Tootsie Roll Lip Smacker, and the occasional Breyer horse. Many an impassioned Oscar acceptance speech was delivered into a bottle of Love's, clasped firmly in a twelve-year-old hand. “I'd like to thank the Academy, my parents, and most of all, my costar and husband, Leif Garrett.”

Few girls wore Love's Baby Soft for long. Even its most loyal devotees soon discarded it in their rush toward Giorgio Beverly Hills, Poison, or other stinkier scents. But find a bottle today, uncap it, and give it a quick whiff. That's the smell of innocence right there.

N
O, kids never really got the appeal of gap-toothed mascot Alfred E. Neuman (“What, me creepy?”), but we couldn't get enough of everything else
Mad
magazine had to offer.

The art was hilarious and often, refreshingly, gross.The barf—and there was a lot of barf—always included a fish skeleton. Who was swallowing a whole fish? No wonder they barfed! The squint-worthy tiny drawings in the margins packed in bonus content where lesser magazines had nothing but white space.
Spy vs. Spy
offered a creative new way to kill someone each issue—from guns and bombs to elaborate booby traps. The fold-ins on the back covers were kid catnip—even the most anti-vandalism among us were compelled to crease the mag to find the hidden joke before we bought it. Too bad we didn't get most of the ones about Nixon, drugs, hippies, or Vietnam.

But the real draw was the spot-on, did-they-really-say-that satire, skewering movies,TV, ads, and life in general. “Nut Court”! “The Crockford Files”! In 1980's “Diff'rent Jokes,” “Arnut” tells “Mr. Dumbmon” he's sick of all the short jokes about him and plans to commit suicide—by jumping off a curb.

We were convinced our parents didn't get it. Until we realized that they were reading the exact same magazine—with a lot of the same jokes—twenty-five years before.

B
ARBIE has been a fashion model, anurse, a doctor, a vet, an astronaut, a rock star, a paleontologist, a chef, an
American Idol
contestant, and a Rockette. But back in the 1970s, Malibu Barbie ruled the beach with nothing more than surfboard-straight blond locks, a sky-blue swimsuit, Jackie O sunglasses, and a Band-Aid-sized beach towel. And, possibly, a precancerous skin condition.

Playing with Malibu Barbie was blessedly simple. Did Mom save one of those little foldy drink umbrellas from her Singapore Sling at Trader Vic's? You had yourself a Barbie beach umbrella. A patterned washcloth made a perfect beach towel. You could, of course, beg for Barbie's fancy penthouse, but you could more cheaply set up shop in your little brother's sandbox. No Barbie inflato-pool? Fill the Thanksgiving turkey roaster with water and off the high-dive she goes!

Malibu Barbie's biggest problem? Malibu Ken. Lord, what a dork. He sported a molded plastic hairpiece, zero muscle tone, and super-dorky lime swim shorts, which covered some weirdly ambiguous smooth genitalia. Fortunately, Barbie wasn't above dumping Ken and speeding off in her hot pink Corvette with Steve Austin, G.I. Joe, or Major Matt Mason at her side. Once more, unto the beach.

O
UR older siblings had drive-ins and malt shops, but we got our flirt on at mall arcades. The guys camped out at Galaga,Asteroids, or Dragon's Lair, while the girls eyed them from the delicate glow of Miss Pac-Man or Kangaroo. (The weird kids opted for Skee-Ball or the arcade's lone pinball machine.)

It was preteen nirvana:You could hang out with your friends for hours in a darkened room and not have to say a word; jamming a joystick in every direction or slapping at a trackball with both hands was the only communication necessary.And everybody spoke the language: Nerdlish. Most important, the subtle lighting down-played everybody's acne.

The only downside? The high-score credits were unforgiving. One wrong move, and you overshot the swear word you were trying to spell, ending up with “ASD” or “FUJ.” Game over, man.

A
NY time you visited a public pool, you could tell who watched
Man from Atlantis
.That would be the kid trying his damndest to emulate star Patrick Duffy and swim like a porpoise, bobbing his hips up and down with his arms held close to his sides. More than one Duffy wannabe inhaled a gallon of chlorinated pee-water and sank slowly toward the drain, quickly realizing that the as-seen-on-TV stroke only worked if you were actually from under the sea.

The show ran from 1977 to 1978 and had Duffy playing Mark Harris, a mysterious Atlantean who washed up on shore and was then recruited by a government agency to help fight crime. Like Aquaman, the mermaid from
Splash
, or your average guppy, Harris needed water to survive, which, not surprisingly, became an issue about once an episode. His awesome webbed fingers, tight yellow shorts, and ability to breathe underwater weren't enough to keep viewers interested, though, and
Man from Atlantis
dried up after four TV movies and thirteen regular episodes.

I
N 1973, running marathons was not yet as trendy as it would become, but eating Marathons—the thin, braided candy bar from M&M/Mars—ah, that was a different kettle of caramel.

The Marathon bar was simple: caramel just resistant enough to totally mess up your braces, braided and drenched in chocolate. The candy's gimmick was the eight-inch length. It's basic Kid Law: If chocolate is good, more chocolate is better. The bright red package even boasted a measuring stick on the back so kids could make sure Mars wasn't cheaping out.And if your plastic school ruler broke, hey, edible substitute.

Marathon's memorable commercials featured studly Patrick Wayne, son of the Duke, as Marathon John. As Cap'n Crunch had the Soggies, so too Marathon John had his nemesis: Quick Carl, an overcaffeinated nervous wreck who was speedy about everything— except eating a Marathon bar. Kids, too, couldn't cram a Marathon bar down their gullets quickly. Even a glutton might have to shove half in a pocket for secondary snacking, resulting in more than a few pairs of Toughskins taking a caramel-chocolate bath. Sadly, this Marathon was run into the ground in 1981.

T
O kids today, the Mattel Electronic Football would feel as primitive as Morse code. But when the handheld device hit stores in 1977, it couldn't have been more addicting if it had been made out of crack with little heroin buttons.

When we scored a touchdown, a little electronic pep band would launch into the doodle-dee-
doot
-do-do “Charge!” song. Kids were instantly transfixed by the moving red dashes and beeps and boops. We would play at the dinner table, in the bedroom, and on the school bus; in class, at choir practice, even in church.

In the game's first edition, passing wasn't allowed, so you'd feverishly tap your thumb on the “forward” button to make your guy run until your knuckles cramped up. Sometimes you'd find a hole and shoot through it, gaining huge yardage. Other times, a wall of defensemen would line up on top of one another, and your only option was to wait until they tackled your little red ass.

Looking back, the best part is that Mattel felt it had to explain what this new phenomenon was—“treat your Electronic Football Game like a calculator”—and even how to hold it. In 1978, Mattel introduced Football II, which included that much-dreamed-about pass function and even let you run backwards. Touchdown, Mattel. Touchdown.

T
HE rollerball goo-delivery system shook up the personal care industry in the 1970s like microwaves shook up kitchens. In addition to Tickle, the ginormous antiperspirant, the new technology was utilized in Maybelline Kissing Potion, clear lip gloss served up in tiny glass bottles. Bubblegum was a perennial favorite, but Strawberry, Cherry Smash, and Orange Squeeze were also popular.

These were for girls who were just too old for Lip Smackers. Kissing Potion was slick enough to look like real makeup and completely impress anyone who was bored enough to search through your purse. Before the couples' skate at any roller rink, you can bet that half the girls in the place were frantically rolling it on.