GOOFY GRAPE

BECAUSE THIS BLOG WILL BE INTERACTIVE...I HIGHLY SUGGEST PRINTING OUT THIS PAGE ON YOUR PRINTER...BEFORE PROCEEDING FORWARD...

I'd like to take you on an interactive journey down memory lane...with me...back to the 60's!

I will be introducing you to some ancient relics of my past that were very important to me for some strange & not so strange reasons...

First off...GOOFY GRAPE...!!!

Goofy Grape was a flavor of a Kool-Aid like flavored powder drink mix called FUNNY FACE!

Funny Face tasted great and each flavor had an outrageous name: goofy grape, lefty lemonade, ollie-ollie orange, choo-choo cherry, rootin-tootin raspberry & laugh-out-loud lime...

Way back in the early 60's they had flavors: Injun Orange & Chinese Cherry but they were later deemed offensive...due to their racist sterotypes they implied...

Go to...YOUTUBE.com...and see for yourself...this stuff was very real...

Go to YouTube.com...and SEARCH for...Funny Face Drink Mix-banned commercial...

...(watch it...)...Here you will see your typical little 60's kid like me or my brother Danny getting excited about this wild & crazy new drink craze...from Pillsbury...(before the Dough-Boy)...

Now fast-forward to 1973...Funny Face had the same pitch but a catchy new song to get the kiddies to guzzle down Funny Face in the heat...The song really stuck in your head...

SEARCH YouTube...Funny Face Drink Mix Commercial 1973 Bewitched...

Now let's fade back again...and re-discover another one of my favorite special drinks that was a huge fad for a little while...GREAT SHAKES...!!!

I can remember being up in Knollwood...around 5 years old...in the kitchen...peering up into the cupboards and spotting GREAT SHAKES...Great Shakes was basically this neat little chocolate powder drink mix that came in a special plastic tumbler cup...You just poured in the powder and some milk...covered with this neat lid...and shook, shook, shook...It tasted just like a Milk Shake...Check it out...!!!

SEARCH YouTube...Great Shakes Commercial-Mid 60's...

Notice the Beach Boys-like theme that was all the rage as teens danced about...such an innocent era for so many of us...It's really hard for me to realize I lived thru that by-gone era...

Now for a SHOCKER...!!!...You always remember THE WHO as the 70's Super-group with an endless string of all-time classics...Well...go back a few years and hear them singing the virtues of GREAT SHAKES...Egad....Talk about being total sell-outs...This almost makes them as bad as The Monkees...

SEARCH YouTube...The Who Great Shakes...

To hear this sappy promo with Keith Moon of all people...talking up Great Shakes is a little startling...indeed...

Next up.....JIFFY POP POPCORN...

Jiffy Pop was a huge highlight of any Friday or Saturday Night...It was the treat that was just as fun to make as it was to eat...You would fire up the gas range and let the flame get a little high to add a small element of danger while your arm moved in a small circular motion over the flame until the aluminum foil pan would burst high up with the kernals fully popped...

SEARCH YouTube....Jiffy Pop Witch...

Here you get to hear the witch repeat again & again the little verse that was repeated by everyone including my sisters...as they would shake the aluminum pan over the flame...

Next up...FRITOS CORN CHIPS...

Fritos jumped on the scene as an alternative to potato chips...They really weren't that great, they were greasy and made you a little nauseuas if you ate a whole bag...But they had this great pitch-man who sang home the virtues of this 60's snack...The Frito Bandito...would come on and sing his Frito Bandito Song and that's all you needed...You were hooked...

SEARCH YouTube...Frito Bandito Corn Chips Better Quality....

I can remember demanding my Mom to buy a giant bag of Fritos because it had a Frito Bandito eraser that you could stick on top of your pencil...I was nuts over that eraser...This is about 1969....Damn, talk about a morbid obsession...I might have carried that thing in my pocket forever wherever I went...back then...

Some other familiar favorites in the O'Leary house were Heineman's Chocolate Chip Cookies which we could only get from Dominick's grocery store...Also Green River--Lime Soda and Cactus Punch Soda...before Hawaiian Punch came along...Mister Salty Pretzels, Old Mainze Maple Syrup for our French Toast...SilverCup White Bread...Cheez-Itz...Kayo Chocolate Milk that came in a can...(a favorite of me and my Mom...I could almost drink a whole can down in one gulp it was so good...)...Ore-Ida Fozen French Fries with Lawry's seasonings sprinkled over the top...Huge Box of Jay's Potato Chips which held 2 big pouches...Banquet TV Dinners...(which were downright awful compared to today's frozen entrees...)...Dressel's Cream Puffs and Chocolate Cream Cake...Gonella Fresh Crusty Italian Bread....on and on...My sister Karen also was nuts about the diet soda called TAB...(Search Youtube--Tab Commercial 1982)...There was also some kind of delicious marshmellows covered in chocolate with a cookie on the bottom...that was unique...

One vivid memory is seeing my Mom put out a few frozen tins of Birds-Eye Frozen Strawberries to thaw out a few hours before she would make Strawberry Shortcake covered in whip cream, I can remember on one such night, I was bouncing away on my giant spring-hinged horse-y as we watched this TV Game Show that involved actual taped Horse Racing...The "Jewel" grocery store handed out these tickets as you checked out and they were special chances at winning prizes if your horse won on this game show that was on Channel 9...We would be yelling and screaming at the TV...for our horse...which usually had a funny name like...Betty's Beauty, Lucky Chucky, Harry's Hair Cut...etc...I don't think we ever won...Well, maybe once, but I think all we got was $10...but it was still all very exciting...

They also used to hand out tons of S&H Green Stamps at stores which we collected by the thousands...filling up books and books of these stamps so you could collect neat little discounts and prizes from local department stores...My Mom and sisters would lick, lick, lick away, filling up the pages after pages of these awful glue-tasting stamps...But it was all worth it because you usually ended up with some really neat stuff for free...

I hope you were able to capture a little sense of the 60's...Jim O'Leary style...compliments of YouTube & Me...I'll be following up with another similar entry next time...which will be equally stunning, funny and bizarre in so many ways to some of you but just another passage in time for some of us...I'd be very surprised...If you haven't felt the time warp...that was the 60's...by now...Some of the clips were in color, some were in black & white...It must seem really odd to those who didn't live thru that transition...I guess we were lucky to take it all in stride...as dramatic the changes were...within our worlds...that would rapidly evolve for all of us...

Until next time...When You're Hot--You're Hot--You Need Alot--Al0t--THAT'S FUNNY FACE...!!!