Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[TimeWarpWife]

It's hard to square the dim, vague Poston of "Newhart" with the witty, urbane Poston of "To Tell The Truth."

Witty, urbane panel shows are another Vintage Thing That Has Disappeared in My Lifetime. What's My Line?, TTtT, I've Got a Secret....

I watch these shows all the time on Buzzr TV - love them.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I introduced one of the Kids to "What's My Line" recently -- the entire run of the show is available on Yoo Toob -- and even though she had no idea who any of the people were, she responded instantly to the cleverness and the wit involved. She's become a real fan of Arlene Francis, but thinks Bennett Cerf is a blowhard dink and is always glad when Mr. Daly puts him in his place.

We recently watched the episode where Groucho was a guest panelist and utterly destroyed the show -- she was laughing out loud, big uproarious whoops, which I found very gratifying. Who says millennials have no taste?

 

[EngProf]

It's hard to square the dim, vague Poston of "Newhart" with the witty, urbane Poston of "To Tell The Truth."

Witty, urbane panel shows are another Vintage Thing That Has Disappeared in My Lifetime. What's My Line?, TTtT, I've Got a Secret....

Remember also that Tom Poston was one of the three "Men on the street" who were "interviewed" on the Steve Allen Show.
He was the one who could not remember his own name. (Louis Nye and Don Knotts were the other two.)
I looked up Tom Poston's biography and there was clearly more to him than his TV persona:
During WWII he enlisted in the Air Corps as a private in 1941, and made captain by 1944. Not many people managed to do that.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And Dayton Allen was another popular character on that show, the "Why Not?" man, whose response to any question was a non-sequitir "Whyyyyyyyyy not?"

Allen -- no relation to Steve -- was one of the most colorful figures in early television -- he had one of the filthiest senses of humor known to humanity, and while working on "Howdy Doody" as the puppeteer behind Phineas T. Bluster, he would cause the puppet to do unspeakable things during rehearsals, often involving an unwrapped Three Musketeers bar strategically placed within Bluster's pants.

You'd expect such a character to come to a bad end, but he became a multi-millionaire speculating in gold futures and remained cheerfully demented to his dying day.

 

[Just Jim]

Went out this morning to walk dogs, and the neighbor kid waved me down to say his truck wouldn't start. Big ol' Dodge diesel, bright red, lifted, with lots of chrome--including two big shiny exhaust stacks behind the cab--added for boost in horsepower. Truck turned over fine, but it would only fire once or twice before dying.

I asked him if he'd been rolling coal or something, because it sounded like the exhaust was clogged. He laughed, admitted he "might have done that a time or two" (actually, every morning at 5 AM when I'm out walking dogs, plus every pedestrian he saw on his way to work in the mornings) but just knew it had to be something else.

Got home tonight and he was cutting the exhaust stacks off. Seems I was right: the exhaust system was clogged. With potatoes. Best guess is, someone got tired of asking him to stop rolling coal.

It used to be that practical jokes like this were one way of stepping on the behavior of adolescents and young men who were getting out of line.

 

[LizzieMaine]

So much for saving the Necco factory in Revere:

"Round Hill Investments was very excited to acquire NECCO’s historic brands and to be part of their national resurgence,’’ the company said. “After careful engagement and consideration however, the firm decided to sell the brands to another national confection manufacturer and today announced the closure of the operations in Revere, Massachusetts."

Word up to workers: never trust a company with "investments" in its name.

 

[Fading Fast]

So much for saving the Necco factory in Revere:

"Round Hill Investments was very excited to acquire NECCO’s historic brands and to be part of their national resurgence,’’ the company said. “After careful engagement and consideration however, the firm decided to sell the brands to another national confection manufacturer and today announced the closure of the operations in Revere, Massachusetts."

Word up to workers: never trust a company with "investments" in its name.

Once the original founder (and, if a good one, the original founder's family) is out, whatever it was, it becomes just another business most of the time. And even with an original founder, if the economic forces have turned brutally negative, nothing will sustain it (the factory and its workers) as no one will lose money year after year as, eventually, they run out of money.

 

[ChiTownScion]

So much for saving the Necco factory in Revere:

"Round Hill Investments was very excited to acquire NECCO’s historic brands and to be part of their national resurgence,’’ the company said. “After careful engagement and consideration however, the firm decided to sell the brands to another national confection manufacturer and today announced the closure of the operations in Revere, Massachusetts."

Word up to workers: never trust a company with "investments" in its name.

A shame. The wafers are still one of my favorite candies.

 

[3fingers]

So much for saving the Necco factory in Revere:

"Round Hill Investments was very excited to acquire NECCO’s historic brands and to be part of their national resurgence,’’ the company said. “After careful engagement and consideration however, the firm decided to sell the brands to another national confection manufacturer and today announced the closure of the operations in Revere, Massachusetts."

Word up to workers: never trust a company with "investments" in its name.

Unlike. I would say divestment was always the plan though, it was just easier to get the deal done talking about nothing changing and saving the jobs. Now they have the asset, they will do whatever makes the most money the fastest, which is of course their right and happens every day. It just sucks in this case that a company of such long history is being dissected.

 

[Fading Fast]

Unlike. I would say divestment was always the plan though, it was just easier to get the deal done talking about nothing changing and saving the jobs. Now they have the asset, they will do whatever makes the most money the fastest, which is of course their right and happens every day. It just sucks in this case that a company of such long history is being dissected.

NYC just lost a 100+ year old bakery that I frequented and where I got to know the owners a bit. The two owners - brothers (great grandsons of the founder) - wanted to retire, but had never made that much from the bakery. The real asset was the building they owned that housed the bakery and its sale would fund their retirement.

There was a cousin who wanted to take over the bakery, but she couldn't afford the multi-million dollar building - nor could she get a loan for that amount against the modest profits of the bakery. And even if she could, she'd never be able to make the loan payments based on the bakery's small profits.

Hence, even though everyone in the family wanted the bakery to continue, the economics wouldn't support the brothers' retirement and passing the bakery on to a cousin. Sometimes, the cold hard facts work against - what would have been - a good outcome.

 

[tonyb]

I was about to add world’s fairs to this list, but cursory research shows they are still a BFD in some parts of this world.

But they rarely penetrate the American consciousness anymore. The most recent such shindig I can recall was Expo ’74 in Spokane, Washington, which was, truth be told, something of a World’s Fair Lite. Spokane is not without its charms, but it’s hardly a destination city. Even in 1974, even from only 300 miles away in Seattle, it seemed contrived and more than a bit overblown.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's been talk of doing another New York fair in the 2020s, but what would be the point?

I went to the one in Montreal when I was a kid, and was sorely disappointed -- I thought a "fair" meant a fair like around here, with carnival rides and sideshows and animal exhibits and horse racing. Instead I got a Cinerama-style documentary about wheat farming in the Ukraine.

 

[tonyb]

World’s fairs have left lasting legacies— grand public spaces, monumental architecture (the Eiffel Tower, for instance, and the Space Needle, structures to which the much-overused term “iconic” actually applies).

 

[LizzieMaine]

To say nothing of the two time capsules that repose under the pavement in Flushing Meadows Park, which will give whatever creatures occupy the planet five thousand years hence a good look at what Westinghouse thought of the people in 1938 and 1965.

 

[David Conwill]

...whatever creatures occupy the planet five thousand years hence...

Oh, you mean The Great Race of Yith.

 

[tonyb]

To say nothing of the two time capsules that repose under the pavement in Flushing Meadows Park, which will give whatever creatures occupy the planet five thousand years hence a good look at what Westinghouse thought of the people in 1938 and 1965.

One criticism I read this morning of the American pavilions at the more recent world’s fair (which we Yanks pay little attention to) is that they are mostly advertisements for the corporations that underwrote them.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yep. It's highly instructive to leaf thru a guidebook to any of the big 20th Century fairs and realize that your visions of the future were being manufactured for you by the Boys. The ultimate example of this was the General Motors Futurama at the 1939 fair -- it envisioned a World of 1960 in which America was dominated by six-lane highways and there were no railroads and no public transportation at all. Much of that dream did come true -- but much of it turned out to be a nightmare.

Even the mundane aspects of the fair were brought to you by the Boys. If you were feeling a bit sweaty at the 1933-34 Chicago Fair you could get a reading from Texaco's supremely phallic Havoline Thermometer.

Or if you were at the 1939-40 fair and wondered how many people came thru the gate that day just look up at the gigantic revolving till created by National Cash Register.

And of course, if you were feeling peckish, well, bread, milk, and cigarettes were conveniently grouped together for your enjoyment.

 

[scottyrocks]

 

[LizzieMaine]

"We wanna see the dinosaurs, Ma! Where's the dinosaurs!!!"

 

[scottyrocks]

The dinosaurs and the GM exhibit where the new cars were attached to a track and moved around the large room/building they were in. I was 4 or 5 (center in above picture) and all I wanted to do was sit in the drivers seat and hold the steering wheel.