A 1970’s Time Capsule
POP CULTURE
Be sure to visit my News and Noteworthy post today as well.
The A to Z Challenge has dueling decades going on. Check out the 1980s theme from a fellow blogger HERE
Platform Shoes
The platform shoe has been part of fashion in many different time periods; however, the biggest, and most prolonged, platform shoe fad in history began as early as 1967 (appearing in both advertisements and articles in 1970 issues of Seventeen magazine), and continued through to 1979 in Europe and Britain. The fad lasted even further in the US, lasting until as late as the early 1980s. At the beginning of the fad, they were worn primarily by young women in their teens and twenties, and occasionally by younger girls, older women, and (particularly during the disco era) by young men. Although platform shoes did provide added height without the discomfort of spike heels, they seem to have been worn primarily for the sake of attracting attention. Many glam rock musicians wore platform shoes as part of their act.
PONG
PONG, one of the earliest arcade video games was the very first sports arcade video game. With the concept of table tennis, the game featured simple two-dimensional graphics. PONG surpassed other arcade games to be the first video games to reach mainstream popularity. The game was originally manufactured by Atari Incorporated (Atari), which released it in 1972.
- Created by Allan Alcorn
- The first commercially successful arcade video game machine
- Helped to establish the video game industry along with the first home console, the Magnavox Odyssey.
- During the 1975 Christmas season, Atari successfully released a home version of Pong exclusively through Sears retail stores.
- The game has been remade on numerous home and portable platforms following its release.
- Pong has been referenced and parodied in multiple television shows and video games, and has been a part of several video game and cultural exhibitions.
Pop Rocks
Pop Rocks is a carbonated candy with ingredients including sugar, lactose (milk sugar), corn syrup, and flavoring. It differs from typical hard candy in that it creates a fizzy reaction when it dissolves in one’s mouth. Patented in 1961 but offered as a candy by General Mills in 1975. Are you familiar with the urban legend associated with this candy? Rumors persisted that eating Pop Rocks and drinking soda would cause a person’s stomach to explode. This was, in part, caused by the false assumption that Pop Rocks contain an acid/base mixture (such as baking soda and vinegar) which produces large volumes of gas when mixed through chewing and saliva. One of these myths involved a character named Mikey from the Life cereal commercials. Mikey, played by child actor John Gilchrist, was falsely rumored to have died after eating a Pop Rocks and Coca-Cola mixture—namely, a six-pack of Coca-Cola and six pouches of Pop Rocks.
Pop Rocks
A to Z on the Music Charts
Play That Funky Music by Wild Cherry reached number 1 on Billboard Hot 100 on September 18, 1976 and stayed number 1 for three weeks.
A to Z At the Movies
Patton (1970) received a phenomenal ten Academy Awards nominations and won seven major awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (Scott refused to accept the honor), Best Director (Franklin J. Schaffner), Best Story and Screenplay (Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Sound, and Best Film Editing. Its other three nominations were: Best Cinematography, Best Original Score (Jerry Goldsmith), and Best Special Visual Effects.
Actor George C. Scott portrays Second World War Gen. George S. Patton
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