1970 NEWSWEEK ARTICLE ABOUT NOSTALGIA

A couple of weeks ago, I found this great Forry Ackerman photo that I'd never seen before. It was originally part of an article on nostalgia in the December 28, 1970 issue. I posted it on Twitter and had a request to post the complete article. Now you can see what your parents or grandparents were nostalgic about. This article is still relevant to any generation. Just switch out the pop culture nostalgia with your own era's pop nostalgia and then it will apply to you. Be sure to read the last page. The author, Disney historian John Culhane, could have easily been talking about today. (Btw, I want to go back in time and visit that End of An Era store in San Francisco and buy some props from the famous MGM prop auction!)

DARK SHADOWS HITS THE TEEN MAGAZINE SCENE

Recently, I found a stack of early 1970s teen magazines and two issues feature the gothic TV soap, Dark Shadows. So for all the Dark Shadows fans, here's some reading material. (Click on the pages to read.)

THE STATELY GHOSTS OF ENGLAND

Here's something fun for you to watch in the middle of the night, The Stately Ghosts of England, a haunted house documentary starring Margaret Rutherford. This originally aired on January 25, 1965 on NBC. Before you watch the videos below, here's a one page article I found in the Oct. 1964 issue of Show Magazine.

(Click the image to read)

HAPPY 40TH BIRTHDAY, JAWS! LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE BAKED YOU A CAKE (BACK IN '75!)

It's hard to believe the movie Jaws is forty years old today! To help celebrate one of the best movies ever made, lets look at this crazy Jaws cake from back in the day. (I found this article in a cooking magazine called Mail Box News.)

Agnes Willis must have been a cake making genius because I love everything about this Jaws cake. Of course the best part of the article is the quote from Agnes, "I cut off one of the doll's legs to fit it in the mouth better." Well played Agnes! 

As a bonus, this magazine had another Jaws cake! Wow, you can almost hear the famous theme! No, wait...that was just my stomach growling for a piece of Jaws cake!

1944 THE FAMILY CIRCLE HALLOWEEN COVER

Here's a fun WWII era Halloween cover from The Family Circle. It doesn't have anything related to Halloween inside, but it does have an interesting two page article on special effects man, Lee Zavitz.

FEAR BY ALFRED HITCHCOCK

On the last night of the 2009 Halloween Countdown, I shared a nifty American Weekly Halloween cover from 1960. For some reason I neglected to share this interesting article on fear by the master of the macabre, Alfred Hitchcock. The magazine has been buried for five years and I'm happy that I dug it up for the second day of the 2014 Halloween Countdown. From October 30, 1960, here is Fear by Alfred Hitchcock as told to Adele Whitely Fletcher.

1957 PACK-O-FUN HALLOWEEN ISSUE

Here's a fun treat from a 1957 issue of Pack-O-Fun! 

Apparently, putting bags over your head and calling it a Halloween mask was the thing to do in the 1950s. See the evidence here and here! Below are two pages from the 1950 school workbook, Growing With Art: Fun To Begin.

BANANAS MAGAZINE: SCENES WE WON'T SEE IN STAR WARS III

Too bad some of these scenes didn't make it in Return of the Jedi! Written by Jovial Bob (R.L.) Stine and art by Sam Viviano. Enjoy!

ZIP THE DOG FROM MY WEEKLY READER SURPRISE

For today's post we're going back to kindergarten during the 1975-76 school year. For whatever reason I have so many memories of my first year in school. In my mind's eye I can see all the kids, my teacher Mrs. Phillips with her squeaky magic marker mouse, the orange snail jungle gym, Thumbs Up Seven Up, the giant dominoes set, show & tell, no-bake cookies and Zip the Dog. 

Most everyone remembers Weekly Reader, the weekly child's newspaper we got in school. More than 80 years the simple newspaper educated and entertained school children before ending in 2012. The publication had print runs in the millions with a variety of different editions for different grade levels. The one I remember fondly was My Weekly Reader Surprise: The Kindergarten Newspaper starring Zip the dog!

I'm not sure when Zip was introduced but I've seen examples of the dog in issues of Surprise going back to 1962. He looked different than the 1970s version that I'm familiar with.  

I've been looking for Zip issues for a long time. Only one issue survived from my childhood, Surprise Vol. 18 #6 with Zip and an apple basket. (I posted part of the back cover a few Halloweens ago.)

Okay, I guess I'll share my traumatic puppet story from kindergarten. It was a Wednesday and Mrs. Phillips passed out the latest issue of My Weekly Reader Surprise. To my excitement it came with a Zip puppet page! She instructed the class to get out our safety scissors and cut out the puppets of Zip and his friends. She passed out popsicle sticks for us to paste to our cutout Zip heads. (No, I didn't eat any of the glue paste!) After the kids had all three of their puppets assembled it was time for a puppet show. There's nothing more exciting than a puppet show! Am I right? I can't remember specifics of the puppet show but all of us took turns playing one of the three characters. There was Zip the dog, Nip the cat and Mip the mouse. Our puppet show lasted until the bell rang for the end the school day.

I sure was proud of my new puppet play pals and I made sure to carefully secure them for the bus ride home. I could not wait to get home to give a puppet show for my family! Unfortunately my Zip puppet show dreams were dashed. I only lived about a mile from the school and in that short mile I lost my Zip puppets. Did the oversized 6th grader with the unibrow steal them out from under me? Nope. Did I fall asleep on the bus and we drove through the Bermuda Triangle? Nope. Oddly enough my puppets-on-a-stick just vanished. I didn't realize it until the bus stopped in front of my house and I was half way off the bus. I don't remember how I knew at that moment, but I did. I panicked and told the bus driver to wait. Frantically I rushed back to my seat and searched the floor. No Zip. I asked all the surrounding kids. No Zip. I searched my jacket and books. NOOOOOO ZIP!! The impatient bus driver told me I was holding things up and to get off the bus. Dejected and depressed I shuffled off onto the street without my puppets. There was no impromptu puppet show for my family that night.

Many years passed by before I would ever see another Zip puppet. I actually kept my eyes peeled for Weekly Readers hoping to find some Surprise issues and especially the one with the puppets. I searched antique stores, paper shows, comic conventions, ebay and never could find any. Why was a kids newspaper that was published in the millions so hard to find? Seriously, I think the Maltese Falcon would have been easier to find! In 2009, I was helping my in-laws go through a bunch of old stuff in their basement. We found a lot of the first lady's childhood items. including a Bicentennial themed issue of Surprise. That was a cool find, but I was flabbergasted to find....

....the long lost Zip puppet from kindergarten!!!!!

Behold....the elusive Zip the dog paper puppet head!

All along a Zip puppet had been hiding out at the first lady's childhood home. A home that I've visited thousands of times and it was there just waiting for me. Silly but true, I was excited over a piece of printed newspaper of a dog. From all my hooping and hollering, her parents probably thought I found a hundred dollar bill stashed away. I almost blogged about my find that year, but held off because I needed to find Nip the cat and Mip the mouse.

Last week, my search ended as I received in the mail, from an ebay seller, an almost complete run of Surprise from my kindergarten year in 1975-76! In the group was issue #18 complete with the Zip puppets section.

Whew! After 37 years I can finally get a good night's rest without worrying about some silly paper puppet heads! (Now if I can just find my junior high sketch book that was lost many years ago!)

The Feb. 11, 1976 issue with the puppet section. It's Vol. 18 #18 with a fun Valentine's Day Cover.

Now that we've healed old wounds, lets take a quick look at Zip and his friends.

Zip's owner is a little girl named Molly who lives on Long Hill Rd close to her elementary school. Zip is a playful dog that loves to learn and play games. 

Zip's two best animal friends are Nip the cat and Mip the mouse. Nip and Mip sometimes like to play pranks on poor Zip.  

I'm not sure what kind of dog Zip is/was but here's a photo of a real Zip found in the pages of My Weekly Reader Surprise.

The covers and some of the interior artwork is credited to Ray Keane. His work on Zip is fantastic! Here's a few covers of My Weekly Reader Surprise to enjoy. Click here to visit my new flickr set and view many more Zip covers.