In the ’80s, The Incredible Hulk & Courtship of Eddie’s Father actor Bill Bixby was the spokesperson for Dietac diet pills… at least until the over-the-counter medication was taken off the market.
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In this 80s movie, The US military is training chimpanzees to fly bomber mock-ups, and putting them in real danger. It’s up to airman Jimmy Garrett and researcher Teri to stop the Air Force’s nefarious plot and save the chimps.
Introduced in the late 1970s, Underoos were a popular brand of colorful children’s underwear featuring characters from popular franchises like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Star Wars.
In this interview from the 1960s, actor Dustin Hoffman – newly nominated for an Academy Award – explains why he decided to star in a Broadway play, Jimmy Shine.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a fanciful children’s movie from the ’60s, starred Dick Van Dyke as a crackpot inventor who builds a magical flying car. This classic musical has stayed in the hearts and minds of millions.
Everybody’s doing it. Swingers, congressmen, housewives, businessmen, engaged couples, secretaries and kids. They’re all out there jogging.
To get in the proper holiday spirit, Americana-style, let’s revisit some of the most iconic moments from the timeless TV classic, “A Christmas Story” – plus find out where to watch the sequel!
As great an actor and director as Orson Welles was, it would be remiss of us if we did not touch on some of his later, slightly less epic works… like his classic ads for Paul Masson wines.
Before he was Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings, young Sean Astin was a hardworking up-and-coming actor. But he wasn’t just any actor – he was the son of Patty Duke and John Astin. Here’s a look back at Sean’s early career, from when he was a teen!
Get ready to remember some of the biggest thrills and chills from yesteryear, through these top vintage horror movies – great for Halloween or any time you want a little scare!
M*A*S*H debuted on TV in 1972, and centered around a team of doctors during the Korean War in the early 50s. M*A*S*H was a huge success, lasting for 11 seasons, and broke records on its way out.
Check out these vintage Tiger Beat magazine covers to see who teens were screaming about and obsessing over back in the 70s — decades before there were K-Pop and reality TV stars.
Let’s look back at the popular sitcom The Facts of Life – meet the actresses, hear that catchy theme song one more time, and get the lyrics for the hit show’s opening credits!
Peek back into the life of young Ronald Reagan in the 40s & 50s – way before he was president back when acting paid the bills, and his wife was Jane Wyman.
Why stop the party to mix drinks, when you could have the perfect booze blend ready to go? That was the theory behind the retro ready-made canned cocktails and bottled mixes that were popular in the 60s and 70s.
The Love Boat sailed from ABC into American homes for nine seasons, from 1977 until 1986. The hour-long dramedy/sitcom was a favorite of viewers and critics alike – so come remember it here!
Through these vintage celebrity interviews (and an article bylined by the star himself), get to know Mike Connors, the star of the Mannix TV show, which was a big hit detective drama in the ’70s.
In the beginning, The Gap was a completely different store – selling only Levi’s and music. Through dozens of pictures, see how vintage Gap evolved and came to be known for so many trendy styles!
The original Star Wars trilogy was like a comic strip come to life, with eye-popping special effects of flashing light swords, ray guns, strange creatures, spaceships and eerie planets.
Below are a few photos of actor/assassin John Wilkes Booth, along with some theater advertisements that appeared in newspapers during the years leading up to President’s Lincoln’s murder.
The new comedy series is a story of a mountain family who suddenly finds itself with $25 million after oil is found on its property, and then moves to Beverly Hills, California. See the opening credits, hear the theme song, and get the lyrics here!
In 1975, Chrysler released the Cordoba – and sales were helped along by TV ads featuring the great Ricardo Montalban and his famous mention of the car’s soft Corinthian leather.
Check out some original ‘Wizard of Oz’ cast photos from 1903, and see if you don’t think the characters seem creepy — maybe even a little bit ghoulish.
Revisit the picture-perfect view of the ’50s with the Cleaver family, and their oh-so-retro daily ups and downs on the classic TV show, ‘Leave it to Beaver.’ You’ll also find out how Alfred Hitchcock was involved with this success story!
Dragnet was one of the original police procedurals, which began as a radio show, then as a (now-iconic) TV show from 1951-1959 — later followed by a faithful reboot from 1967 to 1970. They all starred Jack Webb as police sergeant Joe Friday.
For two years, Tom Hanks pounded the streets of the city searching for a job. Then he was flown to LA, screen tested, and finally selected for the role of Kip Wilson in ‘Bosom Buddies.’ And so a star was born.
Spooky sitcom stars Fred Gwynne & Yvonne De Carlo talked about their lives & what it was like to film the vintage 1960s Munsters TV show in these classic cast interviews!
Star Trek’s original run lasted three seasons – but soon thereafter, it became a huge hit in syndication, inspired several TV series and more than a dozen movies.
Considering it spawned two revival series, a movie, books and comic books, it’s hard to believe that the original Battlestar Galactica TV series had such a humble beginning.
Footloose stars Kevin Bacon as a dynamic Chicago teen transplanted to a morally numb heartland town, where the local ministerhas banned rock dancing.
While television hardly needed another cop series, ‘Starsky and Hutch’ was one of the better reasons to turn on a TV back in the ’70s. Here’s why.
Here Come The Brides was an hour-long comedy/Western TV series set in Seattle in the 1870s about a family of loggers who brought in 100 women as potential brides. The show launched Bobby Sherman and David Soul as teen idols.
For decades, it was considered inappropriate for TV or movies to show a married couple sharing a bed. But did married couples really sleep in separate beds back in the ’50s?
Back in the late ’80s, who would have thought that young Robert Downey, Jr – the kid who acted in a few random films – would, a couple of decades later, be one of America’s biggest movie stars?
Many critics were surprised that the ‘Emergency!’ TV show was a success. One factor for sure: actors Randy Mantooth and Kevin Tighe, who played paramedics John Gage and Roy DeSoto, made indelible impressions on viewers.
George Burns & Gracie Allen were not only married in real life, their work from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s made them one of the biggest comedy duos in Hollywood. Meet the wacky couple here!
Dog Day Afternoon is considered one of the greatest movies of the 1970s, and features a stellar lead performance by Al Pacino. And as fictional as the premise sounded, it was based on a real story. Here’s the scoop..
The Nutty Professor is considered one of the best Jerry Lewis movies – a classic comedy in which he played a Jekyll and Hyde role, meaning he could play up his screwball style to great effect.
Bald, Tootsie Pop-snacking Kojak was the king of the police procedural on TV, from 1973 through 1978. Here’s a look back!
‘All in the Family’ was a huge hit TV show that aired on CBS from 1971 to 1979, and was number 1 in the Nielsen ratings from 1971 to 1976. Find out about the series here, and see the famous opening credits, too!
Based on the famous books, The Hardy Boys-Nancy Drew Mysteries TV series debuted in 1977, starring Parker Stevenson & Shaun Cassidy as the brothers Frank & Joe, and Pamela Sue Martin as Nancy.
The history of Levi’s jeans shows that the power of a really good idea – like super-durable clothing that people like to wear – can make for a business that stays strong for more than 160 years.
If you don’t know your dingledangler from your Kluck from your zoozer, you’ll want to know this Flapper slang from the 1920s!
One of the most unusual ad campaigns of the seventies featured gruff Western star John Wayne pitching Datril, a pain-relief medicine that was competing against Tylenol. Find out more about the ads here.
Jolly Time popcorn is an American company that got its start in 1914. Ten years later, they hit on the idea of selling their popcorn in cans to seal in the freshness so every kernel would pop.
CHiPS, a light-hearted one-hour action-adventure series, follows the exploits of a pair of young California Highway Patrol motorcycle officers on the busy Los Angeles freeways, and their encounters with the infinite variety of people who drive there.
The Monkees may have been a prefab TV band, but there was nothing made up about their real-world success. Here’s a look back!
21 Jump Street was a cop show that debuted in 1987, and immediately found an audience: teenagers, especially girls. That was fair, since the show was about police officers who pretended to be teens. Johnny Depp was the series’ breakout star.
There’s a lot of magic and humor practiced in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Written and directed by John Hughes, this energetic and offbeat comedy captures the best feelings about being young.
In the 1956 movie musical Carousel, Oklahoma stars Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae were again teamed up for a Rodgers and Hammerstein classic. Also see an interview with Miss Jones from the same year.
See Fred Astaire in a clip from 1946’s ‘Blue Skies,’ performing ‘Puttin’ On The Ritz’ – a song associated with him like no other – and find out more about the film itself.
What was the Partridge Family TV series about? In an eggshell: Five siblings made the big-time playing rock ‘n’ roll music, and, led by their mom, toured the country. Squabbles, catchy tunes and hijinks ensued.
On this 1982 sitcom, the Square Pegs were Patty Greene (a young Sarah Jessica Parker) and Lauren Hutchinson (Amy Linker). Patty was the smart, skinny, nearsighted one; Lauren was the one with baby fat and braces. The round hole was Weemawee High School.
Through 75 artistic antique color covers of The Theatre magazine, take a peek back in time from the first decades of the twentieth century to see these classic actors & actresses who performed onstage more than 100 years ago
The Waltons was a story of a large family living in Virginia during the Great Depression. The classic TV show originally aired from 1972 through 1981. Find out what the cast thought of the program here.
Miracle In The Rain, a classic love story, stars Jane Wyman and Van Johnson as two lonesome people who meet in a small building-doorway during a dismal New York downpour.
Here are some interviews with star Rock Hudson from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, during which he talked about his favorite (and least favorite) parts of his hugely successful career.
Before he was a star among stars, Leonardo DiCaprio was a kid taking jobs where he could – including playing an awesome gum-lover in this vintage 1980s Bubble Yum TV commercial.
‘Sliders’ was a sci-fi TV show that told the story of four adventurers who discover a passageway between dimensions that transported them to parallel worlds.
During and after his stint as James Bond, actor Sean Connery played off his fame and good looks by making these ads for Jim Bean Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey – with nary a smile in sight.
The ’80s hit song ‘Fish Heads’ didn’t just sound strange, but it was co-created by vintage ‘Lost in Space’ TV show actor Billy Mumy. Find out more here!
In “Young Frankenstein” Mel Brooks did for the horror movie what he did earlier for the Western in ‘Blazing Saddles.’ The result is a very, very funny movie.
From just the trailer, it seemed like just another John Hughes movie, but ‘The Breakfast Club’ was something different. For many ’80s teens, it was more real and more relatable. Find out why here!
The ’70s TV classic ‘Match Game’ redefined the modern game show. It went against convention, appealed to a younger, hipper audience and ushered in a new era of television.
In the ’60s and ’70s, these vintage ads for stylish vintage Foster Grants sunglasses featured many of the most popular stars of the era – from Raquel Welch to Mia Farrow, Peter Sellers to Robert Goulet.
In the ’70s, long before he was the guy millions of Americans knew as a cop on Law & Order, here’s what Jerry Orbach’s home – a New York City brownstone – looked like.
In Gaby, playing off one of the more haunting love mix-ups of World War II, a French-born dancer in London (Miss Caron) meets an American soldier. Then he is sent overseas, and soon presumed lost.
The original Gilligan’s Island pilot had three actors who were cut before the series began, a slightly different name, and a completely different theme song. Get the scoop here!
Back in the seventies, the vintage soap operas ‘Another World’ & ‘Days of Our Lives’ escaped the short half-hour program format, and were the first to hit the airwaves in one hour blocks.
Dorothy Lamour, American actress and singer, wasn’t just a star on the screen – she also threw her weight behind numerous WWII war bond sales efforts, and topped those charts.
‘Casablanca’ actor Humphrey Bogart – known to millions as ‘Bogie’ – gave a behind-the-scenes look into his mind and his life in this story from 1942.
Charlie Brown? Check. Grinch? Yep. You can also see how Johnny Depp, Elvira, Martin Lawrence & Tom Hanks got into the holiday spirit years ago on these vintage Halloween TV specials.
Campy or vampire spoof, call it what you like – The Lost Boys, a movie starring Kiefer Sutherland – is decidedly offbeat entertainment… with a twist.
When The Bold and the Beautiful soap opera first hit the airwaves in the eighties, they probably didn’t imagine the show would be still going after even 8000 episodes. Here’s how it began!
Charles Bronson has many houses and lives wherever filmmaking takes him, but this superstar is most “at home” in his Vermont farmhouse.
Between 1918 and 1955, there were 11 different Tarzan movie actors, in the character’s various incarnations and adventures. Here’s a look back at those wild men.
Here’s a look at actor, dancer & singer Gene Kelly’s house in Southern California, as it looked back in 1950, when he lived there with his wife and daughter.
In the sixties, up-and-coming actresses were the starlets who helped sell vintage versions of Coppertone suntan lotion – and the popular look of tan, tan skin.
Here’s Groucho singing the song he’s famously associated with from his time with the Marx Brothers: ‘Hello, I Must Be Going,’ as seen in the 1930 film Animal Crackers.
After a teen gets a record score on a video game called The Last Starfighter, an intergalactic visitor tells him the game was just a test – and asks him to come help fight a space battle.
In the movie Cocktail, Tom Cruise goes behind the counter to play star bartender Brian Flanagan, who works the Manhattan watering holes in spring and summer and spends his winters in the tropics.
When he was making Star Trek, actor William Shatner could skip blithely from Shakespeare to riding in the saddle in a psychological Western movie – and yet, in his view, all that wasn’t good enough.
In 1975, Steven Spielberg’s movie Jaws single-handedly drove more Americans away from beaches and into theaters than any other force of nature ever could have.
Famous actor Gary Cooper spent most of his time in sunny California, but he loved snowy Aspen, Colorado so much, he decided to build a house there.
Gene Wilder reached a level of stardom that no one would have predicted, least of all himself. Here are interviews with the actor himself from the ’70s.
Jim Nabors’ popular character on The Andy Griffith Show, joined the Marines and got his own spin-off TV series in 1964 – Gomer Pyle: USMC.
Vintage actor James Coburn’s home in 1970 was filled with exotic treasures from around the globe, and colors and patterns to match. Take a look!
Here’s a look at Cary Grant’s home – a 2-story, 12-room stucco house on the exclusive beach at Santa Monica, where the famous actor lived in the 1940s.
The Andy Griffith Show – with its memorable theme tune – ran between 1960 and 1968, which was more than enough time to establish itself as an icon of Americana, and start the career of a Hollywood legend.
The man who moved on to play ‘McDreamy’ on Grey’s Anatomy was just 21 years old when this article was published. Find out more about young Patrick Dempsey here!
‘The Jeffersons’ was an offshoot of ‘All in the Family’ that took on a life of its own, and made a star out of Sherman Hemsley, who played George Jefferson.
Mork & Mindy was a sitcom that starred a hilarious young Robin Williams as alien visitor Mork, and Pam Dawber co-starred as his earthling girlfriend (later his wife) Mindy McConnell.
Columbo, a ’60s & ’70s crime TV show set in Los Angeles, starred Peter Falk as a homicide detective with a unique way of investigating and questioning suspects.
Studio 54 was arguably the most famous – or at the very least, infamous – nightclub of the 1970s & 1980s. It was filled with stars, even when the owners were sent to prison.
Shaun Cassidy was born for show business: His mother is Shirley Jones, an Oscar-winning actress-singer; his father was the late Jack Cassidy, star of Broadway musicals and TV; and his brother was David Cassidy.
Star Trek: The Next Generation, set in the 24th century, the updated USS Enterprise boldly went where no one had gone before – and enthralled millions.
Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen headlined the 1973 movie Papillon, a period prison escape drama, got mixed reviews at the time.
Few movie sequels overshadow their predecessors. Yet ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ – the chapter following ‘Star Wars’ – does just that.
