What A Decade ~ 1970s

How much of the 70's do you remember whether you were born or not!! Click this to see some of the serious and funny events and things of the seventies.  I've also highlighted some items below...Yes, either I or my family owned these. (Am I really that old?)

Clackers are toys which were popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They consisted of two 2 cm, hard balls suspended on string which were swung up and down so they banged against each other, making a clacking sound. Clackers are similar in appearance to the Argentinian weapons, bolas.

They are formed out of two hard plastic balls, each about two cm in diameter, attached to a tab with a sturdy string. The player holds the tab, with the balls hanging below. Through a gentle up-and-down hand motion, the two balls swing apart and back together, making the clacking noise that give the toy its name. With practice, it is possible to make the balls swing so that they knock together above the hand as well as below.

Clackers were discontinued when children were injured while playing with them. Fairly heavy and fast-moving and made of hard acrylic plastic, the balls could shatter upon striking each other, which was dangerous.

I became quite good at this.  Mine never shattered, but if you got in the way of the motion or as it was slowing down...getting hit by one hurt quite a bit.

Pet Rocks were a 1970s fad conceived in Los Gatos, California by advertising executive Gar Dahl. In April 1975, Dahl was in a bar (which is now Beauregard Vineyards Tasting room in Bonny Doon)listening to his friends complain about their pets.This gave him the idea for the perfect "pet": a rock. A rock would not need to be fed, walked, bathed, groomed and would not die, become sick, or be disobedient. He said they were to be the perfect pets, and joked about it with his friends.^[However, he eventually took the idea seriously, and went home and drafted an "instruction manual" for a pet rock. It was full of puns, gags and plays on words that referred to the rock as an actual pet. The first Pet Rocks were ordinary gray stones bought at a builder's supply store. They were marketed like live pets, in custom cardboard boxes, complete with straw and breathing holes for the "animal." 

My family owned one and it was fun at first, but ended up being a dust collecter after the humor of it died.

In the mid-1970s, Ernő Rubik worked at the Department of Interior Design in Budapest and "accidently" invented what would be called the Rubik Cube.  In a classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces is covered by nine stickers, among six solid colours (traditionally white, red, blue, orange, green and yellow). A pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colours. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be a solid colour.

I after much practice at not solving it finally mastered it.  Then, it was easy there after for me to solve.  I even have my original one that really baffles me now!!

POP ROCKS ~ I loved them.  Unlike other candies, it fizzed and popped in your mouth.  The candy was first offered to the public in 1975. In 1983, General Foods stopped selling the candy. Some believed that this was because of an urban legend that mixing Pop Rocks with carbonated beverage could result in a person's stomach exploding.  This is not true.

 

The popularity of waterbeds hit it's height in the 1970s.  It was supposedly therpuetic and enhanced sexual activity.  My experience as a kid was my uncle putting weight on one side to wake me up...he thought it was funny.  One of the troubles with it was filling it as shown above and its propensity for leaking.

The 1970s desire to "find oneself" often resulted in people getting naked in public. The height of the streaking craze came in 1974 when a naked man zoomed across the stage during the Academy Awards ceremony.  David Niven said, "Ladies and gentleman, that was bound to happen. Just think, the only laugh that man will probably ever get is for stripping and showing off his shortcomings."

The fad hit it's height in 1974.  At any event where there were a lot of people, you could expect a streaker.  Ray Stevens honored this fad in song.