Have you ever heard of this stuff?

[Big Daddy Audio]

OT:  There was this guy in my office who was older, and didn't watch much in the way of TV - Anyway, one day he comes in a starts raving about this "new" show that he just "discovered" on channel 11 (in NY, this was an independent station that would play syndicated reruns) about a bunch of people who drove cabs for a living called Taxi.  This was years after the show had been on ABC-TV.

This little anecdote leads me to this:

Have you guys ever heard of this stuff called Pyrex?

I just scored a mixing bowl set, forest green, avocado, and yellow (no patterns, just solid colors) in very good to excellent condition.  It only looked like the large forest green bowl had been used.  It was $8.97 for the three of them, and they go with our kitchen.

Is there any way to date the set based on colors and/or patterns?  If you want a photo of my current measley collection, I'd be glad to oblige.

See you next time
bye for now.   

[SecondhandSophisticate]

I am not a Pyrex expert, but since being on this site, have kinda caught the bug JaytotheRescue is one of the most knowledgable here, and some others. Until one of them chimes in, I thought I'd share this link with you to aid you in your search:

http://www.pyrexlove.com/vintage-pyrex-pattern-guide/

PS: Do you know I've never seen Taxi? It was very big in the late 70s on ABC.

I remember Channel 11 very well!  Yankees' games and old movies and Officer Joe Bolton with the Three Stooges and Jack McCarthy with Popeye and Superman reruns. Not to mention:

The WPIX YULE LOG!!

[Good Buddy]

Way cool site SeSo. I know Cookie's gonna like it..

[Mattie]

I remember Channel 11 very well!  Yankees' games and old movies and Officer Joe Bolton with the Three Stooges and Jack McCarthy with Popeye and Superman reruns. Not to mention:
The WPIX YULE LOG!!

Yes indeed, SeSo, WPIX fed my Yankees addiction in the late '70s.  And when nothing else was happening on Christmas eve, there was always the Yule Log.

(On Sunday mornings we switched to WNEW Channel 5 for Wonderama with Bob McAllister.)

[Zed Simon]

11 Alive, baby! I remember Popeye, Fat Albert and Tom & Jerry in the afternoons...and PIXXX! Channel 11 would call a viewer up to play a video game on live TV during the commercial break. To fire or to move your player, you'd yell "PIXXX!" into the phone.

Funny you should mention the Yule Log: I was at a Burger King the other night and they had one going on the TV over the counter!

And yes, Bob McAllister was the MAN on Wonderama.

[SecondhandSophisticate]

Ye Gods, boys and girls, I don't recall Bob McA. on Wonderama, though I do remember Wonderama, but with Sonny Fox! Am I dating myself here?? 

My late brother actually was on Wonderama, one of the kids in the audience, in the very erly 60s. 

Maybe Bob McA. was Sonny Fox's replacement unit...

I miss the old NY stations--WNEW (I adored their AM station with "Wille B"--William B. Williams--and Jonathan Schrawtz) and their FM station (with Alison Steele). Channel 5 always had the BEST old (30s/40s/50s) movies on! And the BEST Warner Brothers cartoons, Bugs Bunny and Elmer, all the great stuff from the 40s and 50s.

What about WOR and "Million Dollar Movie"? And Mets games of course, lol! (Though the YANKS are the GODS of baseball, now and for-evah!) I remember I saw my first "film noir" on WOR.

Zed, when did you play that game on PIX? Was it in the 80s?

I miss the Yule Log. Wahhhhhhhhh... 

[Mattie]

Yeah, Bob was Sonny's replacement. 

Did WOR/Channel 9's Million Dollar Movie have a weird electronic theme tune, with graphics designed to look like the lights of a theater marquee?  Or am I thinking of something else?

I gerw up midway between NY and Philly so when we weren't watching Wonderama we were watching Wee Willie Weber, Sally Starr, Pixanne, Captain Noah, Dr. Shock and Gene London.  Most of them were on WPIX/Channel 17.

They just don't make kids' shows like they used to. 

[Mattie]

Oh, and Larry Ferrari, who would sit and play the organ every Sunday on WFIL in Philadelphia.  That's all he did, just play the organ.  He was insanely popular, though, in a kind of hypnotic way...like the Yule Log.

[Other People s Junk]

As for the Pyrex: 
My Mom has that set, I'm 99% sure she got it for a wedding present... that would have been 1974.

[SecondhandSophisticate]

Larry Ferrari--does his name rhyme?

When you saw organ music, do you mean the stuff that used to be played at roller skating rinks back in the day? and on soap operas when they were live, like The Edge of Night ? Or, to date myself even further, silent movies?

How fun to be between mainline Philly and Noo Yawk! Double your cultural and shopping fun!


Wasn't there a guy in Philly who did a Sinatra show for about 40 years?

[SecondhandSophisticate]

Million Dollar Movie, at least the last time I watched it, opened with great shots of Noo Yawk at night and the theme was the theme from "Gone With The Wind"...orchestrally done.

The one that used to spook me out as a kid was "The Early Show" on CBS, which was on about 5 PM, back in the day before two-hour newscasts.  It played this clock theme and showed a clock under glass. Totally weird. And then it did the same thing for "The Late Show" at 11:30 pm

[Thrift Shop Romantic]

I loved WOR... it was how I got to watch great epic motion pictures like Godzilla versus Mothra. I loved the Four O'Clock movie for that reason.

I'm originally from New Jersey, so the stations you're mentioning were basically my hometown stuff growing up-- I'd had no idea other people in different areas could see these stations, too!

Wonderama, yes indeedy. And The Magic Garden. I got to meet Carole and Paula from the Magic Garden when I was little at Two Guys department store. It was a highlight!

Good times.

[Big Daddy Audio]

Okay - so you guys have kinda heard of Pyrex, but have DEFINITELY heard of channel 11.  Great.  So 1974 is a good starting place.  I like that pattern page as well.  Some of them are neat. 

Jay - do you have all these types of patterns, or are some so rare they are almost impossible to find?

Now on to the way more important stuff.

I'm a Mets fan myself, although I also root for the Yankees.  Bob Murphy was my favorite broadcaster.  I always though Ralph Kiner was a little lacking, and Lindsey Nelso looked like he shopped at Goodwill!  Those Jackets and Pants!  Plaid to beat the band!

The opening that always used to do it for me was channel 7's 4:30 movie.  As kids (5th, 6th, 7th grade, etc) we'd always look forward to stuff like Planet of the Apes and The Great Escape.  They'd take a movie and make a week long serial out of it!  The opening featured guys on booms with cameras silhouetted against a black background.

As for Wonderama, I always figured it was "fixed" for some girl to win the bouquet of flowers on the "open the can" game.  I could never figure out how a girl always wound up winning the Ross Apollo 5-Speed bike.  THERE'S NO JUSTICE!

See you next time
bye for now

[SecondhandSophisticate]

I LOVED those 4:30 movie graphics! Those were used even in the 60s. I remember watching them at my Grammie's house, on a big ole' B&W floor model TV of course!

What a surprise to learn that even with "color" TV those graphics were still B&W.

Since I am a wee bit (ahem) older than you, the movies I saw on the 4:30 movie were things like "Walk on the Wild Side" (with the incomprable CAPUCINE and BARBARA STANWYCK) and "Take Her She's Mine" with Jimmy Stewart. The day after Thanksgiving, I remember them showing one of my favorite cartoons: "Gay Puree"

My brother would watch the Mets when the Yanks weren't on. Do you remember Kiner's Korner?  Meet the Mets, Greet the Mets...

[Big Daddy Audio]

I never bothered with Kiner's Korner.  The game was over, and he'd always ask lame questions.  Ralph Kiner wasn't a great broadcaster.

see you next time
bye for now.