Christmas Wishes, ca 1976

Christmas is, incredibly, just days away and in an effort to get in the proper mood, I’ve returned to the Wishbook Web site to page through the old catalogs that fueled my imagination as a lad.

In 1976, I was eleven years old and we would have had the Sears and JC Penney catalogs around the house.  I usually had to visit my grandparent’s house for a look at the Montgomery Ward’s version.  They were all organized more or less the same, with fashions up front, giving way to houseware and hardware towards the middle, transitioning to bicycles and sporting goods before ending with “dessert”…the toy section.  I usually avoided the temptation of jumping straight into the toys by giving at least a cursory look at the front half of the book, just to build the anticipation.  Also who knows, maybe I’d see some cool duds — a leisure suit that could make me look like Colonel Steve Austin or a set of pajamas with a superhero theme — and get some “brownie points” for putting clothes on my list.

This page pretty much sums up 1976 for me:

On the left we have a pantsuit in a color that might only have existed on the spectrum in the 70s.  I’m not even sure what to call it; some kind of “melon”?  The wide collar and decorative bric-a-brac at the top liven things up so this young gal is ready for her guest appearance on the Porter Wagoner Show.  The description says it’s made of cotton and polyester “with the look of corduroy.”  Because genuine corduroy is reserved for church and formal dinners.

On the right we tick off the remaining must-have’s for 70’s fashion.  Loud colors? Check.  Eye-assaulting plaid patterns?  Check. Gratuitous scarf?  Check.  Still, there’s a certain charm to an era where the garment industry’s best effort to sexualize pre-teen girls was a printed shirt that read, “Foxy.”  Amateurs.

If you’re worried you don’t have the figure to carry off these alluring looks, not to fear: JC Penney is sensitive to the fact that not all bodies are shaped the same, and offers special-cut versions to accommodate girls who may be a bit outside the narrow-minded standards of society.

That’s right, they’re also available in “chubby sizes.”  Talk about mixed signals for little Sally: the print on the front proudly screams “Foxy” to the outside world, but the tag in the back whispers “Chubby” into her ear all day.

Moving on to the bedding section, we have options for both the urban and rural customer.  Whether your hero is Old MacDonald or Arthur Fonzarelli, Penney’s has you covered.  Aaaay.

I couldn’t find any other bedroom furnishings with a “Happy Days” theme, but if they didn’t do a chair, they missed a golden opportunity.  The ad copy writes itself:  “Sit On It.”

I’m guessing safety standards were a bit more lax in ’76 as this baby seat seems a bit dodgy.  With additional accessories, you can make it a high chair or a stroller or just strap it into the car. If you played your cards right, you could keep the kid belted in all day long.  Good practice for a sedentary job in adult life, and hours on the couch once video games come along.

Now we’re getting closer to the toys, which usually starts with baby and toddler fare before getting to the “good stuff,” but this time we’re leading off with a high-end item that might appeal as much or more to dads as their sons: electric football.

If you adjust for inflation, this is definitely on the pricey side, which would explain why the only kid I knew with one was from a comparatively well-off family.  I can’t say I was ever into football anyway, but this thing was particularly underwhelming.  If memory serves, you spent a good deal of time arranging the opposing teams in strategic formations, then flipped a switch to make the whole thing vibrate, sending some players colliding into each other while others spun around aimlessly and/or fell over in some sort of pathetic seizure. It all seemed pretty pointless to me, so at least in that respect it was lifelike.

Finally we get to the toys, and there’s a surprising amount of Star Trek stuff, considering NBC had cancelled the show 7 years earlier.  But this was actually a “boom” time for Trek as it took off in syndicated re-runs in a way it never did during its initial network run.  In fact it had grown into such a big deal by 1976 that NASA would christen its first space shuttle “Enterprise,” and in three more years, the franchise would get its second wind with the first of a series of motion pictures.  For now, though, we had stuff like this:

The only thing I had on this page was the communicator, but it was pretty awesome. Basically it was just a walkie talkie, but there was a little door that flipped open like the TV version, and some buttons to transmit “red alert”-like sounds.  It wasn’t cheap, but it probably helped that it sold in pairs, so it served as a joint present for me and my brother, Tim, and encouraged us to play together. Plus maybe it could aid us in a crisis, somehow. In the TV commercial, a kid has a problem with his bicycle and uses the communicator to summon his friend: “Scott, this is Kevin. My bike is broken, can you help me?”

I remember describing to Tim various carefully crafted scenarios involving Klingons or Romulans or space vampires or whatever and instructing him to split up so we could play out the scene.  I’d be off behind the house or a bit down the road patrolling for space menaces when the communicator would beep.  In full Shatner mode, I’d whip it open and bark, “Kirk here.”  Then Tim would say from parts unknown, “Captain!  My bike is broken, can you help me?  BWA-HaHaHa!”  That routine never failed to amuse…him.

There’s a page devoted to Mego action figures as well.  I’m not sure where the “World’s Greatest Heroes” line was in terms of success at this point — by the early 80s it would sputter out entirely — but it’s obviously pretty far along here as they’ve already gotten to characters like “Shazam” (Captain Marvel to us old-timers) and Batgirl, plus a Hall of Justice playset and various vehicles.  Interestingly, Spider-Man is the only Marvel character to make the cut here, shown slumming with his rivals from DC.

There’s a certain quaint charm to these figures after all these years, but even at the time, they felt pretty cheap and goofy.  Note Batman and Robin’s fingerless gloves, doubtless complicating any efforts to extract items from their utility belts but handy when it came time to pull a pizza from the oven at the Hall of Justice.  Meanwhile Batman looks so big in the Batmobile, you half expect him to drop a coin in to make it bounce up and down.  And Batgirl’s chest emblem has already fallen off on her way from box to photo shoot, making for unintentional truth in advertising; those little paper stickers never lasted long, and might even fall off before you could open the package.

There’s no denying the appeal of the instant gratification allowed to us in the internet age, where we can find pretty much anything, order it with a keystroke and have it delivered straight to our porch, but I sort of miss the days when catalogs gave us a rare peek at the full panoply of colorful, wonderful items we might never lay eyes on otherwise, especially in a small town.  Even as kids, we knew we couldn’t have everything we asked for, but there was a curious pleasure to be found in just looking at those color photos in the days and weeks leading up to Christmas. As Mr. Spock once said, “After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting.  It is not logical, but it is often true.”