In every 70s US home ever

A bullfight poster

(cheap) wood-paneled rec room

shag carpeting

One copy each of I Sing the Body Electric and The Invisible Man.

A pool,or bumper pool, table as well as an air hockey table

Supersized brick hearth

macramé

no brick hearth in my home, but definitely shag carpeting and cheap wood panelling, also Stairway to Heaven at parties, parents ignoring children, hot naked swimming in gym class, lots of pot, having to apply to college without any help, drinking bourbon with friends, high school musicals, and "Be Here Now"

Asbestos

Free to Be You and Me

Price, Stern, Sloan parody books like Uses for a Dead Cat

Judy Collins's Colors of the Day

John Denver's Greatest Hits

Beach Boys Endless Summer

bookshelves made out of reclaimed planks and cinder blocks

a coffee table made from a cable spool

a wicker papasan chair

The Vegetarian Epicure

a rotary-dial phone with an extra-long cord (so you can take it somewhere private)

a denim vest with fake-pearl snaps

So many dead photo links over here: Let's talk about the non- pop culture pop culture enjoyed by Real Amurricans in the '70s.

Endless Summer was so great. I remember a lot of the things you posted YMP

The joy of sex

My older sister introduced us to Our Bodies, Ourselves, which we considered very outré. She also brought home hashish from college and got us younger siblings stoned

I’m OK - You’re OK
The Peter Principle

Tube socks
Tube tops

Love YMP

which is of course true, but my full post was supposed to be
Love YMP’s post, afraid to click on other thread

there were a lot of great books about consciousness and presence and being in the 70s

wish we in 2019 had the same bandwidth

fear of flying

alex haley’s roots

shogun/the thorn birds/all other novels later turned into richard chamberlain miniseries

In every 70s home ever, UK edition:
In every 70s UK home ever

All of this suggests 70s US homes were very different from 70s UK homes.

I imagine that US homes were fancier, but still had that '70s naff' aesthetic.

Table centrepiece made of wheat sheaves and shellacked bread in wicker basket tied with grosgrain ribbon

Seashells gathered on holiday in basket in bathroom.

Excerpt from “Desiderata” hanging on the (guest bathroom) wall

Entranced by this canned pear and mayonnaise delicacy (Southern homes only, apparently):

Someone brought pear salad to our big family Christmas lunch. I propose this is the worst dish the South ever invented. 🤮 pic.twitter.com/OEMr3hHaAH

— Anna Claire Vollers (@acvollers) December 26, 2019

We had the full Desiderata framed on our wall, you lazy bones.

tbh I think most, maybe all had the full “Desiderata,” I just wasn’t able to mentally summon up a picture of all those words.

They're all good!

the words?

thin brick/faux brick wall

https://stpaulsbaltimore.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/desiderata-pamphlet.pdf

stained glass chandelier

a bunch of these things apparently still exist in the Home Depot catalogue, for example, but I haven’t seen them in wild in decades

as is also the case with

World’s Best Dad

Ferns

A jade plant, hung in a macrame plant hanger

Hamburger Helper

Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat

A BEAD CURTAIN

all good. what about the close sibling of this last: the accordion door?

Yup, in faux-woodgrain

Crock Pot.

Whole Earth Catalog
Fondue set
Reader's Digest
The Book of Lists

Dad’s Own Bar, complete with, ahem, humorous signage with respect to opening and closing time, such as cardboard clock face with twelve 5s.

2-3 dozen copies of "Apartment Life" magazine

A lazy susan, or possibly several

"Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton

A weird, singular wood table that appears to have been carved out of an actual tree, drenched in clear lacquer, that isn't really great for most practical purposes but looks sinister and cool anyway, probably situated in the den

Oh yeah, burning Citroën knows the vibe. Musta visited my parents' house in '75.

People's Almanac / People's Chronology also big in those years

Massive console TV that takes no fewer than four people to move, so fuck it, let's just leave it there for the next seven years.

Usually a Zenith model, with SPACE COMMAND remote

Encyclopedias
Too many National Geographics

lava lamp
beanbag chair

the poster from the inside of "dark side of the moon"
a paperback book of Polish jokes that nobody will claim responsibility for
Stacks of old newspapers

Wood-grain speakers

solid wood bookshelves built into nooks

An electric organ, with many multicolored switches/presets.

pong

^was wondering when we would get to that

Another bar accoutrement: wave form light thingy that is basically two dimensional analog of a lava lamp

stray beans from beanbag stuck in shag carpet
Yahtzee
Sears catalog
poker chip carousel
Erma Bombeck books
crocheted afghan blanket (squares pattern)

reminds me to post
Dogs Playing Poker painting

TV Guide (although not in my home)

cb radio
"Bless This Mess" kneedlepoint sign

Habitrail
aquarium
many items featuring Peanuts characters for no particular reason

Orange sinks
Bathroom wallpaper with old-timey advertisements

partially completed rug hooking
terrariums
sand candles

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/88/ae/75/88ae75efce5244fc22206fd8ac16439c.jpg

Noxzema
The World Book
Penthouse (hidden from view)
Skateboarder magazine
Guinness Book of World Records
Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock
10-speed bikes
Life magazine
tobacco pipe (dad)
wallpaper
store catalogs
Yellow Pages
Peter Frampton Comes Alive
Hardy Boys
Rugby shirts
Chemistry set
Creem
Circus

Sea Monkeys

Anacin
The Game Of Life
Toughskins
Ferns (all relegated to one room, commonly referred to as "the ferm room")

Garanimals

(in warm regions) jalousie windows

tang
jello
r2d2 figurine

Mentioned Air Hockey but should also have mentioned Nok Hockey.

electric football

We used to have Desiderata framed on the back of the actual toilet door. As a kid I was richly amused by the opening line, “Go placidly amid the noise and haste.”

Born in '63 so the 70s were totally my decade, and we had almost none of this stuff.

Marimekko prints and bedding

one of the things from the '70s that is still popular!

Almost all of these presuppose a middle income household that has at least one filled bookshelf.

And on that bookshelf: Passages by Gail Sheehy.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull was popular in the early 70s but even as a kid it seemed banal to me

You could always tell who had the hip parents by seeing Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on the bookshelf. (Spoiler Alert: we didn't have it on our bookshelf.)

forgot about that book

Jonathan Livingston Seagull was popular in the early 70s but even as a kid it seemed banal to me

it was Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City in the late 70s that made me want to move to San Francisco

A Shel Silverstein book (this may have just been a New York / Cali thing)

Nope, it was a Midwest thing, too. We had Where The Sidewalk Ends, The Giving Tree, and The Missing Piece.

Erica Jong's Fear of Flying?

Erma Bombeck

Judy Blume

read about Ram Dass's death last week. his Be Here Now was the defining book of the 70s for me

Loved that book, though I wouldn’t discover it until the eighties.

catholic homes had ‘good news for modern man’

ours disappeared in the early 80s and was found rotting in the wet grass up the side of the house, it wasn’t me but i was a suspect

a lot of these are reminding of my childhood home that was mostly furnished in the mid 70s that I lived in for the 80s!

wood burning stove with huge hearth, shag carpeting, smaller television on a two level “entertainment center” that had a top middle space for tv, and two open areas on the bottom sides for 70s wood speakers with a thatch pattern in the front. audio receiver with that bluish lighting

rotating armchair (not reclining) with a shiny velvet texture. living room furniture with gold/green/brown/orange color scheme. vinyl kitchen floor with pattern that looks like square tiles. medium brown wooden cabinets in the kitchen. bronze/gold table lamps with a bulbous shape and large lampshade (I might have one of these stashed somewhere). side tables with double doors for storage

I’ve lost the original lampshade, but behold:

https://i.imgur.com/NBy1DoT_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

audio receiver with that bluish lighting
is there any other circumstance in which that blue light appears?

catholic homes had ‘good news for modern man’

hahahahaha YES we had that lamp

An ashtray the size of a dinner plate

Journey to Ixtlan

A box of Wheaties with Mark Spitz on the front

^good one

which reminds me:
Quisp AND Quake

the Grease soundtrack album

Bicentennial detritus

Tab in fridge

<i>Jaws</i> paperback

Jaws even

The Spirograph mention in the UK thread made me think of this one:

If the household has any connection to children whatsoever there is a Lite-Brite set somewhere

two nations separated by mostly but not always completely different household bric-a-brac

Lite Brite was another item not allowed in my particular house but yeah

Shrinky Dinks

Bicentennial detritus

Nothing he's got he really needs

TV Magic Cards

Props to Marshall Brodein!

Ha, good thing I left his name out of my post, probably would have spelled it wrong

Underoos that have shrunk
Simon Says
Connect Four
That electronic football game with the red LEDs

unprotected sex

Bicentennial detritus

my parents’ marriage innit

Simon Says

That electronic football game with the red LEDs

TV Guide

speaking of TV, All In the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Lite Brite was another item not allowed in my particular house but yeah

― The Soundtrack of Burl Ives (James Redd and the Blecchs)

Do you come from Amish? What was the objection to Lite-Brite?

No, just Outerborough German-Irish Catholic. Think perhaps somebody was concerned about us swallowing the pieces.

https://www.twincities.com/2010/01/03/w-va-doctor-expert-at-removing-ingested-items/

Before iPods and Playstations, Lite-Brite toys, which include hundreds of small, multi-colored plastic pegs, caused problems.

“Now that we have fancier play toys, we have been seeing less of these,” Nasir said as she pointed toward the Lite-Brite.

we didn’t have a lite brite either. my mom was very resistant when we requested toys with lots of small parts that were going to get lost or scattered!

Speaking of choking hazards, Battlestar Galactica:

http://www.toysyouhad.com/Bstar.htm

The series was a hit, albeit a costly one. Mattel snatched up the rights to a toy line - hoping to match Kenner's Star Wars success. Amazingly, long after the series ended, the toys continued to fly off of the shelves of toy stores everywhere. There were several types of toys released, the most popular and notorious were the missile-launching toys of 1978. Using a similar spring-loaded mechanism of their Shogun Warrior line, Battlestar Galactica's ships fired tiny red missiles that, as it turns out, tend to get launched into the throats of children.

On December 31, 1978 a four year old boy in Atlanta aimed a Colonial Viper toy into his mouth and launched one of the projectile missiles, inadvertently choking himself to death. On January 11, Mattel issued a recall order for the Viper and three other vehicles. It also issued a missile mail-in for those who had had already purchased a missile-firing version of the toys. In exchange for the little red missiles, Mattel provided a Hot Wheels toys, "for the loss in play value." Mattel redesigned the vehicle line to have non-firing missiles.

The boy's death triggered a national outcry to remove projectiles from all toys. On March 23, the boy's parents sued Mattel. The judge presiding over the case singled out Star Wars space toys as the culprit (which upset Lucas very much.) The controversy had an impact on Kenner's Star Wars' toy line, as it delayed the shipment of its Boba Fett dolls. The action figure -- whose character would star in The Empire Strikes Back sequel -- was part of a mailaway offer on the backs of other Star Wars figurines. Although Boba Fett's original design and promotion included a rocket-firing backpack, this mechanism was removed from its design. No rocket-firing Boba Fett's ever rolled off the line, and only a handful of the unpainted prototypes exist.

xp I always wondered if Lite-Brite was a fire risk, but we didn't have one either and I've never actually seen one

“Magnets hold the bowel together, with the layering between them, causing the gut to rupture.”

whoa

nevermind the toys, in the 70s come to think of it many of the clothes on our backs were a toxic, flammable, and choking hazard all rolled into one

also bell bottoms

my niece spent the summer in Brazil, she tells me that bell bottoms have made a comeback there

Health-tex, which still exists but w/o the hyphen

xxxxpost Simon was created by Ralph Baer, the creator of the Magnavox Odyssey, considered the father of video games and who Nolan Bushnell & Atari ripped off Long from

Always conflated that game with the Alan Arkin movie of the same name and figured he flew to earth in a UFO the same shape as the game console.

my niece spent the summer in Brazil, she tells me that bell bottoms have made a comeback there

High-waisted jeans are already back; the return of bell bottoms feels inevitable.

We already had the great Jnco scare of the 1990s

my niece spent the summer in Brazil, she tells me that bell bottoms have made a comeback there

I'm in Chicago and over the last year have seen bell bottom jeans proliferate, though only on women. (I'm a dude but am in fact wearing bell bottoms at this moment, though admittedly I dress more vintage than your average person. Love how they look with heeled ankle boots!)

do you mean you’re wearing bootcut or full bell bottoms? the latter are definitely more than a little flared

"hot naked swimming in gym class" wait what?

do you mean you’re wearing bootcut or full bell bottoms? the latter are definitely more than a little flared

Full on. I used to have bootcut but figured hell, I already dress like I stumbled out of 1969 anyway, might as well commit.

A comment on those pants:

Nice quality. Worked great for a Shaggy costume!

remember loving bell bottoms, trying to think of something equivalent to them in recent fashion history

"hot naked swimming in gym class" wait what?
― akm, Monday, December 30

I was joking about 'hot', but I went from a sheltered catholic grade school to a public high school where our gym teacher made the boys take our swimming classes naked. I was kind of shocked by it at first but got used to it

Colored glassware, especially amber or avocado green.

still serve cocktails to friends in Russel Wright forest green pinch tumblers

Zodiac posters or wall hangings -- my grandmother had a Capricorn tapestry in the basement. Wouldn't be surprised to see that make a comeback, considering astrology becoming a thing again.

Chess sets: magnetic, Shakespeare-themed, hand-carved, etc.

Black Velvet Art, Elvis or otherwise.

macrame owl!

our house in the 70s had a lot of stuff from the 50s - modern Danish furniture, Japanese lantern lamps, particle board clothes cabinets in the bedroom my brother and I shared

Reel-to-reel tape player
Ashtrays
Poster of Bo Derek
Frisbee

Velvet dayglo painting of a panther that looks awesome under blacklight = stoner older brother got to decorate his own room.

See also: Skynyrd poster with Confederate Battle Flag

a public high school where our gym teacher made the boys take our swimming classes naked

this is absolutely not something that happened in every 70s US school ever

Apparently up to 1970 in my school district, boys swam naked.

Reel-to-reel tape player
Ashtrays
Poster of Bo Derek
Frisbee

Xpost, the Farah Fawcett poster was ubiquitous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp2ldxIWc54

read about Ram Dass's death last week. his Be Here Now was the defining book of the 70s for me

Meh, his Definitely Maybe was better

my niece spent the summer in Brazil, she tells me that bell bottoms have made a comeback there

― Dan S

they were back earlier this year at least where i live; it may have passed already though

Frisbee

On the roof of every 70s US home ever

our house in the 70s had a lot of stuff from the 50s - modern Danish furniture, Japanese lantern lamps, particle board clothes cabinets in the bedroom my brother and I shared

― Dan S

This is an important point, that the '70s - like any decade - were still heavily characterized by the immediately preceding decades. When I think of the '70s I remember a lot of stuff of a design reflecting the '60s Laugh-In aesthetic of bright Day-Glo colors, flowers, op-art, funny slogans. Also lots of graphic reproductions of Robert Indiana's "LOVE" sculpture. Stuff like this gradually went out of fashion in the early '70s but it didn't all just suddenly disappear, it remained in people's houses for a while. I also remember in the early-to-mid '70s there will still lots of cars with fins on them parked on the street.

In every 70s US home, Canadian dept: contempra phone

https://www.google.com/amp/s/ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/remembering-an-iconic-ottawa-creation-50-years-later/amp

Josepha speaks truth. People don't suddenly throw out everything they own when there's a new decade.

I happened to see a 1985-ish photograph of a city street the other day and I was like, "why do the cars all look like 1970s cars"? I had completely forgotten that my dad was driving a '77 Mercury at the time.

josefa OTM, this is one of my biggest pet peeves in period movies. and one thing I liked about Stranger Things - that the working-class Winona household was less aggressively "80s" in its furnishings

my friends were really into the Kinks when I was in high school. they were much more socially advanced than I was

I remember the record player at our house and those at others' houses, and the experience of listening to records with friends

this is actually why i can relate to this thread - shit, i don't actually _remember_ the '70s, i just know all this stuff from growing up in the early '80s.

my goddaughter who is 11 is my sweetie. it is interesting to see how she relates to her world today, it is a world I couldn't imagine in the 70s

rushomancy otm
I wasn’t born until the 80s but my parents bought
nearly all of their possessions in the 70s and furnished their house after getting married mid-decade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObdEUA2rwGg

"come to think of it many of the clothes on our backs were a toxic, flammable, and choking hazard all rolled into one" I just remembered I used to have pajamas that were 100% polyester and used to get static so bad it was like seeing lightning under the covers.

In every 70s Chinese restaurant ever: the pu-pu platter.

Pu-pu platters originated in tiki restaurants and then Chinese restaurants adopted them. I don't think I've ever had one, but they sound decadently appealing. Spare ribs, crab rangoon... most people shy away from eating such things today. But perhaps the pu-pu platter could make a comeback in post-covid times when people don't give as much as af.

*of af

S&H Green Stamps

Pu-pu platters originated in tiki restaurants and then Chinese restaurants adopted them. I don't think I've ever had one, but they sound decadently appealing. Spare ribs, crab rangoon... most people shy away from eating such things today. But perhaps the pu-pu platter could make a comeback in post-covid times when people don't give as much as af.

Tiki drinks have been making a comeback among cocktailians. Maybe tiki cuisine might make a post-covid comeback, when occupancy limits are back to normal and restaurants want to lure people away from delivery or home cooking?

Seems like a lot of this stuff may appear in ILX's new favorite TV series, FOR ALL MANKIND.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPwxmrNVKKE

This is a huge chunk of my childhood here

Omg. It looks like every single cast member of ‘Dynasty’ also appeared on ‘Love Boat,’ right down to the Carringtons’ butler. That video would be a good cultural reference for young people of today, like say if they were studying Late 20th Century Show Biz.

OK, deep dive time.

I was going through the list to see exactly what we had in our house. We built it in 1969; I was age 8 to 18 in the '70s.

What we had, with annotations:

(cheap) wood-paneled rec room
shag carpeting - Blue & green in my bedroom, pure white in my sister's
A pool,or bumper pool, table as well as an air hockey table - Pool & air. Finished basement, drop ceiling, one wall taken up by a giant photo blow up of sunset through trees.
Supersized brick hearth - Brick fireplace taking up 2/3 of a wall, slate hearth, enormous rough-cut wooden mantel, built in log bin. Every few years we'd rent the Powerful Paul hydraulic log splitter to turn a fallen tree into firewood
Price, Stern, Sloan parody books like Uses for a Dead Cat - Definitely had 101 Uses for a Dead Cat, also Mad Libs and Droodles. Related: "Earl the Dead Cat" flat stuffed cat with tire treads printed on its back
Beach Boys Endless Summer - Sister
a coffee table made from a cable spool - Not a coffee table--we drilled holes in it and used it as a pool cue stand
a rotary-dial phone with an extra-long cord (so you can take it somewhere private) - Stretched down the hall and under the bathroom door
erica jong fear of flying - Stole it from a drug store. The concept of the 'zipless fuck' was very formative in my non-existent sex life. (First paperback gay sex: Samuel R. Delany's "Dahlgren"--page 444, if I remember correctly)
shogun/the thorn birds/all other novels later turned into richard chamberlain miniseries - "Thorn Birds" and several other Colleen McCullough novels
thin brick/faux brick wall - Painted white, surrounding the built-in avocado-colored oven
stained glass chandelier - Faux stained glass Coca-Cola swag-chain lamp in my bedroom (actually white plastic with the stained glass portion painted on the outside of the shade)
Ferns - And snake plants
Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat - Also: Spam, Shake 'n' Bake pork chops
Crock Pot
Fondue set
The Book of Lists - I had a lot of trivia books. In particular, I remember one called "Felton & Fowler's Best, Worst and Most Unusual," bought from the mail order remainder book and record catalog Publisher's Central Bureau.
A lazy susan, or possibly several
People's Almanac / People's Chronology also big in those years
Massive console TV that takes no fewer than four people to move, so fuck it, let's just leave it there for the next seven years. - Heavy not just because of the console--this was a pre-transistor cathode ray TV run on vacuum tubes. The heat from all those tubes made the top of the console prime real estate for the cats.
Encyclopedias - Funk & Wagnall's Encyclopedia, sold through local grocery stores. A couple of volumes released each month, so it took a year to get the whole set.
beanbag chair - Sister's room
the poster from the inside of "dark side of the moon" - My room. Also posters of the Andromeda Galaxy, the Pleiades, the Triffid Nebula, Earthrise over the lunar horizon, and the classic Buzz Aldrin pic.
Wood-grain speakers - Was there any other kind?
pong
Another bar accoutrement: wave form light thingy that is basically two dimensional analog of a lava lamp - Not sure if it's the same thing--we had a light-up beer sign that looked like a flowing waterfall. Our finished basement was full of vintage electric (but not neon) bar signs that did stuff: rotating Schlitz globe, Black & White Scotch barking scotty dog heads (https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/jn4HuXPQveQX_VxmtaX1iDPcoxg=/250x0/worthopedia/images/images1/1/0516/14/1_9dc922af56d4944cc081c00e9803c6de.jpg), 2-foot tall crow with top hat and cane that would blink "Old Crow" on his chest, Fresca Blizzard sign with hidden fan blowing fake snow around (https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/tQ75wIZRzWQfYukxx9pDmdrG6a4=/250x0/worthopedia/images/images4/1/0508/27/1_5dfa368db21d326777037034b0e50148.jpg)
Yahtzee
Sears catalog - Reprint of 1920's Sears catalog for bathroom reading
Erma Bombeck books - Also bathroom reading
crocheted afghan blanket (squares pattern) - Zig-zag pattern in browns, blacks and oranges
many items featuring Peanuts characters for no particular reason - A dirty old Snoopy stuffed animal I slept with for years, and an Astronaut Snoopy doll. Also a few dozen Peanuts books
partially completed rug hooking
Noxzema
Guinness Book of World Records
wallpaper - Always with patterns that were a little too big--they looked smaller on the swatches. Also, sponge painted walls. Mom always had some decoration project going.
Yellow Pages - Unavoidable--they just showed up on your doorstep every year
Peter Frampton Comes Alive - Sister
Chemistry set - Me. Also a rock tumbler
Sea Monkeys
The Game Of Life
(in warm regions) jalousie windows - On the back porch that my father closed in
tang - At Grandma's house
jello
Jonathan Livingston Seagull was popular in the early 70s but even as a kid it seemed banal to me
catholic homes had ‘good news for modern man’ - Episcopalian too--everybody got a copy in Sunday School
living room furniture with gold/green/brown/orange color scheme.
bronze/gold table lamps with a bulbous shape and large lampshade - Two of which are in my apartment to this day
An ashtray the size of a dinner plate
Quisp AND Quake - My sister voted for Quisp. I voted for Quake, a musclar superhero in a miner's helmet. Just another hint that I might be a little gay lad?
Jaws paperback
Spirograph
Lite-Brite
TV Magic Cards
Simon
speaking of TV, All In the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show - The Saturday CBS prime time lineup was the original Must-See TV
Health-tex, which still exists but w/o the hyphen
Zodiac posters or wall hangings -- my grandmother had a Capricorn tapestry in the basement. Wouldn't be surprised to see that make a comeback, considering astrology becoming a thing again. - Zodiac outdoor tablecloth, currently in Mom's car trunk as a drop cloth when we haul hedge trimmings to the dump
macrame owl! - Maybe not macrame, but multiple owl items including wallpaper
modern Danish furniture - I inherited Mom & Dad's old Danish Modern bedroom set when I moved out, and I'm still using it
Velvet dayglo painting of a panther that looks awesome under blacklight - No, but we had a Fritz Rudolph Hug painting of a tiger in the living room, along with a couple of landscapes bought at one of those suburban 'art shows' which showed up in local hotel ballrooms every few months.
S&H Green Stamps

wow, excellent reportage. very valuable to realize that a house ticking off dozens of these boxes is by no means just a retro fantasy.

lol, we had about 75% of those things minus the stuff that older siblings might have contributed. my parents definitely didn't have a dark side of the moon poster.

i was a several years younger than HL and oldest child

Excellent roundup there, HL, thanks.

One copy each of _I Sing the Body Electric_ and _The Invisible Man_.

Clackers
ping pong table
backgammon set
paint by numbers paintings
Galliano in that tall bottle
Reader's Digest Condensed Books

My 6th (?) grade teacher had us write sequels to one of the stories in The Illustrated Man. I did a sequel to the wraparound story, with the narrator escaping, only to find himself jumping into the stories.

The teacher liked it so much she sent it to Ray Bradbury, and I got a personally typed letter from him. (I know it was personally typed because a secretary wouldn't have let it go out with so many typos.)

that is incredibly cool

Wow

damn, that's cool!

Encyclopedias - Funk & Wagnall's Encyclopedia, sold through local grocery stores. A couple of volumes released each month, so it took a year to get the whole set.

We had Pears 'Cyclopedia. Not sure if that's a uk thing tho.

F&Ws seconded.

speaking of TV, All In the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show - The Saturday CBS prime time lineup was the original Must-See TV

DIdn't quite remember Dick Van Dyke being on The Carol Burnett Show as a replacement for Harvey Korman for a few months before he himself left and was replaced by Steve Lawrence and Ken Berry (who I of course do remember)

Gotta have a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Our Bodies, Ourselves

Good one

hanging beads in a doorframe acting as a room separator

alternatively, strings of corks

Bead door curtain already mentioned by YMP upthread, although I like the way you worded it, but cork curtain is a valuable new post, Tracer, thanks.

Light gauge fishing line to string them together. You're welcome.

Macrame, god’s eyes, table centrepiece made of wicker basket/varnished loaf of bread/dried or cloth flowers/wheat sheaves, Hollie Hobby stuff for girls, metallic abstract wallpaper in the bathroom above the tile line, the hexagonal side table in the living room with random upholstery offcuts stored there just in case.

Old steamer trunk used as side table

We had one as the TV stand but my mom ran our house like it was 1910 including the furnishings (minus the tv).

We had at least two steamer trunks, one of which was a TV stand. I think people thought they were 'valuable' but they're really not, even the really old ones

Any good flea market in the '70s had steamer trunks for sale

Big Wheel tricycle

Oh yeah. We've covered Lite Brite and the Holly Hobby oven, maybe add Stretch Armstrong?

A huge hi fi stereo that was the size of a buffet
A buffet

seemed like Love Story was really big for everyone I knew when I was a kid

as a topic of conversation

I have been stringing together glass beads over the years and have made two beaded glass curtains!

Love Story hadn’t been mentioned yet? Thank you for addressing this glaring omission.

In school we often saw the male bonding version of Love Story known as Brian’s Song. And sometimes even the parent-child version, Death Be Not Proud.

Have we discussed roller skates? Ice skates?

Not sure, don’t think so. How about crappy old school low-tech skateboards?

living in a cold weather place, ice skating was a part of growing up for me. my older brother was into skiing but I wasn't that brave and my father and little sister and I went ice skating a lot

I do remember Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates, which had some kind of intense moment with a sawbones.

Think I preferred The Three Lives of Thomasina myself.

j/k I was a fan of both

Hans Brinker impressed me as a kid

The was also Bang the Drum Slowly in the One’s Dying, the Other Isn’t category.

There was

Some discussion over here: School Daze! What Did Your Teachers Ruin For You And/Or More Positive Reflections On Required Reading

crappy skateboards have come back with a vengeance. though the peak was probably three years ago or so? way “cooler” than normal skateboards

Really? With metals wheels?

Metal

i dunno about all that chief

https://www.skatedeluxe.com/blog/en/wiki/skateboarding/history-of-skateboarding/

HE 1970S
The only consistent thing is change and so it came to a point where everything changed for skateboarding. Frank Nasworthy’s invention of urethane wheels in 1972 made it possible for skateboarding to come back. Nasworthy started the company Cadillac Wheels and with the new material it was possible to ride smoother, faster and more comfortable. A variety of disciplines such as freestyle, downhill and slalom experienced a real high point. New magazines like the “Skateboarder Magazine” from 1975 were published and new events were launched. In 1976, the first artificially created skate park was inaugurated and new parks emerged with new elements such as vertical ramps and kickers.

https://skateboardingmagazine.com/the-evolution-of-skateboard-wheels/

yeah i’m not talking about metal wheels i’m talking about “penny boards”, long boards etc

also this trend of people riding with their front foot sticking lengthwise along the board and barely bending their knees, like they’re posing for a photo or something

Oh shit my first skateboard was TOTALLY a penny board!! I didn't know that was what they were called. It was a dirty jade green? I think my dad got it out of the community "take" pile at the transfer station, ie someone had thrown it away in about 1988 or so.

In every 70s US restaurant ever

Pardon the digression but that’s the woman who made an awesome documentary about Boyce and Hart a few years ago which I don’t think has had an official release, due to music clearance issues I assume.

She is some kind of genius so digression welcomed.

Yes. She’d be a celebrity in a just world.

https://www.shorpy.com/files/no-pest-strip.jpg

Food Sticks

Koogle!

Koogle was my next answer. We had jars of that stuff forever.

I'm pretty sure that Koogle was some industrial plastic byproduct created by accident that they added flavors to.

Space Food Sticks too, come to think of it.

Shell’s No-Pest Strip.

didn't know the official brand but yes

I tried to find a picture of those hanging wooden-colored boxes, with holes on each side.. that were supposed to kill bugs.. but no luck

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0d/62/b6/0d62b606d8f3db955e8945d75e35919c.jpg

there we go

Oh god yes, memories

Always thought the design was supposed to evoke one of the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge. Maybe they couldn't come out and say so lest they offend the good people of Rice-A-Roni.

I feel like they were browner in real life but it was probably just my grandparent smoking constantly that made them look that way

'Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat!'

Supposed to be Chinatown-meets-North Beach, but the family that started the brand were Armenian, who actually rule California.. it's based on some Armenian pilaf dish

xpost yeah, I remember them sort of danish modern brown

Hamburger Helper

As if hamburger needs any 'help'

My mom used to broil the shit out of hamburgers, so the Helper was a welcome respite.

Reminds me now of “Shake n’ Bake…and we helped!”

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F4Cq7lJFeQ0/UsGdUjblvpI/AAAAAAAAJMs/nE89ZRU5NGI/s1600/DSC_6399.JPG

Okay my parents would never allow this kind of kitsch in the house, but the semi-trashy family across the road had one

They also had a weed box with a Pablo Cruise sticker on it, and Fleetwood Mac albums

Oh hell yeah

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/WEBP_402378-T2/images/I/610fZxe-MAL._AC_SX522_.jpg

Wasn't Hamburger Helper making an inflation-era "stretch the family budget" sales pitch? I don't think anyone involved really thought it truly improved upon eating a hamburger.

The oldest ad I could find was This one from 1974, which focused on the culinary aspects.

By 1979, the pitch had changed to stretching the family budget.

Fascinating!

Why have steak when you can have Hamburger Helper lol

OMG

I always thought the Hidden Valley packets kinda weird.. like, why make your own salad dressing when you can just buy a bottle of it?

But maybe it was a part of that family budget thing

A kids bed frame with assorted Wacky Packages stickers pasted to the headboard.

^this! Not me, but lots of my friends

Definitely me

I had a bunch of the stickers with the Marvel characters saying funny things.

https://townsquare.media/site/622/files/2010/04/500xmarvels2.jpg

I was always fascinated by but uneasy about the 1970's Ghost Rider

Damn those stickers look familiar, maybe my sister's 'antiqued' dresser

I was always fascinated by but uneasy about the 1970's Ghost Rider

same with Cyrillic lettering

1970s Ghost Rider was intense: he was the result of a literal deal with Satan. Plus, there was Mike Ploog's art, which was heavily influenced by the work of Berni Wrightson, who has to be the creepiest mainstream comics artist ever.

*Bernie

I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be Peter Fonda

Jeez I would

A kids bed frame with assorted Wacky Packages stickers pasted to the headboard.

oh yeah but i had mine stuck all over my desk.

My friends also had on their bedroom doors and maybe some other doors as well.

let's see if this works

https://wacky-packages.fandom.com/wiki/Hamburger_Blecher?file=03_Hamburger_Blecher.jpg

well, this will take you to an image of hamburger belcher: https://wacky-packages.fandom.com/wiki/Hamburger_Blecher?file=03_Hamburger_Blecher.jpg

sloppy joes

Manwich

A stash of unsold Grit newspapers that some gullible kid thought would earn him enough money to buy a spy camera.

fuck I tried to sell Grit and sold one to my aunt

Jesus, it still exists: DIY CHIGGER BITE RELIEF

https://www.grit.com/

Wow many things on this thread are extremely familiar. There's just one mention of the big chunky remote controls, but we had one of these. We actually inherited it when my grandparents were killed in a car accident — before that we just had a little black and white TV, but then they died and we got their color TV with an actual remote control. It confirmed my sense that my grandparents (who lived far away and I rarely saw) lived lives of great luxury.

https://compote.slate.com/images/eacaab7b-bdc7-4097-8bab-74107d1c0707.jpg

NB: YMP was the first to mention Hamburger Helper and Rice-A-Rona upthread, but this is the kind of list thread where multiple entries are fine, especially since they are usually recontextualized.

Lol at typo

Wow many things on this thread are extremely familiar. There's just one mention of the big chunky remote controls, but we had one of these. We actually inherited it when my grandparents were killed in a car accident — before that we just had a little black and white TV, but then they died and we got their color TV with an actual remote control. It confirmed my sense that my grandparents (who lived far away and I rarely saw) lived lives of great luxury.

https://compote.slate.com/images/eacaab7b-bdc7-4097-8bab-74107d1c0707.jpg

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Friday, 9 September 2022 23:40 (yesterday) link

OMG, these things - I actually had a thrilling rush of sensory memories at that picture. My grandparents had one too.

The ka-CHUNK was very satisfying.

I probably posted something like this upthread, but the original design of the remote (Zenith’s Space Command, specifically) always fascinated me. Tiny hammers hit tiny sound-producing rods!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenith_Electronics#Remote_controls

Lead engineer Robert Adler then suggested that ultrasonic sound be used as a trigger mechanism. This was produced in the hand held unit by mechanically struck aluminum rods of carefully constructed dimensions—a receiver in the television responded to the different frequencies this action produced. Enough audible noise was produced by pressing the buttons that consumers began calling remote controls "clickers". The miniaturization of electronics meant that, eventually, the sounds were produced in the remote unit electronically; however, the operating principle remained in use until the 1980s, when it was superseded by the infrared light system.

Yes, you mentioned on the second day of this thread’s existence, as a follow-up to your massive console TV post.

Well that technology background was certainly new! And totally unknown to me.

Yes. The new information was very welcome.

Again, repeat posts are not frowned upon in this thread, they are welcomed. Which in itself is a repeat post.

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence

Macrame

Macrame mucho

Ha.

Johnny Mathis albums. Although I think they were borrowed, at least in our house.

God’s Eyes.

Hi suzy, was hoping you would be back to contribute some more.

I feel like, even if there is some small thing that we may have missed on this thread, we still have all the basic DNA required to clone one of these houses if needed.

That mustard yellow rubbermaid pitcher with the white top that twists. Saw one on an episode of The Americans set in 81 or 82. Must have been a holdover from the 70s...

^Good one!

Great pick. I actually saw one at a yard sale a couple months ago... Strong Proustian Madeleine moment --- my entire 80s childhood, we drank orange juice (reconstituted from a cardboard tube of frozen concentrate) out of one of those. We had a blue-ish one too, used by my Mom to rinse shampoo from our hair when we were really little.

Tupperware parties and Avon ladies.

Fiddle Faddle and/or Screaming Yellow Zonkers

The coffee table book "Gnomes"

We had “Gnomes.” But what about B. Kliban books, maybe they were too counter-cultural for every ‘70s home, but we had all of them.

Oh man we definitely had Rubbermaid pitchers, I think including a yellow one. Also, juice concentrate! I was just thinking about the other day, how it seems to have disappeared. That was all we drank, frozen Minute Maid OJ and lemonade.

Here's an article from Vice about the decline of fro-jay: https://www.vice.com/en/article/4x5nzq/nobody-gives-a-damn-about-frozen-oj-anymore

And B Kliban, wow, this whole thread is like visiting my childhood home. My dad is a big comics/cartoon fan, so we had everything from classic Little Lulu to R. Crumb, including a shelf of Kliban.

When I was a kid my mom used to take my brother and me with her to visit some adult friends of hers who didn't have any kids, but they did have a gigantic coffee table book that had about 40 years' worth of Dick Tracy anthologized in it and I used to sit there and read entire plotlines that must have taken months to play out a day at a time in the 1930s or whenever.

watched Klute again and the brown, rust, yellow, olive and beige car colors of the early 70s look really good in retrospect

I guess by yellow I mean harvest gold

In every early '90s home ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi0uz8JD9Aw

In every 70s grandparents' home ever:

Candy that only grandmothers buy. In my case, it's nonpareils in covered glass candy dishes, and Chiclets and Necco Wafers in the purse.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/2019-12-27_15_44_29_A_packet_of_Christmas_Nonpareils_produced_by_Hollabaugh_Brothers%2C_Incorporated_in_the_Dulles_section_of_Sterling%2C_Loudoun_County%2C_Virginia.jpg/640px-thumbnail.jpg

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence

cologne bottle shaped like a green glass car

Stored in the attic or basement, let's not forget tents with metal poles! A joy to set up and take down for backyard slumber parties.

Slip ‘n’ Slide

In every early '90s home ever:

If I’m not mistaken, one of the ingredients is petroleum. Just plain petroleum. Ingredient list reads something like, “water, high fructose corn syrup, orange flavoring, petroleum, xanthan gum…”

In Every Miniature 70s Home Ever

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1355608872556376064.html

Oh man, that's fantastic. Versus a lot of mid-century house imagery, it's very much in the spirit of this thread, in capturing the junky, cluttered and texturally mismatched quality that these spaces often had in reality.

Also, I'm aware that building miniature houses of this kind has grown from a niche hobby into a whole Thing (we even watched a few episodes of a pretty badly-made competition show about them), but this seems like an especially excellent showcase of craft and attention to detail. Look at all that stuff! Look at those rugs! Love it.

The Lincoln Log house constitutes a dollhouse within a dollhouse. Dollhouseception.

Perky Pat's summer house

@pplayouts

Love the pictures of the soup can wandering the house

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZGQ2OTlmMzAtZTAyNy00Zjc2LTg1ZDgtZDgyZTM5MWMyYTljXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTkyNDA3NDY@._V1_.jpg

should've been this guy

beef stroganoff

See also Hamburger Helper discussion upthread starting here: In every 70s US home ever

Can we take a moment to talk about commemorative glasses? Hell yeah. Collect all four or five or six or whatever.

Most of mine got lost or broken or otherwise scattered to the winds, but thanks to my wife we DO miraculously still have a Great Muppet Caper glass with Fozzie on it. It is among our most treasured possessions, long since retired to a secure display case and insured by Lloyd's for six figures.

To think that people like me just, like, drank orange Fanta out of them like it was nothing. Like they were just common drinking vessels, instead of the rare and priceless collectors' items they would one day become.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/G0IAAOSwq3Nhd~Xc/s-l400.jpg

Lol. That reminds me of something I can’t remember posting about before. Near the checkout at the A&P was a giant stack of commemorative bicentennial plates made of thick amber glass, embossed with some kind of Spirit of ‘76 imagery, one of which I bought as a present on some occasion. We never even thought of eating off of it, although now that I think of it, maybe they would have wanted us to do so as a multiplier to sales. My dad liked it so much that he went in the basement and made a little stand for it with his jigsaw if not one of his other saws.

Lol at the elder Mr. Redd's collection of various saws. Each with their purpose. Lovingly oiled, sharpened when necessary. Hung on a pegboard in its appropriate place, outlined in Sharpie.

Anyway yeah I suspect it's a blurry reflection of the British tradition of having commemorative plates of the umpteenth Royal Wedding or Diamond/Platinum/Emerald/Tungsten Jubilee etc.

Tungsten Jubilee would be a decent band name

Jarts

Most important saw of all was the radial arm saw, which was like a giant manually operated robot arm with a table of its own.

He came, he sawed, he conquered

Cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth

Overalls with a loop specifically to hold a ball-peen hammer

But back to the Bicentennial for a moment.

The stylized star logo felt so fresh and forward-looking. Negative space, bold curves. Makes me think of Jimmy Carter and NASA.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/02/American_revolution_bicentennial.svg/220px-American_revolution_bicentennial.svg.png

There were mailboxes that were painted to look like Continental soldiers. Some of those held on for a while; one still occasionally saw them years later.

Every now and then I get a Bicentennial quarter in a handful of change from 7-11. I know they're not rare or valuable but I still have trouble parting with them. Sheer nostalgia.

Stopped smoking when my sister was born. Never wore overalls, just classic cutoff shorts, farmer tan and VBC (does this TLA already exist?) Work dress was often a vaguely Captain Kirk-like combo featuring Beatle boots, even though he hated Star Trek: TOS.

I remember being really disappointed after I took out a new 7-Day Loan library copy of The Bicentennial Man with the little yellow sticky with a red-lined rocket inside an atom on the spine denoting SF. It must have been really new since it still smelled primarily of binder’s glue without any of the hearty overtone scent of fine tobacco. Disappointed because it was so bad. Of course now in hindsight I can reflect “Isaac Asimov? Of course it was bad.”

I've always found the Bicentennial melancholic. I was born that year - in the UK, but I remember growing up reading coffee table books about science and technology, and they always had stock NASA photos from the 1970s. There was always a photo of the Arecibo telescope and some concept drawings of wheels in space. It was an odd period when "Big Science" and "Big Engineering" were still red-hot but people were also concerned about reusability and efficiency as well.

The Bicentennial logo suddenly reminded me of NASA's early wind turbines, which were built around the same time as the Bicentennial, and I realise now they're red, white, and blue! Presumably as a way of getting funding. "Mr President, wind energy is not communist, and in any case the model is the colour of our glorious flag". They were called MOD-1 and MOD-2 etc.

https://cdn10.picryl.com/photo/2013/12/31/mod-0a-wind-turbine-block-island-rhode-island-dedication-92ead6-1024.jpg

It's sad, because those books always presented wind turbines and alternative energy as The Future, marvels of science etc. Even the space shuttle's big selling point was that it was efficient, low-mileage, reusable, less wasteful than Apollo. I have the impression that the men and women dedicating that wind turbine had high hopes. But they all had to go into hiding because wind turbines and environmentalism eventually became tantamount to Communism. I was fed dreams of a better world.

Ashley, the bicentennial year was significant for me because it was the year of my family's rather narrow escape from Missouri and our move to DC. There was something especially exciting about arriving in the capital and seeing it all decked out and celebratory. It was like the part of "Wizard of Oz" where it shifts from black and white to color.

An eBay listing for James Redd (no stand included).

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/2TgAAOSw3ktfH4KF/s-l1600.jpg

I’ve always wanted to hold a Bicentennial-themed Fourth of July barbecue. Get some radio air checks from 1977, encourage folks to dress era-appropriately, find some inexpensive decorative stuff on eBay like that plate or glasses etc.

(I admit that I did go to eBay to see what Bicentenniel kitsch could be found after that post; I already love decorating my place with old LIFE magazines and other ’70s odds and ends.)

Are commemorative/collectible plates still a thing? I remember seeing commercials as a kid in the 90s, but can’t recall anything since. I see the Franklin Mint is still around, at least.

Not having been around for the Bicentennial fever, I always associate the whole thing with the oddly woozy theme song of "U.S. of Archie," which has some fun 70s funk and synth elements, but in my mind is dominated by this dreary psychedelic hangover sensibility. Apparently the show actually dates to 1974, so I'm not sure it has any direct connection at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih9rVocvxWc

I’ll see your “U.S. of Archie” and raise you whatever the fuck this is, produced by the U.S. Information Agency:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxAEPnq1KsU

(The soundtrack sounds almost like post-Forever Changes Love, but is in fact one Edward Simon)

No ceramic panther, no deal.

Oh mannnn, Tarfumes, that video is great. Perfect example of exactly what the Yellow Submarine aesthetic had become by 1976. I grew up surrounded by kids' books whose covers were the still-image version of this, like the 1971 Houghton Mifflin Readers. We have a thread for this kind of thing, right?

OMG. I was trying to recuse or absent myself from my thread for a while like some Joycean creator whilst y’all worked your magic with these last several posts but just now I was reminded of two things. First is that I bought a book through the Scholastic Book Club called The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics which, in the paperback form I owned had no actual illustrations except on the cover, but did have an introduction by Richard Brautigan and in photo insert section which some pictures of things such as The Beatles in bathing trunks in the Bahamas whilst shooting Help! or mugging with Muhammad Ali. Second is, did anyone else on this thread apart from James Redd have bicentennial wallpaper?

A photo insert section with

Feel like I need to justify my inclusion of the first thing because of trickle down cartoon psychedelia (the one illustration on the cover reminded of what I would see a little later in the artwork for Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy without the hidden boobs) and because Scholastic Book Club book, in case we haven’t mentioned yet.

See also those special Sunday newspapers with a free wraparound Peter Max poster!

Wow, I definitely was assigned those Houghton Mifflin readers in grade school (late ‘70s - early ‘80s) — I remember Panorama and Fiesta. And James Redd, sorry to hear you got screwed on that Beatles book. I remember flipping through it at my local library and digging the illustrations, most (all?) of which were by Alan Aldridge, who had also done the Who’s A Quick One cover.

The other thing about The Beatles book was that it didn’t seem to have any of George’s songs, let alone Ringo’s, but instead included some Lennon-McCartney-for-hire audition fodder numbers such as “Like Dreamers Do.”

Hmm. Maybe that book actually has a few George songs but not all. Perhaps it’s a Northern Songs/Harrisongs thing.

That one PSA looks like some Parallax View-level mind control psy-ops.

Just confirmed that Alan Aldridge also did the Captain Fantastic artwork.

We used those Houghton Mifflin readers from K-6!

We used something called SRA Reading Laboratory.
https://bookriot.com/a-box-of-nostalgia-the-sra-reading-laboratory/

Color-coded folders containing one or two page stories along with accompanying questions. Color-coded so the kids supposedly wouldn’t know that their classmates on the Gold Level were more advanced than those on Maroon Level, they even scrambled the colors from grade to grade to throw you off the scent.

At some point later on I felt maybe we should have been reading more challenging formats but at the time it was a very addictive, gamified process, like a precursor to Duolingo.

If no one else owns up to using those think I am going to feel like I had some kind of multiverse slip.

I vividly remember the big SRA boxes in my grade school classrooms. I have no memory whatsoever of myself or any of my classmates actually using them.

Perhaps they were already being phased out by the time you arrived in the system.

We also used SRA, and took SRA tests in fifth grade.

Oh I was totally schooled via SRA. Haven't thought about that in decades, ha!

Definitely remember the giant SRA box — in fact I have so many memories of the SRA box Im wondering which ones I should and should not share.

I went to school in the 80s fwiw

Please share whatever you feel comfortable sharing.

Either on this thread or a new one if you think that would work better.

The author of this piece didn’t like the system, but her write-up – along with sample card! - seems to remind me of the appeal.

http://hackeducation.com/2015/03/19/sra

Fidgit! The Fidget Spinner of its day!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5Ms14Weak0E/Tu6KJDlk7KI/AAAAAAAAANo/NGOa_g8MIxU/s1600/fidgit2.jpg

^this wasn’t some kind of mood thing?

In any case, that one is slowly working its Proustian madeleine magic on me this morning, thanks for posting.

I don't remember if it was temperature sensitive like a mood ring. It was some kind of oily I-don't-know-what that changed colors as you smushed it around with your fingertips.

I thought I remembered every stupid device of the era, and I have zero recollection of the Fidgit.

I recognize it, or the general principle. Maybe we had a differentlyre-formed, no-name knockoff from a few years later.

I don't remember the Fidget thing. But randomly it triggered memories of GI Joe action figurines. Google sent me to an vintage TV commercial for GI Joe with Kung Fu grip. From today's vantage point, yikes. Don't think my parents were particularly anti-Vietnam War but that figurine is OTT.

In (many) 70s homes in NYC and the Tri-State Area: mini-bagel necklaces with names on them given as souvenirs for going on Wonderama.

"A jade plant, hung in a macrame plant hanger" absoilutely

I didn't see this yet in this thread

https://i.etsystatic.com/8777027/r/il/dc4ba3/730668538/il_fullxfull.730668538_4ei2.jpg

Oooh, we had one of those. I remember sitting around it with my parents on Friday nights pretending it was a campfire.

Just considered starting an In every 70s US school ever thread but thought better of it

Do it!

Split-flap/flip (alarm) clocks

(Always forget the name of those things, along with the name of their big brother, the Solari, although I can still hear the sound when they flip and click back into place)

Yes, very much like having a mini version of a train station big board in your bedroom.

In discussions about devices that last forever people always mention the digital clock radios from the '80s (General Electric especially) that many of us still use, but I wonder how many people still use a split-flap alarm clock... I name I've now just learned.

This looks interesting: https://www.branchingoutwood.com/blog/four-nifty-steampunk-display-technologies

https://d3j17a2r8lnfte.cloudfront.net/aes/2023/6/medium/skWaBvYW2FzUqqfyfL3FZwvs.jpeg

^that was such a good game

Along with Perfection, such an analog forbearer of video game dexterity.