Popular Nostalgia

Memories specific to the US & (or) Canada. These are either events which took place in the US or Canada, or remembered by people from the USA or Canada who were there at the time…

Crop tops were a fashion accessory of the early nineties and went hand in hand with lime green shirts, jelly shoes and shag bands. There was something on the news about a girl getting a kidney infection because her crop top didn’t keep her warm enough. Dads made comments about needing woolly jumpers and Julia [...]

Snow White was the first full length animated feature to be produced by Walt Disney, and the first American animated feature film in movie history. If you’re in any doubt about how a woman should behave, check out the Disney 1930′s idea of female etiquette. It’s brilliant. Move like a ballerina and clean as though [...]

The McCallister family are late for their holiday and rush to the airport. Big Sis counts the family wrongly and they leave behind eight-year-old Kevin who is still sleeping. The night before, Kevin had an argument with his older brother and wished his family would just go away. He thinks it has come true when [...]

The CBS executives hated this feature when they saw it because it had readings from the Bible, jazz and children’s voices, but it was a hit. Linus recites a reading from the Gospel of Luke (whilst carrying his blanket) under a spotlight and we all know what we forgot over the last two weeks: Charlie [...]

Johnny Mathis had to choose between becoming an Olympic athlete and starting his recording career after both opportunities came along at once. He stuck with the latter and became a record breaking success, nicknamed the “velvet voice”, yet his athletic records still remain at San Francisco State University. This track has to be the cheesiest [...]

This song has been sung by some of the 20th Century’s sexiest women. Santa Baby was originally sung by Eartha Kitt who delivered the sultry Christmas list with the tongue-in-cheek it deserves. Kylie Minogue and Madonna have both covered it but the beauty of its original release in 1953 was how risque it would have [...]

The biggest selling track of Brenda Lee’s career is “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”. In 1958, when she was 13, Owen Bradley asked Lee to record a new song written by Johnny Marks, who wrote “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (Gene Autry) and “A Holly, Jolly Christmas” (Burl Ives). Lee recorded the song, in July with [...]

Perry Como & The Fontane Sisters with Michell Ayres & his Orchestra released their version of the “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas” on September 10, 1951. Bing Crosby also did a version and so have many other artists. The song was written in Nova Scotia and refers to a Christmas tree there in the [...]

The story of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer was written in 1939 by Robert L. May, a copywriter for the Chicago-based Montgomery Ward department stores, as a promotional gift for the store’s customers. May considered Rollo or Reginald before settling on Rudolph. Rudolph’s story was made into a song when May’s brother-in-law, songwriter Johnny Marks, developed [...]

Nat King Cole recorded The Christmas Song for the first time in 1946 with his group The Nat King Cole Trio. The record company re-recorded it with a string section, and Cole recorded it again in 1953 with Nelson Riddle. Capitol Records released it in December of 1960. It stayed on the chart for a [...]

In the 1970′s Wonder Woman hit US television in the shape of Lynda Carter. The series started with Major Steve Trevor crash landing in the Bermuda Triangle onto Paradise Island. He finds a society of Amazon women who compete for the opportunity to take him back to the US. Wonder Woman wins and dresses up [...]

Happy Days was nostalgic in its own right, being set in the 1950′s but first aired in the 1970′s. Howard, Marion, Richie, Joanie, and Chuck are the Cunningham family. Richie gets up to tricks with his friends Potsie and Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli. The Fonz was originally a dropout but became a huge hit with viewers. [...]

Robin Williams was Mork, an alien who came to Earth from the planet Ork in a large egg-shaped space ship, and Pam Dawber was Mindy McConnell, his human friend, roommate, and wife after they married in the final season. The series was a spinoff of the sitcom Happy Days. The character of Mork first appeared [...]

I remember Potsworth & Co. with fondness from my childhood, but a look back at the video shows that, compared to today’s cartoons, it was a pretty budget affair, which relied on good storylines. In the USA, it was called Midnight Patrol: Adventures in the Dream Zone – what a mouthful! Potsworth & Co. is [...]

I can’t believe we haven’t had The Raccoons featured in this Popular Nostalgia website, I mean it was Saturday morning gold when I were a wee laddie. BBC One mornings, before your mums and dads got out of bed were made all the more enjoyable/tolerable by The Raccons while we waited for Going Live to [...]