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American Bandito Pop-Culture Roadshow for Nov 15, 2019


This is another one of the pop-culture roadshow episodes where I go over some of the stuff that I've collected and talked a little bit about them and see if I can't learn something.

picture of doll box

Archie Bunker's Grandson Joey Stivic Doll

This is a weird thing from the 70s, Archie Bunker's grandson Joey Stivic. It's a doll, it's a baby doll. Archie Bunker had a grandson its name was Joey Stivic and to capitalize on that the toy company thought, “how do we make toys for kids to buy for Archie Bunker? The show that all kids hate.”

The toy touts itself as a drink and wet doll and is a physically correct male. And they weren't kidding. The doll is in the package with plastic over its head which is kind of disturbing to me.

It came with diapers a bib and a bottle. You basically fill the bottle with water put it in its mouth and then that water would trickle down into the diapers and then it'd be like it wet itself. Aww, adorable.

This toy was by the toy company Ideal which is no longer around. One of the other things they did that was also very popular was the Betsy Wetsy doll. So it looks like they just basically took the idea of the Betsy Wetsy and made a male version.

The last thing that they ever made was the Rubik's Cube and then they went out of business even though it was a huge hit! Like why would they go out of business after that? But apparently, they did.

Picture of grover doll

Super Grover 2.0

So this is one of the newer versions of Super Grover. There was a weird time where they started making dolls that were - you couldn't do anything with them they were just like stiff and they were more like statutes rather than toys and they would talk.

This one also had motion sensors so if you press the button and fly it through the air it responds like it’s flying.

So if you lift it up it goes "Going up". And if you swoop down it goes "Going down".

The character of Super Grover was introduced in the 70s. It was proposed by one of the writers for Sesame Street who was also a costume designer or something like that for another children's program. He took one of the props from that show and slapped it on the head of the Grover and said let's make him a superhero.

Not too long ago NASA actually took super Grover’s cape with them up into space and when they came back went on Sesame Street and gave it back to him and said your cape is now been in space.

A collage of Talking View-Masters and projectors

Talking View-Masters

I don't know why I keep getting view masters. View-masters themselves I think they're neat, I've got tons of these things sitting around they're fine. They're fun. One day I saw one of the old projectors for them the ones that talked.

So I get them, I try them out, they never work! This is why I need to stop getting these.

The talking view-masters were introduced in like 1970 and oddly enough they had a bunch of Sesame Street and Muppet ones. A lot of themed ones came with their own stylized players.

So that's all that I got. Talk to you later.

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Location: Madison, WI, USA

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