Most kids around the world have read Pippi Longstocking when they were growing up, and probably also the two sequel books about this favorite kids character, including: Pippi Goes on Board and Pippi in the South Seas. The author claims to have made the stories up the story for her young daughter who was sick (back in the late 1940s), and when her daughter kept asking for more stories about Pippi, she decided to write the stories down. The books were first published in Sweden back in the 1950s, but were translated into virtually all European languages and various others, initially by Viking Press (appropriately enough). The rest, as they say, is history.
Indeed, the author, Astrid Lindgren, became something of a national folk hero in Sweden, although she passed away in 2002. Still, even as of December 2012, Ms. Lindgren was the world's 20th most-translated author on earth and sold roughly 145 million copies of her books worldwide. That's pretty darn good, following only the Bible, the Koran, the works of William Shakespeare and a handful of others in terms of being the most-translated books on earth.
The reason the stories are so endearing to kids isn't hard to understand. The little girl known as Pippi lives in a house all by herself (along with a pet monkey named Mr. Nilsson and a horse that lives on the front porch). Because she lives all alone, there’s no one around to tell her to do her homework or even go to school. Indeed one of the funniest chapters is the day she actually does go to school. She also has a suitcase full of gold pieces so money isn't an issue. She has extraordinary strength, being able to lift her horse one-handed without difficulty. The two burglars who attempt to rob her are no match for this unusual little girl. Pippi's social interactions, on the other hand, aren't what adults consider to be "refined". In the original book, her attendance at neighbor Mrs. Settergren's (Tommy & Annika's mother) house proved to be a social disaster, and an experience which taught Pippi a lesson in humility.
Needless to say, all of these factors means the Pippi Longstocking character has enjoyed a timeless quality, which also means the books remain popular even today, more than a half century after they were first created.
The Pippi Longstocking movies were actually compiled from a television series which ran on one of the major Swedish TV networks which first aired in 1969. Needless to say, kids who grew up in the 1970s had a good chance of seeing this cast. Swedish actress Inger Nilsson starred as Pippi in the original TV series, and her portrayal is perhaps the best-loved, and is also considered the best-acted version of the beloved book character. Various sources have depicted her performance as a "confident yet oddball" that was also uncommonly consistent for a child actress. Newer versions of Pippi Longstocking in film, including the 1988 Columbia Pictures version that starred American actress Tami Erin were not especially well-received by movie critics, nor the children whom the movie was supposed to appeal.
The 1969 Swedish television series starred Inger Nilsson and she remains perhaps the best-loved actress to portray Pippi, although others have been produced around the world including a Russian movie version of Pippi Longstocking. Americans actually knew the 1969 Swedish TV version as 3 separate movies, which were dubbed into English, something that is still not all that common to American viewers. Those were as follows:
Pippi Longstocking
Pippi Goes on Board
Pippi in the South Seas
These 3 movies seem to closely follow the flow of the 3 books written by Astrid Lindgren, which made the children's appeal stronger, as kids could read the book and know what was coming in the next episode. As I understand it, each episode of the Swedish TV show matched a chapter in the original books, so assembling them together into a movie that flowed logically was straightforward. While produced for Swedish television, the production was actually a Swedish-West German co-production, and several German actors/actresses had roles.
All 3 of the original 1969 movie versions can be purchased online at Amazon.com (see http://amzn.to/U7b2me for details), and I would presume, you can probably find them on Netflix as well, although you may need to search for them there.
Original 2005 Cast Reunion on German TV
Although 35 years had passed since the original shows were recorded, the cast grew up went their separate ways, with some even leaving Sweden to live elsewhere (like the European sunbelt country Spain). Inger Nilsson (Pippi Longstocking), Maria Persson (Annika Settergren) and Pär Sundberg (Tommy Settergren) had reportedly not seen each other for more than a decade. Inger went on to become an actress (big surprise!), while Maria (Annika) moved to Mallorca, Spain a with her son, and Pär (Tommy) became a businessman in Sweden.
On February 26, 2005, German TV network RTL broadcasted "Die grössten TV-hits aller Zeiten - Die beliebtesten Kinderserien" (which translated into English means "TV's Greatest Hits - The Most Beloved Children's Series"). Pippi Longstocking came in sixth place (also known as Pippi Långstrump in Swedish, Pippi Langstrumpf in German) and the three actors who played Pippi, Tommy and Annika were reunited especially for that show.
The RTL broadcast was an interesting reunion because the only common language that all of them (meaning the news crew and Pippi cast) seemed to speak was English, hence American viewers could actually follow a decent portion of the conversation from German TV, although you might have missed bits and pieces if you hadn't studied any German (or Swedish!) in high school. The interview was conducted in German, although they spoke both English and Swedish, with German dubs, and no subtitles. Alas, thanks to copyright challenges, the original YouTube video (which was previously at http://youtu.be/5SDwHUrFch0) featuring this cast reunion has disappeared from the online world, which is unfortunate for American viewers.
However, I suspect Inger Nilsson will continue to enjoy the distinction of being the best-cast "Pippi Longstocking" for some time to come. Much like other shows with child casts (think of Broadway shows like "Annie" for example), finding child actors to play these roles goes beyond having someone who looks the part and can memorize the lines. Casting is key to ensuring the movie version is consistent with the tone of the original book. For example, British author Roald Dahl reportedly hated the 1973 film version of "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory", although he had also gone on record noting it had less to do with the child actors in that film version than it did with presenting the movie from the perspective of Willie Wonka, rather than from Charlie Bucket (catch my reunion post on Willie Wonka at http://goo.gl/Xn4ou). In any event, the Pippi cast reunion was one cast reunion I never expected to find online, but the world is a smaller place these days!
While I have speculated about the death of published books, the reality is that even though I have a Kindle app installed on my tablet device, I REALLY don't care for reading e-Books. When given a choice, I would almost always choose print over digital when it comes to reading material. There are many reasons, not the least of which is that it's cumbersome to flip pages on tablets, and battery life is still a big limitation. Plus, you can read a printed book or magazine during take-off on a plane, but you'll be scolded by the flight crew for using an iPad. The bottom line in my opinion is that I'm not crazy about eBooks, and prefer print for many reasons. However, it looks as if I'm not alone! The vast majority (89%) of book readers said that they had read at least one printed (not digital) book in the last year.
Regardless, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit in April 2012 against Apple and five major book publishers — Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster — alleging collusion in e-book prices and sales models (see the press release at http://1.usa.gov/Ims2zR). The U.S. DOJ settled with three of them (Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster) in September 2012. The settlement means the publishers will be prohibited for 2 years from entering into new agreements that constrain retailers' ability to offer discounts or other promotions to consumers to encourage the sale of the publishers' e-books. Refunds were awarded to consumers who bought eBooks under the collusive pricing strategy.
On January 5, 2013, The Wall Street Journal featured an interesting article (the paper called it an "Essay", but it looked like an article or editorial to me). The title was "Don't Burn Your Books—Print Is Here to Stay", which can be seen below, or at http://on.wsj.com/VYnGQI if you have a WSJ subscription. The conclusion is that print is likely to be around for a while longer, and eBooks may be just another format for published material, but certainly not the only format.
Essay: Don't Burn Your Books—Print Is Here to Stay
By Nicholas Carr, The Wall Street Journal
January 5, 2013
The e-book had its moment, but sales are slowing. Readers still want to turn those crisp, bound pages
Lovers of ink and paper, take heart. Reports of the death of the printed book may be exaggerated.
Ever since Amazon introduced its popular Kindle e-reader five years ago, pundits have assumed that the future of book publishing is digital. Opinions about the speed of the shift from page to screen have varied. But the consensus has been that digitization, having had its way with music and photographs and maps, would in due course have its way with books as well. By 2015, one media maven predicted a few years back, traditional books would be gone.
Half a decade into the e-book revolution, though, the prognosis for traditional books is suddenly looking brighter. Hardcover books are displaying surprising resiliency. The growth in e-book sales is slowing markedly. And purchases of e-readers are actually shrinking, as consumers opt instead for multipurpose tablets. It may be that e-books, rather than replacing printed books, will ultimately serve a role more like that of audio books—a complement to traditional reading, not a substitute.
How attached are Americans to old-fashioned books? Just look at the results of a Pew Research Center survey released last month. The report showed that the percentage of adults who have read an e-book rose modestly over the past year, from 16% to 23%. But it also revealed that fully 89% of regular book readers said that they had read at least one printed book during the preceding 12 months. Only 30% reported reading even a single e-book in the past year.
What's more, the Association of American Publishers reported that the annual growth rate for e-book sales fell abruptly during 2012, to about 34%. That's still a healthy clip, but it is a sharp decline from the triple-digit growth rates of the preceding four years.
The initial e-book explosion is starting to look like an aberration. The technology's early adopters, a small but enthusiastic bunch, made the move to e-books quickly and in a concentrated period. Further converts will be harder to come by. A 2012 survey by Bowker Market Research revealed that just 16% of Americans have actually purchased an e-book and that a whopping 59% say they have "no interest" in buying one.
Meanwhile, the shift from e-readers to tablets may also be dampening e-book purchases. Sales of e-readers plunged 36% in 2012, according to estimates from IHS iSuppli, while tablet sales exploded. When forced to compete with the easy pleasures of games, videos and Facebook on devices like the iPad and the Kindle Fire, e-books lose a lot of their allure. The fact that an e-book can't be sold or given away after it's read also reduces the perceived value of the product.
Beyond the practical reasons for the decline in e-book growth, something deeper may be going on. We may have misjudged the nature of the electronic book.
From the start, e-book purchases have skewed disproportionately toward fiction, with novels representing close to two-thirds of sales. Digital best-seller lists are dominated in particular by genre novels, like thrillers and romances. Screen reading seems particularly well-suited to the kind of light entertainments that have traditionally been sold in supermarkets and airports as mass-market paperbacks.
These are, by design, the most disposable of books. We read them quickly and have no desire to hang onto them after we've turned the last page. We may even be a little embarrassed to be seen reading them, which makes anonymous digital versions all the more appealing. The "Fifty Shades of Grey" phenomenon probably wouldn't have happened if e-books didn't exist.
Readers of weightier fare, including literary fiction and narrative nonfiction, have been less inclined to go digital. They seem to prefer the heft and durability, the tactile pleasures, of what we still call "real books"—the kind you can set on a shelf.
E-books, in other words, may turn out to be just another format—an even lighter-weight, more disposable paperback. That would fit with the discovery that once people start buying digital books, they don't necessarily stop buying printed ones. In fact, according to Pew, nearly 90% of e-book readers continue to read physical volumes. The two forms seem to serve different purposes.
Having survived 500 years of technological upheaval, Gutenberg's invention may withstand the digital onslaught as well. There's something about a crisply printed, tightly bound book that we don't seem eager to let go of.
—Mr. Carr is the author of "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains."
A version of this article appeared January 5, 2013, on page C2 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Don't Burn Your Books—Print Is Here to Stay.
Modern-day breakfast cereals are, to a large extent, an American creation. Sure, Britain has what they call Wheetabix, and the Swiss invented Müesli, but we Americans were arguably the first to industrialize the manufacture of breakfast cereals and mass-merchandise the concept of them to large segments of the population. Indeed, cereal marketers have demonstrated considerable skill in branding their products, creating brand mascots like Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam, Count Chocula, and of course Snap, Crackle and Pop.
A few years ago, credit card giant MasterCard ran one of the more memorable recent TV spots featuring the iconic mascots for a number of consumer products (sure, the Vlasic Pickle Stork isn’t associated with breakfast cereal, but there certainly was at least one cereal mascot included). Have a look at the YouTube clip below, or by visiting http://youtu.be/xtRBpu-OjF4:
We've since taken the concept of breakfast cereals and exported it around the world, to places ranging from Brazil to Russia to China, although the concept has been met with varying degrees of success.
The forefathers of these products were undoubtedly the Kellogg brothers (William Keith Kellogg and John Harvey Kellogg) of Michigan, as well as some others, notably Charles William "C.W." Post of New York, although Mr. Post was really more a packaged-foods guy who got his start in the cereal biz, but would go on to morph his company into General Foods, with a string of mergers and acquisitions ranging from Minute Tapioca, Bird's Eye frozen vegetables to Maxwell House Coffee and Jell-O. General Foods would later be merged with Kraft Foods, although Kraft kind of lost interest in breakfast cereals and sold the Post cereals business Ralcorp in 2007, and that business was subsequently spun off as a standalone company in 2011, more details follow). But the corporatization of breakfast cereals didn't stop with those guys, others included General Mills, Ralston Purina (that company split itself into two in 1994 and that company sold it's branded products such as Chex and Cookie Crisp to General Mills; Ralcorp which was better known for making private label cereals for retailers, marketed Post's Fruity Pebbles and Alpha Bits which were acquired from Kraft, but spun the unit off as a separate company fending off a hostile acquisition from ConAgra in 2011, see http://nyti.ms/2sbWi8R for details, hence today Post once again exists as a stand-alone cereal company ... for now), Quaker Oats (which today belongs to PepsiCo), Nabisco (now also a part of Kraft, see the prior note on how Kraft lost interest in cereal) and a few other big agri-businesses.
Aside from Post whose origins were in New York (although his cereal business was, ironically enough, based in Battle Creek, Michigan, also home to Kellogg), most of the other breakfast-food giants began in America's breadbasket. But present-day ownership and company headquarters' aside, the concept of packaging commodity crops like wheat, oats and corn, and then marketing them breakfast cereals really began in earnest following the Great Depression. The product enabled consumers to have a filling breakfast that didn't require lengthy preparation, hence it really took off in the 1950s through the 1970s.
Working parents loved it, but getting the kids to eat cereal wasn't as easy. Kids are notoriously fussy eaters anyway, so the manufacturers did what they always do: add sugar which made the product more palatable to finicky children. Combine that with TV advertising (which really became prevalent in the 1950s, this was also before the days when scrutiny over marketing to kids emerged) and a recipe for cereal success was created. Today's post is about those sugary breakfast concoctions we call cereal which are indeed part of American pop culture. The Great American Cereal Book
While every company operating in the cereal market has it's own unique history, how many really chronicle how these products, and their iconic mascots (including Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, Count Chocula/ Frankenberry/ Boo-Berry, Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam, Post Sugar Bear, Lucky the Leprechaun and various others) and look at how the products, the marketing and the packages have evolved over time? There is a really great book on this subject called "The Great American Cereal Book: How Breakfast Got Its Crunch" by Martin Gitlin and Topher Ellis.
You cannot get a Kindle version for this particular book, so don't ask. But, if you're interested in buying the print version of this book, visit http://amzn.to/QSnoMb or http://bit.ly/QSnyDn to buy the book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, respectively. As a point of reference, whenever I buy old-fashioned, books printed on paper (not eBooks), I use a handy search engine called AddAll.com which compares prices for a given book at like 40-50 different bookstores (including some used booksellers), and enables you to choose the retailer that has the lowest price. I find using the ISBN number (which in this case is: 0810997991) is fast, and voilà, the site searches bookstores all over the country.
This is really more of a coffee-table book, being a hardcover, full-color book that could just as easily fit on the shelf in your cabinet or pantry where you store your boxes of cereal as it does on your bookshelf in terms of the book's size. But it's a high-quality publication, and the authors received a lot of help from the cereal manufacturers in assembling what could best be described as an encyclopedia of photos and background information on all of the cereal brands you're likely to know about as well as more than a few that were around for a limited period of time. I highly recommend getting a copy for yourself, but it also makes for a great gift for a person who has everything yet might appreciate having a piece of pop-culture history on their coffee table. Barnes & Noble featured a really nice review of "The Great American Cereal Book" which I highly recommended reading at http://bit.ly/QdbhYr. Cereal Bits Website
Cereal Bits' Logo Animation
For those who don't have the financial resources to buy this particular book, the good news is there's presently an online resource (which was done with no affiliation from the book's authors, by the way) that's almost as comprehensive in terms of pictures (just don't expect to see the same level of research on this subject at the site, as there is little if any history on the website).
That particular website is (was, I include the archive in the links that follow) "Cereal Bits" (https://web.archive.org/web/20151230022335/http://www.cerealbits.com/) which is (or rather WAS) an awesome website that adds online color to this walk through our junk-food breakfast obsession known as breakfast cereal. Included there are many photos of the limited-duration sugary breakfast cereals everyone knew would only be on the shelves for a limited time, including Star Wars, Mr. T, Pac Man and various others. And perhaps you recall some of the other cereals, like Quaker's King Vitamin or General Mills' Big G Body Buddies from back in the day? Rest assured, both the book and the website have lots of photos you can see and relive those breakfasts of your youth.
In truth, I do think the book provides more interesting context to this discussion because it contains the history of how those brands (and their mascots) were created, including when they were born and more. Sure, I could include some YouTube videos of some old cereal TV commercials, but you could just as easily search those for yourself.
A few years ago (in 2009), Advertising Age wrote about how General Mills, one of the largest purveyors of sugary cereals in existence, relaunched, for a limited time, retro packaging for some of it's kids' cereals and sold them in Target stores. The target market for those retro-packages was clearly Gen Xers, though I never heard of any follow-up on how well (or poorly) the retro packaging did for General Mills. In any event, that article may be viewed at http://adage.com/u/aHwSTb, so be sure to check it out.
Finally, Amazon.com had a note from the book's authors which is relevant so I'm including that below: From the Author
My passion for cereal inspired me to launch this project, but you don't have to be a cereal lover to enjoy The Great American Cereal Book. I was thrilled to find a publisher that shared my vision. Cereal is fun. Eating cereal is fun. Reading cereal boxes is fun. Cereal spokescharacters are fun. Not too many morose thoughts run through one's mind when Sonny the Cuckoo Bird is proclaiming, "I'm Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!" I tried to express that sense of fun on every page and Harry Abrams followed suit. The 350 images of cereal boxes, ads and memorabilia that pepper the pages of this book make it colorful and, of course, fun. But if not for co-author Topher Ellis and heaps of information provided by the cereal companies, this book would never have become a reality.
Thanks to everyone! And to everyone out there ... enjoy! Marty
About the Author
Marty Gitlin is a freelance writer and the author of more than 40 books. He has won many awards for his writing, including first place for General Excellence in Journalism from the Associated Press. Gitlin lives with his wife and three children in Cleveland, Ohio. Topher Ellis is a cereal expert and editor of the cereal newsletter the Boxtop, the longest continuously running publication dedicated to breakfast cereal. He lives in Matthews, North Carolina.
Author P.S., October 20, 2013: NPR reported on October 20, 2013 that General Mills' line of "Monster Cereals" (Count Chocula, Boo Berry and Franken Berry) which originally hit the market in the early '70s although the company decided in 2010 these would only be available during the Halloween season, which created an artificial scarcity which has kind of galvanized a kind of cult following around this time of year for these retro-sugary cereals. Catch "Unleashed On Halloween, Monster Cereals Haunt Hoarders" for more details at http://n.pr/H8Cj3O.
Author P.S., February 27, 2014: Bloomberg Business Week reported (see http://bloom.bg/182eh7b) that Kellogg as well as its competitors have seen sales declines, with Kellogg suffering more than General Mills and Post Holdings. The real issue is that today, cereal isn't as convenient as it once was compared to other foods. Today, people eat on the run, so a family eating breakfast together is also an anachronism to parents toting their kids in the car to daycare or to school. That means Kellogg has its work cut out for it. Stay tuned for the continued evolution of American breakfasts!
Two years ago was the 30th anniversary of a book that became something of an accidental bestseller known as "The Official Preppy Handbook" (it was published in 1980) by Lisa Birnbach. The book was written pretty much as a tongue-in-cheek look at the WASP establishment, but the author wasn't really part of that establishment, as a Jewish Girl who happened to attend an elite prep school and later, the Ivy League Brown University. She probably had access to the elite WASP establishment, but she was also something of an outsider looking in which made the book so entertaining (I think I can say that having grown up in Connecticut with family surnames of Wilkinson, Bradford and Stone and a family affiliation with a prep school known as The Gunnery). Her educational background probably helped her as a then-aspiring author to gain access to the publishing industry, and the publisher was pleasantly surprised with the great sales numbers for the original "Official Preppy Handbook". Still, the original book was a very entertaining look which combined some facts with some fiction.
It was a runaway success in 1980, but the book's actual buyers weren't exactly whom the publisher (or the author) anticipated they would be. Mostly, the buyers were kids in flyover country that envisioned themselves as part of that elite world.
In any event, the reboot, whose preparation was chronicled by such "establishments" as The New York Times (see http://nyti.ms/OXAlU9 for the news on the reboot, and http://nyti.ms/QNDO88 for the subsequent book review) and even included a co-author with a preppy-sounding name (Chip Kidd), but was not necessarily the runaway success of the original. Apparently, its initial first-print run was reduced from from 150,000 copies to a more modest number of 60,000. That's not to say the publisher lost money on it (it did get published after all) but the publishing industry really isn't what it was back in 1980, and success may be defined differently today based on sales numbers. The reboot really wasn't as funny as the original, and that may be why it didn't work as well.
Some blog critics were less than kind (see HERE for an example) to the reboot, and I hate to admit it, but I have to agree, as I think they were mostly correct. For example, Robert Lanham wrote:
"... the book's smugly discreet tone is precisely what is most exasperating about True Prep. Let's face it, most Americans are too busy trying to make ends meet to discuss with "loving irreverence" those dandily-dressed hedge-funders. And should the topic be broached, the last thing they're looking for is a little old fashioned discretion."
Having read both versions of the book (although my original copy of the now out-of-print "Official Preppy Handbook" was lost or tossed long ago), I can say the new book "True Prep" was probably done with very good intentions (although Lisa Birnbach probably did little more than give her name to the venture as a ghostwriter to Chip Kidd, who was probably responsible for most of the content for the reboot, though she was a great person to promote the book as some of the videos that follow seem to indicate, and I can say the book definitely looks familiar to the original in format, design and tone) but "True Prep" just didn't amuse me the way the original "Official Preppy Handbook" did in 1980.
As an FYI, Lisa Birnbach has an "official" blog which can be visited at http://lisabirnbach.tumblr.com/. It seems to be primarily a vehicle for promoting the reboot book "True Prep".
Sometimes, things weren't meant to be rebooted (such as the 2007 reboot of the seventies TV show "The Bionic Woman" which I really hated) and in this case, I can say that probably applies to the "True Prep" reboot of the 1980 original "Official Preppy Handbook". The original was cute, but the reboot is probably lacking in some of the bite that the original had, hence the reboot really didn't work as well as the original did. Indeed, the reboot paints a picture of 2010 as a much more-inclusive world of prepdom, but the fact remains that while the world may have changed since 1980, that doesn't mean the sequel can approach the fun of the original in this case.
If you want to evaluate the reboot for yourself, the good news is that it can be found in many places, including on iTunes, Google Play/Android Marketplace and, of course, traditional booksellers including Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. As an added benefit, the book is sold in both print and electronic versions.
Or, better yet, see if it's available at your public library!
Donald J. Sobol, the creator of the beloved character Encyclopedia Brown (Boy Detective) and book series, reportedly died last week (on July 11, 2012). However, it wasn't until today, when a Publishers Weekly Twitter account sent a message that announced his death that the news was of his passing was communicated with the public. Sobol's son told the Associated Press today that his father, who was born in New York, had died of natural causes in Miami. He was age 87.
The first in the Encyclopedia Brown book were published back in 1963, but it grew into a very prolific series during the '70s and has never gone out of print. I think kids that grew up in the '70s and '80s were especially familiar with the series, probably moreso than kids of today who have more reading options available to them, with online bookstores like Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com available to them. But, back in those days, we had fewer choices, and these books were always a popular option at school Book Fairs.
Courtesy of Penguin Books
In truth, I read more than a few Encyclopedia Brown books when I was a kid. The stories were written for youngish (like grammar school/grade school) readers, but the "crimes", if you can even call them crimes, were usually things like petty thefts (like stolen lunch money). Never murder, major theft or anything very serious. The clues, in my recollection, weren't especially well-articulated or well-written, and some were sometimes ridiculously vague, but others featured criminals who were usually incredibly stupid, so kids with reasonable intelligence could usually solve the those mysteries as well as Encyclopedia Brown could. Still, they did instill an appreciation for solving puzzles in a crime scene, and probably helped TV shows like CSI do well among audiences today.
Also, from December 3, 1978 to September 20, 1980, Encyclopedia Brown was a daily and Sunday comic strip published by Universal Press Syndicate. The artwork was reportedly done by Frank Bolle, although Donald Sobol was credited as the comic strip's writer.
In any event, this is a day for me to remember, as one of the writers I grew up with is now part of history. Incidentally, the name "Encyclopedia Brown" doesn't have quite the cache it once did, in part because nobody has encyclopedias anymore, so an entire generation is pretty clueless about what those were. A few spoofs have since been done to try and bring the guy into the 21st century by calling him "Wikipedia Brown" (see HERE), and a while back, The Onion reported that Encyclopedia Brown had been found in a dumpster in his hometown of Idaville (see HERE). Neither were legitimate, but my news, unfortunately, is legit. See the news courtesy of The New York Times at http://nyti.ms/PuDVXE).
Back in the 1970s, when I was in third grade and reading books with chapters (but no pictures), one of the books I found at my school's book fair was Judy Blume's Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. The book was about a boy named Peter Hatcher who was roughly about my age and his obnoxious younger brother known by the nickname "Fudge". Seriously, it resembled my own life! An excerpt from Amazon's review reads as follows:
"Peter, because he's the older brother, must deal with Fudge's disgusting cuteness, his constant meddling with Peter's stuff, and other grave offenses, one of which is almost too much to bear."
Judy Blume, to me, had a perfect understanding of what it meant to be me ... a third-grader (almost fourth grader!) with a bratty baby brother that everyone thought was so freaking cute, and could do no wrong as a result. She spoke to me, and apparently to many other kids, too!
I was absolutely delighted when Judy Blume came out with a sequel to that classic children's book she called Superfudge (at that point, Peter Hatcher all but disappeared from the book's title, since the publishers felt it was more about the bratty kid than it was the tortured older brother), and guess what, when that book came out, I was in third grade, but at an advanced reading level, so the ages fit pretty well, I guess.
Author Judy Blume in 2009
Although the rest of her books were pretty much irrelevant to me because they were mostly about girls (for example, Blubber was about a fat girl), apparently Judy's other books, like Forever dealt with some racy material that really made some conservative parents very uncomfortable, so some activist people in flyover country tried to have ALL of Judy Blume's books banned. As I understand it, Forever dealt with girls' orgasms while Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret dealt with menstruation. That prompted discussions in PTA meetings across the country, and I was lucky enough to live in a place that was pretty liberal about things like that, but I do remember a teacher making a comment about how "shocked" she was about the subject matter of Forever. That comment made the book a runaway bestseller in local bookstores because everyone wanted to read the shocking, forbidden material!
Although my experience with Judy Blume was primarily with Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge, I think her ability to write books that kids of various ages could relate with made her a very popular author, and some of her books remain as popular as they were back in the '70s.
As an author dealing with book-burning and bannings, she was on the front-line of that kind of controversy. A few years ago, NPR did an interview with her about those issues, as well as what prompted bringing certain elements of her books up-to-date. That interview may be listened to (or seen) at http://n.pr/KPozHN, or below:
Hearing an interview with Judy Blume is pretty awesome, even if it's been thirty-five years since I read her book(s). Today, I have perspective on what she, as a writer, dealt with when she became the most popular children's author, dealing with parents who were unwilling to discuss things like sex with their own children and preferred to pretend the subject didn't exist and worked to ban her books instead. To me, she was just an author who had an incredible ability to express, in writing, things so many children and adolescents were experiencing. Its pretty awesome to hear her perspective on the experience, why she thinks things new book covers are meant to bring her books closer to a new audience and how those very updates to her books don't ruin "classics", but instead keep them contemporary enough to stay relevant even thirty years later.
What kind of experience did you have with Judy Blume's books?!
... Harvest Gold, Avacado Green and Coppertone Brown-colored kitchen appliances?
Well, you may have guessed it by the name of this blog ("Harvest Gold Memories"), growing up, my family's kitchen had Harvest Gold-colored kitchen appliances. Those may still exist in a few American homes today (The lifespan of kitchen appliances may be decades or longer! Just don't plan on buying a brand new one in those colors!), but the colors of 1970's U.S. kitchens have given way to a brand new fad color: Stainless Steel. That's right, today's Stainless Steel refrigerators, ranges, dishwashers will, in all likelihood, look positively dated in 25-30 years. The only color that really never goes out-of-date is white. The rest will be history in time, and your kids will look back at it and groan at how utterly tasteless it was.
Trust me, I've been there and done that! What was the height of kitchen decor circa 1977 is positively dated today. The same will likely hold true for your flashy stainless steel fridge. If you're buying new appliances today, stick with boring old white for genuine timelessness!
Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops?
Anyway, the title of today's post brings me to the topic du jour: a book with the title of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops: The Lost Toys, Tastes, and Trends of the 70s and 80s" written by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper and Brian Bellmont. This book first hit bookstore (and ebook) shelves last summer. The following audio clip was from NPR, and the sound effects really add nostalgic flair to this post with radio commercials and TV theme songs and the like. Have a listen below, or you can visit NPR's site at http://n.pr/If89Vp:
Apparently, Gael Fashingbauer Cooper is a pop-culture editor for MSNBC (hence the connection to NBC noted below), but she also seems to do work as a freelancer for other publications as well.
What's this book about, exactly?
Well, one reviewer called it "a readable anthology of the various Generation X trends of the 1970's and 1980's". That was the most succinct description. It's a virtual "encyclopedia" if you will. The book is a really easy read, particularly for those of us who fit the age group the book is clearly written for. It's a series of different chapters on various pop-culture items from the aforementioned timeframe, each chapter is only 2-3 pages, so you can actually finish a chapter without daily life interrupting until you finish one.
Naturally, when the book launched about a year ago, the publisher (and authors) went on a PR blitz to promote the book, even appearing on NBC's Today Show.
By the way, am I the only one who remembers Kathie Lee Gifford (she was known by Kathie Lee Johnson in those days) as show host Tom Kennedy's singer/sidekick on "Name That Tune", from 1974-78? Catch a video at http://youtu.be/PakKmHN6hLg. Back to the point, however, NBC also had a cool slideshow on the "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops" book that you can look at by visiting http://on.today.com/Q9VedI. Incidentally, the NBC slideshow is far better than the photos found in the actual book itself! (the slides on NBC are in color!)
Anyway, since I have a 25 high-school reunion coming up in a few weeks, I bought a few copies to give out (I got tickets and they can draw winning numbers). Walmart was the cheapest place to I found to buy it, sold for $7.50 compared to the list price of $12.95. I ordered a few copies, and they fulfilled the order ... TWICE so I have twice as many copies to give out. We'll see how that goes.
You can also buy this as an eBook from Amazon.com, the Google Play Marketplace, and I would presume at the iTunes store, too (not having an iPhone, I really don't care). The prices for eBooks is way overpriced IMHO, but I guess the benefit is you can carry them around and read them on a 2-inch screen. Try doing that without cheaters (you know, those magnifying eyeglasses for reading) at age 43!
After reading this book, I highly recommend it. Although I think their info. wasn't completely up-to-date on a few items ... for example, TVShowsonDVD.com reported several TV shows are available on DVD which they missed, but most of the info. is pretty good. It's well worth the trip down memory lane!!
Writer, speaker, brother, son, friend, spouse, advocate for people with autoimmune (type 1) diabetes, thinker, dreamer. Reading and writing is becoming a lost art, but we can learn a lot from reading the medical and scientific literature before drawing conclusions. The press publishes abbreviated facts to fit into limited space, I don't mince words or omit facts.
