American cultural references you heard as a kid...

[kalowski]

...but meant nothing to you because you'd never seen the shows.

You know the stuff I mean.

In Happy Days when Ritchie mentioned Howdy Doody - I know it's some sort of puppet show but fuck knows more than that.

References to Poindexter - means someone clever and nerdy, I think.

Once read a gag in Mad magazine about the Katzenjammer Kids but never bothered to find out more.

And what the fuck is Gilligan's Island?

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Jeopardy. Carson. Mystery Island. Brady Bunch.

[kalowski]

Ooh yes Brady Bunch is a good one.

[letsgobrian]

I think Katzenjammer Kids is more of a generational issue, the BBC genome has descriptions of 1920s radio shows mentioning the already 30 year old comic strip.

And the BBC were showing the MGM cartoons based on the strip in the 80s and 90s. Well, based on the syndicate defying "Captain and the Kids" strip, but I remember Tony Robinson explaining the history on a Stay Tooned.

[Shaxberd]

Things I heard of but did not recognise as a kid: The Kool-Aid Man, the DMV, Mr Peabody and Sherman, grits, most things to do with baseball.

I still don't really know what Homecoming is other than that it's treated with utmost importance in stories about high school.

[Dr Rock]

Mr Rogers.

I knew what The Brady Bunch was, it was on UK telly.

Hostess Twinkies.

pink eye, mono.

[jamiefairlie]

Those massive chests full of toy soldiers advertised on the back of Marvel comics.

In fact pretty much everything advertised in Marvel comics -Saturday morning cartoon lineups, sell something and earn one of these amazing prizes, twinkies

[jobotic]

As a Peanuts reader, anything to do with real baseball players.

And also "Woodstock has lost his retainer"

[Funcrusher]

Those massive chests full of toy soldiers advertised on the back of Marvel comics.

In fact pretty much everything advertised in Marvel comics -Saturday morning cartoon lineups, sell something and earn one of these amazing prizes, twinkies

Strong memories of this. Spalding basketballs, Daisy BB rifles (start your kid early on gun ownership), Saturday morning cartoon line-ups full of stuff that would never make it to Britain (including cartoon versions of live action shows never seen here like Welcome Back Kotter).Sell Grit newspaper (why was it called that?). Twinkies, which when I eagerly bought one on holiday in the US just turns out to be a bit of sponge with some cream jizz inside it.

[beanheadmcginty]

I still don't understand the thing about lifting one leg up while kissing. What the fuck is going on there?

[Dayraven]

I think Katzenjammer Kids is more of a generational issue

They were also late survivors from early 20th century immigrant/dialect American comedy, as well as a time when German-Americans were a much less assimilated group. Similar frozen-in-time feel to the more old-fashioned Beano and Dandy strips.

[Registering to lurk]

Once read a gag in Mad magazine about the Katzenjammer Kids but never bothered to find out more.

I had a couple of the Mad paperback books which seemed to keep referring to "socialised medicine", and "forced busing".

[kalowski]

Things I heard of but did not recognise as a kid: The Kool-Aid Man, the DMV, Mr Peabody and Sherman, grits, most things to do with baseball.

I still don't really know what Homecoming is other than that it's treated with utmost importance in stories about high school.

I don't know what a sophomore or a freshman is.
Or where the bleachers are.

[jamiefairlie]

Alpha phi Cigna! Hur hur hur!!! Drink beer out of red plastic cups!

[jamiefairlie]

Strong memories of this. Spalding basketballs, Daisy BB rifles (start your kid early on gun ownership), Saturday morning cartoon line-ups full of stuff that would never make it to Britain (including cartoon versions of live action shows never seen here like Welcome Back Kotter).Sell Grit newspaper (why was it called that?). Twinkies, which when I eagerly bought one on holiday in the US just turns out to be a bit of sponge with some cream jizz inside it.

Aye the Spalding ones! Featuring massive black guys with equally massive afros we've never heard of but who spin a spalding ball on their index finger

[Shaxberd]

Ah, the Harlem Globetrotters. I think I was an adult before I found out they weren't a real basketball team. (Not real as in, they exist and perform in real life, but they don't play in the NBA, it's scripted 'sports entertainment'.)

[Replies From View]

I don't know what a sophomore or a freshman is.
Or where the bleachers are.

All of these create strong mental images of what they're not, as well, so they're not even neutral words that you can store as empty content while the rest of the script runs over you.

Sophomore = semaphore
Freshman = a fresh man, possibly even very fresh.  In specifically a toothpaste way
Bleacher = travelling bleach administrator


I've always found it very hard to follow what's going on in films and television.  I've wondered if it's to do with a short attention span but it might simply be that all references have cartoony associations in my mind and quite soon I just get overwhelmed with nonsense.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I still think Sesame Street never got big over here because of this. All the educational stuff would be fine, but then you'd hear somebody say Zee instead of Zed, or make some reference to baseball or some stupid American food you'd never heard of, and as a discerning seven year old I'd turn it off.

[DrGreggles]

Most foods

[Glebe]

Somewhat incredibly someone in my class in primary school had a Howdy Doody flask. Beat that!

[Mr Banlon]

Mr Belvedere
Webster (a sort of Different Strokes rip-off)
GEDs
Kids having curfews
Military Academy

[Glebe]

My parents liked The Honeymooners actually.

[idunnosomename]

Ah, the Harlem Globetrotters. I think I was an adult before I found out they weren't a real basketball team. (Not real as in, they exist and perform in real life, but they don't play in the NBA, it's scripted 'sports entertainment'.)

What

[kalowski]

I still think Sesame Street never got big over here because of this. All the educational stuff would be fine, but then you'd hear somebody say Zee instead of Zed, or make some reference to baseball or some stupid American food you'd never heard of, and as a discerning seven year old I'd turn it off.

Yes, like a pastrami and jelly sandwich or some shit.

[sutin]

Gilligan's Island. Actually, i'm gonna look it up on YouTube right now to see what it actually is.

[Brundle-Fly]

They eventually crossed the pond in the eighties, but throughout my childhood from the end of the 1960s, the novelty mail order adverts in U.S. comics used to blow my tiny mind, specifically the Sea Monkeys one. I genuinely believed American kids had access to  aquatic simian nuclear families rather than just a smelly fishbowl of brine shrimp. Creatures that you needed an electron microscope to see.  Don't get me started on X Ray specs. Mum, what is our state and zip code?

[Enzo]

What the fuck was a hall pass? Or a tardy slip for that matter

[sutin]

Who the hell is 'Mort Sahl'?

[Pimhole]

Gilligan's Island. Actually, i'm gonna look it up on YouTube right now to see what it actually is.

Having heard it referenced so many times it's odd that I still haven't seen a single second of footage or, i think, even a still image. Is it in black & white or colour? Filmed on location or on a bad set? Are they puppets? I don't know. And this has been going on so long that I refuse to find out.

[sutin]

Ah, the Harlem Globetrotters. I think I was an adult before I found out they weren't a real basketball team. (Not real as in, they exist and perform in real life, but they don't play in the NBA, it's scripted 'sports entertainment'.)

My mind is completely blown by this.