Buggy Whips & Other Bygones : 2 Quiz

Answer: Telephone service

With the widespread availability of inexpensive cellular phones, it may be hard to believe that in the past not everyone could afford a telephone line to their home. Many families shared a telephone line with as many as a dozen others. Each home had a distinctive ringing pattern for incoming calls. Busy signals and 'party line' arguments were common.

Answer: Drugs

Speedy, whose body and hat were "Alka-Seltzer" tablets, pitched the headache and indigestion remedy of the rapidly dissolving tablets that formed an effervescent solution when added to water. The catchy jingle "Plop plop fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is," was also used to advertise the popular over-the-counter drug.

Answer: Vacuum tubes

Back in the days before portable televisions, a family TV was usually a large, heavy wooden cabinet filled with glowing glass vacuum tubes. Since a house-call by a television repairman was expensive, people could fill a box with an assortment of tubes and visit the tube-testing machine at a local store. Solid-state technology eliminated the need for the testing machines, but left space for the yet-to-be-invented ATM machines.

Answer: Shaving cream

Burma-Shave was a brushless shaving cream. At one time, there were more than 7,000 Burma-Shave signs dotting American roadsides. The white on red signs were usually in groups of four, five or six, and carried clever messages in segments, with the punchline on the last sign. The last sign was put up in 1963.

Answer: After shave

No self-respecting male "baby boomer" would go out without a heavy application of a men's' fragrance. Macho sport figure and legendary lady's man "Broadway" Joe Namath pitched "Brut" while other television commercials inundated the public with snazzy cologne promotions aimed at young males.

When a beautiful model purred, "all my men wear English Leather, or they wear nothing at all", guys flocked to the cologne counter.

Answer: Hair style

The "duck tail" hair style remains a lasting symbol of the 1950s. Many 'beat' generation youths combed their longish hair back on the sides, forming 'duck tails'. In the days before electric hair dryers, the use of large quantities of grease was necessary to maintain the 'tails'.

Answer: Cow

Elsie the Cow was the animal mascot of the Borden Company since a 1938 ad campaign. In 1952 she beat out actor Van Johnson and U.S. Senator Robert Taft in an American recognition poll. She 'retired' in the 1970s, but was brought back for a 1990s TV ad campaign. Her husband, Elmer, is famous as the mascot for Borden's glue products.

Answer: Silly Putty

Researchers attempting to develop synthetic rubber during World War II, accidentally created what at the time was a useless substance that was fun to play with. Initially called "nutty putty" it later became known as "Silly Putty" because the main ingredient was silicone.

It was packaged in a plastic egg and marketed as a toy. Many other practical uses have been discovered, including the use by the Apollo 8 crew to secure tools in zero gravity.

Answer: Betsy

Betsy Wetsy was first manufactured in the 1930s by the Ideal Toy Corporation. A small opening in her mouth allowed her to be 'fed' from a tiny baby bottle, and, as her name implied, she later wet her diaper. Another doll of the era was Tiny Tears, who, as you may surmise, shed 'real' tears.

Answer: Hair

In the 1950s, the opposite of a duck tail haircut was the flat top. The only way to insure the short hair would stand up straight was the application of a dab of Butch Wax to mold the hair into shape.