Friday nostalgia: Who remembers 1970s flip-it cartoon books?

Flip books — with their illustrations that change slightly from one page to the next and thus appear to be in motion when "flipped through" rapidly — have a long history that arguably dates back to the 15th century.

For some of my generation, our introduction to flip books was with the pocket-sized books of the 1970s that featured cartoon characters spanning Walt Disney, Looney Tunes, Woody Woodpecker, etc. The books measured about 3.5 inches by 5 inches, and, while all of them had illustrated tales, many of them had the additional novelty of a flip-it story in the upper-right corner that you could thumb through. 

There's this book, for example, The Lost Road Runner Mine, which is credited to Carl Fallberg and was published by Western Publishing Company in 1974 as a Merrigold Press Big Little Book. 

Fallberg (1915-1996) was a longtime writer/cartoonist, so I'm guessing he's the illustrator of this volume. The story itself is odd, as it gives names and dialogue to Road Runner and his offspring. There's also a villain called Grumbley. Realistically, it's noted that the cactus-filled desert is "only 120 degrees" in the shade. I can vouch for that now. Sigh.

There are a lot of Big Little Books with flip-it cartoons on eBay these days, typically selling for only a few bucks apiece. I'll put this one into a Little Free Library; hopefully someone from Generation Alpha discovers it and is delighted and intrigued. But I wanted to blog about it here first, before downsizing it as part of my Resimplify Me efforts, which have been going well.

What are you memories of flip-it books? Have you kept any favorites on your shelves all these years? Please comment below!

From the readers: Jim Lewin, Hatchy Milatchy, Lakeview Gusher and more

Well, I had my gall bladder removed yesterday, so I'm taking it easy and handing off today's post to Papergreat's awesome commenters. Thank you so much for everything you contribute!

RIP Jim Lewin: a wonderful bookseller, writer and human being: Joe writes: "Jim was one of the nicest guys you'll ever find. I loved and miss going to York (Pennsylvania) and stopping at the Emporium to see what new treasures I could find and say hi to Jim. Only knock on him was he was a Bills fan, but he didn't treat me any worse for being a Jets fan. RIP Jim!"

I'm bummed that Jim's beloved Bills didn't finally beat the Chiefs and get to the Super Bowl on Sunday. Perhaps the Eagles can somewhat avenge Buffalo and get the job done against the Chiefs on Feb. 9.

Have a very Fritos Thanksgiving: Anonymous writes: "We have had our stuffing like this for all my years of life (41). My grandma has always made it like this since before 1948 when she married my grandpa. It’s delicious. However we toast the bread, and no apples and no baking powder but everything else is exact. And we drizzle some of the turkey juices over the top (basting) as it bakes. It’s DEVINE!!!!"

Note: The original recipe that I blogged about didn't contain apples or baking powder.

WNEP-TV staff from 1975, including Miss Judy: Anonymous writes: “I remember when I used to watch Hatchy Milatchy with Miss Judy back when I was growing up. Those were the good old days and — take it from this streetwise man — those were good times. Believe me they were good times."

Revisiting the Lakeview Gusher: Dan Brekke writes: "Chris: You posted this five-plus years ago, but it somehow escaped my notice. Thanks again for helping me with the images, and also for the kind words regarding the piece I wrote."

You're very welcome!

Cheerful Card Company can help you earn extra money for the holidays: Two more great and appreciated comments on one of the most popular Papergreat posts of all time:

Anonymous #1 writes: "I recently became curious about what ever happened to the Cheerful Card Company, so I looked online and stumbled on this site. I've really enjoyed reading this page. I sold Cheerful cards and other products from their catalog briefly when I was about 12 or 13 years old in the early 60s in Chicago. I quickly figured out that I could make bigger profits by dealing with a local wholesaler (perhaps manufacturer, I'm not sure) called Elmcraft, which I found in the yellow pages, located a few miles from my home. I drove there on my bicycle and found that they had a showroom filled with cards and other products, including boxes of closeouts or marked down cards that I was able to buy for much less than the prices from Cheerful, resulting in bigger profits. I didn't last long; lost interest in it, and I don't really recall why. Until sometime during college, I actually thought I'd have a career in marketing, perhaps sales. As an adult, I am not the least bit entrepreneurial and I hate trying to sell anything to anyone. Nevertheless, I look back fondly on that experience as one of the steps in my personal development that made me who I am today. I'm guessing that many of the people who sold those Cheerful products benefited from the experience far beyond any money that they made."

Anonymous #2 writes: "OMG — this page is a gem! I‘m sitting here in Austria in 2024 reading digitalised comics from the 1960s and found the advertisement of Cheerful Card Company and wondered if I could find anything about them on the internet! And here we are!

So nice to read all the memories of the people who were selling these cards!"

I love that the internet, for now at least, remains a place where great memories like these can live on and be shared.

Straight Arrow Injun-uity card from Nabisco Shredded Wheat: Anonymous writes: "I will always remember visiting my grandfather, who ate 'Hay Bales' for breakfast, and saving the Indian lore card dividers which my cousin and I fought over. We tried to get the full set."

1909 Christmas postcard mailed from Auburn, New York:  Anonymous writes: "I have a stamp collection that I believe is the best single stamp collection in existence. I think I'm ready to let it go. Can anyone help?"

We are intrigued and I'm sure there are many folks out there who would like to help. But you didn't leave any contact information!

Mystery bookstore in Lancaster: Greg's Book Mart: Anonymous writes: "If this is the store I'm thinking of, they sold used books and also crystals and other occult items. They were at the end of that shopping center on Columbia Avenue, next to where the old McDonald's used to be."

The Three Investigators #1: The Secret of Terror Castle: Mark West writes: "I've been a big fan of the series since 1978 (when I was 9) and discovered a hardback of The Secret Of Skeleton Island during a wet playtime at school (I'm in the UK). Loved them ever since and I re-read at least six of the titles a year."

Today I learned that "wet playtime" is what they call it in the United Kingdom when rain cancels playground recess. Over here, we just called it "indoor recess" during grade school. By the way, Mark wrote a fabulous blog (years ago) about The Three Investigators. Please check it out!

A groovy response from the CEO of Whirley-DrinkWorks! Anonymous writes: "Great blog you have here. I live in Canada. We used to have Husky gas stations and they had the dashboard mugs. I just purchased one on eBay. Do you know if these are safe to drink hot coffee from? Just wondering about the chemicals and whatnot, since these were made before everyone was concerned about plastic. Thanks."

I do not know about the modern safety of these older plastic cups. That is far, far from my field of expertise. It's a good question. I recommend seeking out quality sources in the scientific field or within your relevant federal government department. It's a good thing you're in Canada, because in the U.S. this type of vital information may become harder and harder to find, the way things are going.

Memories of the 1980s Jerrold cable boxes

I reposted this Bluesky post earlier this month because it was quite the blast from the past. As I noted, we had one (maybe two) of these in the house on Oak Crest Lane in Wallingford, where I lived in the late 1980s. (It was my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, my younger sister and me under one roof for a while. Plus Cyrano the cat.)

This was the cable TV box issue by Philadelphia-based Jerrold.¹ It typically sat on top of the television (back when televisions were large and had tops, kids). You could access any of three dozen cable channels by adjusting the switch on the far left to top, middle or bottom, and then clicking one of the channel buttons. The dial on the right was a fine-tuner.

Typically, you'd have a printed list of channels somewhere by the box, so that you could decide which channel to watch. Some boxes had a label across the top or bottom showing the channel options. There were remote controls at this time, but not everyone had them. Many cable boxes still required you to get off the couch, walk to the TV and pick a new channel. Surfing was more exercise then.

Here are some memories of Jerrold cable boxes that I've curated from across the internet:

• "I can hear the click just looking at this photo"
• "37 channels! Ridiculous, who would ever need that many?"
• "My uncle had one and I thought he was rich"
• "That magic box brought 10-year-old me MTV. That's 1986 MTV when it meant something. We had two radio stations in my area and three of them were county music stations. But, now I have access to all the music they had in Denver and LA. From Huey Lewis to Ozzy to Run DMC. Plus Martha Quinn and that guy with the hair."
• "It’s often what set us apart: The kids who watched Fraggle Rock and those who couldn’t."
• "My parents had a remote for theirs. It was called me."
• "I was recently looking through old family albums and came across a pic of my grandfather commandeering that box like it held the nuclear codes. But hey - his command led me to a lifelong love of nature shows and Jeopardy!"

And here's a screenshot from a 2010 post on The Atlee Willis Museum of Kitsch.

There are also lots of memories about the, ahem, shenanigans you could get into with the Jerrold boxes and attempting to access premium cable channels:

• "Thing about that Jerrold cable box was that there was a PROM chip on the bottom that the cable company could program so that it would scramble the premium channels you weren't paying for. But you could erase the PROM by shorting its pins to ground. With some care, and a long hat pin, you could stick the pin through a hole in the bottom plate and fish around until something sparked. And just keep doing it until you got all the channels."
• "If you pressed 18 all the way and 16 half way you can see HBO unscrambled."
• "If I put the channel switch knob between 20 & 32 I got free HBO for years"
• "Trying to switch it to the scrambled Playboy channel so that you might catch a shot of a boob, though it was green and purple and slanting sideways from the scrambling?"
• "My grandmother had one of these and one of my uncles (hacked) it with a folded playing card somehow."

Footnote

1. For more on Jerrold, check out this 2024 Retroist article.