Stupid Commercial Jogs Memory

I just saw the stupid commercial for Walmart's new house brand that supposedly will allow me to serve my spouse and 4 or 5 kids, all under 7, tacos for less than $2 a serving.

All I could think of was these, staples of my childhood:





Not necessarily potted meat and cola, but those plain black and white labels with the red stripes at the bottom. There they were mixed in with the normal cereals everyone else had. I know we had our share of normal stuff too, but we had plenty of No Frills stuff as well. And I'm sure they didn't have slick commercials with incredibly photogenic people smiling about how great the No Frills family of products was.

Back in the late 70's and very early 80's we lived in an apartment complex across a relatively busy street from a shopping center with first a Pantry Pride, which begat an A&P which then begat a Pathmark. Back in the day my parents thought nothing of sending their 5-year-old across Crittenden Street to the supermarket for whatever. I'm glad they did, but it just goes to show how different things are today when parents would go to jail for letting their 5 year old go to the store alone and a major chain can make their No Frills-ish house brand look desirable.

[Thanks to Thanks A Lot Pal for the No Frills pics. If I wasn't lazy I could probably dig up a family picture of a birthday party with a 2 liter bottle of "Cola" on the table in the background]

The Definitive 1000

We are going to be counting down the Definitive 1000 things. Why are they Definitive? Because The Friendly Friends have deemed them as such.

961 - Bop Bop 'n Rebop

Ever have an out-of-the-blue remembrance of something from your childhood that seems so outrageous that you begin to doubt the very existence of the thing you're remembering?

I had that happen today.

I remembered a game I had as a kid that I was pretty sure was called Bop Bop 'n Rebop. But could there actually have been such a game? With a name that sounds like a Cyndi Lauper remix?

Indeed there was:






As I remember it, the platform in the middle of the game spun around like crazy sending the "puck" flying all over the board. You had to slide your little guy (or girl...I forgot how hot I thought that girl was) back and forth your opening to keep the puck in the game. It came with two fences so you could block off two of the openings if you didn't have all four players.

I know I loved this game, but I have zero recollection of what happened to it. I wish I knew.

Thanks to Board Game Geek for verifying that this game actually exists!

Holy Crap! John Hughes Died?!

He wrote and/or directed some of the most quotable, most memorable movies of our childhood:

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Uncle Buck
The Great Outdoors
Planes, Trains & Automobiles
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Pretty in Pink
Weird Science
National Lampoon's European Vacation
The Breakfast Club
Sixteen Candles
National Lampoon's Vacation
Mr. Mom

I honestly don't think that a gathering of Friendly Friends goes by without one of these movies being quoted repeatedly. These movies helped define our senses of humor (some more than others, Mr. Mom, Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains & Automobiles I'm looking at you) and have provided hours of enjoyment.

I hope the guest book at the funeral home has entries from Abe Frohman, Bug and Long Duk Dong.

RIP awesome movie guy.

Barth Goes to The Greasy Spoon In The Sky

I know what you're thinking. No update for nearly a month and then when we return it's another post about death.

We here at Friendly Friends Amalgamated Manufacturing and Refining Company, Inc. are usually pretty happy fellows. None of us really dwell too much on death and dying.

But when it's a small piece of your childhood that has died you feel compelled to comment on it. And that's what happened when Les Lye passed away on Tuesday.

Mr. Lye played all of the adult male characters on my favorite show as a kid, You Can't Do That on Television. I raced home most days from Erdenheim Elementary to catch this show on Nickelodeon.

The opening, very Monty Python-esque, features Mr. Lye prominently:



Here's my favorite Mr. Lye character, and the inspiration for the title of this post, beating up on his poor employee, Zilch:



Barth takes care of the health inspector, leading to two of the greatest catchphrases from the show:



And finally, Mr. Lye as Ross Ewitch the stage manager being subjected to green slime. As a kid I wanted to get slimed so badly:



It must say something about me that while watching these clips I still laughed like I did when I was 7 or 8, but I did.

Thanks Mr. Lye and RIP.

Now Batting...The Rabid Child

Ever since I was a geeky middle schooler (I was one of two members of the AV Club, we inventoried and delivered all AV equipment to the whole school) and a geeky high schooler (my homeroom was in the AV Department where I was director of the Morning News and Announcements) I have been a huge fan of They Might Be Giants. The combo of accordions and wordplay was enough to tear me away from the hair metal and awful boy bands of Top 40 radio in Philly in the late 80's and early 90's. They still inhabit a large portion of my iPod's 4 GB.

And now as a parent I cannot wait to share TMBG with my little girl. At this point (10 weeks) she's not too cognizant of the music playing most of the time around the house, but I have a feeling we'll be enjoying They soon enough.

Hopefully she'll be as lucky as these kids:

Brooklyn-based alt rock pioneers They Might Be Giants have decided to start sponsoring little league teams, following in the footsteps of other community-friendly entrepreneurs like Hoffman Car Wash and Dick's Sporting Goods. It's another savvy move for the protean Johns, because the free advertising can't help but boost record sales on their growing catalog of children's albums. (The band just won a Grammy for Best Children's album for "Here Come the 123s")

Now, that's just plain awesomeness. I played two seasons of t-ball for Wyndmoor Auto Supply. I would have much rather been playing for Chess Piece Face, Particle Man, Jame Ensor and Mr. Me.

[Article and picture from Gothamist.com]

Ghost Signs: Chicago

My grandfather sold men's clothes. He worked for a company based in North Carolina, and travelled throughout the coal region of PA selling to mom and pop stores in the days before the big chains and the malls destroyed the Main Streets of Forty Fort, Shamokin Dam, Mahanoy, Milton, etc.

He had a showroom in a "mart" in center city Philly at 8th and Arch. One of my favorite things to do when he'd take me and the Malagan down to his showroom was to look around at all of the faded advertisements painted on the buildings.

Here are a few from our Chicago trip:



Clearly this is the well-known Brunswick Corporation. According to their website this logo was adopted in 1960 when the company changed its name from the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company. Not sure if there was a bowling alley here or just an ad.



This appears to be the Carl Whitinger Company, a floral supply business. According to the American Floral Endowment Annual Report for 2004, the company was a contributor. Other than that, I got nothing.



Gotta be the W.W. Kimball Piano Company. At the bottom of the sign is a section that appears to say "piano" and "organ." The original Kimball factory was at 26th and Rockwell Streets in Chicago in the early 1880s. See The Encyclopedia of Chicago for more detail.



From Chicago Architecture, this building was built in 1910-1911, is 265 feet tall, and has 512,000 square feet of floor space. The Chicago Architecture website has some great pictures of the building from the front, to get the full effect. I was more interested in the rear top and the idea that the giant pipe running in front of the sign could be carrying the People's Gas.

Any time I see a Ghost Sign, I think not of the product sold, whether still with us or long gone, but about the guy that painted the sign. Did he expect it to last forever? Did he bring his kids to see it? Did he brag to the ladies that he painted that particular sign? As the sign faded away or the buildings got torn down did he feel the loss? Could he ever imagine some guy with a free website would be taking pictures of his creations and trying in a small way to preserve his work?

Possible Top Three Random Moment of My Life

January 14, 2009

9:22 a.m.

"You Be Illin'" by Run-DMC on WXPN.

Seriously.

The Definitive 1000

We are going to be counting down the Definitive 1000 things. Why are they Definitive? Because The Friendly Friends have deemed them as such.

964 - The Wanamaker Christmas Light Show

The Magic Tree in front of the not-yet-begun Light Show

Odd that I, Jewbacca, would be in charge of enshrining the Wanamaker Christmas Light Show in the Definitive 1000.

But it is truly one of my favorite things in the world.

First, a quick digression.

As some of you know, the wonderful succubusses people at that little mom and pop operation known as Comcast have built the tallest building in Philly. The lobby of this place has a gigantic LCD screen that displays various entertainments for the people passing through. It is a really, really cool TV screen.

All of that is an LCD screen. Above the bottom two rows of wood panels is actual video footage.

And that's about it. The Holiday Spectacular is being hyped as some sort of must-do Christmas event for Philadelphians.

Well, let me tell you, myself and Mrs. Jewbacca visited this "attraction" last night and were very greatly disappointed. I won't bore you with the details, since I was bored for 15 minutes with the details last night. As we walked out all I could say was that the screen was really, really cool.

CGI bulbs are no match for the real thing...

Which brings me to the latest addition to the D1000.

Everything that the Comcast show lacks is embodied in the 23,500 LEDs on the Magic Christmas Tree and in the instantly recognizable narration from Julie Andrews (though nowhere as awesome as the original provided by the Voice of God and NFL Films John Facenda) and in the 288,000 watts of energy used during the finale, pictured below...

The finale. The Light Show is a 15 minute animated trip through Christmas. It is 50+ years old and it is still awesome. That thing is like nine stories tall.

The Comcast show was no different than watching TV at someone's house. The Light Show is the Light Show. It's a bunch of figures made of lights built in 1955 that tell the story of the Nutcracker, Rudolph, Frosty, a magic sleigh ride through the sky and a train ride with Santa himself. No tricky camera angles, no computer aided editing, no CGI.

Hokey? Yes. Simplistic? Yes. Lo-tech? Yes.

And that's why it's insanely awesome every single year.

I watched the audience at both. The kids at Comcast looked like they were watching TV. They looked hollow and bored. The kids at Macy's watching the Light Show couldn't stop singing along. They couldn't stop exclaiming how cool things were to their parents. They couldn't stop gasping with excitement.

If that's not a ringing endorsement of the old-fashioned Light Show (albeit with LEDs now) I don't know what is. Other than this 33 year old Philadelphia kid giving it his seal of approval by enshrining it in the Definitive 1000.

Merry Christmas.

The Definitive 1000

We are going to be counting down the Definitive 1000 things. Why are they Definitive? Because The Friendly Friends have deemed them as such.

968 - The Wachovia Spectrum



It's dumpy. It's small. Its roof wouldn't stay on.

But it is also front and center in so many memories for the Friendly Friends.

The Philly papers and websites are filled with rememberances for the old barn. And they all center on the same few things: Flyers and some basketball teams' championships, Olga Korbut, Bruce, Billy Joel, Christian Laettner's shot and the Grateful Dead.

But those are the party-line, let's shine it up and make it look good memories.

The Friendly Friends would like to celebrate the life of this old building through the eyes of the common man. Not through the eyes of the Comcast PR department. So without further ado, and in no particular order, here are some random thoughts and memories of times spent with the Spectrum.


From Sweaty:

Going to a Philadelphia Phantoms game with FFMatt. The game itself was uneventful. But for the first and only time in my life, I caught a sling shotted t-shirt launched towards us. FFMatt positioned himself in front of me as a pick. The shirt was launched; I reached for it and snagged it with one hand! Yes! I rule! The guy behind me did take a chunk of skin out of my hand with his disturbingly long fingernails, but it was worth it. The shirt, I wore until it disintegrated. There were also two tickets to a future Phantoms game inside the shirt. To complete the circle, I went to that game with Jewbacca. He and I had seats right behind the goalie. They were little folding seats, and Jewbacca and I are on the larger side, so we decided to go sit up in the cheaper seats.

Is this the guy that scratched Sweaty?

From Jewbacca:

First and foremost, the Spectrum will always mean Flyers hockey to me. Both live and on PRISM (Philadelphia Regional In-Home Sports and Movies). How cool is it that Flyers games from the Spectrum were broadcast exclusively on a cable channel called PRISM? My earliest sports memories with my dad have nothing to do with the usual American, Norman Rockwell baseball scenes. They all involve the Flyers. My dad would get 4 or 5 games a year to go to and he'd take me to one, The Mighty Malagan to one and usually my mom to the others. We'd sit in the first row of the second level and use the ledge in front of us as a table for our sausage sandwiches and sodas. He'd explain the finer points of the game and why we had to whistle every time Ron Duguay touched the puck. He made sure that we left that Nordiques game at the end of the second period with the Flyers down 3-0 since it was a school night. We listened as the Flyers came back to win 4-3 in OT.

We battled about bedtimes when the Flyers were on. Home games meant 7:05 and at least half the game before bedtime at 8:30. They also meant Ed Van Impe from the bowels of the Spectrum interviewing someone between periods who would get a gift certificate to some men's store or a watch. Those intervies dragged for an 8 year old who only had until 8:30!

But seeing the colors in the Spectrum logo at center ice in person, or on PRISM, was always awesome.

My god. That hair. How could you not wolf-whistle at that?

From Sweaty:

The Sixers Dancer I named "Candy". Watching the dreck that was the Sixers at the time, including Jeff Hornacek (AKA K.D. Lang), Jeff Malone and Clarence Weatherspoon was all worth while thanks to that little blonde vixen.

Candy?? Is that you??? Did you get all of my voicemails and text messages? You did? What's this? A restraining order?? Exactly how far is 500 yards anyway....

From FFMatt:

Besides the years of Flyers games and childhood Ringling Brothers Circus experiences, and Wiggles concerts for my kids I was at the Flyers season opener after the strike ended. HUGE pumped crowd, insane energy and it all quickly devolved into E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES chants as the Flyers stunk up the ice with a season opening loss. Back where we belong!

Sweaty will always have Candy and FFMatt will always have these guys...and thousands of drunk idiot Eagles fans.

From Jewbacca:

In sixth grade a new sport dawned into my puberty fevered brain. The Eagle League Pro Box Lacrosse outfit (now the MILL or the MLL or NLL or something) came into existence with the Washington Wave, the Baltimore Thunder, the New York/New Jersey Saints and most importantly the Philadelphia Wings. This was earth shattering to a young Jewbacca. As soon as I was old enough to drive, me and the Malagan would go to the Showcase store (an offshoot of the Spectrum and Spectacor) at the Willow Grove Park Mall and we'd get TicketTron tickets to every single home game the Wings played. We'd usually get two extra and invite friends along. We'd all pile into my 1981 Chevy Impala and cruise down to the Spectrum, blasting our good luck mixtape, which inexplicably contianed 3 songs from Achtung Baby, 3 songs from Queen's Greatest Hits (the blue one) and some other songs long forgotten.

We'd enter the sports mecca and settle in for a couple hours of the best parts of all sports: the hitting and fighting of hockey, the speed of...well hockey again, the high scoring of....well this time I'd have to say early 80's hockey and the shot clock of basketball. We'd scream our lungs out for the Gaits, Dallas Eliuk, John Nostrant, Tony Resch (who incidentally was my buddy Jim's math teacher at Penn Charter), and anyone else wearing the silver and black. We even got to sit next to Chopper at a pre-season Wings/Pittsburgh Bulls game.

Without missing a home game (pre-, regular and post-season) for four years, we still managed to miss all four of the Wings' championships, but did see them lose one to the Buffalo Bandits in OT. We also saw a game called against the Detroit Turbos since every single player on both teams got into a major bench clearing brawl. The Turbos disappeared after that.

This is Chopper. He leads his entire side of the arena in a W-I-N-G-S Wings(!) chant and taunts opposing players coming to the box. He is a god.

From Sweaty:

Going to my first ever Wings game with Jewbacca and his brother Malagan. I had always scoffed at the Wings as a secondary sport, but I was truly entertained and have since been to many games. I was dazzled by the Gait brothers and the sprawling saves of Dallas Eliuk. The Wings, as it turned out were right...I paid for the whole seat, but only used the edge

From Jewbacca:

Fine. You want a basketball memory of the Spectrum? My hatred of basketball notwithstanding, I do have two minor Spectrum related basketball memories. My dad's friend scored Sixers-Celtics tickets in 1984 or 1985. They had four and I guess no one else could use them so the Malagan and I got to go. I remember two things from that night: 1) when my dad's friend drove his Toyota mini-bus/van thing over a cement island to get around a traffic light (red by the way) and 2) walking through the Spectrum lot wearing my Celtics painter's cap that I specifically asked for when my dad was in Boston on business. I hated the Sixers then and since the Celtics were one of their biggest rivals, I'd proudly wear that. Being ten and in South Philly wearing a Celtics hat I was treated exactly as I thought I would be: by having my life endangered by taunting Sixers fans until my dad ripped the hat off my head and pocketed it.

My Celtics painter's cap looked just like this. Except it was a hat and not a hot cheerleader. It was mostly green though.

From Sweaty:

Going to a Sixers game with Mighty Malagan, again, with a horrible Sixers team and sitting close enough to the Sixers bench that they were within earshot. How did I know they were within earshot? Because Jewbacca's brother kept yelling out the name of Rex Walters. Rex Walters could have been up for 12th man of the year in basketball. A poor little white guy who found himself the last man on the bench. Malagan kept calling his name...for 48 minutes. While sitting on the bench, while he stood near the sideline...Malagan called "Rex! Rex Walters!” A fruitless pursuit right? Wrong. Low and behold, the final team timeout of the game, Rex is standing in the team huddle pretending to be paying attention, as if he had anything to do with the play being drawn up. Malagan is still hoarsely yelling his name...then it happens. Rex Walters raises his eyebrows and looks up at Malagan and gives him a head nod acknowledgement. What does Malagan do? He giggles like a school girl and shuts up for the last 40 seconds of the game.

I did a GIS for "Rex Walters." I got a picture of Gemma Atkinson. Which would you have put here?

From Jewbacca:

I saw my first ever concert, the best concert I've ever seen and had the most fun I've ever had at a concert all at the Spectrum.

First concert: Midnight Oil on the Blue Sky Mining tour in 1991. Peter Garrett is a very, very intense man. He did a dive off of the top of a stack of Marshalls during a cover of "What's So Funny 'bout Peace Love and Understanding" that would have killed a mere mortal.

Best concert: Peter Gabriel on the Us tour in 1992 or 1993. Sweaty can back me up on this one, but I think he did three separate encores, the last of which was after the lights and house music came back up. He came out and talked to the crowd for about 5 minutes, thanking Philly for all their support during his career. It was the most theatrical concert I've been to, and also one of the best all-round musically.

Most fun at a concert: Barenaked Ladies, New Year's Eve 1999(98?). Possibly the best stage presence of any band I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot having worked Event Staff security for 4 years at the Tower, the Mann, the Civic Center and even the Spectrum). Sponataneous rapping, unbeliveably strange dancing and a midnight phone call to Kevin Hearn in the hospital back in Toronto to countdown to the new year all made it memorable. Plus, Mrs. Jewbacca got me the tickets for Christmas that year. I had Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in my shoes when I got home!

From Sweaty:

Early in the summer of 1993, I was adjusting to the freedom of now more mandatory formalized education. Released from the shackles of Springfield High school, I was looking forward to the summer of love...or, as it turned out for me, summer of I like you but not in that way.

But before the weekend trips to the Jersey Shore would take place. Before drunken nights passing out in Turkey Clubs (the sandwich, not a night hot spot), before working 1 day in an Ice House and 2 weeks as a beach tagger in Sea Isle City...I and other Friendly Friends such as Jewbacca had to kick the summer off right with my first ever concert! I am proud to say that my first concert ever still holds up as one of my favorites as Peter Gabriel came to town promoting his new album Us. The Spectrum was arockin' that night my friends. Peter Gabriel knew how to put on a show, and he made sure to include Solsbury Hill to appease the Gods. The Gods being me & Jewbacca. As I said, still one of my favorite concerts of all time and the only one I saw at the Spectrum. Pissah was there as well, and shockingly, he found something to complain about. Because he never complains about anything!

So there you have it folks. Some of the Friendly Friends' memories of the Spectrum. Of course there are more, but these are the ones that stand out.

Unfortunately my most recent visit (Phantoms game this past spring) left a bad image for me. They've let the place run down quite a bit. It was clear at that time that they had stopped trying and knew it was only a matter of time before a soul-less, corporate, Disney-like "entertainment" center was built over its grave. I guarantee you, I won't be making that just-long-enough-to-be-extrememly-annoying-not-long-enough-to-risk-my-life-at-Fern-Rock-to-take-the-subway trip to this new complex. Maybe if I'm at the Center or the Bank I'll brave the crowd of annoying South Jerseyans long enough to check it out.

But for the memories it invokes and the times we've spent there, the Friendly Friends are proud to add The Spectrum to the Definitive 1000!

[Feel free to leave your memories in the comments. Thanks to http://www.e-lacrosse.com/ for the picture of Chopper.]

Did you know that "Spectrum" is actually an acronym for Sports-Entertainment-Concerts-Theater-rum. The "rum," as in Auditorium, was all the rage in 1967 for newly built arenas (see Centrum, Worcester)

The Definitive 1000

We are going to be counting down the Definitive 1000 things. Why are they Definitive? Because The Friendly Friends have deemed them as such.

970 - Run The Bases
969 - Suicide

It's a Friendly Friends Two-fer Tuesday Wednesday!

All we needed to play two of the best games. Ever.

Sweaty, FFMatt and I all grew up in relative close proximity to one another. Which makes sense since Sweaty and FFMatt are related and Sweaty and I went to high school together.

This geographical closeness meant that we played the same games as kids, though I didn't meet Sweaty until I was 15 or so. And he lived in East Falls and Bumble-F, New Jersey and I lived in Wyndmoor.

FFMatt is sunning his 27 inch (yeah, that's right) pythons at the Jersey shore this week, so Sweaty and I have been left to tend the store. We spent a good amount of time discussing the pure awesomeness of these two games.

This guy only has 24 inch pythons. FFMatt has 27 inch pythons. True story.

And without further ado, here are the reminiscences of 2/3 of the Friendly Friends:

Sweaty: So. I think we both agree that Suicide and Run the Bases are two of the finest games ever invented by children who's parents could not afford to send them to hockey camp.

Jewbacca: Suicide and Run the Bases are two of the best non-sport sports that any one has ever played. And we got to go to Willow Grove Summer Day Camp. My parents couldn't afford it but my grandfather's cousin owned it so we got a discount.

Sweaty: I never went to any kind of camp, except football in high school. No, during my youth, day camp was called try not to get abducted by men driving El Caminos and offering jolly rancher sticks. But I digress. I agree with you. I always preferred Run the Bases a little more because I think it was more of a pure athletic skill game, where Suicide used more deception.

Jewbacca: You know my brother and I. You've seen and lived the battles. My parents decided that if they left us alone all summer one or both of us would end up dead and the house would have been destroyed. I loved both games, but you're right I have to give the edge to Run the Bases and not just because we always played at the Krzywicki's, which would allow the occasional glimpse of Jill.

Sweaty: Perhaps we should start off by giving a brief overview of each game and then we can see where certain rules may have differed with you playing these games in the warm safe softness of the grassy fields in Wyndmoor, were as I played them in the hard, survival instinct drenched inner city street of Philadelphia.

Jewbacca: Well, here is the way we played Run the Bases on the hardscrabble fields of Wyndmoor: There would be a whole mess of kids ranging in age from about 6 to 12. Two kids would be on the bases. Two of the other kids' baseball gloves would be the bases. The idea was to run back and forth from base to base without getting pegged by the tennis ball or tagged out by the basemen. That is the basic framework as we played in the 'Moor.

Sweaty: That is pretty much how we played too, except we used manhole covers which were he perfect distance apart.

Jewbacca: There weren't too many manhole covers in the field behind the Krzywicki's. There was also another rule where after the ball went back and forth 3 times from baseman to baseman, everyone on the basepath HAD to run to the next base.

Sweaty: Yeah, we also had that rule, but I can't remember how many throws you needed. I remember that I preferred being a runner. I was damn good.

Jewbacca: I was awesome at running too. That was about 20 years and 200 pounds ago though. Now I'd end up with "Penn 1" tattooed into my forehead. The best was using the younger kids as human shields.

Sweaty: Same for me, except I most likely would have ended up in intensive care with a tennis ball lodged somewhere and my left arm would be numb, I didn't do too much of that shield thing, since I was normally one of those little kids. My run the bases days ended when I was 9 and my parents moved us to South Jersey. Without any man hole covers, I did not know what to do, so god help me, I played basketball. So in my prime run the bases years 6-9, I was lean, mean, spry, quick, and obnoxious. I would taunt the throwers mercilessly. One was normally my older brother.

Jewbacca: You're still pretty obnoxious. Not as spry. See, I think our Run the Bases years and our Suicide years may be reversed. We played a ton of Suicide from when I was 6 and we moved form Philly to the 'burbs until I was 9 and we moved to a neighborhood with absolutely zero good Suicide walls. We played Run the Bases almost every summer night from when I was 9 until I was about 14.

Sweaty: I continued to play suicide in Jersey. Thomas Jefferson Elementary provided one of the finest suicide walls this side of the Rio Grande. As far as suicide went...my best skill was catching the ball in the air, followed closely by screaming like a woman as I ran to the wall after dropping the ball.

Jewbacca: The first place we lived in Wyndmoor was in the bottom of a rented duplex that was roughly twenty feet from the house next door. The driveway for the house next door was our side yard. It made the absolute perfect Suicide court, what with two walls 20 feet apart. My greatest skill I think was my power of avoiding the ball so as to remain in the game as long as possible. Erdenheim Elementary also had great walls as did Enfield Middle where we played everyday during sixth grade, the last year we had recess of any kind. I'm proud to say that along with my friend Jim I was part of a duo known as "Slodge" which of course was "Slide" (Jim) and "Dodge" (Me). My strategy was to run up to the wall and stop before hitting it, turn and face the person trying to bean me, and dodge it at the last minute. If being part of "Slodge" is any indication, I didn't have many girlfriends in my younger days. So what were the basic rules of Suicide in Washington Twp?

Why Suicide? Maybe because the goal was to run as fast as you could, toward one of these, to smack it and yell "SAFE!!", before someone whaled you in the back with a tennis ball...

Sweaty: Nor did I, as my uncanny resemblance to Rick Moranis in Ghostbusters when I was in elementary would explain. Suicide in Washington TWP was pretty straight forward. One large wall, one tennis ball and a group of young men ranging from about 9-14 years of age. One person would throw the ball. If the ball was caught in the air, the thrower had to run and touch the wall before getting pegged by the person who caught it. If you dropped the ball while trying to catch it either on the fly or on a bounce then you had to touch up before someone picked up the ball and pegged you. If after dropping the ball, you kicked it away, then you were automatically out and wre penalized by standing at the wall while someone got to peg you.

A young Sweaty Irishman after a particularly rough day of Suicide

Jewbacca:We had basically the same rules. If you threw the ball and someone caught it in the air, you had to run and touch the wall and yell "SAFE" or "SUICIDE" before they pegged you. If you tried to catch the ball and it touched you and you didn't catch it, you had to leave it there and run and touch the wall before getting pegged. If you got three outs you had to walk back and forth along the wall (without stopping or changing speeds) and each player got a chance to peg you with the ball. At school they didn't like the three-outs-get-pegged rules so we changed it to if you got an out, you were out and we played until one kid was left. I think also that if you missed someone you were trying to peg you had to run and touch the wall.

Sweaty: We also had a penalty for someone who pegged another after that person had touched the wall. The peggee pegged the pegger from point blank range.

Jewbacca: I never really thought about how many of our games involved trying to whale on someone with a tennis ball.

Sweaty: I know. Most games when we were kids involved inflicting pain on others. Times have changed...They wouldn't even let kids play something called Suicide nowadays.

So there you have it, two childhood games from the post-Atari, Colleco-/Intellivision, pre-Nintendo era where we were allowed to play outside until the streetlights came on. And for all the pegging and whaling and nailing with tennis balls, I don't recall anyone ever getting hurt. Too badly.

I'd be willing to guess that kids today aren't playing these games until 9:15 on a summer night anymore.

R.I.P. Defenseman

In case you haven't noticed, I am a lifelong Flyers fan. I watched every game growing up looking forward to hearing Gene Hart's perfect pronunciation of the Russian and Eastern European players' names.

I know. I was a strange child.

One of the greatest names is no longer with us:

Miroslav Dvorak, named the winner of the Barry Ashbee Trophy as the Flyers' top defenseman in 1983-84 - and a player whose off-ice demeanor reminded some teammates of a legendary Saturday Night Live skit - died Wednesday in the Czech Republic after a long battle with throat cancer, the club announced yesterday.

Not only did he have a cool name, he was a pretty good defenseman too. Always on the plus side (a career +58), plenty of helpers (74 assists over parts of 3 seasons) and was a physical presence on the ice.

He also helped the team make the finals in 84-85 against the Oilers before returning to Europe to finish his career.

It's always strange when an athlete you remember watching as a kid dies. Rest in peace Defenseman.



[Thanks to Philly.com for the story and Czechfan.com for the picture]

The Definitive 1000

We are going to be counting down the Definitive 1000 things. Why are they Definitive? Because The Friendly Friends have deemed them as such.

#972 - The Ideal Jingle




Any child of the 70's and early 80's who got his or her cartoons from Channels 17, 29 and or 48 knows what I'm talking about. The little ditty that goes something like this:

If you've got a passion for fashion
If you've got a craving for saving
Then take the wheel of your automobile
And swing on down to IDEAL!

For those of you unfamiliar with this tune or for those of you just missing it, do yourself a favor and check out Tom McNally's Website to listen and reminisce.

The people behind Ideal were advertising geniuses. They bought up all the ad time that the local stations couldn't get rid of with the idea that this commercial would run in all of those time slots. And I'm talking ALL of those time spots. I swear there where times when that commercial played 6 or 7 times during a 30 minute cartoon.

But the real reason I dug this from the deep, dark recesses of my brain and dusted this little gem off is the sad news that after 70 years, Ideal is closing its doors.

Now, I've never actually been to Ideal, and until tonight I hadn't heard that jingle in at least 20 years. But there's something weird to the thought that it will no longer exist.

UPDATE: According to the Sunday Inquirer on July 13th IDEAL has been saved! It has been bought and will continue to operate as it has for 70 years. Also, the new owners bought the rights to jingle so maybe we'll be hearing it again!

RIP, Mr. Eberling, Sr.

Monday was a sad day for every kid (and college student) who eats/ate Spaghetti-O's.

Kurt Eberling, Sr., the genius, nay visionary, that invented the Spaghetti-O shuffled off of this mortal meatball (the best kind of Spaghetti-O by far) at the age of 77.

Rest in peace Spaghetti Man.

The Definitive 1000

We are going to be counting down the Definitive 1000 things. Why are they Definitive? Because The Friendly Friends have deemed them as such.

#974 - TV Signoffs

Channel 17 was the home of the second tier cartoons and road Flyers and Phillies games.

FFJewbacca: When the Friendly Friends were just wee lads, these things appeared at the end of every "broadcast day" on the over-the-air channels in Philly. Yes, wee FF's watched TV until the end of the broadcast day.

Quite honestly, I had completely forgotten about them until today when there was a link to one of the best time wasting websites ever on Fark (which is, oddly enough, also one of the best time wasting websites).

The link in question took me right to J. Allan Wall's TV-signoffs.com and took up most of my afternoon at work. He has a great little Philadelphia section that immediately took me back.

There's something comforting and peaceful about these things. When I was a kid, if I was up late enough to see one of these things, it usually meant that something was wrong. Somehow seeing the signoff made things feel more calm and relaxed. If the TV was going to sleep for the night, then maybe I should too.

FFMatt: Like rotary phones, pagers and even cassette tapes to an extent, my kids have no idea what this is about. Also, one of the links takes you to the sign-off for New Year's eve 1986... my Freshman year of high school. You know I was watching that one, not celebrating with a cute girl at some "rad" party. In fact, I was almost certainly sitting in long johns and a Member's Only jacket on my couch wondering if we'd get heat back in the house anytime soon.

No one can honestly say that a screaming idiot with a British accent selling some sort of oxygenating, ink removing, floor steaming food dehydrator is better than this!!

The Definitive 1000

We are going to be counting down the Definitive 1000 things. Why are they Definitive? Because The Friendly Friends have deemed them as such.

#976 - Ron Hextall




On the occasion of his enshrinement into the Philadelphia Flyers Hall of Fame (and as I type, a 4-1 drubbing at the hands of the Caps) I hereby also enshrine Mr. Hextall into the Definitive 1000.

I'm not going to attempt to argue his place in hockey history by reciting stats. I'm not a strong numbers guy.

The following random thoughts that occurred to me while watching Hexy getting choked up while making his acceptance speech should be enough. It's our list we'll do as we please...

1. As a young pup Flyers fan who spent two days crying when Pelle Lindbergh died, the feeling of hope that sprung from Hexy's rookie season was enough to restore my faith in the Orange and Black.

2. As a tall, skinny, lanky lad I began my glorious street hockey goaltending career after seeing how Hexy stood on his head to keep the net clear.

3. I dented plenty of Mylec goal posts ringing my Air-Flo goalie stick off of them imitating Hexy's tic positioning trick. I also knocked over the net plenty of times doing this.

4. When I was 14 the Mighty Malagan begged to go to the Flyers' Wives Fight For Lives Carnival for his birthday. I waited in line forever to get my picture taken with Hexy. As luck would have it, the camera started acting up and I got to sit next to my idol for about 10 minutes while they fixed it.

5. He stood up for his teammates...to a fault. Ask Kent Nillson or Chris Chelios about that.

6. He took the Flyers to within a game of the Stanley Cup against the mythically powerful Edmonton Oilers and made a city believe that the Flyers could knock off possibly the greatest NHL team of all time.

And then, of course, there's this:



That was the first of two career goals.

So we may not have a bust to display at Friendly Friends World HQ or a commemorative oil painting to present, but The Friendly Friends proudly induct Ron Hextall into the Definitive 1000.

For much better coverage of this event, please visit the best Philadelphia sports blog out there, The 700 Level. Make sure you scroll through. There is a wealth of Hexy stuff.

UPDATE: Caps 4, Flyers 3. There'll be a lot of discussion about the disallowed goal...

A Very Happy Birthday to a Very Dear Childhood Friend

When Jewbacca was just a wee lad, Papa Jewbacca decided to get in on the craze that was sweeping the nation.

He bought one of these:



This childhood friend is turning 30 this month and I would be remiss if I did not take some time to mention it.

Since the Friendly Friends are all children of the late 70's and 80's, we have been through all of the various game systems. We've tried to figure out the point of ET for the Atari. We've puzzled over the Intelivision's controller. We've beaten Donkey Kong, entered the 30-man code for Contra and been there for Mario during all of his various adventures. Since my gaming career came to a screeching halt with the PS One, I'll let the experts fill in more games and characters.

But the Atari 2600 and I were close. Saturday mornings were for three things: Starstuff, Candy Apple News Company and Atari. Me and the Mighty Malagan were allowed to play with the volume off so as not to wake the parents.

Getting a new game was like Christmas morning (or how I imagine it to be) every time. We had to go to an actual electronics store, the kind that sold early computers and Atari stuff, about 20 minutes from our house. We got to test it out on the store's set-up. And then when we got it home, it was time to marvel over the amazing graphics and colors coming form the 19 inch Zenith (with actual dials and rabbit ears).

I was the master of many games: Breakout, River Raid, Yar's Revenge, Baseball (not the crappy Atari version that made any hit directly up the middle over 2nd base a home run) and Chopper Command to name a few.

In fact, I was a Chopper Commando. I still am a Chopper Commando. I hit some crazy amount of points, Pop took a picture of the screen and mailed it to Activision and 6-8 weeks later I got a patch and a newsletter. Papa Jewbacca was a Laser Blaster.

If I could get back 1/8 of the time I spent playing Atari back and put that toward more constructive pursuits I could probably speak several languages. But such is life. Instead of being multi-lingual, I can kick your sorry ass at several rudimentary video games.

Just don't make me play anything that has two small joysticks that control which way you look and which way you walk. Bad things happen. Bad things.

The Definitive 1000

We are going to be counting down the Definitive 1000 things. Why are they Definitive? Because The Friendly Friends have deemed them as such.

#984 - Underoos

FFMatt's latest addition to the Definitive 1000 got me thinking. I was a little too young I think to truly appreciate the awesome ass kicking power of Action Jeans. It made me wonder what would be the awkward pre-pubescent version of Action Jeans. As my other Friendly Friends would attest, having also spent their developmental years in the late 70's and early 80's, it was a tough choice. I could have gone with Swatch Watches. I could have gone with KangaROOS sneakers, after all, Walter Payton said they were cool! I even thought I had my choice when I remembered slipping on my Freezy Freakies after the blizzard of 1983! Those were really cool! And the cooler they got, the cooler they got, if you get my meaning. Then it came to me like a decal laden, polyester blended bolt of lighting! Underoos! Of Course! [Photo]Growing up, I had a passion for such things as Star Wars, GI Joe, The Super Friends (no relation), and many others. My only problem was I couldn't get enough. Sure I could get my GI Joe action figures out and play with FFMatt in the vacant lot across the street. Sure, I would get excited every time that spinning "Special" appeared on my television indicating Star Wars was about to start.

As wonderful as these things were, none of it could truly satisfy my hungry imagination. If only I could BE Boba Fett! If only I could BE Snake Eyes! Alas, it was not to be. That is until; Fruit of the Loom came along with the greatest product in the history of the world.

Now if I wanted to pilot Slave One, I would slip into my Boba Fett Underoos! Wonder Woman is being held against her will in an underwater lair? Sounds like a job for me, a tub full of water, my Aquaman Underoos and perhaps some well-timed flatulence for effect.

Oh How I miss the days when I could press the faded stick on buttons on my chest to help deftly pilot my X-Wing Fighter. After doing a google image search and coming across the picture below, I realized how much I wish they made Underoos for adults…...but now for very very different reasons.

Never before and never since has there been an undergarment so worthy of my various pre-pubescent protein stains. For all the reasons above, I submit as number 984 on the Definitive 1000, Underoos!

Darren Daulton is Bat-Poop Crazy

Darren in better days with that hippie chick from Just Shoot Me

Wow. That's all I can say. Dutch, one of the spark plugs that helped the Phightin's to the 1993 NL Pennant is absolutely crazy.

Or so brilliant that he will be the only one saved on December 24, 2012....

Gecko: "Dutch recently told me, 'Humankind is simply materialized color operating on the 49th vibration. You would make that conclusion walking down the street or going to the store...' so yeah, he's nuts."

Check out today's Deadspin and be sure to click on the link to the audio from this interview.

I, for one, welcome our Dutch Daulton overlord.

Dutch's first wife. The original "Hooters Girl", Lynne Austin. She has nothing to do with this post. I just liked watching her advertisment on the rightfield wall at Jack Russell Stadium in my youth.

And here is more on the back story of this latest offering from Mr. Time Traveller himself.

No, no, no... DAULTON.

A Brief Glimpse Into the Distant Past

Ladies and Gentleman, the Friendly Friends have been a touring act for many, many years at this point. What started as a two-man team with Matt on the mound and Sweaty batting cleanup became at the very least a trio with the addition of me, Jewbacca, as well as many others.

But if there was a way to travel back in time and film a fictional meeting between Lil Matt, Lil Sweaty and Lil Jewbacca this would be it:



This post is meant in no way to be a Mastercard commercial. It's just unfortunate that the mythical first meeting of three of the Friendly Friends is best summarized by a Mastercard commercial.

Question of the Day...

Welcome to a new "daily" feature here at The Friendly Friends. And by daily I mean whenever one of us remembers to do it.

The question appears below and the answers are located in the spiffy poll to the right. As they say, there are no stupid questions, only stupid people.

In celebration of the 22nd Anniversary of the release of Pee Wee's Big Adventure (the movie, not his legal troubles stemming from that whole Adult Theater Adventure) today's question is:

I know you are, but what am I?

-- asked of Francis by Pee Wee