Boomer Fun in 1961

The vast majority of the 74 million boomers can vividly recall the year 1961. It was momentous for many reasons, but what boggles this boomer’s mind at this point in time is that it was 50 years ago! Set your Way-Back Machine and let’s take a look.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th President of the United States. It was a big deal for many people, not the least of whom were the Catholic nuns at Mister Boomer’s elementary school. They were thrilled that “one of their own” was assuming the highest office in the land for the first time. Besides, like most women, they thought he was handsome. Have you ever seen a nun blush? Of course, they knew nothing of his extra-curricular activities.

It was 50 years ago this very month that the Soviet Union sent the first man into space, Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. The launch heated up the Space Race (The Final Frontier), and the Cold War. A week later, our new president was forced to disavow any involvement in the Bay of Pigs incident in Cuba; Fidel Castro had quickly put down an attempted revolution by Cuban exiles that had the backing and support of the CIA. Kennedy had some ‘splainin’ to do.

Things began to turn around the following month when Astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space, as the Mercury space program took root. This launch was responsible for giving many a boomer the space-age bug, including Mister B. He would watch every launch of every mission from that point through the moon launch eight years later.

The world was changing in the decade of the sixties: Kennedy introduced the Peace Corps; gas was 27ยข a gallon; construction began on the Berlin Wall; Rudolf Nureyev sought asylum in Paris while on tour with the Russian Ballet; residents of Washington, D.C. were given the right to vote via the Twenty-third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; and the Vietnam War officially began for the U.S. Meanwhile, the world of popular culture had begun a shift of its own. The Beatles had their first performance at the Cavern Club in Liverpool; Bobby Lewis captured the summer as Tossin’ and Turnin’ stayed number one on the charts for seven weeks; the film version of West Side Story won the Oscar’s Best Picture Award; Diana, future Princess of Wales, was born; Joseph Heller first published Catch-22, a novel which figured prominently in many a boomer’s education years later; Mattel introduced a boyfriend for Barbie, the Ken doll; Pampers disposable diapers were first sold; Libby’s Foods began marketing Sloppy Joes in a can; and Top Cat, the cartoon featuring the irreverent, irrepressible title feline, began its two-year run on TV (Which Cat Was the Coolest?).


In retrospect it sure looks like poor Ken didn’t have a chance right from the start. Can you say “emasculate,” boys and girls?

Yet Mister Boomer, like many boys of his age, didn’t know much about the serious goings-on of the outside world. It was much more interesting for a pre-teen boy to dream of space travel, follow Roger Maris’ march toward hitting his record 61st home run in his team’s (N.Y. Yankees) last game of the season, and tune into the latest rock ‘n roll on his portable transistor radio.

Certainly, the Mister Boomer household ate copious amounts of canned food, but Libby’s Sloppy Joes was not among them. Mister Boomer’s mother made a vat of sloppy joes once or twice a month in her electric frying pan using onions, green peppers, fresh ground beef and tomato paste. It was an inexpensive family meal and all she had to do was toss the ingredients into the pan, turn the knob to low heat and let it cook. Slap the hot concoction on a mashed white-bread hamburger bun and you’d be full before Wagon Train began.


Mister B wonders if today’s kids would buy such a blatant marketing ploy. Probably, but there would be some discussion as to who got to wear the “beef” T-shirt and who’d be the “pork.”

Mister B was a baseball fan as a youngster, so he was aware of Roger Maris’ record-breaking feat as the neighborhood scuttlebutt brought up the latest major league buzz. No player had been able to break the home run record Babe Ruth had set in 1927, until the year 1961. Yessiree, and Mister B had Maris’ baseball card that year, along with his teammate’s, Mickey Mantle. Unfortunately for Mister B’s collection, the cards were lost in a Midwest flood a few years later.

Baseball was near top-of-mind for a young Mister B from spring through fall, so when he didn’t make a Little League team in 1961 (Going Batty for Spring) he joined city recreation baseball. When it came time for the boys to give their team a name, they chose to go with their dreams: the team would be called the Astronauts, combining baseball with their other true passion. Dinosaurs were a big thing with young boys even then, but giant prehistoric animals could not compare with the imaginative stirrings that the Space Race had opened in their young minds.

Along with Tossin’ and Turnin’ emanating from Mister B’s burgundy radio (Boomers Strike Solid Gold), it was Pony Time with Chubby Checker, while the Shirelles wanted to know, Will Still You Love Me Tomorrow? Dion was telling us to stay away from Runaround Sue and Del Shannon sang about the Runaway. The top names on the charts still included the likes of Lawrence Welk, Pat Boone and Jimmy Dean — even Elvis and Roy Orbison still had number one hits — but the winds of change had begun to blow back in 1961.

One year later, Mister B’s family would visit Washington, D.C., where they paid a visit to the White House. Standing in line, the tourists were all abuzz, hoping they would catch a glimpse of the First Lady or maybe even the President. It was not to be, but Mister B thoroughly enjoyed his visit and it ultimately stoked the embers of his life-long interest in history. Less than a year after that visit President Kennedy was assassinated, changing many boomers’ lives forever… but that was not 1961. 1961 was a time for fun in a young boomer’s life, filled with promise and imagination.

How about it, boomers? What memories help you define 1961, that year now 50 years past?

Which Cat Was the Coolest?

It’s been Mister Boomer’s experience that early to mid-boomers fall into two groups: The Felix the Cat and Top Cat camps. As far as Mister Boomer is concerned, he was never a huge fan of either, but his particular group was on the cusp between the two — old enough to see Felix episodes but young enough to catch Top Cat as well.

Let’s start at the beginning. First, there is the anthropomorphic cat. We see that in Felix, Top Cat, Tom and Jerry and a host of other shows from our youth. There’s just something about giving human characteristics to animals that seems to fascinate us, especially as children. What we didn’t realize as children, though, were the adult themes and outright violence perpetrated in the name of comedy and entertainment. It was just a cartoon to us.

Felix the Cat

Felix predated Top Cat by decades. In fact, the first Felix the Cat cartoon appeared in 1919, and continued intermittently through the 1940s; however, he didn’t make his TV debut until 1958. Early Felix cartoons, shown in movie houses, did not feature his Bag of Tricks. That was an invention reserved for his television show. What was fascinating to this boomer as he watched the attached episode from 1959, for the first time in over fifty years, is how surreal the whole thing was. Sparse landscapes and stereotyped characters inhabit a world where dream-like things truly seem to be black and white, good or evil. In this episode, there also seems to be a healthy dose of skepticism toward science in favor of a more “natural magic.” Ten years before man landed on the moon, it appears science wasn’t held in the highest regard with cartoonists.

Felix’s Bag of Tricks was really something! First of all, the pattern never changed position when the bag changed perspective. How very Cubist! Is it just Mister B, or does that pattern remind you of a Louis Vuitton, Gucci or Coach bag? (Go ahead and Google some images, I’ll wait…) Hmmm, think there might be some influence there? Then there is the whole bit about the Bag doing Felix’s bidding. Want an apple from a tree? The bag turns into an escalator. Yet when he needs to cross a lake, the Bag becomes a canoe. Not exactly technology coming to the cat’s aid there, now is it?

When the Professor finally gets his evil hands on Felix through the use of a wondrous piece of technology — a cat magnet! — he immediately shrinks Felix (more evil technology) and grabs the Bag. Now in his evil clutches, what does the Professor do? Instead of trying it out, he takes a nap! Felix escapes by calling his Bag for help, and makes his way to the Professor’s master control panel. In an exhibit of science gone amok, he accidently releases a robot. Historically speaking, this was the era of the great sci-fi B movies about aliens — and robots — terrorizing the planet. At this time, then, robots were bad (a sentiment Felix later confirms when he bests the bucket of bolts).

This is where it gets really weird. Felix can evidently remove his tail at will (more “natural magic”?). In this episode, he first outsmarts the robot by “disguising” himself by using his disembodied tail as a moustache to mimic the Professor’s. Later he uses it as a lasso to grab the foot of the napping Professor.

Watching some of the old TV episodes, this boomer is left with a character that never loses his cool — even though evildoers are constantly after him — and he always wins in the end. Was that the message they wanted us to receive when we were children, or was it just mindless entertainment?

Top Cat

This Hanna-Barbera cartoon appeared on TV in 1961. The character was the top cat in an alley inhabited by a group of feline followers, and one policeman, Officer Charles Dribble. Top Cat always pulls one over on the cop. He tends to keep his top cat position by shady means, at best. He’s constantly getting his group to scam either the rich (upper class) or authority (police and politicians).

Here’s a case of a “cat of the people” ruling his alley kingdom like a folk hero (Robin Hood?) for “putting one over on the Man.” We saw similar behavior in Groucho Marx and Three Stooges skits in earlier years, and also in the stereotyped Sergeant in war movies. He always seemed to procure the supplies the troop needed — but when the question arose of how these items came to be obtained, it was a case of, “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Top Cat had an overly healthy ego, too. He often verbalized his own greatness with aplomb. This carried over to his own image as a “ladies’ man.” In the attached episode, he has Benny fetch him flowers and a box of chocolates for his date. Procured items in hand, T.C. exclaims, “Flowers, chocolates and me. What more could she want.”

A children’s cartoon character exhibiting male bravado and the roguish criminal attitude that his followers adored and females couldn’t resist; such was the stuff many boomers recall with great nostalgia.

So, in the great Felix the Cat vs. Top Cat debate, which is the coolest cat? Mister Boomer declares it a mistrial. What’s your call, boomers?