TV Star Parade

The TV mags pretty much looked at BATMAN as a kids show and/or a fad as they continued their extensive coverage of Lucy, Lawrence Welk and The Lennon Sisters right into the seventies but they did at least acknowledge the BATMAN success here.

Swanson Fried Chicken Dinner

Frozen dinners had been around a while and they were getting better all the time but they took forever to cook! Microwaves? What are those?

Blazing Combat

Arguably one of the best written and drawn comics of all time, the short-lived, uncensored, black and white ANTI-war comics magazine BLAZING COMBAT was at its peak in '66. It was recently reprinted in hardcover.

Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes

My favorite breakfast food in '66 was Kellogg's SUGAR Frosted Flakes! They were, to coin a phrase, GRRRRRRReat! Note that the word "sugar" was actually used as a selling point! Later this cereal and many others such as Sugar Smacks and Super Sugar Crisp, changed that to fit in with more healthy eating habits.

Modesty Blaise

There's certainly a good movie in the plot of Peter O'Donnell's classic UK comic strip spy, Modesty Blaise, but so far no one has made that film. This first cinematic version from '66 is one of those "style before substance" movies that were incomprehensible then and aged badly from there. Although she looks the part above, actress Monica Vitti is blonde throughout most of the picture...and sometimes hard to understand. At times it's awfully pretty but after several viewings over the years, I still say it just isn't any good at all.

Magicman Meets Nemesis

Magicman and Nemesis were two also-ran superheroes of the mid-sixties. At their best, they really weren't bad...just not that memorable. At their worst, they were victims of the camp craze. Published by ACG, they both premiered in 1964 and faded out (after losing their cover slots in their respective magazines) in '67. Here's their inevitable meeting from mid-66!

Polaroid Swinger

Beginning in the seventies, the word "swinging" picked up a sexual connotation. Back in '66, however, if you were a "swinger" it meant you were hip, baby! Thus Polaroid named its new instant camera, The Swinger." The pictures were small, on thin paper that warped easily, and didn't stand the test of time all that well but my mother used it for nearly a decade. Below is ME in the first picture she ever took with her Swinger back in that momentous first year.