Jan 6, 2022
Here’s some nostalgia for some of the great fads from the 1950s and 60s. Clothes, hairstyles, toys, and television shows all have their fifteen minutes of fame.
One of the most memorable fads in Medfield had to be the hula hoop, first sold at Lord’s Department Store in the late 50s. It took a couple of days before Medfield kids could manage to keep the hoop gyrating around their waists, but practice eventually made perfect. For kids with thin waists, it was even easier to keep the hoop moving in that circular motion, almost appearing as if they weren’t even moving and swaying.
Hula hoops were immensely fun to play with and quickly became the rage with Medfield kids during the late 50s. During the first summer of sales, kids all over town were experiencing the fun and performance with the hula hoop.
Some Saturday mornings hula hoop contests were held in the school gymnasium for kids from eight to ten years old. One memorable event started out with ten different kids, but soon it was down to Deirdre “Gogo” Flaherty and Gail Martino. They were performing anxiously at the same time in front of the capacity audience. After five more minutes, Gail started to lose control of her hoop, which slid down to her knees and eventually landed on the floor. “Gogo” was triumphant, winning the contest and the crowd’s cheers, and she was awarded a $25 gift certificate to Lord’s.
If you’re a reader who wants to take up the hula hoop again after a lapse of several decades – while avoiding Gail’s fate – here’s a link to a short refresher.
Over 100 million hula hoops were sold in the first two years – it was the best-selling toy fad ever. And just as sales were starting to dip in late 1959, WHAM-O, the manufacturer, launched another big winner, the Frisbee, later followed by Slip-N-Slide and Silly String.
Another fad of the fifties was the coonskin cap. Originally worn by Native Americans and adopted by American frontiersmen in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was made famous by Fess Parker, who played Davy Crockett in the 1954 Disney miniseries. The Disney show helped generate about $100,000,000 in worldwide sales of the [usually fake fur] coonskin cap. Locally, they were of course sold at Lord’s.
The coonskin caps sold well, but the cap fad did not last very long. However, the Disney TV series about Davey Crockett enjoyed great success with Fess Parker playing Davy Crockett in Davy Crockett-Indian Fighter, Davy Crockett-King of the River, and concluding with Davey Crockett at the Alamo.
It turned out that Fess Parker also promoted the “fashion style” and popular sale of buckskin jackets for the young and old, which gave an authentic and rugged look with fringe on both arms of the jacket. Parker had a 25-year career as an actor and later joined a long list of celebrities who ventured into wine making.
Music fads sometimes appear in the form of one-hit wonders – think Gene Vincent, Buddy Knox, The Silhouettes, the Big Bopper, Bobby Pickett, the Singing Nun, or dozens of others.
Sock hops were very popular with the youth of Medfield back in the 1950s. High school dances were typically informal, school chaperoned events. The teens would remove their shoes and dance in their socks to protect the gymnasium floor.
Combined with rock ’n’ roll, the liberating feeling of removing shoes while dancing inspired teens to dance faster. The TV dance show American Bandstand out of Philadelphia with Dick Clark featured teenagers showing off their dance moves and prowess.
That show energized the young of Medfield keeping up with all the latest teen sensations. Destiny proceeded, and with the opening of the new Medfield High School on Pound Street, school dances were held in the new cafeteria with the birth of the twist, made famous by Chubby Checker, born Ernest Evans. When the twist took over the country, teens and many adults were inspired to get out on the dance floor, twisting and moving to the beat of the music.
Unlike most fads, the twist had legs: the dance endured, with Chubby Checker inventing and choreographing his other hit songs with Let’s Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer, along with Slow Twisting. At age 80, Chubby Checker remains very popular to this day, making personal appearances all over the country. He and his Dutch-born wife, a former Miss World, have been married since 1964 and have four children.
Some 1950s and 60s fads faded but came back into favor from time to time. Soda fountains are a case in point. Lord’s (now the site of Brothers Marketplace, where the practice lives on) and Maguire’s drug store (in the Monks building) both had great soda fountains in the 1950s and 60s, where you could get a cone, a frappe, an ice cream soda, or a Coke – if you wanted, with a squirt of cherry or vanilla or another flavor enhancement.
Sideburns back in the mid-50s enjoyed tremendous popularity with many older teens and adults alike ascribing to the beat generation and establishing the era of the “beatnik” persona. Sideburns and DA hairstyles also derived much of their popular appeal from Elvis Presley.
The term “sideburns” is derived from the luxuriant facial foliage of Ambrose Burnside (1824-1881), Civil War general, first president of the National Rifle Association, and Rhode Island politician. For more info and photos of Burnside, click here.
The term “beat generation” was coined in 1948 by Lowell-born author Jack Kerouac. These young people were non-conformists with black berets, turtleneck sweaters, black leather jackets, and of course sideburns. Many were inspired to write poetry and commentary on the human condition. Evolving from that lifestyle in bloom, many young teens ushered in the hippie movement that took over back in the Summer of Love in 1967. That period of the late 60s led to profound changes in music, clothing… and substance abuse. Some of the fads from that time period such as “flower power,” bell bottom jeans, and much of hippiedom with communes faded away.
However, the long hair continued into the 1980s. Elvis’ DA was kicked up a notch with Beatle-Mania in 1963. The Beatles British invasion started with the song, I Want to Hold Your Hand, a collaboration written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. In a very short time, other bands enjoyed great popularity while later growing their hair even longer than the Fab Four.
Essentially the hairstyle of the Beatles was very popular because just about anyone could have their hair cut to that simple length. It came down over the forehead and allowed for a moderate length of hair cut into a stylish V at the back of their head. The so-called mop-top was a tremendous success, though many barbers had hoped that the fad would quickly come to an end. Nevertheless, that hair style was modified for nearly two decades, set by the newer trends of that time. While the Beatles’ music and hairstyles made their mark on society, their Nehru jackets, pegged pants, and Beatle boots were soon cast aside into the dustbin.
The invention of the lava lamp turned out to be an unusual success in the late 1960s. Edward Walker invented the psychedelic lamp, which is still found in many a college dorm. In the late 1960s the lava lamp came to symbolize all things counterculture and psychedelic, with some apparently believing it caused the synapses in the brain to loosen up. The mesmerizing light fixture has risen and sunk and shifted its shape in the cultural consciousness for decades. The heat source used was a light bulb concealed within the bottom.
The lamp paired two mutually insoluble liquids: one was water based, and the other wax based. Originally, to control buoyancy of the wax, a key ingredient was added to the solvent, carbon tetrachloride, but because of its toxicity, it was replaced after 1970 by another chemical that remains a trade secret. The heat source at the bottom liquefied the wax blob. As it expanded, its density decreased, and it rose to the top where it cooled and slowly sank back down.
All that chemical reaction provided plenty of years of satisfaction and wonderment. While the lava lamp was considered a fad in its earliest days of creation, it became slightly forgotten for a few years before the lamp returned on the market to a roaring success and reestablishing itself to the young and old. Today, if you Google “lava lamp” you get over 2o million hits and thousands of opportunities to buy one.
to be continued…