A CK Special Birthday Edition — Fun Facts About 1967

Well, boys ‘n’ girls, it is the Birth Anniversary of your humble scribe. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I gave away my age. Move on. Before I go on, I have noticed some  of the fools from Nexus have stopped by today. The least you coulda done was left a Birth Anniversary wish! Yeesh! You’re soo cheap! Anyway, on with the festivities! Why am I doing this kind of a post? Well, my mom mailed me a card which was in the form of a mini-1967 yearbook, the year, your humble scribe came roaring into the world. It was the cutest thing! Complete with retro graphics and old cheesy print ads! I love it! If you have to get a small gift that requires mailing for someone who lives far away, I highly recommend it. I’m sure they have one for every year.  I’m also doing this because, hell, to modify a Leslie Gore classic, it’s my blog and my birth anniversary, and I’ll bloody well post it if I wanna! On with the festivities! Oh yeah! I said that. Man, I’m already getting forgetful.

From the yearbook card my mom sent me:

Useless Facts To Semi-Useful Facts

1. Windsurfing is invented in the U.S.
2. Robert Kearns patents intermittent automobile windshield wipers
3. First air-conditioned subway cars go into service on the F line (NY).
4. DNA is successfully created in a test tube.
5. The first pulsating source (pulsar) is detected
6. Scottish terrier Bardene Bingo takes home the big bone–Best in Show–at the Westminster dog show

World News

1. The Arab-Israeli Six Day War is waged
2. France launches its first nuclear submarine
3. McDonald’s opens its first restaurant outside the US, in Canada
4. China detonates its first hydrogen bomb
5. A massive outbreak of hoof and mouth disease affects hundres of thousands of livestock in Britain
6. Latin American guerrilla leader Che Guevara is captured and killed by Bolivian troops
7. Queen Elizabeth inaugurates the 98-inch Isaac Newton telescope
8. The first prototype of the Concorde, a joint British-French venture and the world’s first supersonic airliner, is unveiled in Toulouse, France

Yikes! If folks thought life with current events back in the day was depressing, they didn’t see anything yet! I wonder if anyone old enough to remember 1967 today are now looking back at that year as the good ol’ days?

The Music Scene

• Daydream Believer – The Monkees
• Groovin’ – The Young Rascals
• Happy Together – The Turtles
• Kind of a Drag – The Buckinhams
• Light My Fire – The Doors
• Baby, I Need Your Lovin’ – Johnny Rivers
• Georgy Girl – The Seekers
• Bernadette – The Four Tops
• Tiny Bubbles – Don Ho (Really?? Elevator music made it into the top 10 in the swinging 60s???)
• I Second That Emotion – The Miracles

Back then, many words couldn’t be said on TV and many subjects were considered taboo.  ”The Ed Sullivan Show” was no exception. In 1967, when The Doors were to make an appearance on the show, Ed Sullivan had requested that they take out the word “higher” from the song “Light My fire” when they were to sing it on his show. They didn’t and Ed, naturally, bans The Doors from appearing ever again on his show.

What Folks Watched on TV

• Batman
• The Dean Martin Show
• The Andy Griffith Show
• The Mike Douglas Show
• The Dick Van Dyke Show
• That Girl
• Petticoat Junction
• Match Game (Now, that was a game show I actually liked in reruns)
• The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

Premieres:

• The Smothers Brothers
• Mannix
• Dragnet
• The Flying Nun
• Ironside (I preferred Raymond Burr in Perry Mason)
• Carol Burnett Show

When the Carol Burnett Show premiered, Jim Nabors was one of her guests.  From there on out, Carol Burnett would open each season, having Jim Nabors on the show because she saw him as a “good luck charm”.

Some Fun Facts

1. Australian, Paul McManus water-skis barefoot for 1:30:19.
2. Flower Children make the Haight-Ashbury in San-Francisco their gathering place
3. A team at Texas Instruments invents the first handheld calculator
4. The first Super Bowl is telecast on CBS and NBC

What Shows Ended

• What’s My Line?
• Gilligan’s Island
• Flipper
• Combat!
• F Troop
• The Fugitive

“The Fugitive” ended when Richard Kimball finally caught the “One-armed man”, became the highest rated show in history, that is, of course, until the famed “Who Shot JR?” episode of “Dallas”, a decade later.

Well, boys ‘n’ girls, hope you enjoyed the useless but fun facts about 1967.