If You Love Lionel Trains, Take a Step Back in Time to 1954

Classic Episode, had not seen that in quite some time.

Still playing with trains, but man has the TV world changed

True story, I woke up this morning and craved pancakes. We even had a box of Aunt Jemima pancake mix. We ate them in bed. The adds worked. Don

THANK YOU, ScaleRail, I loved every minute of the episode, decades ago, and now from your thoughtful posting of it here.

Some significant quote-able-quotes from it, in my opinion, were:

All it does is go round-and -round.

It sure does look pretty realistic.

He doesn't want the train anymore.

Ricky goes out with girls.

Second childhood.

No matter how old kids get, they never get tired of trains.

FrankM

I'll take an order of pancakes with those trains please! Don, thanks for posting, that was great.

Very entertaining. Thanks, Don, for sharing that episode with us.

My family regularly watched the Ozzie and Harriet Show. My older sister had a crush on Ricky as did most of the teenage girls at that time. I still have some 1950s records of Ricky Nelson, the singing star.

I did not know  that back then the actors in TV shows sometimes also did the commercials. It sure made us crave pancakes with gobs of syrup and butter.

Can you imagine what Ozzie Nelson would think if he saw some of our layouts, especially the enormous ones? I think he would want to be in our Forum. So would his friend who bought the trains in the show. I'm not sure about Ricky. LOL

Arnold

That was great!  Thank you!  The whole 'Adventures' playlist will be my workout entertainment for the next  three or four months.  Now I am in the mood for some YouTube Music featuring Ozzie Nelson and His Orchestra with vocals by Harriett Hilliard (it really was good music).  Keepin' the twentieth century alive!

What, me worry? 

Glad you like it guys. The exterior shot of their house is really their house. The interior is almost an exact copy of the house but in the studio as was the hobby shop. 

Alfred, another wonderful radio band was Phil Harris's band. They really were a great swing group. I almost worked with him once but his wife got sick and he couldn't do it. When he called and had to cancel I did get a chance to tell him how much I liked his music. I think because he was always kidding around on the Jack Benny show people didn't take his music seriously. Memories! Don

Nice product placement - down to even the 1954 catalog - for Lionel and Talbot's.  But there was no wind-up train for $10 in the catalog.

Ozzie was a model railroad enthusiast and had a train that ran around the ceiling.

Don DeFore also played George Baxter ("Mr. B") in the Hazel  television series.

Product placement? That was almost a Lionel commercial! Didn't know Ozzie was into model railroading. Interesting. For me it all brings back the wonderful 50's and growing up in that innocent time. Don

Loved this episode. I have seen this about a dozen times. Never gets old. Wish tv was this good again. The lionel display layout was very cool. The way ozzie and thorny acted at the hobby shop is about how I feel when I go to my favorite hobby shop. Thanks for sharing.

When Ozzie was playing with the trains on the floor it reminded my of a black and white version of some of the old Toy Train magazine covers. Gives me a nice warm feeling somehow. Don

scale rail posted:

When Ozzie was playing with the trains on the floor it reminded my of a black and white version of some of the old Toy Train magazine covers. Gives me a nice warm feeling somehow. Don

I bet we have all seen that cover before. I think it looks like a Norman Rockwell All American image. Delightful!

Arnold

That is an GREAT episode. Ozzie and Harriet looking through the 1954 catalog, running the trains on the floor. I know I can't do that no more, bad back!  

Thanks for sharing the video. 

THANKS for sharing!

What a different world it was!

Loved it.....I've seen it before, but always enjoy watching it!

Thanks.

Peter

Goes to show that Lionel did do more mainstream placements in the prime postwar years.

Thank you for sharing it.

Great stuff. As others have mentioned, have seen this episode several times before but it never gets old.

What my grandfather would have called nice "clean-cut entertainment."

I like Ricky.  He had some good wise cracks.  My kinda guy.  Not ready to break out the Aunt Jemima mix though.  I get my blueberry pancakes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.  And that ain’t changin.

This is a bit off topic, but didn't Joe Dimaggio do Lionel  TV commercials and even have a TV show about a train club with kids in it in the early 1950s?

That could be another fun thread.

Arnold, he did. I think he was also in a Toy Train magazine. Do you know who the host is? Don

scale rail posted:

Arnold, he did. I think he was also in a Toy Train magazine. Do you know who the host is? Don

Jack Barry? Never heard of him. I was probably in my mother's womb or 1 or 2 years old when that commercial was on TV. 

I know enough to know that having Joe Dimaggvio do that  commercial would be like having Tiger Woods do it when he won 4 straight majors or Michael Jordan. Joe was a big deal.

I bet others on the Forum might know something about the host, Jack Barry.

Arnold

Arnold D. Cribari posted:

scale rail posted:

Arnold, he did. I think he was also in a Toy Train magazine. Do you know who the host is? Don

Jack Barry? Never heard of him. I was probably in my mother's womb or 1 or 2 years old when that commercial was on TV. 

I know enough to know that having Joe Dimaggvio do that  commercial would be like having Tiger Woods do it when he won 4 straight majors or Michael Jordan. Joe was a big deal.

I bet others on the Forum might know something about the host, Jack Barry.

Arnold

Jack Barry = Among other things, he was the guy implicated in the 1950s-era quiz show scandals. He was a game show host. 

Hi Don, Thanks!  They don't make shows like that anymore!  The humor is timeless. 

I think that this is the first time I ever saw this particular episode.  Those whistles sure sounded great when they were new, and responded immediately.  Thanks for posting.  

Brewman1973 posted:

Hi Don, Thanks!  They don't make shows like that anymore!  The humor is timeless. 

Watched a few more episodes and have concluded Seinfeld must have been consciously or unconsciously inspired by The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.

What, me worry?

Great episode with lots of memories!

America at it's very best.

PCRR/Dave

Nothing like the Eisenhower era - I wasn't around then, but it seemed life was much simpler, not all the distractions like we have today.

What is also interesting is how the kids and the parents are dressed.  I have two young boys and because of what they see around them, it is an uphill battle to get them to wear anything other than sweats.  Because my wife and I are firm, we insist that they wear actual clothes -- shirts with some sort of a collar, nice jeans, cords, or khakis, etc.  But it is common for kids this age to want to wear nothing but under amour and sneakers.  Forget about what I see a lot of the teenage girls wearing -- I am happy I don't have daughters.  One of the reasons we sends the kids to a parochial school is that the uniforms eliminate a lot of the daily battling that goes on to get them to dress appropriately. 

On one level it is not a big deal, but how people attire themselves today shows a subtle degradation in the respect people have for themselves and one another.  To tie it back to the hobby, I think a lot of the admiration for postwar reflects not only the obvious quality of the prime postwar equipment but also the time that it represented with subtle things like what you see on that TV show. 

That was great, I'd never seen it before. Ozzie and Harriet was a bit before my time, so I've only seen a couple of episodes. Thanks for posting that.

DaveP posted:

Nothing like the Eisenhower era - I wasn't around then, but it seemed life was much simpler, not all the distractions like we have today.

I was, but being young there were only three TV channels (and they weren't on all the time (remember the test patterns?) and a newspaper, none of this 24 hour roaring screaming cable news, and smartphones with scrolling doomsday headlines now a day.  Back then, biggest was "duck and cover" under your school desk, and the "commies are everywhere".  "We like[d] Ike", none of the scandals (or they were hushed hushed).

rrman posted:

DaveP posted:

Nothing like the Eisenhower era - I wasn't around then, but it seemed life was much simpler, not all the distractions like we have today.

I was, but being young there were only three TV channels (and they weren't on all the time (remember the test patterns?) and a newspaper, none of this 24 hour roaring screaming cable news, and smartphones with scrolling doomsday headlines now a day.  Back then, biggest was "duck and cover" under your school desk, and the "commies are everywhere".  "We like[d] Ike", none of the scandals (or they were hushed hushed).

Remember these, too?FrankM

Thanks Don

Even though I've seen this before, it was a pleasure to relax and watch it again. Boy how times and TV have changed.

Alex

Alex, I watch Ozzie and Harriet and other old TV shows on my iPad at night in bed when I need to relax. Living here I don't know why I need to relax but sometimes it's hard for me to go to sleep. Don

Terrific!  Remember showing my dad a Lionel catalog and asking for a Santa Fe F3.  The price was $59 (Canadian).  He took one look and said "Son, the name is Clarke, not Rockefeller!"  

Looking at that picture of Toy trains magazine, The ZW is not pluged in.

Sadly, I saw that show when it first aired. I was 5. The icing on the cake for me is that they peruse the 1954 catalog at the train store. My first set is in that catalog; I still have it. Both I and the set are "getting up there."