Jingle bells,
Batman smells,
Robin laid an egg.
The Batmobile lost its wheel,
And the Joker got away.

Reminds me of the whole jean/denim phenomena growing up. Guess Jeans, Girbaud, etc.

What about this: “Uh oh, Sergio / He caught my eye when he walked on by / Uh oh, Sergio / Sergio Valente, Sergio Valente (“jeans” – whispered seductively by some chick)

Then there was the whole non-Levi’s faux pas …forget it if you wore Wranglers or some other non-Levi’s thing that didn’t have the signature leather patch on the back.

Who remembers Zeppelin Jeans from the ’70s? What about that one weird comedy movie about those jeans that had two cut-out things on the butt with clear plastic bubbles in the holes? I remember seeing the trailer and thinking that was so scandalous…dang!

omg, mechanical flipping numbers. My parents had a clock radio with those, and I used to love rotating the time adjust knob just to hear the flutter of those panels and pretend I was travelling in time. Then once I totally put my wrist into it and turned the knob as fast as I could, and one of the panels flew off, cutting one of the numbers in half. lol

“Heathkit!” I built one of those crystal radios. I always wanted one of those deluxe electronic experiment kits or the ultimate mega-microscope kit with those slides that had bug parts and whatever. I even asked my dad if I could get an electron microscope. Yeah right.

Spirograph. I was just at Michael’s Crafts/Hobbies store in the car/plane model section (great 40-something geek getaway) and overheard this, yes, 40-something dood ask one of the young employees if they carried Spirograph. The girl looked totally lost as he tried explaining, “You know, little circle in the big circle kinda thing, you put your pen in it and draw designs…” I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

My friend had one of those in the ’70s. We used to play with it all day and tape up our favorite designs. I remember those little tiny tiny gear things being a total bitch to use—the pen would freeze up in the rotation and totally skip teeth, ruining the pattern. But if we used just the right combo and some real patience, we turned out some totally psychedelic designs. Those were awesome.

http://www.seriouscraft.com/files/images/spirograph%5B1%5D.jpg

“Tea Parties” or “Bouncies” were typically rules made up by the girls in my 4th-6th grade classes, who never wanted to play handball, and if they did, they wanted it to be as non-competitive and non-challenging as possible.

This allowed a player to set up an incoming ball for a second bounce, in order to give him/her a better opportunity to play it. Hence the term “Bouncies” because of the extra “bounce”…or “Tea Parties” because doing this made the game relaxing and friendly—like a tea party. Boys totally hated this rule because a round would virtually never end…especially if it was two girls playing.

“Over the Rainbows,” on the other hand, were balls that were slammed so hard that they rebounded off the wall with a high and wide arc trajectory (hence the “rainbow” term), landing far beyond the rear boundary of the handball court. If done at just the right time, Over The Rainbows were the ultimate power move that rendered the unprepared opponent totally helpless as they ran frantically to try to return it. Again, it was the girls who would call desperately in the beginning, “No Over The Rainbows!!”

I wish I could have captured an audio clip of us kids calling out the names before the rounds began. Apparently, though, the kids nowadays may have the same things. I’ve spoken to a 10-yr.-old kid who knew what Slicies and Waterfalls and Cross-countries were, at least.