Do you walk around with your point of view for everyone to see? Outside of a small name brand label, we are conservative people keeping our thoughts to ourselves. In grade school, we did put our favorites, our point of view out there for everyone to see in bold color, daily for a year. We proclaimed our chosen favorite character, TV show, teen idol to tell everyone who and what we loved. We were commercialized heavily on Saturday morning cartoons and Disney movies. The lunchboxes were the only way to celebrate this branding in Catholic school which squelched everything else.
I’m talking about the tine lunchbox; blazon in color all the aspect of our chosen theme. We carried these along with our book bag, we didn’t really have backpacks instead we all used a variety of book bags, macramé, all different except for the contents s of school books and homework. The lunchbox was our political billboard of a commercial theme we loved, thought was important, a love we had. This was for all to see on the bus stop, school bus, playground, in the school lunch line and at lunch, propped up on the table with the matching thermos. All year people had a notion of what you loved.
These lunchboxes are now collectors’ items. They are full of colorful illustrations of Saturday morning cartoons, favorite children’s TV shows, movies or superheroes. It represented something that we loved that year. The next school year, if you weren’t too old to carry one, would be a new chosen favorite. Here’s a trip done memory lane of my personal picks I owned.
I saw this movie and then when I went to the store to pick out a lunchbox, I immediately chose it. I loved the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a movie about an inventors car that flew with wings and then floated in the water. I loved the movie, the concept, Dick Van Dyke, a Disney staple in movies. Each time I looked at this lunchbox on the way to school I couldn't help but smile at the memory of the movie. We saw movies once and then had to relay on pictures and our lunchboxes to review the movie again in our minds. The other way to relive a movie was to strike up a conversation with another member on the school bus and look at all sides of the lunchbox and talk about that particular scene. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had a catchy theme and a memorable keep you up late at night scene of the "child catcher" disguised as a candyman. In the era before children pictured on milk containers, we were all acutely aware of the is type of person and were street smart enough to avoid going near cars of people we did not know. In looking at this lunchbox if you spoke about the movie with another child we always talked about that scary scene and somehow through those conversations, we would process and care for another person's fears.
The Brady Bunch was my favorite TV show. It was way ahead of its time, merging two biological families into one, all with the same last name, each child calling each parent mom or dad instead of being arrogant and using first names to a provider. Each child was an equal brother or sister and called each other such. The word step-sister, step-brother, or step-parent was never introduced to daily use such a cutting little moniker would disrupt the equilibrium of a family blended together. Each child had equal importance. Each child was equal in their parent’s eyes. The parents worked together. It showed problems from our point of view. But these are all messages we would get through the osmosis of the style this show had. The hair, the outfits, normal and "groovy" colors, fringe, block heeled shoes with knee socks. Each season they grew up alongside of us showing how one family solved problems and situations. I loved Robert Reed as Mike Brady wishing he was my father, understanding, firm, and actually involved in his children's issues. Through these TV shows you could dream of what could be. I always wanted to be within that family somewhere between Marcia and Jan, being able to wear my hair long, having sisters close in age, going on vacation to the Grand Canyon and Hawaii. We jumped out of our skin when The Brady Bunch had such three part shows, having to wait an entire week to find out what happened next. To this day parents love the show, no swearing, no grown up issues to explain, and it was a step family that had succeeded in showing an example of how tight a "blended" family could be, without who's who and which family, they were all one and treated each other as such. To all of us in TV land and like the show we all felt equally a part of The Brady Bunch. Best line in the opening score..."That this group must somehow form a family." What a great thought.
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This next lunchbox wasn't a personal favorite but it was my first Saturday morning show where I wanted to be a character who was older than I was. The Bug-a-Loos has a girl character dressed in a ballerina tutu and they all flew. I loved magical flying whether it was a fairy, car, even a superheroes, there was strength and escapism involved. I remember looking at it with my grandmother, the one who bought my first pair of loafers, and when I was in the toy department, she bought this lunchbox for me. She didn't understand the Bug-a-Loos, such foolishness, but she understood I wanted it. It was purple trim and I loved the lunchbox and I loved the memory of her surprising me with it on my birthday.
The last lunchbox I remember having was Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. In those days, we put stereotypes right up there on Saturday morning. I loved the ingenuity and I didn't know I was making fun of another race because honestly, I was rarely into contact with anyone of another color or race. Geez those illustrations are boldly stereotypical...but also funny. Fat Albert played a radiator? In a ghetto band? I'm sorry but that's funny. It also made fun of fat people but then again, we made fun of them on the playground anyways. However, we loved Fat Albert and the way he said "Hey, Hey, Hey.." The cartoon also showed ingenuity and camaraderie....when you were down you had each other. There was also a moral lesson at the end of the show, but we were more into the amazing creativity of its characters.
Later that year, this lunchbox would soon be covered with Wacky Packages stickers. Wacky Packages, 2 stickers and a cardboard piece of gum. I loved them, threw out the gum. The stickers were Mad Magazine replicas of products. We loved Wacky Packages. It was easy to get some of them as they would overprint the smaller ones but to get the ones more rare took a lot of money and gum. You couldn't just order the series, you had to buy each package hoping you would get the sticker, you didn't yet have.
Then we had the kids whose personal convictions remained hidden in the "school" dome lunchbox, nondescript characters typically not new to anything. The worst was the red plaid one with nothing to say. You want to Jerry Maguire those kids and shout..."What do you stand for!" The Peanuts lunchbox was quite safe and predictable lunchbox. I often wonder what happened to these lunchbox carriers and what became of them.
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