We have a special twofer in this edition of Beautiful Billboards. This great slide from 1965 features ads for Mountain Dew and baseball’s St. Louis Cardinals on KMOX-AM, which would seemingly place it somewhere in Missouri.

Fans of old advertisements will of course note that this Mountain Dew was from well before their hip, extreme rebranding toward the end of the 20th century. In the ’60s they were still playing up their image as being associated with hillbilly culture.

KMOX, meantime, is still the flagship station for the Cardinals and has been — with some interruptions — since 1928.

This edition of the TV Listings Flashback showcases the CBS evening lineup for Monday, July 31, 1972. Specifically, South Bend, Indiana affiliate WSBT-TV Channel 22. Let’s take a look:

• 5:00 What’s My Line?
• 5:30 CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite
• 6:00 Local news
• 6:30 To Tell the Truth
• 7:00 Gunsmoke
• 8:00 Here’s Lucy
• 8:30 The Doris Day Show
• 9:00 Suspense Playhouse (Call to Danger with Peter Graves and James Gregory)
• 10:00 Late local news
• 10:30 The CBS Late Movie (The Glass Bottom Boat with Doris Day and Rod Taylor)

WASHINGTON, FEB. 8 (1963) — A MOMENT IN A WORKING DAY — This is a candid glimpse of President John Kennedy seated today at his White House desk. The photo was made just before he broadcast a speech by shortwave radio to Greenville, NC, as part of the dedication ceremonies of the new $23 million Voice of American broadcasting station.

It may be hard to believe now, but The Jetsons began its life as a prime time show. It originally aired on ABC during the 1962-63 TV season. Perhaps more notably, it debuted as the first program broadcast in color on ABC.

Here is the full Jetson family, sans Rosey/Rosie the Robot — Judy, George, Jane, Elroy, and Astro. 

Whenever I get the chance to combine my love of vintage airlines with my love of vintage photo slides I take it. So here is a beauty: It’s a Kodachrome of a prop plane from New Zealand’s Mount Cook Airlines.

I believe this is from the early 1970s but someone more knowledgeable than I about airlines is free to correct me. In any case, I love the look of this plane, from the color scheme to the sweet floral Mount Cook logo.

Mount Cook Airlines started in 1920 as NZ Aero Transport and served New Zealand as a regional carrier until the name was retired by its parent carrier, Air New Zealand, in 2019.

In my humble opinion Life is one of the preeminent magazines in American history. From its outstanding photos to its rich and varied content, I’m rather sorry I wasn’t around for its golden age.

I should note the original incarnation of Life, which I’m not talking about here, began in 1883 as a general interest a humor magazine but was moribund by the 1920s. I’m speaking about the revived magazine, which relaunched under Henry Luce on November 23, 1936. That version is what most of us know today and it ran weekly until 1972. The publications you may see in store shelves today called Life is fine enough but it’s just not the same thing.

Here, then, is a gallery of selected Life covers from the magazine’s first year of publication, 1936-37. They features a wide range of subjects like ballet and opera, sports, famous politicians and actors, and world sites.

Suzy Parker (born Cecilia Ann Renee Parker; October 28, 1932-May 3, 2003) was an American model and actress active from 1947 into the early 1960s. Her modeling career reached its zenith during the 1950s, when she appeared on the covers of dozens of magazines and in advertisements and movie and television roles.

She appeared in advertisements for Revlon and many other cosmetic companies, including Solo Products, the largest hair care product company in the country at the time. In 1956, at the height of her modelling career, she became the first model to earn $100,000 per year. A song that The Beatles wrote for her, though not released on record, appeared in their 1970 documentary film Let It Be, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.

Today’s TV viewing takes us back to the frontier. Or at least the frontier as imagined on NBC in the 1960s.

Courtesy the Sioux City Journal from February 3, 1966 is this ad for Daniel Boone, airing on KTIV-TV in Sioux City. Thanks to Wikipedia, we know that this was the season two episode “The Gun.”

Here’s a small slice of life from New York’s Chinatown, circa late 1960s. If anyone can identify the street or approximate year please let me know!