http://www.yourememberthat.com/media/446
/Father_Guido_Sarduccis_Five_Minute_University/

     There’s more. A lot more. The YOU REMEMBER THAT site says, “We've got the sights and sounds you remember from the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond.”

http://yourememberthat.com/

BURMA SHAVE

     If you remember the fifties, you’ll remember the Burma Shave ads, which were divided among six signs along the highway. You read them as you drove along, and the last sign always said “Burma Shave.”

     The signs were hilarious, and people loved them. So what ended them? President Eisenhower’s transcontinental highway program, which so improved the highways that people drove faster and faster -- and soon they were driving so fast the Burma Shave signs were just a blur. And so ended Burma Shave, another victim of progress. But, though the signs are no more, you can enjoy them again on this website.

http://www.fiftiesweb.com/burma1.htm

HOW IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE

     RETRO FUTURE tells what people in 1939 or 1959 thought we’d be doing right now.

http://www.retrofuture.com/

BIG FAT INSTITUTE

     This gem I found among the Webby Awards. The BIG FAT INSTITUTE (motto: “We’re proud to be held responsible for almost everything we do”) is very fifties and a lot of fun if you ever watched TV before 1965. Note: when you’re on the site but nothing seems to be happening on the screen, click on stuff until something does happen. The program seems to be shy and needs a little encouragement.

http://www.bigfatinstitute.org/index_flash.html

     Eventually you wind up on

http://www.irobot.com/create/explore/

and I cannot figure out whether this is a put-on too or a real site. Since I have no desire to own my own robot, I may never know – unless you check it out thoroughly and then tell me.

RADIO HUMOR

     Remember Amos ‘n Andy, Arthur Godfrey and His Talent Scouts, and Tennessee Ernie Ford? These websites allow you to listen to the old radio shows. For free. And without static. I grew up with radio, in the Rocky Mountains, and, just when one of the radio comedians would hit the punch line . . . LOUD STATIC. “What did he say?” we’d ask one another frantically. But no one knew. And then the commercial would come on, clear as a bell, and bitterness entered our bosoms.

     Well, the bitterness is gone, and people collect these shows now, as you’ll see if you get into it. I’m listing, first, two free sources of shows mostly from the forties and fifties. Then one where people can buy, sell, and trade shows from the sixties, seventies, and eighties.

http://www.oldtimeradiofans.com/

http://www.radiolovers.com/

http://www.oldradioshows.com/

HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL PROM

     Off to the left of the RANDOM HISTORY page, you’ll also see the history of the American wedding and a section on twentieth century fashions, none of which they taught us in school.

http://www.randomhistory.com/1-50/004prom.html