50 Fun Facts About Baby Boomers

Which TV show's fans lobbied President Ford until NASA named a space shuttle after its ship?

Star Trek fans sent hundreds of thousands of letters, so the orbiter planned as Constitution rolled out in 1976 as Enterprise, with most of the original cast on hand.

Which children's modelling compound was first sold in the 1930s as a wallpaper cleaner?

Play-Doh was saved when a nursery school teacher read that the cleaning putty made good art projects, just as washable vinyl wall coverings were killing demand for it.

Which baked goods came in the Frisbie tins that Yale students tossed around, naming the Frisbee?

Pies from the Frisbie Pie Company were a Yale staple, and a toy maker borrowed the campus slang in 1957 for a plastic disc first sold as the Pluto Platter.

Which toy, the first advertised on television, originally came as loose plastic parts with no body?

Mr. Potato Head was a kit of eyes, ears and mouths to pin onto a real potato until 1964, when complaints about rotting vegetables led Hasbro to add a plastic body.

Which 1960s sitcom named its boat after the FCC chairman who called television a "vast wasteland"?

Gilligan's Island sailed the S.S. Minnow, which producer Sherwood Schwartz named to "punish" Newton Minow for his 1961 speech.

Which prime-time cartoon had its stars smoke Winston cigarettes in early 1960s commercials?

The Flintstones pitched Winston for its first two seasons, until the audience skewed younger and Welch's grape juice took over as sponsor.

Which 1950s sitcom's childbirth episode outdrew the presidential inauguration held the next day?

I Love Lucy drew 44 million viewers for "Lucy Goes to the Hospital", against 29 million for the swearing-in, and Lucille Ball had given birth for real twelve hours earlier.

Which band drew a record 73 million viewers to a Sunday night variety show in February 1964?

The Beatles more than tripled the usual audience of The Ed Sullivan Show that night, a broadcast credited with launching the British Invasion of American pop.

Which toy company started with a wooden slingshot before selling the hula hoop and the Frisbee?

Wham-O took its name from the sound of that slingshot hitting a target, and in 1958 it copied the bamboo exercise rings of Australian schoolchildren in plastic.

Which singer did The Ed Sullivan Show film only from the waist up during a January 1957 performance?

Elvis Presley was making his third and final appearance for a host who had once declared him "unfit for family viewing".

Which 1969 music festival took over Max Yasgur's dairy farm, miles from the town it was named for?

Woodstock moved to Bethel only weeks before opening, after the town of Wallkill passed a permit law that pushed the promoters off the site they had leased.

Which 1950s children's TV puppet was given 48 freckles, one for each state then in the union?

Howdy Doody shared the stage with Clarabell, a clown who stayed mute because a speaking actor would have had to be paid scale on the low-budget show.

Which 1950s sitcom fought censors over an episode that hid a pet alligator in a toilet tank?

Leave It to Beaver won only in part: the episode, meant to be the pilot, aired second and was allowed to show just the tank.

Which Mouseketeer, discovered by Walt Disney at a Swan Lake recital, drew 6,000 fan letters a month?

Annette Funicello was the last of the original cast to be picked, and in the 1960s she starred with Frankie Avalon in a string of Beach Party films.

Which host of The Twilight Zone also wrote or co-wrote 92 of the anthology's 156 episodes?

Rod Serling was heard but almost never seen in the first season, and only later stepped in front of the camera to introduce each story.

Which CBS anchor, called the most trusted man in America, signed off "And that's the way it is"?

Walter Cronkite also fronted American network television's first nightly half-hour newscast, after CBS doubled his 15-minute broadcast in 1963.

Which 1970s sitcom gave English the phrase "jumping the shark" after a water-skiing stunt?

Happy Days sent Fonzie over a shark in swim trunks and his leather jacket in 1977, and a college student coined the phrase eight years later for any series past its best.

Which cartoon dog was named after the scat Frank Sinatra sings to end "Strangers in the Night"?

Scooby-Doo got the name after CBS executive Fred Silverman heard the "doo-be-doo-be-doo" on a red-eye flight to a development meeting.

Which fictional North Carolina town did Sheriff Andy Taylor keep peaceful on The Andy Griffith Show?

Mayberry is said to be modelled on Mount Airy, the hometown of its leading man, where residents now use both names for the place.

Which host of American Bandstand was nicknamed "America's oldest teenager" for his youthful looks?

Dick Clark took the Philadelphia dance show national on ABC in 1957, and within two years it had an audience of 20 million.

Which Lubbock-born rocker died in the 1959 Iowa plane crash later called "The Day the Music Died"?

Buddy Holly had chartered the plane to leave after a show in Clear Lake, and Don McLean gave the crash its name twelve years later in a 1971 hit single.

Which record label did Berry Gordy start with an $800 family loan and base at Hitsville U.S.A.?

Motown kept that studio running 22 hours a day, with artists returning to Detroit between tours to record as many songs as they could.

Which folk singer was booed at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival for playing with electric instruments?

Bob Dylan faced worse on the British tour that followed, where a heckler in Manchester famously shouted "Judas!" at him.

Which Chubby Checker hit reached number one in 1960 and again in 1962, setting off a dance craze?

The Twist began as a B-side by Hank Ballard, who said he wrote it after watching teenagers dance in Tampa, Florida.

Which guitarist closed his Monterey Pop Festival set by setting his instrument on fire?

Jimi Hendrix had been recommended to the organizers by Paul McCartney, and a photo of him kneeling over the burning guitar became one of rock's most famous images.

Which soul singer's cover of Otis Redding's "Respect" added the famous spelled-out R-E-S-P-E-C-T?

Aretha Franklin got the spelling from her sister Carolyn, according to her engineer, and Redding later worked their changes into his own live shows.

Which doll did Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler name after her own daughter?

Barbie was named for Barbara Handler, and the boyfriend doll that followed was called Ken after her brother.

Which Hasbro toy soldier led to the coining of the term "action figure"?

G.I. Joe needed the new term because marketers were sure boys would not play with dolls, so that word was never used by anyone developing or selling him.

Which Atari game broke down at Andy Capp's Tavern because its coin box had overflowed with quarters?

Pong was assigned to its engineer as a training exercise by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, and patrons were soon coming to the bar solely to play it.

Which brand of trading stamps outnumbered U.S. postage stamps during the 1960s?

S&H Green Stamps came from supermarket and gas station checkouts, and shoppers swapped filled books of them for housewares chosen from 35 million catalogs a year.

Which polio vaccine developer, asked who owned the patent, replied "Could you patent the sun?"

Jonas Salk was hailed as a miracle worker when the vaccine's success was made public in April 1955, and he chose not to seek any profit from it.

Which astronaut, the first American in space, later hit two golf balls on the Moon during Apollo 14?

Alan Shepard swung a six-iron he had fixed to the handle of a lunar sample scoop, and at 47 he was the oldest of the twelve Apollo moonwalkers.

Which candidate faced John F. Kennedy in 1960 in the first general-election presidential debates?

Richard Nixon sweated under the studio lights and blamed a knee injury that had put him in hospital with an infection; no nominees debated again until 1976.

Which 1962 satellite relayed the first live television pictures across the Atlantic?

Telstar 1 could link the two continents for only about 30 minutes of each two-and-a-half-hour orbit, while it was passing over the ocean.

Which tennis player beat 55-year-old Bobby Riggs in the "Battle of the Sexes" at the Astrodome?

Billie Jean King had turned Riggs down before, but accepted a $100,000 winner-takes-all match after he beat Margaret Court earlier that year.

Which Schwinn bike gave 1960s kids a banana seat and ape-hanger handlebars in chopper style?

The Sting-Ray reached shops in June 1963, after designer Al Fritz heard that California kids were refitting their bicycles to look like customized motorcycles.

Which shaving cream was famous for funny rhymes spread across rows of small roadside signs?

Burma-Shave put up its first signs on a Minnesota highway in the 1920s, and they came down when the company was sold to Philip Morris.

Which 1950s quiz show was exposed as rigged after Charles Van Doren's run against Herbert Stempel?

Twenty-One was played honestly only on its first broadcast, and the fallout from its fixing nearly killed off the whole quiz genre.

Which kids' TV host was suspended for telling viewers to mail him their parents' cash?

Soupy Sales was annoyed at working New Year's Day in 1965 and promised a postcard from Puerto Rico in return; he said much of what arrived was play money.

Which comedy duo's CBS variety hour was pulled in 1969 after constant fights with network censors?

The Smothers Brothers sued CBS for breach of contract and won, with a federal court ordering the network to pay them $776,300 four years later.

Which cohort, named by a 1991 Douglas Coupland novel, comes directly after the baby boomers?

Generation X children were once nicknamed latchkey kids, because so many came home from school to an empty house and let themselves in.

In which country's parliament did Chlöe Swarbrick brush off a heckler with "OK boomer" in 2019?

New Zealand's Chlöe Swarbrick was speaking in support of climate change legislation, and the heckler she brushed off, Todd Muller, was not actually a boomer.

Which pediatrician's 1946 guide told baby boom parents, "You know more than you think you do"?

Benjamin Spock sold 500,000 copies of Baby and Child Care in its first six months, and he had already won Olympic gold as a rower in 1924.

Which politician became the first baby boomer to serve as U.S. president?

Bill Clinton played the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show, which led some religious conservatives to label him "the MTV president".

Which university's Free Speech Movement gave the 1960s the slogan "Don't trust anyone over 30"?

Berkeley activist Jack Weinberg said it in 1964 to an interviewer who kept hinting that Communists were directing the students; he wanted the man to back off.

Which journalist branded the 1970s the "Me Decade" in a 1976 cover story for New York magazine?

Tom Wolfe had already given English "radical chic", his label for a fundraising party that Leonard Bernstein threw for the Black Panthers.

Which Yippie co-founder published Steal This Book in 1971 after his trial with the Chicago Seven?

Abbie Hoffman's readers took the title literally, and so many copies were stolen that many bookstores refused to carry it.

Which media theorist coined both "the medium is the message" and the term "global village"?

Marshall McLuhan set out the first idea in his 1964 book Understanding Media, arguing that media themselves, not the content they carry, deserve the study.

Which comedian turned his son's letters from summer camp into the hit "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh"?

Allan Sherman set the words to Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours, and he claimed the record even reached number one in Hong Kong, which had no summer camps.

Which 1969 road film sent two bikers toward Mardi Gras with drug money hidden in a fuel tank?

Easy Rider cost about $400,000 to shoot and earned $60 million, a return that helped launch the New Hollywood era of the early 1970s.