White text on a blue background over blue text over black and red text on a white background with yellow stripes and blue illustrations of stars

Stars To Go, Inc. was a video rental service company which specialized in putting rental kiosks in convenience stores such as 7-11 and Circle K in the late 1980s. Employees of the store often had wearable memorabilia from the company as well as films that were upcoming as an advertisement for their video rental service. Much like modern day Red Box, the Stars To Go kiosk would allow customers to rent a movie without a special trip to another store. Stars To Go, Inc. would see its market share drop considerably after Blockbuster Video Stores went public in 1987. This coupled with the stock market crash known as Black Monday of that same year would result in the company struggling through the end of the decade. In 1989, Stars To Go, Inc. started selling assets. 

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Illustrations of a variety of buttons, badges and mirrors in red, blue, and yellow withe black text above and below on a white background

The Hand Tip and Novelty Co., which eventually was shorted to Hantico Line, was a manufacturer of promotional buttons based out of Newburg, New York as a specialty advertising company. In addition to promotional products for political causes and other initiatives, Hantico made items such as buttons and tops with fun messages or branding for creative advertising. Hantico was later purchased by Uniflex, a bag manufacturer, in 1992. Hantico was later sold in 1995 to American Greenwood Inc. that had a similar promotional product line. 

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Founded in 1895 in Chicago, IL, Schwinn has become one of the most well-known makers of bicycles in the United States. The Varsity, an 8-speed adult touring bike, was introduced in 1960 as a way to show adults that bicycles were not just for children, and it quickly caught on. The Varsity fell out of favor in the 1970s when more lightweight bicycles became preferable for riders.

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Polish ham is a type of canned or prepackaged ham, often associated with the Polish meat company Krakus. It is similar to other types of prepackaged ham such as the American SPAM, but generally has less fat, water, and salt content. It is typically of a higher quality than other ham products, being made from premium cuts of meat. For many families in Poland and the United States, it is an important traditional food, consumed especially during the holidays. 

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The slogan, “Are you man enough to eat Granny Goose”, was used in an advertising campaign for Granny Goose potato chips and other snack products. The products were first introduced in 1946 by Granny Goose Foods Inc. which was founded in Oakland, California and they can still be found in the Western United States currently being produced by Shearer’s Foods under the Snak-King Corp trademark. The ad campaign was popular in the 1960s and 1970s when the company aired commercials that starred actor Philip Carey who was portrayed as “Granny Goose” and later went on to play Asa Buchanan on the soap opera One Life to Live.

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General Electric (GE) was formed in 1852 as a merger of three separate electrical companies including the Edison Electric Light Company founded by Thomas Alva Edison. One of the major innovations by GE was the toaster. The GE Toast-R-Oven took the world by storm in 1957 and within the decade, nearly every home in the United States had a toaster. In 2014, the Swedish brand Electrolux bought the GE Appliances brand.

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Herman Ginsberg took over the family business, then known as Ginsberg’s Jewel Box, after his college graduation from University of Iowa in 1948 when the current employee running the store left the store unlocked and a note that read, “I quit.” In 1969, the family business expanded to a second location at an indoor mall in Iowa City, IA. The business would later grow to 5 locations with the flagship store of Ginsberg Jewelers staying in Cedar Rapids, IA.

The phrase, "When you're ready," may refer to the time to purchase jewelry.

Yellow and blue illustration of a lemonhead character on a blue oval with two yellow lemons on the left with yellow and blue text on a white background

Lemonhead candy has been manufactured by the Ferrara Pan Candy Company since 1962. The candy is created using the cold panned process just like Red Hots, another Ferrara Pan candy. To create candy using this method you create the center of the candy, then toss these pieces into spinning pans while adding color, flavor, and miscellaneous ingredients. In the early 2000s, Ferrara Pan Candy Company created a range of candies inspired by the original Lemonhead; including Orangehead, Cherryhead, Applehead, and Grapehead.

A surge of anti-drug rhetoric and campaigning took place in the 1970s. The Nixon administration Ad Council spent over 100 million dollars on anti-drug campaigning between 1970 and 1972. One of the first taglines of the campaign was “Why do you think they call it dope?” Many other taglines revolving around dope and anti-drug messaging circulated at the time. Originally in the 1880s, opium was referred to as dope. By the 1970s, dope was used mainly to refer to marijuana, although today, dope is used to refer to a number of different drugs.

Illustration of a smiling white ghost gesturing with its hand. Blue text and white text outlined in blue over an orange background. 

The AMC Spirit was a compact car produced by American Motors Corporation from 1979 to 1983. The Spirit was marketed as a restyled replacement for the popular Gremlin that was produced during the preceding years, from 1970 to 1978. Because of the relative inexpensiveness and strength of the Spirit, it was often used for drag racing. In 1987, American Motors Corporation was acquired by Chrysler Corporation.