Golden Year

The PopCulteer
January 15, 2016

2016 is going to be the year of the Golden Anniversary. So many iconic pop culture events happened in 1966 that this year is shaping up to be a massive nostalgia-fest for those of us old enough to remember.

The classic Batman TV show with Adam West and Burt Ward debuted fifty years ago this week. Other iconic television shows that debuted in 1966 include Star Trek, The Monkees, Mission Impossible, Hollywood Squares and Dark Shadows. in addition, TV shows with cult followings that first aired in 1966 include Ultraman (in Japan), Rat Patrol, Green Hornet, Time Tunnel, and The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.

Notable movies marking their fiftieth anniversaries this year are such classics as “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” “Thunderball,” “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” “Blowup,” “Alfie,” “Our Man Flint,” and “Georgy Girl.”

It’s also the golden annivesary for cult favorites like “The Silencers,” the first Matt Helm movie, and movie versions of Batman, The Munsters and Thunderbirds.

Comic Books saw the debuts of The Black Panther, The Silver Surfer, Galactus, Dial H For Hero, Metamorpho, Peter Cannon Thunderbolt, Sharon Carter, Judomaster and several supporting characters.

In music, 1966 saw the release of The Beatles’ “Revolver” album, and “Pet Sounds,” by The Beach Boys, two of the greatest albums in rock history. Frank Sinatra released both “Sinatra at The Sands” and “That’s Life.” Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention made their debut with “Freak Out!”

Other musical artists releasing their debut recordings were Buffalo Springfield, The Monkees, Cream, Neil Diamond, Small Faces, Nilsson, Jefferson Airplane and Sam and Dave.

Captain Action

Toys that made their first appearance in 1966 were icnoic action figures like Ideal’s Captain Action, Mattel’s Major Matt Mason, and Marx’s Jane West. Mattel introduced Barbie’s younger twin siblings, Tutti and Todd. Kenner introduced the Spirograph to the United States. Wham-O gave us the Super Ball.

In addition to all of the above, 1966 also saw the deaths of Walt Disney and Lenny Bruce (thus ending any chance of them working together) and the births of J.J. Abrams, Adam Sandler, Salma Hayak, Halle Berry, famous no-show Bai Ling and countless others. It’s going to be a big year for AARP.

It looks like 2016 is going to be a perfect storm of pop culture nostalgic navel-gazing. PopCult will be right in the middle of it all, wallowing along with everyone else as we remember how everything used to be better than it is now while yelling at those damned kids to get out of our yard.

STUFF TO DO

I’ll be honest. There’s way more stuff to do in town that these great shows, but hardly anyone made graphics for them, and your PopCulteer is on a tight deadline and can’t make his own, so here’s what you get…

Friday