Okay, every one out there who played bass in bands in the late 70s AND did not find out what a “rubber” was until their FRESHMAN year in college, raise your hands… Okay, just me, but it’s the truth. In short, my Mom was an ER nurse and she called things by their proper terms… including condems. When I got the story of the “birds and the bees” I got medical diagrams and the works. Totally grossed me out at age 13. Yet, this same Mother brought me home the used Playboys from her hospital in 1967 so I could see what they were all about. Of course I didn’t know the term beat-off except for in muciscal terms…
Today’s comic title is from Seasame Street and Ernie’s SMASH number ONE hit by the same name. Imagine hearing “Mississippi Queen” followed by “Rubber Ducky” on the same AM radio station. Yes, it was the 70s for sure. But it was cookie monster who was the Street’s resident stoner or else why was he always hungry for those cookies.
🙂
Clear instructions with diagrams and pictures?
Man, what a nice lady your mom was! You are lucky!
Tell me: was AM radio broadcasted in stereo back in the seventies, or was it monaural?
Here in Brazil AM is still mono, and the sound quality is shit. It’s used mostly for news. Music in good stereo sound quality is broadcasted in FM only…
In the US, AM stereo was an attempt to revitalize the AM broadcast band in the early 80s prior to the rise of talk radio. Before that (and mostly now) AM was mono but you didn’t notice the sound quality until FM stereo became popular. Some AM stations are now broadcasting an HD signal (co-channel digital) but I haven’t heard an AM station on HD so I don’t know what it sounds like.
I was raised Catholic, so condoms and other forms of active birth control weren’t openly discussed – I didn’t learn about them until ‘health class’ in 5th or 6th grade. ‘Rubbers’ were the Tingley-brand slip-on overshoes my Grandfather wore on the farm, so I get the prom date reference.
I never liked the word “rubbers.” I still say condoms.
I love Cookie Monster. Ernie was always such a dick to Bert, but Cookie Monster was this karmic force of awesomeness that would annoy Ernie in the same way and steal his cookies and just generally redress the balance. Plus he hosted Monsterpiece Theater. Hail to thee, Cookie Monster! That’s good enough for me!
I never knew anyone that used the term “rubber” outside of a movie context. Then again most the people I know where 80’s kids and 90’s kids. But the few I know who were teens in the 70’s always used the term condoms, so it always struck me as odd when I would hear the term “rubber” in some movies from back then.
I have heard so many different slang for condoms that I just use condom. My mother is a nurse and she found this cool book that had diagrams that weren’t all medical.
Of course by that point, the birds and the bees talk was a little late. I had spent too many nights watching movies with my dad that had an “R” rating to not know what was going on.
Cookie Monster was the man. He would munch on anything. I mean I think he even ate his pipe once in “Monsterpiece Theater”.
I still can’t decide if I’d have wanted my mom to give me old Playboys or not. I mean, on one hand, you’re being given pictures of hot, naked ladies. On the other hand, it’s your mother…handing you to them. Probably knowing full well what you’re going to do with them. *cough* You know what I’m talking about! …I’m talking about reading the articles!!
Rubbers? I thought they were called balloons?
40? Someone got a problem with 40?
re John- “… was raised Catholic, so condoms and other forms of active birth control weren’t openly discussed ,,,”
Yeah I lived it, and of course none of the Catholic girls I dated used birth control pills as a contraceptive, no, no a thousand times no, but strangely enough they all had the prescriptions to control “irregular periods”. I guess it worked because it kept their periods regular as clock work. 😉
Oh the days when the worst STDs were all curable with antibiotics!
Al (Veteran of the Sexual Revolution)
re John- “… was raised Catholic, so condoms and other forms of active birth control weren’t openly discussed ,,,”
Yeah I lived it, and of course none of the Catholic girls I dated used birth control pills as a contraceptive, no, no a thousand times no, but strangely enough they all had the prescriptions to control “irregular periods”. I guess it worked because it kept their periods regular as clock work.
Oh the days when the worst STDs were all curable with antibiotics!
Al (Veteran of the Sexual Revolution)
condoms… those are for those nasty sailors.