Dr. Demento
I can remember listening to his show Sunday nights with my dad on KMET,
FM 94.7 (since I didn't listen to that station for anything except Dr.
Demento, it doesn't appear on the defunct list). Dr. Demento is Barry
Hansen, a Minnesota-born musicologist who was educated at UCLA and
loves obscure popular music. For many years, he was a fixture at
94.7 in Los Angeles. Then KMET changed owners and formats in the
mid 1980s and everyone was fired. Dr. Demento later resurfaced on
a couple of other radio stations in Los Angeles but hasn't been on the
air in L.A. for about five years. It's strange: The man is based
in Lakewood and gets his mail from a post office box in Santa Monica, but
he can't stay on the air in his hometown area. His website has a
place for radio stations which carry his program on the internet (in RealPlayer
format) but his network, Westwood One, does not allow stations to be listed.
(If you know where I can
hear his show on the internet, please e-mail me with URL and time. Thanks!)
Before I left to go to work in Indonesia, as my wife was having me get
rid of things we wouldn't need, I sent him an LP of a country and
western group from Czechoslovakia called Country Beat! They
sounded like a cross between Johnny Cash and Bela Lugosi!
Does anyone
remember this sign?
Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour They used to be at the corner of Hughes Alley and Magnolia Avenue in the parking lot of the Tyler Mall (now the Galleria at Tyler). Then they became England's Ice Cream Parlour. Then it became 75 new parking spaces for the mall. There are several Farrell's all over the country, but the link above refers to one in San Diego, California. There's one a little closer to Riverside, in Temecula.
Double Cola This was the cheap "brand name" cola for people who thought RC was expensive. It seems they sell this in parts of the Southeast (the company's headquarters is in Chattanooga, TN) and a few places overseas. It predated Pepsi-Cola in selling a 12-ounce bottle ("twice as much for your nickel!") WARNING: The website is a doozer as far as memory and space in your cache file. I think it uses every plug-in known to computer geeks everywhere. Give your computer about five minutes, if you really want to see the site. The site also features the famous recipe for cola cake (which requires FLASH to view). Even if you don't live in an area of the country that sells Double Cola, you can hit this link to get the recipe--this is my copy (and bake a cake for me, if you get the chance!)
Dunkin Donuts Growing up eating Winchell's and Yum Yum Doughnuts, I didn't really like Dunkin Donuts while they were here. There's something funny about the dough. It doesn't taste right. Maybe that's why they left in the late 1980s. They are still found in other parts of the country. When I lived in Indonesia they were in every major city (and they still tasted as wangy as ever). A lot of Indonesians would give me Dunkin Donuts to ward off homesickness. Oh, well…
Foremost Dairies, Inc. You can still get Foremost milk and ice cream at some stores in the Los Angeles area (including here in Riverside). But if you look at the label, the milk has nothing to do with Foremost and that the name was licensed by another company, the same company that puts out Knudsen Milk. But you can go to Hawaii, Guam, and some countries in Southeast Asia and still buy Foremost Milk made by the Foremost Company. They have a plant in Tamuning, Guam, with a dairy on the island of Rota in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. I think the Foremost name actually belongs to a company in Wisconsin. Did you know the Foremost Dairy was originally a nationwide outfit, founded by James Cash Penney? (Yes, THAT J.C. Penney!) Foremost was the name of one of his jersey bulls.
Home milk delivery I'm told some locales in America still have milk delivered to their houses. I'm not sure they still use Divco milk trucks!
Pioneer Fried Chicken (now known as California Fried Chicken or "CFC") Pioneer Chicken started marketing to Southeast Asia in the 1980s. I remember one of my wife's friends (my wife is from Indonesia) commented how much he liked the chicken at Pee-on-Air (the Indonesian pronunciation for Pioneer). The chain sold all its assets in the United States to the company that owns Popeye's and Church's (one company) and the operations are now centered in Southeast Asia. Because the Indonesian pronunciation of the name is so embarrassing, the name was changed to California Fried Chicken (it's where they started!) The chicken really is good! People who live in Indonesia are shocked to find out that we don't have California Fried Chicken in California.
Rexall Drug Stores You see their signs on former Rexall Drug Stores all over the area. They still do exist. When I lived on the island of Guam I had many of my prescriptions filled at a Rexall Drug Store. There were many Rexall branded items in the store, so they just didn't keep the name when the chain went out of business. It's still around on Guam and probably in Florida, too. That's where their main office is listed on the labels of their house brand products. Remember the One Cent Sale, when you could buy one featured item at the regular price and another of the same item for a penny? "Good health to all from Rexall!"
Roy Rogers Burgers You who live between Connecticut and D.C. would think that, being just down the road where Dale Evans and Roy Rogers had their ranch (where they both died) and museum that we would have this chain here. Well, in the early 1970s they did. I liked the Double R Bar Ranch Burger without condiments. It was a cheeseburger with a layer of thinly sliced ham. You can't get them here now! I don't know what happened. Anyway, when I was stationed at Fort Dix, I used to go to Wrightstown and eat those Double R Bar Ranch Burgers to my heart's content! (Promotions at the Roy Rogers Museum in Victorville are sponsored by Baker's Drive Thru, which you only find in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties!)
Safeway I guess it
was about 1989 when all the Safeway supermarkets suddenly became Vons
Markets. Truth is that Vons technically went out of business
and Safeway took over that chain. I think you only find Safeways
in Northern California (north of Fresno), Canada, the United Kingdom, and,
I think, Germany (I remember a couple of stores near the border between
West Germany and East Germany when I was stationed in Berlin, Germany,
in the Army.) Anyone who shops at Vons regularly knows that Vons
is Safeway from the name and address on the house brand products.
Safeway owns several other supermarket chains.
Remember
this? Does he look African to you?
Sambo's Coffee Shop Does anybody remember one of the least fair restaurant disgraces? Denny's was definitely unfair to nonwhite people. I am white but my wife is Asian and I remember unfair treatment at Denny's at the time we were first married. If only what happened to Sambo's Pancake House would have happened to them! Sambo's is based upon a children's fairy tale from India about a poor starving boy, "Little Black Sambo." You can purchase this book for ten bucks plus shipping from the website. A group of African-Americans, who were more unfamiliar with the story than I, protested that Sambo's was unfair in its representation of black people with the pictures from the story hanging all over the stores. Sambo's fought tooth and nail to save the chain. Now, if he is a poor black boy from Africa, I can understand the ghee. There are lots of people from India all over the metropolitan areas of the continent of Africa and he could get some. But, tigers? Come on! There are no tigers in Africa, except in a ZOO. Does the little boy in the picture above look African? I don't think so. It didn't matter to the group which filed the complaint. It was the perception. The chain went belly up about 1987 (even though they won the lawsuit; the legal costs were too much!) Today there is only one Sambo's, located at its original location on the beach in Santa Barbara, California. There are no pictures from the fairy tale on the walls anymore. Instead, there are pictures of the great chain that once was. And lots of people with ancestries from Africa AND INDIA eat there! Meanwhile, Denny's still packs 'em in.
Smith's Food CentersThis was a grocery chain that I remember being in Southern California TWICE. First in the 1960s through the mid 1970s (as Smith's Food King) and again in the early 1990s. They are a Utah-based chain. They were recently purchased by the Kroger Company. Many of the former Smith's around here are now Food-4-Less. Check out this link for details on the acquisition of Smith's by the Kroger Company.
Sonic Drive Thru We
had one of these on Waterman Avenue, near the former site of the Victoria
Guernsey farm where I lived as a baby, in San Bernardino. I ate there
once. And then they were gone. I never saw any publicity for
this place. We can always use more carhop places. Anyway, these
flourish throughout much of the rest of the country. There is a Sonic
in Anaheim, according to the website. Seems a might bit far to get
a burger and fries.
Last updated July 22, 2001
