If you were a kid growing up in the ’70s, you might remember the Vertibird. This was my all-time favorite toy. The Vertibird was a real model helicopter. Although it was tethered to a control arm, you could still control power and forward and backward movement. The control arm itself was not powered, all lift came from the spinning of the helicopter blades, so in that way it really was an accurate albeit limited simulation of a real helicopter.
The Vertibird was powered by 4 D-cell batteries, and I went through those like crazy (that was in the days before rechargeable batteries). Since my dad was footing the bill, he got wise and had an electrical engineer friend of his make a conversion box so that my Vertibird would run off of a model train power supply, with wires alligator-clipped to the battery connections of the Vertibird. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I probably had one of the only AC-powered Vertibirds in the world.
My Vertibird eventually stopped working, and Mattel eventually stopped making them. They are now sought-after collector’s items, and good-condition specimens go for hundreds of dollars on eBay. However, thanks to a generous fellow named Peter Hirschberg you can experience the Vertibird for free. Peter has written an amazingly accurate computer simulation of the Vertibird that runs on Windows, and has released it for no charge. He even included the Styrofoam Rescue Ship option as an add-on!
Although Mattel doesn’t make the Vertibird any longer, I have seen modern versions of it in toy stores. In particular, there is one called Command Force which comes in both 24″ (roughly the size of the original Vertibird) and 12″ sizes. The 12″ version is only $10 at Target, hmmmm…
I thought foam soap was something reserved for swanky establishments and not available to commoners like me (you know like how you can never get meat in the supermarket that’s as good as the kind you get in a nice restaurant?). Then when I was in Japan last year I discovered you could buy foam soap in any supermarket! And several different brands no less. This further confirmed to me what I always knew: that Japan is ahead of the USA in technology that consumers can actually get their hands on.
I am also a fan of Japanese music, everything from traditional kabuki to modern-day J-pop. On my last visit to Japan I purchased several J-pop “oldies” CD collections. One gem I found was a 4-CD collection of 100 hits from the 1950s and 60s. Most of these are remakes of American rock and pop songs, everything from “Jailhouse Rock” to “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.” Nearly all of these were recorded by Japanese performers—all except for one. The song “L-O-V-E” was a pop hit for Nat Cole in the 1960s, and I nearly fell off my seat when I heard the man himself singing this tune in Japanese! I knew he had recorded an album in Spanish, but I had no idea he had recorded anything in Japanese. After a little Web searching I discovered he also recorded “Autumn Leaves” in Japanese (my guess is this pair of songs was originally released on a 45), but I have not yet been able to find a copy of this recording.