I'm also a "Mad Men" fan. Do you remember the scene from the first season when the Drapers were having a party and their little girl came runniing into the room with a dry cleaning bag over her body, sucking the plastic in and out with her mouth? I just about shat myself. Then Betty pursed her pretty mouth and said, "I certainly hope the dry cleaning isn't all over the floor young lady!" OMG, it was just so alternate reality when I remembered that at that point in time there still hadn't been that huge hoopla over small children suffocating by that exact method!! One of the reasons I love that show it because of those head-shaker moments.

Bob (and everyone): you do realize that the noble native American in that PSA was an Italian-American actor, right?

I hadnt heard about Mad Men before. I will have to check it out. I just peeked at the website and it looks really interesting. I am fascinated by societal shifts and changes, so Im looking forward to it. I was a child in the 60's and will probably remember a lot of the details. Makes you wonder why people didnt have more common sense in those days (i.e. no one knew children shouldnt play with plastic bags in those days?!?!?!??) WTF?!?

cminri, I literally remember when the hoopla over the dry cleaning bags happened, so it must have been at least the mid to late 60's. If you have Comcast you can watch Mad Men on demand, that's how I got hooked.

I noticed the trash thing as well and love that you've written about it. I am amazed at the non-stop drinking on Mad Men, did people really do that in the 60's? How did they get anything done? Bob, your blog is always a bright spot in my day!

When did things change?
I'm older than you guys & I remember that one of Lady Bird Johnson's big projects as First Lady was a push to keep America beautiful. She was very involved in the Highway Beautification Program and in stopping littering before the "Crying Indian" (that's what the PSA was called) came along. Lady Bird's efforts also involved planting wildflowers and getting rid of billboards AND getting the elementary school kids involved & informed. By the time the "Crying Indian" came out, it was the kids educating the adults. BTW, the Indian was a very popular PSA and got a lot of play on the networks.

I remember this ad very well. Even as a child it resonated with me, probably because my family loved the outdoors, camping in the Sierras and Yosemite Valley, and my brother, sister, and I had instilled in us that if we wanted to keep those places we loved pristine, we had to be the guardians of Nature. I can't tell you how many times we encountered campers who brought all the comforts of home to "get away from it all," and left trash in their wake. Of course the bears loved these types, but my parents used them as an example of how not to be!

How nice to hear Bill Conrad's V.O. too. I miss Rocky and Bullwinkle -- now there's a moose that could handle Palin. :)

Bob, you live in suburban Philly, right? Littering there is still prevalent. I just moved outta ChetCo. and the way folks would short dump and throw plastic bottles out of cars in front of pastures, streams, and OTHER PEOPLES MANICURED LAWNS was pretty disgusting.

Come to think of it, with the construction, Las Vegas Blvd. has become a forest of discarded beer bottles. Go, America!

Great point (again) Bob. I remember that commercial well, and remember constantly cleaning up our front yard back in NH (across from an ice cream parlour) from all the trash that tourists would just chuck out the window when they were done with their burgers & shakes. Change happens - sometimes slowly - but will happen if people stay committed.

ceu:

I think this ad was tied to Lady Bird's campaign. It made a huge impact on us out West: don't ever be like them East Coasters!

I don't think we had much trash problems while camping because it was just so beautiful We would 4WD to some high altitude streams where any trash even accidentally falling to the ground could set someone off.

But the Nat'l Parks it was a different scene altogether: lots of Easteners and their white trashy ways. We would stroll through camp and make note of the license plates, and then watch 'em. The minute trash hit the ground our family would yell out in unison "The trash can is right over there!" "fuckers" my 12 year old brother would say and he would get in big trouble and we would just giggle at him for being almost as stupid as the litterbugs.

Later, when we were older and didn't camp with our parents, we just shorted the whole line to "fuckers!" any time they littered. In the morning we would pick up the trash and stick right outside their tent.

Friction, so let me get this straight, you never saw anyone from California litter? Just the people from the East Coast? There's no trash on the side of the Interstate in California?

I grew up in New York in the mid 60's and we would go camping in the summer, and we wouldn't litter. If we went on a picnic we would pick up the trash after us. My father always had a bag in the car for trash.

Iron Eyes Cody and his single, manly tear may well have added to the anti-littering sentiment.

But there was a multi-pronged attack on littering's coolness: Woodsy the Owl was telling children that they should give a hoot, and not pollute. I also remember something with the slogan, "Take only pictures, leave only footprints."

The thing that floors me, in terms of national awareness/attitude shift that I have seen shift during my lifetime is drunk driving. It used to be a badge of honor as to how shitfaced one was and their ability to get home. When I was a kid, it was a laughing matter. Literally; stand up comedians would have whole routines about it.

Now, publicly bragging about such prowess is like bragging about being a sex offender.

I think MADD singlehandedly (well, there are a lot of members, but you know what I mean) shifted the national attitude.

The MAD MEN time-shift-priorities thing that floors me is the car-seat/seatbelt and drinking and smoking during pregnancy. I was born in 1073, and when I was a little kid, I remember my mother telling a "delightful" story about how, when I was in the womb, I kicked an ashtray off of her belly.

Doesn't that make you want to run screaming to the shower, to cower for a long period in a ball, until the hot water runs out?

I love that show; we're addicted. It is, however, EXACTLY the same themes, structure, and narrative as THE SOPRANOS, except instead of a modern Jersey mob crew, an early 60s madison avenue office crew.

But you've got the brooding, charismatic, somehow "sympathetic" strongman boss who is amoral in his pursuit of his ego and inferiority-complex driven appetites, who thinks he is somehow deeper and more profound (and stronger) than everyone around him-- so this somehow justifies or rationalizes his actions.

You've got the long-suffering wife struggling to keep a too-normal mask on everything and a perfect home, while not admitting to herself that she's miserable.

You've got the collection of underlings who are at once loyal and "earners" then and conniving/dangerously and plotting... And you have the same use of music and song to act as counterpoint or set an end tone to the cut-to-black ending.

I actually like it better, though. In the same manner that I like Captain Marvel better than Superman, even though he was created as a "copy."