Showing your support for your favorite professional sports team by wearing apparel emblazoned with their logo is pretty easy nowadays, if you have deep pockets. Websites such as Fanatics.com carry an incredible variety of top quality merchandise – jackets, sweatshirts, caps, etc. – for all of the leagues, all available at your fingertips with a few clicks.
(I've bought a few Toronto Maple Leaf items on Fanatics.com over the years, so I'm all set to blend in with the crowd in Toronto when they eventually win the Stanley Cup.)
But finding and buying stuff with a team logo on it wasn't always so easy fifty years ago. It used to be that only certain area stores might carry a team's line of merchandise.
Sears was one of those stores, selling officially licensed Cleveland Browns apparel. The ad below ran in the Lorain Journal back on October 11, 1973.
I remember seeing kids wear the hats and jackets shown in the ad. But while my brothers and I liked the Cleveland Indians (and went to some games), I don't remember us being big Browns fans as kids. In fact, I've never bought a Browns cap or T-shirt in my life.
Anyway, the Sears ad is kind of neat in that it features nine Cleveland Browns who were scheduled to make personal appearances at various Sears stores: Walter Johnson, John Demarie, Sandusky's Thom Darden; Jerry Sherk (at the Midway Mall store); Milt Morin, Billy Andrews, Don Cockroft, Bob DeMarco and Charlie Hall.
One thing comes to mind when I see that list. Why did they send Thom Darden to Southgate, instead of a store in Sandusky – his hometown?
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I still remember those unfunny commercials for Southgate USA starring actor Ted Knight.
I think the only time I ever found Ted Knight funny was CADDYSHACK.
ReplyDeleteI have a Ted Knight LP, which proves that I will buy any record.
ReplyDeleteDab, it's a toss-up (or face-off) as to who will win the Stanley Cup first, your Maple Leafs or my Blue Jackets. (Probably the Leafs, considering the extended incompetence in Columbus.)
That's Dan, not Dab. But you probably figured that out.
ReplyDeleteI always liked Ted Knight in his more serious roles instead of his comedy bits.A little useless Halloween trivia concerning Ted Knight was in 1960's classic horror film Psycho.Towards the end of the movie when Norman was in a police station room after they got him,Ted Knight was guarding the door as a policeman.
ReplyDeleteTed Knight was always too close to too many people I knew to be funny.
ReplyDeleteThom Darden is how he spells his name. It was kind of rude to make him drive all the way to Southgate and then spell his name wrong.
ReplyDeleteThanks for catching that. I corrected the spelling in my post.
ReplyDeleteI love Ted Knight. He was so funny and never received the recognition he deserved.
ReplyDeleteI think Ted Knight played his pompous characters so well that it was easy to dislike him, so I'm glad one of his fans weighed in here. And Ted did all right for himself. He starred in his own sitcom "Too Close For Comfort" a few years after Mary Tyler Moore's show ended, and had a movie career.
ReplyDeleteI used to wonder though how he came to be in those Southgate USA commercials. In a way it was impressive that a regional shopping center had a Hollywood star in its commercials.
We didn't watch MTM or its spinoffs in our house (although I tuned in on the final episode, where everyone at the studio got fired except for Ted Knight's character).
I always watched his show Too Close For Comfort.But not to see Ted Knight.I watched it to see that chick that was in The Warriors.
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