Where were you in 1973? Were you even born yet? I was watching “All in the Family” on TV, Nixon was President, gas was well under $1 a gallon, and we listened to Cat Stevens, the Moody Blues, and Led Zeppelin on 8-track tape players. Many of us still had rotary phones, my dad’s car had big-ass fins, and some of my neighbors had been drafted to Vietnam. And “the city” was a dangerous place — 42nd St west of Broadway was one porn-show or peep-show palace after another, with streetwalkers [prostitutes] lining the streets in broad daylight. SoHo, TriBeCa, and NoLiTa were barely ideas, and the Bronx was burning! The World Trade Center was in its infancy.

If you want to go back to NYC nostalgia, or want to appreciate how far we’ve come. Or even if you are like me — secretly longing for a little of the grittiness again [oh that colorful subway graffiti!], catch tonight’s second episode of “Life on Mars” [ABC, 10pm]. If nothing else, the hairstyles are a hoot, and last week I caught a Gremlin [car] on the street. They really are dead-on with the details! Oh, and the political-incorrectness! Every young girl should note the disrespect to women, and appreciate what we burned our bras for!

We all know them, we all watch them, and worst of all, we all remember them! After all, isn’t that the point? Especially the ones where they repeat a phone number [who can forget the Sheraton commercial decades ago -800-325-3535?]
OK here are my nominees
1) All the Bob’s Furniture ads [the “Bob-o-Pedic” mattress, or the modular sofa bigger than an entire NYC studio apt, with chaise and 2,4, or even 6 cup holders]

2) The Stanley Steemer spot with Toby the dog’s “new trick” [which is cleaning his butt on the new carpet– hey lady, check out the dog’s food!], and the horriffic cry of “Oh God, make him stop—–T-O-B-Y!!]

3) US Window Factory
a) the British guy who says “I don’t even live here, but I’m gonna move here……..”
b) the woman with the white lips outlined in red, 70s-style big disco hair, and the Lawn Guylind twang
“so cawl us; we’ll instawl yaw windahs…”
4) Empire Today 800-588-2300…… see?

5) The Grand Prospect Hall — elaborate violin music, grand staircase, huge crystal chandeliers, so far so good, then the music crescendos, abruptly stops, fade to couple on the spiral steps proclaiming
“We Mek-a Your Drims Kem Troo” in an accent that sounds like a mixture of Eastern European, Russian, and newly-arrived Sicilian”

and finally, who can forget:

6) Optimum Triple Play, complete with bongos, bling, mermaids, and rates to call Puerto Rico, and a number that tattoos on the brain —- 877-393-4-4-4-8!

7) Time Warner’s response — man eating his daily “colon-blow” cereal, when the doorbell rings;
man looks through peephole to see nerd with a comb-over, and murmurs “this should be fun”,
man opens door, and nerd says “Good Morning. [while making elaborate rainbow-colored arc-shaped sweep of his hand] Have you heard about [pause] THE FIBER??”
Man holds up cereal bowl, and says “I think I’m taken care of in that area” uh-LOL?
8) ___________________________________ write in your own

The winning ad agency gets the “noodgie” award, which is a download of a fingernail scratching a chalkboard!