Big laptops, big hair, big fun. See these vintage ads from a 1989 edition of The Star
Editor’s Note: Retro Retail Review is a new video feature that publishes weekly on kansascity.com. Join us for a lighthearted look back with The Star’s Randy Mason as he shares his takes on the advertisements that filled the paper’s pages all the way back to its earliest days.
Many of the Star’s ads from November 5, 1989 featured names we still know today--Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, Sears, Geraldo Rivera...
But certain items like typewriters and laptops the size of an ottoman feel more like museum pieces.
Jenkins Music was still in business, and at least for a few more years, selling organs to the make-music-at-home crowd.
Ads for salons and clothing stores confirmed that big hair and shoulder pads were still on the list of fashion do’s.
Familiar faces popped up too. Like Del Dunmire, the bank robber turned philanthropist. He’s fronting an ad for civic improvement.
And funny faces like that of Dennis Allen, the locally raised actor who tasted fame on TV’s “Laugh-In,” was back as “The Nerd” at the Waldo Astoria Dinner Theatre.
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