Do You Remember This Vintage Commercial for Boston’s Museum of Science?
The Boston Museum of Science has been a field trip destination for school kids since it opened in its current location along the Charles River in 1951. It was an annual trip for my family during the 1970s and 1980s and mostly because of a commercial that played nearly every day while watching cartoons on Boston's WLVI Channel 56.
In the days when cable TV was only 12 channels, they were mostly all local, with the exception of WLVI and WSBK TV 38. Channel 56 showed cartoons in the morning before school and in the afternoon when we got home. The Flintstones, Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Transformers, GI Joe, Battle of the Planets, and the list went on and on.
Without fail nearly 10 years, a commercial for the Boston Museum of Science would play during those cartoon shows and it made us want to go to the Museum of Science even more.
The commercial was produced in 1977 and to this day, those that grew up watching Channel 56 can remember every single line of this commercial that used the slogan, "It's fun to find out."
Kids our age would be at different exhibits in the museum and would deliver lines like "It's fun to find out what makes an ocean wave, wave." Ths music was a catchy, almost space-sounding theme that bring back memories of that time in my life.
The commercial is so iconic for New Englanders that parents who grew up with it have recreated it on YouTube with their own children.
A lot has changed at the museum since that commercial was filmed. That telephone that plays back your voice is outdated and gone, the wave tank is gone and the dinosaur has been moved outside in front of the building, but it's still a trip every family should take the time to make.
As a bonus, do you remember this Vintage New England Aquarium commercial that ran just as long as the Museum of Science commercial did? If I were to guess, they both were done by the same production company. The famous line from this one? "I can walk like the penguins!"