I am aware I said over 20 years when I meant to say over 40 for the age of the catalog. I had the fact that they closed down 20ish years ago in my head from working on the voice over from the first part. The catalog part was recorded late at night and I was a little tired lol
This was a great episode! I have my mom's Montgomery Ward catalog dated 1967. It's 1,274 pages. I love this vintage catalog so much! I look through it a lot. Thank you for posting this video!
My Dad worked for them for 30 years till they closed. We moved around from town to town as my Dad got promoted. I basically grew up in those stores. Running around as a little kid with my brother and then going to the mall as a teenager visiting my Dad as a Store Manager. The 70's, 80's, then finally the early 90's Christmas seasons were always hectic but fun. I have many fond memories of that company and the people that worked with my Father. My parents actually met at Montgomery Wards. Great Video!
First of all nothing at all wrong with Wards. My dad was a manager at Penney's and my mom worked at Sears. We rarely shopped at "Wards". Really no reason to shop there as all three pretty much carried the same merchandise and my parents received employee discounts at Penneys and Sears.
When I was a kid I found a price gun that an employee left in the aisle at Montgomery Ward. I hid it & would come back occasionally to give myself deep discounts on things I wanted. The 80s were a magical time.
Tried trading the price stickers on two items once, maybe was at a Montgomery Ward's even. I wanted a cassette tape so I found a 1.99 sticker from some other product and placed it on the item. Unfortunately the cashier was suspicious and I didn't get away with it.
My grandmother told me that in her teens she bought her first fur coat at Montgomery Wards in the city. It was a big deal because she was from a working class home. The eight story tall Montgomery Ward retail and warehouse she bought the coat from still stands in Baltimore city. The building is now called "Montgomery Park" and is used as mixed office spaces. It still has the façade from the 1920s and its a beautiful building. You can see the huge, retro neon sign lit up clearly from the i95 highway to this day.
Looked up the building. That sign *is* huge! I truly wish that other malls or large retail spaces were put to use as mixed spaces. Glad they preserved the building.
I know I sound like a crazy person, but I think Retail Archaeology is the BEST thing on TH-cam. You have a Bob Ross level of watchability. I could have this on all day without ever getting bored. This channel is more entertaining than any movie I've seen in the last year. Never stop.
LOVE the old catalogs. Especially the Christmas catalogs. Since my parents worked at Sears and Penneys they would each bring home a catalog for my sister, brother, and me. We were to go through them and mark what we wanted for Christmas. After Christmas I would go through my catalog and "imagine" what it would be like to have received the items I didnt get.
M*A*S*H* was cancelled in 1983 after 11 seasons. There was nostalgia for the show even before it ended. The finale was watched by 106 million people, including my 4th grader self lol. The show lasted 9 yrs longer than the actual Korean War. Thanks for sharing the catalog. I think I remember this. Good times!
Good lord, this whole catalog is giving me a nostalgia high. Smurfs, Dukes of Hazzard, Annie, PacMan, Snoopy... I want all of it. And you watch your mouth with the Strawberry Shortcake slander. She was the BEST.
@@janiemcghee4000 I'm 33 and grew up with all of this including reruns of Dukes of Hazzard I had a collection going at one point for Hazzard stuff and would've loved any of these items
Adding a follow up comment: Montgomery Ward actually still exists as a catalog too, not just that website. A friend's mom still shops from the catalog to this day with her Montgomery Ward credit card! She uses it to buy home goods, mostly kitchen wares.
This channel never stops bringing me just the most relaxation while I'm watching while eating dinner or just chilling on my porch. I'm a 90s kid so some of the stores/references are before my time but I have a massive nostalgia for being in retail spaces, so it still hits the same. Keep up the amazing work man!
Man, I used to love going to Monkey Wards as a kid in the 70's, especially eating at the lunch counter and playing in the toy dept. My folks also used to do a lot of Christmas and back to school shopping from their catalog. Good times!
@@kellyngrey4950 My brother and I would go to Monkey Wards at the Huntington Center mall in Huntington Beach, CA. Every Friday evening we would park in front of Wards and pass thru the department to get into the main mall. It seemed the employees didn't like working there, lol😂😂😂
As far as the various TV shows went, they weren't geared for kids, but kids became fans because you only had 3 channels and 1 TV. So the whole family watched the same show. I was 7 in 1982, and was a fan of MASH, Dukes of Hazzard and WKRP.
Yeah that is a good way of looking at it. My parents had cable by the mid-1980s before just about anyone else I knew, and even I grew up often watching the same shows as my parents because we only had one television even though I could switch to Nickelodeon when they did not want to watch, you know, M.A.S.H. or Monty Python or whatever
We shopped at Wards most frequently at Crossroads Mall in Oklahoma City. I can't tell you how much of my childhood wardrobe came from Wards. They always had a great electronics section, I played the demo unit of the Sega Master System there. Also, I bought my wife's engagement ring at Ward's closing sale. We've made it 20 years so far.
I got my first experience with the Nintendo Entertainment System with the Metroid demo setup at that same mall store! We lived in Del City so Crossroads was where I spent a lot of time back when the mall was the place to go. The good old days!
In the mid 80s, when I was in college, I worked in gift wrap during the holidays at Montgomery Ward. Basic gift wrap was free with any purchase. For a small upcharge, you could upgrade to a nicer paper and bow. Good times!
Retail Archeology managed to bring up some real nostalgia for me with the Wii U music (hey, its been 10 years, i say its nostalgia now), i recognized it immediately. The wii u was a good console for anyone who actually got the chance to play it, so much personality!
Doubleday Book Club was around for a while - they were like Reader's Digest, whereby you had to commit to buying a certain number of books whenever they sent you a catalogue. I remember in the 80s they were advertised on the back cover of almost every magazine my mother brought home from the supermarket.
There was a "Military Book Club", a "History Book Club" and "Columbia Records" that all advertised in magazines and had the same basic deal. You got the first six books or albums for a ridiculous low price, like a dime or a dollar, and had to promise to buy two more at full price in the next year. Then they'd send you regular advertisements every month, offering more deals.
I loved going to Wards in the mid 90s. I purchased the majority of my electronics from the stone that was on Longmore and Southern Ave in Mesa, AZ. The building was tore down years ago and there is a Target in place of it.
I was born in ‘94 and had that exact same snoopy snow cone maker, crazy to see it in the ‘82 MW catalog. Also had a metal-style tonka truck. Even as a 90’s kid I remember sitting with my siblings going through the various Christmas catalogs and circling things we wanted, those were some great times.
I had the same Snoopy Snow Cone maker in the 80s, I was born in 1975. Funny how it has gone on over the generations as a memory. I still know children now who still have one too.
Our dad worked for Montgomery Ward (“Wards”, as we called it) for 40 years. Sometime in the mid-90’s, dad knew they were going to fold, so he pulled his pension out and reinvested it. If memory serves, he retired in 1997. I have many fond memories of Wards in the 1970’s and 80’s. Every year, they had an employee dinner inside the “Buffeteria.” The place was all red inside. It was very late-60’s/ early 70’s decor. I remember in the beginning, when they opened that store in Eugene, Oregon, dad worked upstairs in the advertising department. Eventually, Wards would centralize the advertising department, and it moved to Chicago. Dad then moved to being a department manager for display. Eventually, that position was moved, and he became maintenance supervisor. I remember mom and I going to visit him in the afternoons, back in the display room where all the mannequins and props were. Dad would be sitting at his desk doing whatever. I remember how it smelled very odd - like rubber and wax. Terrible smell, but it brings back very good memories. Our parents always got their furniture and appliances at Wards, which meant it all had to be replaced on a pretty routine basis 😂
I was visiting my dad for Thanksgiving in Apache Junction and we went to Superstition Springs Mall for Black Friday and I have to admit, the men's department was AMAZING looking at Dillards! All that dark wood just looked like an expensive department store would have looked back in the 80s and 90s.
I worshipped this catalogue as a kid. I’d cut out the pictures and paste them into notebooks. Never got the actual toys, but it was still fun. I guess the catalogue was my toy haha
Also, up until the 1980s, you had to rent your (landline) telephone from your local telephone company. Various cordless & novelty phones showed up, but the mid 80s was very popular in both Canada & the USA
When I was a kid in the 80s, my youngest older sister had almost everything Strawberry Shortcake that existed. That and the Smurfs were just about the most popular things I remember other than Barbie and He-Man, which was very new when this catalog was made. Dukes of Hazard was really popular because it was on TV and little boys got a kick out of the car. Annie's lack of pupils was the cartoonist's "signature", leaving the mood of Annie up to the reader. I kid you not. I was a little kid in 1982, but I remember happily going through the catalog every year. Holly Hobby is popular even now. The Double Day book club was physical books. The pen money range was based on how many dozen you sold, since each one was a dollar to resell. They estimated that you would sell at last 12 dozen or, at most 160 dozen. I believe you can still buy a globe liquor cabinet. I love videos like this!
There was a Montgomery Wards in the mall I'd go to as a kid. My family would Christmas shop there quite a bit. Also, Holly Hobbie was huge in the late 70s-early 80s. I had a Holly Hobbie stroller. She was a real person, an illustrator, and designed the character you see in the catalog.
I have a couple of MW welders I inherited from my great grandfather; a massive 50a arc welder & a home stick welder. Not sure if they work, but that arc welder is MASSIVE
You could probably repair that catalog. I've used Elmer's glue to reattach pages. I was about 20 when that catalog came out. It's a real time capsule and I was a Commodore 64 user. It was very user friendly. I hated anything with Windows OS on it and didn't have a computer from about 1990 until Samsung came out with their first Android tablet. This is an enjoyable video just in time for Christmas ⛄🎄😁👍. The entire Montgomery Ward Catalog video would probably be appreciated by very morbidly sentimental old guys such as myself. 😉
I was born in 1980 and have an older sister, man it does not surprise me that there were that many pages of strawberry shortcake that was such a popular cartoon and toy during the early 80s for girls, also the holly hobby she def had those too!!!
This is so fun, perusing the old catalog along with you! I’d love to see the longer version too. I remember there were two girls in my 3rd grade class who were obsessed with MASH reruns in the early 2000s, and quoted them all the time. I had no idea what the show was, so you can imagine how surprised I was, when I was older, and learned the MASH wasn’t a kids show at all. 😂
I was a literal baby in 1982 too but feel like a lot of those toys (esp the Strawberry Shortcake ones) were still around a few years later when I was 3~5 years old. I think since technology wasn't as big a factor in those days, products didn't go through as quick and drastic shifts as nowadays. We always shopped at Monkey Wards for back to school. I even have vague memories of their Electric Avenue ads with Mike Ditka!
Watching this video brought back some vague childhood memories. The expensive VCR. We had one of those. Clunky, but man that thing was dependable! I noticed on the page you showed there, video tapes were 16.95! Wow. We bought ours around that time.
Our Montgomery Wards was in downtown, but they later moved to our mall in 1982, the downtown location was demolished for housing project. And our Wards location lasted until the mid-90s when Target replaced Wards as the anchor. My uncle used to have the department store catalogs, like JCPenney too!
Everyone always talks about the Sears or JC Penny's Christmas catalog but seem to forget Montgomery Wards had a pretty good one, considering they were first a catalog only store before becoming a brick and mortar store. I remember going there and playing the NES demos because I didn't want to do back to school shopping.
Man oh man, we used to go to the Wards by Paradise Valley Mall when I was younger. Then when it turned into a Burlington Coat Factory I worked there and the back room still had Wards signs and remnants
I watched the entire video! I had those crappy "paddles accessory controllers" on my Atari 2600! I haven't thought about that in decades. -I also haven't thought about 'strawberry shortcake' in decades. 🙂Thanks for bringing back childhood memories. -Also, I still have a circular saw from Montgomery Ward in my garage. -I really enjoy your videos!
My mom used to take me to Montgomery Ward when I was a kid through my early teen years. I remember it being much more tired and worn out than the Macy's at the nice, fancy mall all the way into the city. It seemed like a cheap discount store - cheaper than Sears. Such a bummer. Thanks for the flash back in time!
I might have been thinking about them having gone out of business a little over 20 years ago and not the year on the catalog. I had to film the catalog stuff late at night and was a little tired lol.
In 1982, I was a 12 year old that had a crush on Brooke Shields. My parents got me her doll as a goof! I didn't know she had outfits! I wish I had Brookie still..... :(
If catalogs were still around and the main way of shopping... I think I could see myself actively looking at them. These days, the best we can do is look through the websites that often times don't work right... sure, might be able to find everything there is assuming the site works, but watching this, it just isn't the same vibe.
The Montgomery Ward I went to in El Paso as a kid was amazing, they had Sega Genesis and Game boy Kiosks in one section and a couple steps away they had 100s of couches. When I heard you say Bugle Boy I got ptsd of having to buy Husky size lmao
I felt like I was in a different timeline when I saw the notification titled "Christmas at Montgomery Ward". I audibly said "what" out loud at my lunch break. This makes more sense now lol. This takes me back to when I was a kid. My grandma always got the Fingerhut (Or Fingerbutt, as my dad called them) catalog every holiday season and I would always go through and circle the things I wanted. Searching out the items with those letters. Things like portable CD players and MP3 players, new Gamecube and PS2 games.
Christmas came a bit early. Thanks for posting this man, this was definitely a trip down memory lane. I only have like a couple of memories of goin to Montgomery Ward but store catalogs are always awesome.
I used to love looking through their catalogs I the 70s, they were thick back then. My grandmother had them, I used to pick out what I wanted. I had a credit card with them, and ordered my first micowave..those were the days. I didn't know they were still online..😍
I was three when this catalog was new but I remember a lot of the stuff in here. Either these items were around for several more years, or My memory of those early years is exclusively about capitalism because I don't remember much else. I have that Snoopy snow cone machine. It's in the attic right now -- saw it just a month ago.
This video was a walk down memory lane. I remember Montgomery Ward, the one where I grew up closed around 1996-97. Our area didn't have the economy to support a high end department store like that. But I always remember walking through the store seeing all the things I wanted. And I used to love browsing through the Christmas Catalogue every year.
I got those phones for Christmas! I'm geeking out. And I got that Pac-man small console, too. I've still got it. I loved those catalogues, and I loved looking up the items by the numbers, too. Thanks for bringing back memories! Also...yes, Strawberry Shortcake was all the rage in the early '80s. It went on for YEARS.
Where I live in New England, we didn't have any full sized Montgomery Wards stores. We only had the catalog stores that were a lot smaller and not many of them. Still, I did buy some things from there as well as through the catalog that we got every year until they stopped printing them.
This was the store we went to often when I was little. I remember we would always get their free gifts. We had little radios, tool kits, etc. That store, Ventures, and Service Merchandise were the department stores we went to the most.
Oh wow looking at that catalog definitely took me back as a kid. I had most of the Pac Man merchandise like the whole bedroom set, the board game and those little mini arcade games
I knew an old man who served as a mechanic in the Navy. When he got out, he worked as a appliance repairman for Montgomery Ward and made a very good living. Montgomery Ward was a store where you could get just about anything. When they closed, it was the end of an era.
Also, as a kid, I remember going through the Montgomery Wards catalog salivating over Star Wars and GI Joe toys. Back then, everyone was broke so getting new toys was a big deal.
Thanks for the video. I was excited when I got the notification. I love that you took the time to go over the Montgomery Ward catalog. Some people might get bored with that. Not me! I find this stuff endlessly fascinating. I've been a fan of this channel since I found your videos about Paradise Valley Mall closing. I'm originally from Arizona and grew up going to PVM regularly. I'm grateful you captured it before they tore it down.
Hello - Fun video! I have an electric race car track with cars from Wards, still in the original box that I got as a child in the late 60's or early 70's. Loved that thing. I used to set it up build little towns around it with Legos - still have those too!
I grew up down the street from a Montgomery Ward. It's where we got all our clothing and so much more. Back when SMS games hung on the hang tabs right in the aisles just to grab and put in your cart.
It's fascinating to me how little these stores have changed in 30 years, and how many of the styles shown in the promotional video actually seem to have cycled back into fashion in recent years. Wild. Great video as always!
They are the most missed store in our family, they always carried something for everyone at reasonable prices. I got that toy payphone for my 4th birthday. 🥳 My brother had that Fisher Price Movie Viewer Theater, it only held short clips from cartoons on each cartridge and the room had to be really dark to see it.
I love the Christmas catalog so I used to go there and circle all the toys I wanted. I used to love that seeing all the new toys coming out I would dare circle all the toys for Santa to get me what I never got. But it was always a dream and I see that you have an original catalog. Now that's worth some money, I don't private collectors that would want to buy that. At the pizza, history or museum would probably love to have that too. There. It's again, that's a piece of history now.
Muy most interesting memory of Montgomery wards was hanging out in their computers section sometime in the mid 90s. My parents would shop for clothes for my sisters and I'd be playing around with the computers, as I always sounds them deeply fascinating. Burned into my mind was this time I found a very unique computer with a very interesting interface with lots of artwork. I thought it was the coolest ever. It wouldn't be till years later that I'd discover that was Microsoft Bob!
Oh man, I had so many of those long, character nightgowns as a girl in the 80s. They were so felt-like. $28 in 1982 is $83 in 2022 / $50 is $148 so pretty pricey for those watches! 23:42 the remote control Barbie cars came in two models; one was fully wireless and the other was tethered to its controller. I had that one and it sucked because it was a short cord so it really defeated the point.
When the catalogs came esp. the Christmas catalogs, I loved to look at them where my mother sat and read her books. It was total excitement in the house!
I worked on Electric Avenue summer of 1992 as a teenager. Met my husband 💕 as I sold him a car stereo. The 40 Year Old Virgin was so accurate with their electronics store. They played En Vogue, Celine Dion, and Michael McDonald 24/7 on the TV's.
I'm watching this in Sept 2023 and I absolutely HAD to check if Montgomery Ward still has a website... sure enough they do! WOW!! I was 5 years old in 82 and going through that first section of the catalog was definitely a portal to my childhood! I had many of those things, including a Holly Hobby themed bedroom.
I was 6 in 1982 and my mom would give me the Sears and JC Penny catalogs and tell me to circle stuff I wanted. I distinctly remember getting that round pacman tabletop game (listed as N on your catalog's pacman page) and still own in and have it sitting on a shelf behind me. It was my favorite gift that year. I also had the pacman gumball machine, pacman tv dinner table, pacman sheets, and the pacman atari 2600 game...and yes, I loved the atari game. Us kids saw it different than you folks did. We loved it. It was all we had.
I was born in 1971, & have lived in both Winnipeg & Vancouver, Canada. As a child, we made it an effort to go to the local “border” cities to shop at either Montgomery-Wards, JC Penney’s, & Target! (Grand Forks, ND/Bellingham, WA).
Thank you for going through the MW catalog. That brought back so many memories. I had several of those toys, a VIC-20, and a Atari 2600 back then. It really puts things in perspective and makes me appreciate what my mom did for me.
Watching you go through the Wards catalogue just unearthed a lot of good memories I had thumbing through department store catalogues as a kid and yearning for the various toys and brand merch that I sometimes got for Christmas. Though for me I was a kid in the late 80s/early 90s so it was mainly Sears and JCPenney catalogues. Wards showed up in my region a little late and barely lasted through the end of the 90s. I remember being part of the Montgomery "Cool Kids" mailing list that had stickers and various promo things.
I saw that labelscar last time I was in the area. Amazing that it has been left there. Hard to believe there was once a Broadway and Bullocks there too...after Korricks and Diamonds, of course.
I really enjoyed watching this I was a baby too when this magazine was released so I can definitely relate to what you were saying about the toys and everything. 1981 Anyone?
This was an absolute trip to watch. I was born just a couple of months after this catalogue came out... I knew everyone in my family was a big fan of Monkey Wards.... but I had NO idea until now how much they loved that credit card they offered until you started flipping through those pages.
AFAIK there was never one near me. I dont recall ever going to one. In fact when I hear the name Montgomery Ward I think its a catalog store like Service Merchandise was for some reason. That video is AWESOME. The last year of the almost perfect decade. For some reason I remember their credit card being gold colored. I turned 11 in 1980 so I lived in those catalogs near Christmas. You can still buy the calculator watches. They're pretty cheap online. New ones I mean. Still have my Microvision, baseball, and football 2...and pocket simon, Battlestar Galactic, and a Radio Shack space invader like game.
Was very neat to get the chance to look back on stuff like this. Thanks for sharing. Would be cool to see any other department store catalogs that you have.
Same about being a baby when this catalog came out. Besides the classics, products must have had longer shelf lives back then because I had or remember quite a bit if this. Prices do seem all over the place, but I guess a standard digital wrist watch was much more desired back then than they are now. Picked up a new Casio F-91W recently for $15. 😄
I love this nostalgia, especially around the holidays. I was 80s kid so this was right home for me., But we mostly shopped at Sears and my mom would use Kmart's lay away. I think you should do more videos like this. 💕
Seeing that Montgomery Ward store video was a trip down memory lane. I remember even back then wondering how a store could be trying to sell all that stuff, and stay in business. You've got an entire section selling mattresses and bedding, another selling major home appliances, and yet another selling major items of furniture. A store that big and vast had to have enormous costs for day to day operations.
I am aware I said over 20 years when I meant to say over 40 for the age of the catalog. I had the fact that they closed down 20ish years ago in my head from working on the voice over from the first part. The catalog part was recorded late at night and I was a little tired lol
Honestly, I still regularly think of the 80s and 90s as being 20 years ago. Took Me a minute to realize your mistake.
How time flies
This was a great episode! I have my mom's Montgomery Ward catalog dated 1967. It's 1,274 pages. I love this vintage catalog so much! I look through it a lot. Thank you for posting this video!
Yes Montgomery Wards still has a mail order catalog in 2022, if you love them give Wards a jingle.
Dude it's ok I still feel like the 80s were 20 years ago
My Dad worked for them for 30 years till they closed. We moved around from town to town as my Dad got promoted. I basically grew up in those stores. Running around as a little kid with my brother and then going to the mall as a teenager visiting my Dad as a Store Manager. The 70's, 80's, then finally the early 90's Christmas seasons were always hectic but fun. I have many fond memories of that company and the people that worked with my Father. My parents actually met at Montgomery Wards. Great Video!
Did your dad get any type of pension or compensation from them?
@@BreakTime10101 Maybe he had a 401k that would have been fine..If he was under a pension program not so much.
I can’t imagine the good times you had hanging out in malls in that time period.
Just think, your very existence is thanks to Montgomery Wards hehe :D
First of all nothing at all wrong with Wards. My dad was a manager at Penney's and my mom worked at Sears. We rarely shopped at "Wards". Really no reason to shop there as all three pretty much carried the same merchandise and my parents received employee discounts at Penneys and Sears.
When I was a kid I found a price gun that an employee left in the aisle at Montgomery Ward. I hid it & would come back occasionally to give myself deep discounts on things I wanted. The 80s were a magical time.
Noice👍
The fact that you were able to hide the gun and retrieve it on several occasions is unfathomable to me.
😲😲😉😊
Yes they were
Tried trading the price stickers on two items once, maybe was at a Montgomery Ward's even. I wanted a cassette tape so I found a 1.99 sticker from some other product and placed it on the item. Unfortunately the cashier was suspicious and I didn't get away with it.
This may sound weird but watching videos of stores we once shopped at is kinda like looking at pictures or videos of friends and family that are gone.
It is a very comforting !
Not weird at all. Actually I'm glad you said it because now I know I'm not the only one who gets this vibe too.
Nope not weird I feel the same
My grandmother told me that in her teens she bought her first fur coat at Montgomery Wards in the city. It was a big deal because she was from a working class home. The eight story tall Montgomery Ward retail and warehouse she bought the coat from still stands in Baltimore city. The building is now called "Montgomery Park" and is used as mixed office spaces. It still has the façade from the 1920s and its a beautiful building. You can see the huge, retro neon sign lit up clearly from the i95 highway to this day.
Looked up the building. That sign *is* huge! I truly wish that other malls or large retail spaces were put to use as mixed spaces. Glad they preserved the building.
I have memories of this building too remember going as a little kid before it closed
Wow I'm from MD and have seen that plenty of times, somehow I never knew that was a Wards warehouse, guess you do learn something new every day
An 8 story building for a store is insane!
I know I sound like a crazy person, but I think Retail Archaeology is the BEST thing on TH-cam. You have a Bob Ross level of watchability. I could have this on all day without ever getting bored. This channel is more entertaining than any movie I've seen in the last year. Never stop.
Must not watch a lot of movies.
These videos are getting me through a very stressful job.
It's a lovely channel, but the movies coming out these days are absolute crap so that's also not much of a compliment in comparing 😂
LOVE the old catalogs. Especially the Christmas catalogs. Since my parents worked at Sears and Penneys they would each bring home a catalog for my sister, brother, and me. We were to go through them and mark what we wanted for Christmas. After Christmas I would go through my catalog and "imagine" what it would be like to have received the items I didnt get.
M*A*S*H* was cancelled in 1983 after 11 seasons. There was nostalgia for the show even before it ended. The finale was watched by 106 million people, including my 4th grader self lol. The show lasted 9 yrs longer than the actual Korean War. Thanks for sharing the catalog. I think I remember this. Good times!
yeah not cancelled- Alda ended the show
Good lord, this whole catalog is giving me a nostalgia high. Smurfs, Dukes of Hazzard, Annie, PacMan, Snoopy... I want all of it.
And you watch your mouth with the Strawberry Shortcake slander. She was the BEST.
He doesn't know. He's too young. Kids these days are stupid and would hurt themselves with most of those things 😀
@@janiemcghee4000 he's in his late 30s/early 40s. That's a kid?
@@janiemcghee4000 I'm 33 and grew up with all of this including reruns of Dukes of Hazzard I had a collection going at one point for Hazzard stuff and would've loved any of these items
@@janiemcghee4000Lol, made yourself look dumb and bitter.
Adding a follow up comment: Montgomery Ward actually still exists as a catalog too, not just that website. A friend's mom still shops from the catalog to this day with her Montgomery Ward credit card! She uses it to buy home goods, mostly kitchen wares.
Beat me to it, but yea its not a bad site / catalog at all, granted there is a serious nostalgia factor as well.
Someone else owns them tho it's just the name
This channel never stops bringing me just the most relaxation while I'm watching while eating dinner or just chilling on my porch. I'm a 90s kid so some of the stores/references are before my time but I have a massive nostalgia for being in retail spaces, so it still hits the same. Keep up the amazing work man!
This Chanel is awesome wish he did more videos 🎉
Man, I used to love going to Monkey Wards as a kid in the 70's, especially eating at the lunch counter and playing in the toy dept. My folks also used to do a lot of Christmas and back to school shopping from their catalog. Good times!
Dang, I ain't heard it called Monkey Wards in a long time.
@@kellyngrey4950 I thought they'd made a typo until I read your comment, lol!
@@kellyngrey4950 My brother and I would go to Monkey Wards at the Huntington Center mall in Huntington Beach, CA. Every Friday evening we would park in front of Wards and pass thru the department to get into the main mall. It seemed the employees didn't like working there, lol😂😂😂
As far as the various TV shows went, they weren't geared for kids, but kids became fans because you only had 3 channels and 1 TV. So the whole family watched the same show. I was 7 in 1982, and was a fan of MASH, Dukes of Hazzard and WKRP.
Yeah that is a good way of looking at it. My parents had cable by the mid-1980s before just about anyone else I knew, and even I grew up often watching the same shows as my parents because we only had one television even though I could switch to Nickelodeon when they did not want to watch, you know, M.A.S.H. or Monty Python or whatever
I'm 33 but grew up with reruns of M*A*S*H and Dukes of Hazzard and would've loved any of this stuff for my collections
Right? My favorite show when I was six was 'Newhart'. It was a great show but I doubt it would fly with today's six year olds.
We shopped at Wards most frequently at Crossroads Mall in Oklahoma City. I can't tell you how much of my childhood wardrobe came from Wards. They always had a great electronics section, I played the demo unit of the Sega Master System there.
Also, I bought my wife's engagement ring at Ward's closing sale. We've made it 20 years so far.
I got my first experience with the Nintendo Entertainment System with the Metroid demo setup at that same mall store! We lived in Del City so Crossroads was where I spent a lot of time back when the mall was the place to go. The good old days!
I remember that catalog and everything in it. My grandparents had Sears, JC Penney, and Montgomery Wards catalogues around their house.
In the mid 80s, when I was in college, I worked in gift wrap during the holidays at Montgomery Ward. Basic gift wrap was free with any purchase. For a small upcharge, you could upgrade to a nicer paper and bow. Good times!
My mom should have gotten a job doing that. She's really good at gift wrapping.
Retail Archeology managed to bring up some real nostalgia for me with the Wii U music (hey, its been 10 years, i say its nostalgia now), i recognized it immediately. The wii u was a good console for anyone who actually got the chance to play it, so much personality!
Doubleday Book Club was around for a while - they were like Reader's Digest, whereby you had to commit to buying a certain number of books whenever they sent you a catalogue. I remember in the 80s they were advertised on the back cover of almost every magazine my mother brought home from the supermarket.
There was a "Military Book Club", a "History Book Club" and "Columbia Records" that all advertised in magazines and had the same basic deal. You got the first six books or albums for a ridiculous low price, like a dime or a dollar, and had to promise to buy two more at full price in the next year. Then they'd send you regular advertisements every month, offering more deals.
I loved going to Wards in the mid 90s. I purchased the majority of my electronics from the stone that was on Longmore and Southern Ave in Mesa, AZ. The building was tore down years ago and there is a Target in place of it.
WOW Monkey wards... this brings me back a few decades, I remember them being right across the street from the Montclair Plaza. in montclair ca
I was born in ‘94 and had that exact same snoopy snow cone maker, crazy to see it in the ‘82 MW catalog. Also had a metal-style tonka truck. Even as a 90’s kid I remember sitting with my siblings going through the various Christmas catalogs and circling things we wanted, those were some great times.
I had the same Snoopy Snow Cone maker in the 80s, I was born in 1975. Funny how it has gone on over the generations as a memory. I still know children now who still have one too.
Our dad worked for Montgomery Ward (“Wards”, as we called it) for 40 years. Sometime in the mid-90’s, dad knew they were going to fold, so he pulled his pension out and reinvested it. If memory serves, he retired in 1997. I have many fond memories of Wards in the 1970’s and 80’s. Every year, they had an employee dinner inside the “Buffeteria.” The place was all red inside. It was very late-60’s/ early 70’s decor. I remember in the beginning, when they opened that store in Eugene, Oregon, dad worked upstairs in the advertising department. Eventually, Wards would centralize the advertising department, and it moved to Chicago. Dad then moved to being a department manager for display. Eventually, that position was moved, and he became maintenance supervisor. I remember mom and I going to visit him in the afternoons, back in the display room where all the mannequins and props were. Dad would be sitting at his desk doing whatever. I remember how it smelled very odd - like rubber and wax. Terrible smell, but it brings back very good memories. Our parents always got their furniture and appliances at Wards, which meant it all had to be replaced on a pretty routine basis 😂
I was visiting my dad for Thanksgiving in Apache Junction and we went to Superstition Springs Mall for Black Friday and I have to admit, the men's department was AMAZING looking at Dillards! All that dark wood just looked like an expensive department store would have looked back in the 80s and 90s.
I worshipped this catalogue as a kid. I’d cut out the pictures and paste them into notebooks. Never got the actual toys, but it was still fun. I guess the catalogue was my toy haha
Dukes of Hazard was awesome, I had the racetrack and a lunch box and a couple of shirts.
Also, up until the 1980s, you had to rent your (landline) telephone from your local telephone company. Various cordless & novelty phones showed up, but the mid 80s was very popular in both Canada & the USA
When I was a kid in the 80s, my youngest older sister had almost everything Strawberry Shortcake that existed. That and the Smurfs were just about the most popular things I remember other than Barbie and He-Man, which was very new when this catalog was made. Dukes of Hazard was really popular because it was on TV and little boys got a kick out of the car. Annie's lack of pupils was the cartoonist's "signature", leaving the mood of Annie up to the reader. I kid you not. I was a little kid in 1982, but I remember happily going through the catalog every year. Holly Hobby is popular even now. The Double Day book club was physical books. The pen money range was based on how many dozen you sold, since each one was a dollar to resell. They estimated that you would sell at last 12 dozen or, at most 160 dozen. I believe you can still buy a globe liquor cabinet. I love videos like this!
I definitely used that catalog as a Fire-starter in 1982.
So many memories… it’s crazy how much and how fast things change. I wish I would have appreciated these places more when they were around
There was a Montgomery Wards in the mall I'd go to as a kid. My family would Christmas shop there quite a bit. Also, Holly Hobbie was huge in the late 70s-early 80s. I had a Holly Hobbie stroller. She was a real person, an illustrator, and designed the character you see in the catalog.
I have a couple of MW welders I inherited from my great grandfather; a massive 50a arc welder & a home stick welder. Not sure if they work, but that arc welder is MASSIVE
You could probably repair that catalog. I've used Elmer's glue to reattach pages. I was about 20 when that catalog came out. It's a real time capsule and I was a Commodore 64 user. It was very user friendly. I hated anything with Windows OS on it and didn't have a computer from about 1990 until Samsung came out with their first Android tablet. This is an enjoyable video just in time for Christmas ⛄🎄😁👍. The entire Montgomery Ward Catalog video would probably be appreciated by very morbidly sentimental old guys such as myself. 😉
I was born in 1980 and have an older sister, man it does not surprise me that there were that many pages of strawberry shortcake that was such a popular cartoon and toy during the early 80s for girls, also the holly hobby she def had those too!!!
This is so fun, perusing the old catalog along with you! I’d love to see the longer version too. I remember there were two girls in my 3rd grade class who were obsessed with MASH reruns in the early 2000s, and quoted them all the time. I had no idea what the show was, so you can imagine how surprised I was, when I was older, and learned the MASH wasn’t a kids show at all. 😂
I was a literal baby in 1982 too but feel like a lot of those toys (esp the Strawberry Shortcake ones) were still around a few years later when I was 3~5 years old. I think since technology wasn't as big a factor in those days, products didn't go through as quick and drastic shifts as nowadays. We always shopped at Monkey Wards for back to school. I even have vague memories of their Electric Avenue ads with Mike Ditka!
Dukes of Hazzard was very popular in the 80's. It's one of my all time favorite TV shows. The show ran from 1979-1985
Watching this video brought back some vague childhood memories. The expensive VCR. We had one of those. Clunky, but man that thing was dependable! I noticed on the page you showed there, video tapes were 16.95! Wow. We bought ours around that time.
Back in the 60's I remember my Mom bought me a Flea Circus toy from MW. It was made of all metal and the fleas were small magnets .
Our Montgomery Wards was in downtown, but they later moved to our mall in 1982, the downtown location was demolished for housing project. And our Wards location lasted until the mid-90s when Target replaced Wards as the anchor. My uncle used to have the department store catalogs, like JCPenney too!
Everyone always talks about the Sears or JC Penny's Christmas catalog but seem to forget Montgomery Wards had a pretty good one, considering they were first a catalog only store before becoming a brick and mortar store. I remember going there and playing the NES demos because I didn't want to do back to school shopping.
Man oh man, we used to go to the Wards by Paradise Valley Mall when I was younger. Then when it turned into a Burlington Coat Factory I worked there and the back room still had Wards signs and remnants
Wait what!! Same here, I went to that Wards AND worked at that Burlington. Which department you in? Remember Jana?
I watched the entire video! I had those crappy "paddles accessory controllers" on my Atari 2600! I haven't thought about that in decades. -I also haven't thought about 'strawberry shortcake' in decades. 🙂Thanks for bringing back childhood memories. -Also, I still have a circular saw from Montgomery Ward in my garage. -I really enjoy your videos!
My mom used to take me to Montgomery Ward when I was a kid through my early teen years. I remember it being much more tired and worn out than the Macy's at the nice, fancy mall all the way into the city. It seemed like a cheap discount store - cheaper than Sears. Such a bummer. Thanks for the flash back in time!
Hi, isn't 1982 40 years ago? (you kept saying 20 years ago). Am I missing something?
I might have been thinking about them having gone out of business a little over 20 years ago and not the year on the catalog. I had to film the catalog stuff late at night and was a little tired lol.
In 1982, I was a 12 year old that had a crush on Brooke Shields. My parents got me her doll as a goof! I didn't know she had outfits! I wish I had Brookie still..... :(
If catalogs were still around and the main way of shopping... I think I could see myself actively looking at them. These days, the best we can do is look through the websites that often times don't work right... sure, might be able to find everything there is assuming the site works, but watching this, it just isn't the same vibe.
The Montgomery Ward I went to in El Paso as a kid was amazing, they had Sega Genesis and Game boy Kiosks in one section and a couple steps away they had 100s of couches. When I heard you say Bugle Boy I got ptsd of having to buy Husky size lmao
I felt like I was in a different timeline when I saw the notification titled "Christmas at Montgomery Ward". I audibly said "what" out loud at my lunch break. This makes more sense now lol. This takes me back to when I was a kid. My grandma always got the Fingerhut (Or Fingerbutt, as my dad called them) catalog every holiday season and I would always go through and circle the things I wanted. Searching out the items with those letters. Things like portable CD players and MP3 players, new Gamecube and PS2 games.
Is Fingerhut still around? We always did the same for Christmas back in the early 90s.
Christmas came a bit early. Thanks for posting this man, this was definitely a trip down memory lane. I only have like a couple of memories of goin to Montgomery Ward but store catalogs are always awesome.
We had an Intellivision back in the day. It was like an upscale Atari. Played the hell out of it!
this was a barrel of laughs, lots of funny styles, toys and tech to look back on!
Thoroughly enjoyable episode. Loved thumbing through the catalogs when I was younger. This took me back. Thank you. 🙂
I really enjoyed this style of video from you! It was a nice trip down memory lane. Please put the unedited version on your second channel.
I used to love looking through their catalogs I the 70s, they were thick back then. My grandmother had them, I used to pick out what I wanted. I had a credit card with them, and ordered my first micowave..those were the days. I didn't know they were still online..😍
I was three when this catalog was new but I remember a lot of the stuff in here. Either these items were around for several more years, or My memory of those early years is exclusively about capitalism because I don't remember much else. I have that Snoopy snow cone machine. It's in the attic right now -- saw it just a month ago.
This video was a walk down memory lane. I remember Montgomery Ward, the one where I grew up closed around 1996-97. Our area didn't have the economy to support a high end department store like that. But I always remember walking through the store seeing all the things I wanted. And I used to love browsing through the Christmas Catalogue every year.
I got those phones for Christmas! I'm geeking out. And I got that Pac-man small console, too. I've still got it. I loved those catalogues, and I loved looking up the items by the numbers, too. Thanks for bringing back memories!
Also...yes, Strawberry Shortcake was all the rage in the early '80s. It went on for YEARS.
Where I live in New England, we didn't have any full sized Montgomery Wards stores. We only had the catalog stores that were a lot smaller and not many of them.
Still, I did buy some things from there as well as through the catalog that we got every year until they stopped printing them.
This was the store we went to often when I was little. I remember we would always get their free gifts. We had little radios, tool kits, etc. That store, Ventures, and Service Merchandise were the department stores we went to the most.
My husband and I, both GenXers, loved watching this. Please post the unedited version!
You have to remember in the 80's it didn't matter if the source material was for kids they still made toys for it.
Oh wow looking at that catalog definitely took me back as a kid. I had most of the Pac Man merchandise like the whole bedroom set, the board game and those little mini arcade games
I knew an old man who served as a mechanic in the Navy. When he got out, he worked as a appliance repairman for Montgomery Ward and made a very good living. Montgomery Ward was a store where you could get just about anything. When they closed, it was the end of an era.
Also, as a kid, I remember going through the Montgomery Wards catalog salivating over Star Wars and GI Joe toys. Back then, everyone was broke so getting new toys was a big deal.
Thanks for the video. I was excited when I got the notification. I love that you took the time to go over the Montgomery Ward catalog. Some people might get bored with that. Not me! I find this stuff endlessly fascinating. I've been a fan of this channel since I found your videos about Paradise Valley Mall closing. I'm originally from Arizona and grew up going to PVM regularly. I'm grateful you captured it before they tore it down.
Hello - Fun video! I have an electric race car track with cars from Wards, still in the original box that I got as a child in the late 60's or early 70's. Loved that thing. I used to set it up build little towns around it with Legos - still have those too!
I grew up down the street from a Montgomery Ward. It's where we got all our clothing and so much more. Back when SMS games hung on the hang tabs right in the aisles just to grab and put in your cart.
It's fascinating to me how little these stores have changed in 30 years, and how many of the styles shown in the promotional video actually seem to have cycled back into fashion in recent years. Wild. Great video as always!
They are the most missed store in our family, they always carried something for everyone at reasonable prices. I got that toy payphone for my 4th birthday. 🥳 My brother had that Fisher Price Movie Viewer Theater, it only held short clips from cartoons on each cartridge and the room had to be really dark to see it.
I love the Christmas catalog so I used to go there and circle all the toys I wanted. I used to love that seeing all the new toys coming out I would dare circle all the toys for Santa to get me what I never got. But it was always a dream and I see that you have an original catalog. Now that's worth some money, I don't private collectors that would want to buy that. At the pizza, history or museum would probably love to have that too. There. It's again, that's a piece of history now.
Muy most interesting memory of Montgomery wards was hanging out in their computers section sometime in the mid 90s. My parents would shop for clothes for my sisters and I'd be playing around with the computers, as I always sounds them deeply fascinating. Burned into my mind was this time I found a very unique computer with a very interesting interface with lots of artwork. I thought it was the coolest ever. It wouldn't be till years later that I'd discover that was Microsoft Bob!
Kind of cool to see a bunch of stuff I grew up with, including that same record player and magic set. Happy holidays.
Oh man, I had so many of those long, character nightgowns as a girl in the 80s. They were so felt-like.
$28 in 1982 is $83 in 2022 / $50 is $148 so pretty pricey for those watches!
23:42 the remote control Barbie cars came in two models; one was fully wireless and the other was tethered to its controller. I had that one and it sucked because it was a short cord so it really defeated the point.
When the catalogs came esp. the Christmas catalogs, I loved to look at them where my mother sat and read her books. It was total excitement in the house!
I worked on Electric Avenue summer of 1992 as a teenager. Met my husband 💕 as I sold him a car stereo. The 40 Year Old Virgin was so accurate with their electronics store. They played En Vogue, Celine Dion, and Michael McDonald 24/7 on the TV's.
I won a coloring contest at Ward's in 1993 and they gave me a Rudolph stuffed animal.
Honestly, as a kid I used to go to wards to shop all the time, I loved that store!
wow, Montgomery Ward brings back many memories when I was a kid
I'm watching this in Sept 2023 and I absolutely HAD to check if Montgomery Ward still has a website... sure enough they do! WOW!! I was 5 years old in 82 and going through that first section of the catalog was definitely a portal to my childhood! I had many of those things, including a Holly Hobby themed bedroom.
I was 6 in 1982 and my mom would give me the Sears and JC Penny catalogs and tell me to circle stuff I wanted. I distinctly remember getting that round pacman tabletop game (listed as N on your catalog's pacman page) and still own in and have it sitting on a shelf behind me. It was my favorite gift that year. I also had the pacman gumball machine, pacman tv dinner table, pacman sheets, and the pacman atari 2600 game...and yes, I loved the atari game. Us kids saw it different than you folks did. We loved it. It was all we had.
I always enjoy your videos; they are well put together with the background music and your calming voice.
I love watching this through your eyes. I remember so many of the items in that catalog as though it was yesterday.
I was born in 1971, & have lived in both Winnipeg & Vancouver, Canada. As a child, we made it an effort to go to the local “border” cities to shop at either Montgomery-Wards, JC Penney’s, & Target! (Grand Forks, ND/Bellingham, WA).
Nice job on this one. Super fun. Now excuse me while I go browse eBay for Sears Wish Books from the 80s. Don’t bid against me, people!
Thank you for going through the MW catalog. That brought back so many memories. I had several of those toys, a VIC-20, and a Atari 2600 back then. It really puts things in perspective and makes me appreciate what my mom did for me.
Watching you go through the Wards catalogue just unearthed a lot of good memories I had thumbing through department store catalogues as a kid and yearning for the various toys and brand merch that I sometimes got for Christmas. Though for me I was a kid in the late 80s/early 90s so it was mainly Sears and JCPenney catalogues. Wards showed up in my region a little late and barely lasted through the end of the 90s. I remember being part of the Montgomery "Cool Kids" mailing list that had stickers and various promo things.
Great video! I actually had those MASH pajamas when I was kid don't know why though lol.
What a beautiful video. I love it so much. Thank you! : )
OMG, the Wards Grand Opening Video from 1999, I love this video, The Eletronics section is beautiful.
I saw that labelscar last time I was in the area. Amazing that it has been left there. Hard to believe there was once a Broadway and Bullocks there too...after Korricks and Diamonds, of course.
They apparently still exist, just in catalog and online only form.
I really enjoyed watching this I was a baby too when this magazine was released so I can definitely relate to what you were saying about the toys and everything. 1981 Anyone?
This was an absolute trip to watch. I was born just a couple of months after this catalogue came out... I knew everyone in my family was a big fan of Monkey Wards.... but I had NO idea until now how much they loved that credit card they offered until you started flipping through those pages.
AFAIK there was never one near me. I dont recall ever going to one. In fact when I hear the name Montgomery Ward I think its a catalog store like Service Merchandise was for some reason. That video is AWESOME. The last year of the almost perfect decade. For some reason I remember their credit card being gold colored.
I turned 11 in 1980 so I lived in those catalogs near Christmas.
You can still buy the calculator watches. They're pretty cheap online. New ones I mean.
Still have my Microvision, baseball, and football 2...and pocket simon, Battlestar Galactic, and a Radio Shack space invader like game.
16:34 that old proffesor calculator!! I owned one. Man oh man memory lane.
Was very neat to get the chance to look back on stuff like this. Thanks for sharing. Would be cool to see any other department store catalogs that you have.
The reason old tv shows have toys for kids, is because the kids had to watch what mom & dad watched on TV. They were a captive audience.
Same about being a baby when this catalog came out. Besides the classics, products must have had longer shelf lives back then because I had or remember quite a bit if this. Prices do seem all over the place, but I guess a standard digital wrist watch was much more desired back then than they are now. Picked up a new Casio F-91W recently for $15. 😄
Your commentary is freaking hilarious!!! I enjoy the channel immensely. Keep it up yo
I love this nostalgia, especially around the holidays. I was 80s kid so this was right home for me., But we mostly shopped at Sears and my mom would use Kmart's lay away.
I think you should do more videos like this. 💕
Seeing that Montgomery Ward store video was a trip down memory lane. I remember even back then wondering how a store could be trying to sell all that stuff, and stay in business. You've got an entire section selling mattresses and bedding, another selling major home appliances, and yet another selling major items of furniture. A store that big and vast had to have enormous costs for day to day operations.