by J. Bueker
    The Phoenix area of the 1960s was a vastly smaller and more intimate community than the sprawling and ungainly megalopolis that now overruns the Valley of the Sun. People maintained a much slower pace in their lives, and the opportunities for pursuing the finer things in life were much fewer and further between, and thus taken all the less for granted. Major shopping venues were relatively scarce, and they typically lacked the necessary atmosphere and diverse selection of retailers that can lead to long term viability and popularity. Malls such as Tower Plaza, Thomas Mall and the relatively high brow Park Central prospered to varying degrees at this time, and yet they were simply no match for the pre-eminent shopping experience of '60s Phoenix: Chris-Town mall. Opened in 1961, Chris-Town was the first self enclosed, air-conditioned mall in Arizona, and it offered  a superb selection of anchors and smaller shops, a most elegant design and layout, and an absolutely unique character and charm that was conspicuously lacking in the other local malls of the day.
    Named for Chris Harri, a Swiss born farmer who originally owned the land upon which it stands, the mall was constructed at the relatively remote location of 19th Avenue and Bethany Home Road, which at the time was practically the outskirts of town. Chris-Town soon proved to be an eminently accessible facility and one of the most popular places in Phoenix at which to shop and be seen.
    Chris-Town in the '60s boasted a line-up of heavy hitters such as Korricks, Montgomery Ward, J.C. Penney, Woolworth, Walgreens and S. S. Kresge as well as smaller boutiques like Hunter's Books, Chess King, Godber's Gifts, Bill's Records, Kerr Sporting Goods, Gallen Kamp, Switzer's, Hanny's and Bob Fox. Arizona Public Service even sponsored a "Gas Appliance Showcase" in the mall at this time, promoting the virtues of gas as an alternative household energy resource. Some shops came and went, but the overall structure of Chris-Town remained remarkably stable well into the '70s.
    The center of the mall was christened the Court of Fountains, an attractive and popular meeting place for shoppers to rendezvous in front of Penneys, graced by sightly fountains usually full of coins. At the east end of Chris-Town lay the entrance to the ever popular underground tavern known as the Janitor's Closet, as well as an eclectic collection of food vendors such as Orange Julius and Pizza D'Amore. This end of the mall in front of Korricks (later the Broadway), also boasted a beautiful collection of flowers and a papier mache statue of Ferdinand the Bull, and was known as the Court of Flowers. The west end of Chris-Town just outside the entrance to Wards featured a unique collection of aviary structures and bridge, and was thus named  the Court of Birds. This charming little bailiwick offered a remarkable array of winged creatures in colorful cages, some of whom would actually speak to the delight of passing shoppers. The combination of such elegance and variety made Chris-Town Mall absolutely unique and endlessly inviting.  So much so that a series of Joan De Arc residents have chosen to work at the mall over the years, for instance Barbie Bueker and Jean Humphries, to name but two.
    An array of nearby businesses completed the charming character of Chris-Town. Across Bethany Home to the north stood the Chris-Town Car Wash, with its distinctive car-on-a-clothespin sign. To the south, El Rancho market provided a fine selection of groceries and sundries, and to the northeast could be found a truly excellent Piccadilly cafeteria with some lovely indoor fountains of its own. The Chris-Town Theaters were just to the west of the mall (and still are), the scene of feature film presentations and legendary stage shows by Wallace and Ladmo. Chris-Town in the 60s was simply a sublime realm, a shopping and entertainment utopia in an age just prior to the advent of the soulless mega-malls. Would that this slice of Phoenix could have been frozen in time and preserved for generations to come. Pity.
    Unfortunately, the years since Chris-Town's peak in the '60s and '70s have been less than kind. After an ambitious and extensive expansion project that nearly doubled the size of the mall in the mid 70s, the inevitable signs of age and wear began to set in, and the '90s witnessed the beginnings of a sad exodus of the major mall anchors. The Broadway closed in 1994, followed by J.C. Penney a few years later, and finally Montgomery Ward passed into history last year. Competition from other west side malls such as Metrocenter has been instrumental in the decline of Chris-Town, as well as a general decline in the overall socio-economic vitality of the area. Lower end retailers Wal-Mart and Costco have replaced the once proud Broadway and Penneys, while Wards currently sits dark and silent. A rather garish paint job of yellowish gold was recently applied to the front of the mall in an attempt to liven up the place, and an extensive remodeling effort has renewed the interior of the mall to a significant degree. Sadly, Grossman Co. Properties, the owner of Chris-Town, has even renamed the place "Phoenix Spectrum Mall" as part of the $10 million overhaul. An era of Phoenix shopping history thus comes to a close.
    Still, with its glory days clearly well behind it, Chris-Town Mall yet remains a fairly popular place to shop. The parking lot and stores have been absolutely packed in the days leading up to Christmas, and the merchants kept generally very busy. Though now a shadow of its former self, Chris-Town nevertheless retains a certain majesty, and it has long since provided a lifetime of splendid memories for those of us privileged enough to have known it in its very prime of life.

To view a special Chris-Town photo retrospective, click on this link: Chris-Town Retrospective

    General Mills' Kool-Aid instant soft drink dynasty has dominated the powdered beverage market for over a half century now, defeating all comers in what was once an relatively competitive industry. 1965 saw the emergence of the greatest threat ever to the Kool-Aid empire, a product that actually gave Kool-Aid a significant run for its money until well into the 1970s. This would be none other than Pillsbury's "Funny Face" fruit drink mixes.
    Featuring such distinctively fun characters as Freckle Face Strawberry, Goofy Grape, Jolly Olly Orange, Choo Choo Cherry and Lefty Lemon, the Funny Face drinks never did much better than about one fifth of Kool-Aid's overall market share. Yet they were extremely popular, and have actually made something of a nostalgic retro comeback in recent years.
    The idea of creating a fun character for each flavor was a novel concept at the time, and the original line-up included such politically incorrect flavors as "Chinese Cherry" and "Injun Orange," both of which inspired a sizable outcry from the ethnic groups in question and were promptly withdrawn and replaced by their later,  less objectionable characters. Pillsbury correctly deduced that oranges and trains are much less likely to be offended by such caricatures than are Native Americans or Asians. Incidentally, those two offensive Funny Face packages are now, predictably enough, extremely valuable and rare collectors items. An original packet of Injun Orange in mint condition sold on eBay last year for over $650.00, or 6500 times the original retail price for the product.
    Of course, some flavors were more popular than others, with Lefty Lemon typically being the absolute last resort of thirsty children seeking refreshment. In fact, packages of poor Lefty were known to reside in kitchen cupboards for years at a time, before finally being used in an act of sheer desperation. By 1974 there were eight characters, with "Loud Mouth Punch" and "With It Watermelon" joining the gang. "With It Watermelon" was a nod to the hippie generation, with his pair of cool sunglasses and an attitude that was exceptionally hip for a personified package of pre-sweetened soft drink mix.
    For years, kids would get into spirited arguments regarding the respective virtues of their chosen favorite drink mix, Kool-Aid or Funny Face. Ironically, of course, the differences between the two were minimal except in terms of the packaging and advertising strategies. In addition to the fun characters, a  major selling point of the Funny Face mixes was the the fact that they were "pre-sweetened" by the now banned substance known as cyclamate. Mom was thus able to reduce the kids' consumption of sugar by opting instead for their exposure to a potential carcinogen. All in all, it tasted pretty good though!
    For its part, General Mills responded to the Funny Face challenge by steeply increasing the advertising and promotions for their Kool-Aid brand, which remains extremely popular to this day. Such advertising innovations as the walking Kool-Aid Man are directly attributable to the temporary success of the Funny Face brand. No company has ever again stepped forward to seriously challenge the pre-eminence of Kool-Aid.
    With the banning of cyclamates in 1969, sales of Funny Face started to decline and continued to drop throughout the seventies, until Funny Face drink mixes were finally removed completely from the market in 1980. Pillsbury sold the rights to the Funny Face characters to Brady Enterprises, a small east coast company that now sells Funny Face in the Northeast, having replaced the previous saccharine sweetening with Nutra-Sweet.
    The Funny Face Friends Club may be contacted at P.O. Box 84, East Weymouth, MA 02189.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________JDA

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