Treats for the middle-aged elementary school set

I have to admit that I don't always get cookbooks in my attempts to preserve old print materials that I find amusing for one reason or another. For instance, I picked this up just because I couldn't really wrap my head around the idea that kids in the 1970s were so excited about Love Boat that Scholastic would make a Dynamite (December 1978) cover like this:

Can you imagine kids at the time being just thrilled to get to go behind the scenes with men dressed in black bowties and some lady draped in 10 yards of pink chiffon? 

I know, that whole notion seems crazy, but it's not really on topic for a recipe blog, right? Well guess again! Besides the article about The Love Boat and an article about Abbot and Costello (accompanied by the full text of the famous "Who's on First?" sketch), this allegedly-children's magazine also features a two-page article on how to make toast.

Not just any toast, but fancy toast, as this spread of fixins makes clear. (I spent the longest time trying to figure out why it included the midwest's conception of taco meat, but I finally realized that it was actually brown sugar.) While the recipes include some pretty simple suggestions, such as spreading toast with a mixture of cream cheese and jam or making garlic bread by smearing bread with butter mixed with garlic salt and then toasting it, the article also has some more complicated recommendations, like making "Try-Any-Angle Treats," a concoction that kind of mimics 1950s appetizers.

Now, even kids can make toast triangles topped with bits of things like shrimp or olives with cheese, then broiled until lightly bro... Oh, fudge! It's already burned. And dad is pissed about the smoke alarm going off.

If the kids really want to try to seem sophisticated and/or horrify their friends, they can go all-in on the 1950s dinner party theme and go "Fishing for Compliments."

The snack should at least be entertaining, as the kids who were previously unfamiliar with sardines are likely to be stoked and/or horrified to see that those are very definitely fish, not the chopped and breaded to oblivion stick form that the cafeteria serves.... 

Other recipes try to make traditional dishes a bit easier, like "No-Fuss French Toast."

A 9x13" pan full of eggy English muffins counts as French toast, right?

And finally, the perfect marriage of mid-century dinner party with simplified preparation, a "Quichey, Quichey, Goo."

Yes, that's a baby-talk name for an attempt at Quiche Lorraine made with a crust of toasted bread topped with bacon, eggs, and cheese. I'll bet the kids will like that if they're not too nauseated by the cutesy name to try it.

Overall, this magazine mostly left me with questions about kids in the 1970s. Were they actually interested in The Love Boat, comedy routines that were popular decades before they were even born, and dinner party staples? Were the people who marketed to kids just not aware that kids might have different tastes than their parents? Or were there so many fewer options available to kids back then that they were willing to buy anything that at least pretended to cater to them? I existed, but was not old enough to read at this point, so I have no good answers, just this weird little time capsule.