The Cracker Jack Hello, 1980! miniature book series was released in 1967. The series consisted of twenty mini-books and provided a quirky version of the future from a 1960's point of view. Back then, the future was 1980 and the vision was an automated world with 53 states in America and regular contact with the citizens of Venus.
The Hello, 1980! mini-books were designed like magazines for kids about kids. Each provided a cover story with related topics about kids doing great things like developing a "hybrid vegetable" and being elected president. The stories were short and, sometimes, silly. The first two issues had titles on the cover, but the rest did not. Issue #1 was called "Summer Blizzard" and included stories about snowstorms in Tampa, Florida during the summertime. Perhaps, the Hello, 1980! writers foresaw global warming.
Each Hello, 1980! book measures at about 1 1/4" in width by 1 3/4" in height like most Cracker Jack miniature books released in the 1960s. The books are fun and the idea for producing them was creative. Sometimes, the front cover images on certain issues were reused as back covers on other issues. Note, that while collecting these, we found that the back covers were not consistently the same on all issues.
