Schoolhouse jazz / show tunes / and rock.

It's easy to wish endless pain and torment on the criminals behind advertising, but occasionally they do screw up and accidentally give the world something clever and charming. Let's forgo the nostalgic gushing. That base has been covered by everyone else over the age of 35. However, if you're in the SR wheelhouse, the voices of the singers in the cartoons are iconic and beloved. What if you feel like listening to a little "Figure Eight" without feeling like a juvenile?

Maybe these suggestions come a little late for actual Pointy Tree Day shopping, and maybe not. Maybe call them New Years gift ideas for yourself?

Most of the vocalists involved in the project had careers before Schoolhouse Rock, with the exception of Lynn Ahrens, who worked at the ad agency heading up the project, and was a musical hobbyist until it gave her a Big Break. More on her later.


Blosson Dearie, the woman who sang "Figure Eight" sang jazz, starting out in The Fifties. Here's a link to her self-titled album on Amazon. Here's a link to another one of her albums, My gentleman Friend on Amazon. Both are wonderful. Definite recommendo, unless you just hate jazz or something.




Bob Dorough, the guy who sang "Three is a Magic Number". Here's a link to one of his albums on Amazon. There is a Dorough-shaped hole in my music collection. I need to fix this, pronto.




Jack Sheldon, the guy who sang "Conjunction Junction". Here's a link to one of his albums on Amazon. He looks like Rush Limbaugh (a bad thing), but he sings like Ray Charles (a really great thing). Crazy, man.




Lynn Ahrens was the singer you know from "Adjectives". Here's a link to a collection of Ahrens & Flaherty songs on Amazon. Her work is more "show tuney" than anything else, so if you love broadway, this may be your thing. Jump to 3:01 to skip the talking and get straight to a song. (Blogger doesn't allow time indexing on embedded code.)




Essra Mohawk was the Jnice Joplion of the Schoolhouse rock singers. She's still yanking and cranking. Here's an Amazon link to her stuff, and below is some FaceTube of her. She's very much of the 1970's "freedom, man!" school of rock & roll.I don't have any of her music, but maybe I'll get around to it. Here's a FaceTube link to her cover of the jazz standard "Summertime", which doesn't allow embedding. Boo, for uncooperative record labels. But here's an embeddable clip her covering Bowie's Golden Years. Pretty nice!

Schick Powershave.

The Fifties were slow roasted in rich creamery sexism. We all know that. Recommended gifts for women in LIFE Magazine typically ran the gamut from cookware to vacuum cleaners. To give a woman a grooming aid even seems like an attack. Imagine her joy at unwrapping  a set of curlers, which I would like to remind you were a popular beauty aid, sixty years ago. "What. You have a problem with my hair? You think I'm ugly? What are you trying to say?"

Men don't get to be like that. An electric shaver? "Thanks sweetie! How did you know my face was a weapon? I'll go blunt it right away!" This reaction is not an option, of course. We have to be thrilled with every gift, even if it's a stick of deodorant.

Of course, the real prejudice going on in this ad is this: Why should only men be allowed to shave their face? Maybe the woman had a horrible five day growth and only with the arrival of the Schick Powershave has her husband been able to caress her mug without drawing blood? Did you ever think of that, you monster?

Some readers may get this next joke. Okay, well, maybe two...

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Kruschen Salts - Got the hump?

You have a creepy leering grandpa-shaped hole in your life and you didn't even know it. Good thing we're here to straighten that out.

"Got the hump" didn't appear in either of the books in the Phil Are GO! Library of Slang and Unconventional English. The Research and Googling Brigade had to resort to a web search...

UK informal
› to get upset and annoyed with someone because you think they have done something bad to you

It looks like this ad is using the expression in a broader down-in-the-dumps sense, implying that bad posture with a humped back indicates that you're bummed out. They just really wanted to use that super hilarious camel joke, obviously.

I'd never heard of Kruschen salts before, and a web search only points to pictures of ads like this one, or pictures of the bottle. A little further digging brings up a list of ingredients. A couple of "alternative medicine" sites talk about the health benefits, but alt med people are superstitious goofs that enjoy magical thinking, like homeopathy. Their recommendation has nothing to do with reality.

The NIH says that ingredients like various sodiums and potassiums mostly treat constipation. WebMD was surprisingly useless for almost all of these ingredients. Ask WebMD what these do and you'll be answered with a "consult your physician". It seems WebMD's lawyers feel that you're better off they're better off with you not knowing about things. Www.drugs.com was much more helpful.

• Citric Acid                            (Neccesary for life)
• Magnesium Sulfate                (Laxative)
• Potassium Chloride                (Benefits kidneys, heart, muscles, nerves)
• Potassium Iodate                    (No such thing. Maybe an outdated name for something else?)
• Potassium Sulfate                   (Laxative)
• Sodium Chloride (table salt)    (Necessary for life.)
• Sodium Sulfate                       (Laxative)

So, mostly Kruschen seems to help "get the train out of the station". And, apparently, this is the face of a blissfully empty station owner. Right click this evacuated gent onto your hard drive because you never know when you'll want to scare the shit out of someone. You're welcome.

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Kellogg's Corn Soya - For kids who want to have a fine body.

If, for some reason, you want to right-click this ad and save to your HDD, file it in your "would have been differently worded today" folder.

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Bulova Radios - She loves jewelry shoppers. Good for her.

More cool-looking stuff from  The Fifties, people! Today, it's Bulova radios, and you can tell that Bulova was trying to make it plain that they specialize in jewelry.

"I love men who shop at jewelry stores...". This says a couple of not-great things about this lady. Her expression implies that she's in charge, but her prostrate position makes her seem supplicant to the faceless guy because he bought her a radio at a jewelry store.

Next, there's the fact that she loves "men" who shop at jewelry stores. If My girlfriend said this to me, my first thought would be "men?  Not a man? I'm glad I ONLY bought you a radio there, instead of something more dangerous."

Lastly, I wouldn't want to be with a woman who loves a man based on his retail decisions. I think I've dated women of this variety before, and it was a serious bummer, Nuff said.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway. Look at those super cool radios. Bulova does their best to make clear their jewelryish pedigree by embossing the speaker grilles with diamond patterns and other faceted shapes, and by spewing a heaping helping of gold finish on everything. Despite that, the atomic design wins through, and these designs get a big old grin.

Can they be found on Popular Auction Site? You bet. Well, sorta. There are lots of similar Bulovas to be found, but only one of these exact models (at the time of writing). Looks like there are at least three or four copies of The Imperial on offer. Undamaged examples go for an eye-opening hundred-plus dollars and the one

One listing freely admits that the case was broken and repaired at some time. Silly rabbit. It'll never sell that way. A smart auctioner would say "Bonus offer! Vintage glue at no extra charge!". Top tip for you, right there.

This model isn't featured in the ad, but it's close enough as makes no difference to me. Also, it's 120 bones. Jeez! Good luck with that, you maniac.

As usual, there's some dick tearing apart irreplaceable ephemera and selling it off a page at a time. Man. Ten bucks for this ad. This monster clearly does not share the catch-and-release policy of the Phil Are GO! Images and Scanning Them Squad. I say just print this jpeg and stick that in a frame if you really must have a hard copy on your wall.

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The Autograph

Joke #1 - "Can you make it out to 'Billy, my inappropriate lover'?"

Joke #2 - It took him over an hour to work up the courage, but eventually Billy, with shaking hands, asked the beautiful acrobat for help with his homework.

Joke #3 - "To Billy: How dare you? You are only ten, you sick little bastard. You parents should be ashamed of themselves ...Love, Rose Gould."

Joke #4 - "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper shriner?"

Joke #5 - "Son, do you know why I pulled you over? Uh huh. Your stadium has a tail light out, and expired registration. I'm afraid gonna have to ask you to step out of the building."

Joke #6 - "To Bill: Yes, I am aware that I'm not wearing any pants. ...Love, Rose Gould."

Mr. FancyOwiePants_2 would never let us down by neglecting to submit Joke #7. Thanks, MFOP! - Back in the day, a young Demi Moore loved to entertain at the "Shriner's Club Special Olympics" - Afterwards, she enjoyed signing autographs and attaching them through the Olympians' clavicles with fishhooks...

Mat Black just couldn't stay away. He brings us - count 'em - FOUR fairly dirty captions. You kiss your mother with those fingers, Mat?  Joke #8 - Rose Gould: ...Let's see; it says here.... You got one "Cajun Hot Stick" ...two "Cop Delights"...were part of an eight-girl "Daisy Chain"...you got a "Dirty Sanchez ".......and administered a"Donkey Punch".....then finished with a "Juanita's Special Bean Dip".
That'll be $45.77..........and don't EVER come back here, you sick little fuck!

Mat's Joke #9 - Young Billy: "...So...Trixie....any plans for later?....when you're finished here..."

Mat's Joke #10 - Gee lady! You smell just like my ma does...after one o' my "uncles" leave in the morning...

Mat's Joke #11 - Gee lady, you smell just like the dumpster behind the Booze-n-Bowl.

[Commenter jokes will be added to the post.   -Mgmt.]

The New Toys for Christmas, 1964.

The December, 1964 issue of LIFE Magazine ran a hard-hitting expose' that blew the roof off the keenest new toys for Christmas. Reaction was immediate and strong, reverberating around the world for minutes to come. Let us look back on that article that changed everything for a few people, or didn't.

I wasn't even alive yet in 1964, but I'm the youngest of my family. So, we had some toys of this vintage knocking around the house. As you may know from previous posts, I inherited some first-gen Legos. We had some 1960s-era metal trucks, too. Therefore, I'm allowed to be vaguely nostalgic for ancient toys like these.

Blogger won't allow image uploads larger than 1600px in either dimension. So, this two-page spread is auto-rezzed to a point where you can't read the writing. We posted crops of each image at max resolution so you can see as much as possible. We're nice like that.

Hack-and-slash battles are a now-forbidden delight of childhood. Wearing your underwear on the outside of your pants, on the outside of your house NEVER was. This must be a very organized intramural mock battle of "pants versus skins".

The robot was called "Big Loo", because it would scare the piss out of your children.

Barbie and bridesmaid Midge. Pre-nup sold separately.

Pointy Tree Day Gift Tags 2014: The graphic gift that keeps on re-gifting.

Good news, persons! You don't have to spend money on cutesy little gift tags this year. We've got you covered. Who's your buddy?

Please right click these universally appropriate gift tags onto the old HDD and print like crazy. It's like printing money. Well, not really. It's like printing not-spending-even-more-money-this-year. You're welcome!

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The Joystick.

Joke #1 - Sigmund Freud: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a joystick is just an obvious symbol for my penis. Wait, don't write that down. No, no. Stop writing."

Joke #2 - Early prototype testing of the electronic amusement apparatus "The Donkeying of Kong, and the Amusing High-Jinks and Shennanigans Arising From Said Donkeying".

Joke #2 - A not-very-remotely-controlled table.

Joke #3 comes to us from recent frequent flyer, Mat Black. - Sadly, after Dr. Von Shticklespurt's glandular detensioning training device was rejected as a selection for this year's Montgomery-Ward Christmas catalog, he lost interest in the project. He however was often seen sitting abreast of his best demonstrator, Mences Meatflapps, on many of his cross-country automobile journeys.

[Commenter jokes will be added to the post.    -Mgmt.]

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Portrait, avec grenouilles, 1927.

You're welcome.

Fatima Cigarettes - Season's breathings!... and Pointy Tree Day Card Reminder!

There's nothing like getting a carton of cigarettes for Pointy Tree Day, right, kids? That's why we love sending out our P.T.D. Cards with actual, real, undoctored cigarette ads on them. Here's one from Fatima Cigarettes that's the wrong shape to fit on a card, so it's a regular old post today. Who's cigarettes? Fatima, I guess!

I never heard of Fatima cigarettes before. Maybe the Liggett & Meyers Tobacco Company was just trying to cash in on all the supernatural kookiness surrounding the town in Portugal of the same name, where people think they saw miracles back in the early 20th century? That would be a shrewd business decision. "If we can get all Catholics to smoke our brand, we'll be eyeballs deep in yachts and prostitutes!"

Anyhoo, here's a fun game. Any time you see a photo of a reflective object, look in the reflections to see what the studio looked like. You have to kind of "unwrap" the shperical image, but it's not too hard. See this pink ornament? If you look into the mirrored surface, you can see the standard photographer's trick of building a white box around the product. You can see white panels forming a rough cube around the table, and what looks like a light behind a big diffuser of some kind. The camera is hidden in that black area in the center, just below the bright diffuser thing.

That's right, Ralph. Together, we're all learnding about the ancient art of photographying!

Pointy Tree Day Card get!

Hey, citizens! Our busy little elves (interns) are busily licking and stamping piles of Pointy Tree Day Cards and getting ready to send them out to various humans all over the globe. I haven't told the intern-elves that we have a bulk mailing account and there's no need for the stamps, but they seem to enjoy the taste of glue, so it's a win-win. It's not too late to get your Pointy Tree Day Card. What's the picture on this year's card? Secret! Ask for one and find out. You just need to send us some kind of physical address to philarego@gmail.com. Nobody will come to your house (except the mail human, of course), and we won't market any crap to you, and no salesman will call. We're far too lazy for any of that.

Community Silver - Totally spoonin'.

Dear readers, when you think of love, what springs to mind? Spoons, of course, you idiot.

The loving folks at Community Silverplate would like you to know that when you're ready to tell the woman you love that she's the woman you love, they will be ready to help you tell her... with silverware.

You'll put on your best tuxedo (not that shitty one you wore to the Oscars), wrap your apparently nude wife in a black doily, stare deep into her eyes and whisper "Spoons, my darling." You won't want just any spoons, but silver plated spoons, because, after all, this is the post-war boom, and while money can't be said to be no object, it's only a little object. 

Please choose your silverplate from our five best-selling patterns: Milady, Lady Hamilton, Coronation, Evening Star, and Morning Star.

But wait, loving customer. If you truly cherish your new lover, you will want to murder anyone that comes near her. There's no greater monument to your love than a pile of visigoth corpses. And, there's no better maker of visigoth corpses than your very own silver plated Community Brand morning star. For a limited time only.

When you run into battle, to harvest blood and souls for your lady love, as is the dream of every girl, you can shout "Spoooooon!" and know that you really mean it. Make this Christmas a special Christmas. Make it a morning star Christmas with the help of Community silverplate. Spoon, indeed.

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Arrow Shirts - Only sometimes ignoring your wife!

As you may recall from previous posts like this one or this one, Arrow shirts has a rich history of suggesting you ignore your wife on vacation. Good news, everyone! There's an Arrow ad from 1961 where our hero is only partailly ignoring his wife!

This time, our very chinful protagonist and his wife who deserves better are on holiday in Europe... again. Whether you're staring deep into her big brown eyes while struggling to finish your "chocolate pimple with sprig" while a choir of questionably joyous boys sings you to your rest, or just knocking around the hinterland with a couple of matching sweaters, Arrow has you looking very polyester.

There's no way to know how many shots they took during the dessert shoot, but it looks like they should have brought a couple more rolls of film. This was the best take? This kid, for example, looks like he knows what the dessert is really made of. Or, maybe he's just tired of singing "Inna Godda Velveeta" over and over again.

The ginger kid seems clearly worried about the spread of girl germs. This will not serve him well when he goes to dead Poets Society School. He's got some learnin' to learn. Mrs. Arrow Shirt guy is a bit of all right!

"What'll it be, sweetie? The merlot or the cleavage? ...I mean boobs!

...I mean should we get a jugs of wine? ...I mean jug of boobs?

...I mean to say that we should both enjoy some wine, because we

are both adultery! ... errr... uuh...I mean... TITS!"

"Honey, I'm over here. For now. The guy from the vaseline Hair

Tonic ad gave me his room key. Maybe I'll let him score this

afternoon? Hello?"

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