Military Short Wave - Tuning in dorkio.

Joke #1 - "Wow! TWINS, huh?. I think I'm staring to salute! Tell you what: I'll whisper the launch codes to you if you tell me what you're wearing."

Joke #2 - "Yeah, the colonel will let me borrow the tank any time I want. But I can only fit through the hatch of the Patton because my arms are so big. Why don't I come pick you two up in it and we can 'tune in Tokyo', just the three of us?"

Joke #3 - AOL customer service call center, 2009.

Joke #4 - "Yes, the sump pump is still running fine. Can I come back upstairs now? Over."

Joke #5 - "Huh? I thought it was YOUR turn to run the numbers station tonight! Hurry up! Go! Say twelve!"

Joke #6 "Oh, yah! We like to make the sexy talk also! Umm, I am poking you in bottom wit plate of strudel. How does feel?"


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

Little Ads - New garage sale fodder.

The Seventies have been walking around like they own the place again. Time to take them down a peg. AGAIN. Honestly, I don't know of a decade with a less justified opinion of itself. I wish we could just take it round back and shoot it. But then, we wouldn't have The Seventies to kick around any more. Start kicking.

Hello? Colonial Studios? I'd like a refund for my Instant Action Flame Gun. Just send the check to 258 Smoking Crater, Chicago, IL. If the street's blocked off, you can just hand the envelope to one of the ambulance drivers. They'll get it to me when my arms grow back. Thank you.

Tired of waving your feet in the air while you watch TV? Put the Trim Bike underneath your feet for an apparently functional workout. All your muscles are toned as you carry the Trim Bike out to the trash, or for an even better workout, to the recycling center across town.

U.S. report says 90% of tap water (in developing nations' toilets) is inferior or potentially harmful. New purifier unit scientifically removes chlorine, bacteria, bad taste, rust. Science refill cartridges available at extra cost. No maintenance or installation. Simply leave unopened product on porch and water becomes clean, using scientificness.

Ex-Lax - Psychological Shock.

You're probably sitting there in your internet-reading parlor thinking "My goodness me, but children of the past were so much resilient and emotionally stable than those of the present. They certainly could take the occasional mouthful of medicine with a stiff upper lip, by gum!" Well, prepare to drop your monocle into your sherry in slow motion.

Psychological shock, people! That's right! It was a constant threat to the children of 1952. What a bunch of.... One moment, readers. I've just been handed a note from the P.A.G. Historical Awareness Assault Force indicating that the ad is promoting Ex-Lax as a preferable alternative to the more traditional home remedy of castor oil. Incoming Wikipediation of castor oil in three, two, one, Wikipediation begins:

"Castor oil is a vegetable oil obtained from the castor bean (technically castor seed as the castor plant, Ricinus communis (Euphorbiaceae), is not a member of the bean family). Castor oil is a colorless to very pale yellow liquid with mild or no odor or taste. The United States Food and Drug Administration has categorized castor oil as "generally recognized as safe and effective" for over-the-counter use as a laxative, with its major site of action the small intestine.^[14] Although it may be used for constipation, it is not a preferred treatment, because it can produce painful cramps and explosive diarrhea and its action can go on for hours, sometimes unpredictably and powerfully at inconvenient locations and during sleep.

Ah. Cramps and "explosive diarrhea". So, maybe the Ex-Lax guys were on to something after all. However, it is odd that castor oil allegedly has "mild or no odor or taste", when the mythology of cartoons would have us believe that it was the worst tasting thing you could put in your mouth.

Maybe the grossness comes from the thickness and oily texture? The taste of castor oil doesn't seem to be the worst of it's virtues. Explosive diarrhea would be enough to put me in counseling, though. I'm willing to concede the possible "psychological shock" of being woken from a sound sleep by blasting a deuce straight through your mattress and onto the bedroom floor.

Gosh. All this talk of deuces and the unannounced blasting of them has me kind of down. What about a cartoon with castor oil in it? Castor oil appearance at 7:06.

Some interesting things we can learn about the past, thanks to this cartoon:

-Any creature wearing women's bloomers, regardless of the observer's species relative to the creature in question, became an object of lust.

-It was customary to leave an infant at home unattended while the parent goes shopping. Babies that were insolent enough to leave their cribs during this unsupervised absence were punished.

-Castor oil, a medicine containing a physiologically active compound, was routinely administered as punishment to disobedient babies.

-Social stratification of urban animals resulted in psychological stress, which could be alleviated by violence and ridicule through musical performance.

-Any creature, when dressed as an infant, suffered a loss of strength and confidence, and was at the mercy of his/her peers.

Trim Jeans - Watch your dignity melt away.

When the Research Brigade dropped this ad on my desk, I couldn't believe my eyes. This journalist has seen a lot of bushwa, but the reality of Trim-Jeans hit me like Neo having a robotic tracking device pulled from his belly button. "Jesus Christ! That thing's real?!"

My cigar fell from my stunned mouth. I thought the Monty Python sketch was made up. Nope. They used the actual product, product name, and even the name of the Trim jeans spokesfraud, Jean Wennerstrom. I should have known the inflatable pants were real: Python was produced on a very slenderized budget and couldn't possibly afford to invent the props just for the show. Cripes, those limey teabags had a lot of moxie.

Here's the Python bit, below. The Spanish subtitles are a little gift for Cinco de Mayo. The P.A.G. Translation and Cultural Understanding Board assures me this means "Five of Mayonnaise". A rich and mysterious cultural tradition has moved one step closer to our understanding. I don't allow myself to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, because I lost a week's cash at a poker game in college when I used the Five of Mayonnaise. It still stings every May 5th.

There's a reason you don't find "slenderizing" products based on sweat any more. It's a lie. Water loss is not fat reduction. But don't spread it around, because the world will be a better place if stupid people are allowed to give away their money.

A few things to note:

-Graham Chapman makes a good Jean Wennerstrom, but his BBC costume department wig is not "ample" enough to measure up to the real deal.

-In the Trim-Jeans ad, the two women are, ironically, holding knitting needles, instruments which could spell the end of their slenderizing, through terminal decompression.

-Trim-Jeans were either definitely designed by a woman or definitely NOT designed by a woman, judging by the massive labial structures sculpted into the front side of the product.

Crucible Steel - Majestically mod.

Here's one thing I miss about the fifties. Also, it's a thing I miss about the sixties. Not that I lived through much of either, but I mean it would be nice to live in a time where art like this can still be found in - would you just shut up and let me get to the point?

Crucible Steel. We need steel, etc., etc. Yeah great. Nice illustration! This kind of drawing doesn't enjoy a name that falls easily to hand. Cubism? Sort of. Abstract Kookiness? No. Mod? Meh.

Something without a handy name becomes hard to research, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this kind of "midcentury modern" visual style grew out of the  cubism movement, which began in the early 1900's and had it's peak in the 1940s and 50s.

Cubism was the newest crazy thing anyone had ever seen, in 1912. Loads of people still can't stand it today. It's "too weird". There were a bunch of artists who got in on the ground floor, but the rock star of cubism was... say it with me... Pablo Picasso.

By the fifties, cubism was more widely accepted. After World War II, everyone wanted to forget the past and plan the new exciting future, free of Nazis and war (hah!). The postwar optimism led to the embrace of simple and geometric designs in furniture, art, and pretty much everything. If one wanted to dig through the psychological implications of it, you may speculate that the simplicity of "midecentury modern" expresses a desire to reclaim innocence and put aside the "ickyness" of WWII. One may also speculate all day and forget to eat lunch. Inference of this sort is fun because you can sound smart and nobody can prove you wrong. But, you can be proven a wanker.

The archetypal animation house of this style was UPA. Art dorks will know that name, but you other people I'll just call "normals" probably won't. UPA animated Mister Magoo and Gerald McBoing Boing. Their work is beloved not so much for it's hilarity, but for the super cool look. You can spot it a mile away. Flat color. Clean lines. Simplicty with style and sophistication.

Gerald McBoing Boing can be a little hard to find, but if you have a copy of Hellboy on DVD, check the extras on the disk. You may have a couple GMcBB (as we used to call him [not really]) cartoons already.

So you may get the impression that all this kind of art is a thing of the past? Well, your impression is an idiot. Artists are still in love with the Mid Mod style. Don't believe me? The Increibles: BLAM! That'll learn ya.

There's also a guy Named Josh Agle who has built himself a crazy little empire doing paintings under the name of Shag. His stuff is colorful, wacky, and makes piles of cash off of the nostalgia of a fictionalized era when girls in cat glasses and capri pants danced with wolfmen at tiki parties. I wish I'd done that. (The empire thing, not danced in capri pants thing.)
So, in 1952, you could flip through a magazine and find an ad that looks all mod and kooky like this one for Crucible Steel. Now, the ad would show a loving father taking the affordable, strong training wheels off of his son's affordable, strong bicycle for the first time. What a load of BS.

Reckless Pickup - We're on a hiiiiiigh-way to hick.

Joke #1 - "Oh dear god! I'm in ALABAMA!!!"

Joke #2 - "Gasp! The Varmint Gang! ...and my wife is in that oil drum! This is terrible! She should be in the crate! The oil fumes will give her a headache!"

Joke #3 - "Gosh dangit! Those crafty Jebb boys got there before me. I wanted to be the one to take Count A out for his birthday."

Joke #4 - "Bessie! Where are you going with that strange man behind your wheel? Bessiieeeeeee!"

Joke #5 - There was no time for signaling or braking. Nothing stood in the way when there was a delivery from Crate & Barrel on the way.

Joke #6 - Roger was furious. He specifically instructed the UPS driver to leave it at the door if he wasn't home. Now he had to go down to the depot and pick up his Real Doll in person. Maybe he could get the reverend to do it for him? He DID owe Roger a favor, after he hid those bodies for him.

Joke #7 - "Holy smokes! That's old Joe, driving drunk! He'd better be careful. Cornering that hard will put excessive wear on the truck's ball joints and will lead to excessive maintenance costs!"

Incoming joke from Craig! #8 - Coming in September: Young Dukes of Hazzard
Synopsis: Jesse Duke and Cooter prevent a young Jefferson Davis "J.D." Hogg from running a traffic scheme in which a hair dryer is used in place of a radar gun, forcing Ernest Tubb to work off his fine at the Boar's Nest. Hilarity ensues. 

Formfit Lingerie - Killing time.

You have to pity the underwear industry. How do you show a product shot that doesn't look as though people forgot to dress? After a few decades, you'd run out of excuses to show happy, beautiful people standing around in their underwear. Not so in the Fifties! In swinging 1952, people would get together in their underwear and play solitaire, Alone.

Formfit made you look so good you just had to take your clothes off and sit in a darkened room and play cards. That's what I do whenever I'm bursting with confidence and self-worth. Well, it's what I plan to do if I ever burst with confidence and self worth. Fingers crossed.

Maybe she's waiting for her date to show up? Maybe she's waiting for her husband to finish getting ready to go -BAH HAH hah hah hah hah. No, I can't even type it with a straight face. Sorry. I tried.

Say you're an art director working on a Formfit campaign. Hpw do you portray people in their underwear in a flattering way that doesn't also look absurd? I'd say the hell with it and just pretend nobody wears clothes in ad-land. People standing in line at the bus station in their underwear. League night at the bowling alley in their underwear. Some battles are so stupid, they're not worth fighting. But, not everyone lives in the cartoon world inside my head (...yet. Patience. Patience).

So Formfit shows a young woman playing solitaire in her "blissfully comfy" fabric tube. I guess the message is that she's so comfortable, she's happy to hang out in her Formfit products. Also with earrings and a bracelet. Oh yeah, and makeup. With her hair done. It's almost as if she's going to pose for a painting.

A painting by whom? Well, the work is uncredited, as are the other examples of this ad campaign I can find. Just by looking, I'd say this could easily be the work of Gil Elvgren. He's my favorite of the pinup artists of the fifties. His stuff had that loose-and-brushy-but-still-realistic look that makes me so jealous I could punch a baby. I would imagine that, if he were to do a job like this, the client may ask him to tighten up the brush work. The brushy look isn't for everyone, and he had the range to work loose or tight. I have a book to prove it. For those of you not in the know, these pinup guys didn't just paint stuff like this out of their heads. They took carefully posed photographs and used it as "reference". This is what we in the biz call "heavily photo referenced". The fact that Elvgren (or whoever) used photo ref detracts not at all from his skill, but someone who could produce work of this quality out of thin air would be a demigod, and deserving of infinite hatred.

Was the original painting in color? I have no proof, but I'd imagine so. Number one, it would give the client the option to run the ad in full color at a later date if they felt like it without new art. Number two, believe it or not, painting a person in black and white isn't any easier or quicker than color. I guess there may be artists who specialize in black and white oil paintings but they probably don't have any friends. If you DID want to do a B/W portrait, you'd probably use a B/W photo as your reference. Doing the translation from color to grey in your head could be a pain. With a pencil sketch, you're only putting down varying intensities of black on white paper, but with an oil painting you'd be constantly mixing new shades of gray to make the flesh tones. It's possible I guess, but it seems weird. Just paint in color, okay? Jeez!

If you're so enamored of these ads, you can do an Ebay search and find plenty of examples. Expect to pay about ten dollars for an ad clipping, which is a rip off. Alternately, you can buy a whole magazine for less than that at an antique mall. Then you can sit on your bed in your super-comfy underwear and leaf through it.