Renault 8 - You call that an eight?

In 1966, Renault was running ads like this in LIFE magazine, only pages away from ads for American luxo-barges. Brave little Renault.

If I had to choose one or the other to test drive (this Renault or a twenty-two foot long Eldorado), I'd have a go in the Renault.

Only trouble is, this car is deceptively named the Renault 8. What are you trying to pull, your sneaky French? This needs fixing, post haste. But how? Shall we drop in a V8? No. Don't be stupid. This car is clearly owned and driven by children. It's already got far more power than they should have. Know what it needs? Correct! More wheels! Let me get that for you...

Now that's an Eight! And I'll throw in a transparent alpha channel background an no extra charge, but don't tell my manager. You can right click this PNG off the lot right now. And just because you got an honest face, here's how the ad would look after teaching Renault what an Eight looks like. Must we be constantly coming to the rescue of the French?

Okay okay, in case you're boring, and you want an archival PNG of the Renault in its original state, here's that too.

You're welcome!

Shinola - Know things from it.

So, even if you're a millennial, and you think the universe began in 1990, you have probably heard a colloquialism implying the importance of knowing "shit from Shinola". If you've heard that, well done. "But," you may cry "what ever does it mean?". Cry no more, little one.

So, Shinola was a brand of shoe polish that, according to Wiktionary, had the look of poo. Missed opportunity. The makers of Shinola could have easily gone with the name "Shoe Poo". But anyway...

know shit from Shinola
A colloquialism which dates back to the early 1940s in the United States, sometimes ended with "that's why your shoes don't shine". Shinola was a popular brand of shoe polish, which had a color and texture not unlike feces.
Verb
know shit from Shinola(US) To have the most basic level of intelligence or common sense.

Well, that's another case wrapped up tight, but it does raise an odd question. Did Shinola, Inc. come up with this weird little swear-laden slogan? This seems unlikely, as the ad comes to us from a 1935 issue of Popular Mechanics, and swears were just as verboten in advertising as they are today. Hmm. Two things make me suspect it's from the military. Number A) shoe polish was important to those in the service - especially in decades past. Number B) soldiers love dirty talk. Let's see if The Ultranet knows anything. Phrases.org.uk seems to have an idea...

The 'ola' suffix is popular in the USA as part of trade names, e.g. Crayola, Granola etc. This leads to the pronunciation of Shinola as shine + ola. That spoils the alliteration a little as it would work better as shin + ola. 

This phrase is typical of the barrack room vulgarity of WWII, which is where it originated. Other "doesn't know" phrases, also mostly from the military are, "doesn't know his arse from a hole in the ground" (or elbow, or a hot rock, or third base), "doesn't know enough to pee downwind", "doesn't know whether to scratch his watch or wind his ass". The tone is lifted a little by the English conductor Sir Henry Wood who expressed a similar opinion with "he doesn't know his brass from his woodwind".

Aaaah, the good old military does not disappoint. If it's clever enough to be a jingle, but filthy enough to be funny, seek your answer in the armed forces.

But this 1935 Shinola ad is innocent. They're just selling shoe polish. The picture is interesting, though. She really likes the look of his super-shiny shoes.

That's quite a leer on that guy's mug. That's quite an appreciative lady sitting next to him. Good thing this picture isn't taken out of context or it could be really suggestive.

Hey! I got an idea! Let's take this picture out of context so it can be really suggestive! Phil Are GO! Graphic Blandishment and Photoshoppery Brigade! Assemble! PKSHOWW!!!


All right team! On my mark! Hut!

Make selection of dot pattern!...    Complete!
Copy dot pattern!...    Complete!
Fill in background behind man's head with dot pattern!...    Complete!
Improvise outline of man's hair!...    Complete!
Pattern Brush lady's dress where the tin overlaps it!...    Complete!
Pattern Brush man's suit where the tin overlaps it!...    Complete!
Crop image!...    Complete!

I don't know what you citizens will do with this newly enfilthened picture, but I hope you disappoint all your spouses and associates with your adolescent shenanigans. God's speed, prurient readers. You're welcome! Get your rude finger ready to right-click this naughty jpeg into your digital smut bucket in three, two, one, RIGHTCLICK NOW!

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Allied Electronics and the TRS-80 - More information revealed!

Those among you who have been with us from the beginning may recall our hard-hitting investigative report from three years ago, on the back cover of the 1977 Allied Electronics catalog, where we revealed the pricing info for Tandy's computing powerhouse. Well, this morning, someone flipped over that very same back cover and found even more pricing and specifications for the available system configurations for the TRS-80! Put your Mastercharge on lockdown, people. Spoiler alert: This could get expensive.

You could get the $599 Level-1 BASIC, which, despite being perfect for the computer novice, comes with the "professional keyboard". But if you're an ambitious power user, you'll need more RAM - like, 16K of it, muthafuckaaaaa!!! $899, please.

But what if you need to show proof of your l33t haxors skillz? You need to print out your exploits. that's why you probably want the fast 4K/Printer system for just $1198. It comes with a printer that will print a screen grab on 4" of paper, so you can show everyone in the chess club that horizontal line you made flash on and off.

No, wait. That one's a downgrade to 4K of RAM. Don't waste your time, man. Deliver a few more newspapers and score yourself the Level-II 16K/Printer/Disk system or be a loser. For $2385. You can do all your engineering and clinical laboratorying on it. Save whatever you program onto cassette and listen to it while you're fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der autobahn to class in your Gremlin.

Wait, what's this? There are 32 K's? How is this possible? You need that many K's, plus a second mini-disk unit. No question. It doesn't matter if it's an additional fifteen hundred dollars. A war machine like that will pay for itself once you start organizing your recipes on it, or controlling your inventory. You even get a better printer. Whatever a "line printer" is.

Hey, wait a sec. Why does it have an "expansion interface"? How could you ever use more power than this? It must be for something else. Maybe a special port for the very interested power user.

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Three new things, thanks to Science.

New giant ear model demonstrates how things would sound if they were very small. Turbo unit is easily serviced by Albert Einstein.

Portable music player runs on six D batteries, plays up to eight minutes of continuous music. Hardly ever skips.

Inventor claims Train Detector can measure presence of trains up to forty feet away.

Trade School Sonnets - Lapped Spool and Floating Sleeve Assembly

O! Lapped Spool and Floating Sleeve Assembly
Do you know no rub?
Does your spool suffer no chafe at the walls of your sleeve?

O! Would that I were as smooth. As unsmirched.
By the privations and hurts bestowed by love.
I have no air bearing. I have no dynamic o-ring seals.
My heart is worn by pipe scale and other air line contaminants.
It does not float on a cushion of pressurized oil-misted air.

But you, O Lapped Spool and Floating Sleeve Assembly,
You will never know these hurts, this love.
And so, Lapped Spool and Floating Sleeve Assembly,
I pity you and your two micron surface finish on outside diameter of spool,
And inside diameter...
of sleeve,
Which make it difficult for air line contaminants
to adhere.

Thus do I shed a tear for you,
Lapped Spool and Floating Sleeve Assembly.
Woe is Lapped Spool and Floating Sleeve Assembly.

Air-Wick - Classin' up the joint.

One of our wee little interns dropped this ad on my desk this morning, adorably wondering if the illustration could be of interest. She had no idea it was a stylistic dead ringer for something from my childhood, and is of massive interest. Good thing I maintained a solid poker face. You can't let these kids get a big head. Gotta keep 'em hungry. "I'll have a look at it." I grumbled, and waved her away.

Check it out! This uncredited 1957 drawing, without any clues or tipoffs to otherwise give context, could not look more The Late Fifties, which were a great sweet spot for commercial illustration.

Notice there are no outlines on any of the forms. Line work is all internal, with just blocks of color to describe the silhouettes of objects. Super cool. This is counter-intuitive by and large. What's a line for, if not to show the edge of a shape? Not in The Late Fifties. Lines are for wrinkles in clothes, and hair and stuff, but not edges. This, combined with the wiggly, clearly-hand-drawn look of the line work, keeps the illustration feeling really loose and fun. That's good whimsy, baby!

In trying to make the people in the illustration seem elegant and sophisticated, the artist gave them all rigid postures and really long necks. The lady in the middle with the white dress looks like Homestar Runner's broom-shaped girlfriend, Marzipan.

This drawing rings a bell - both in the subject matter, and in the art style. If you're like me, you are over a hundred years old, and your family had some board games that were purchased before you were born. We had an early edition of Clue (or "Cluedo", if you're in Europe, because you're frikkin weird), which I have deduced was from 1963. It looked like this:

Here's the game board from the 1963 Clue (or "Cluedo"if you're in Europe, where "Cluedo" is actually a portmanteau of "Clue" and "Ludo", which is Latin for "I play", because Europeans have more education than us Americans, who would never grasp the Latin reference in a bazillion years).

This is a pretty good match for our Air-Wick illustration, but if we go back a little earlier to the 1957 edition of the Clue box, we see this glorious little picture. It could not be found in a larger size, sadly.

There we go. There's our match. This was not the version we had in our house during my kidhood, so I don't know why I remember it - probably because the art style was pretty close on the '63 version and I got a lucky match when I glanced at an even older game box.

Good job, Eager Young Intern. You've got a bright future here at GO! Tower... but no way am I telling you that.

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Dickies - Pat Boone, the proto-Bieber.

Sometimes The Past tosses you a nice easy lob, and all you have to do is hold out your glove and let it fall right in. In 1960, Pat Boone was a Spokesdick for Dickies Casual Clothes.

Check that out. In an all-white suit with beltless pants and his trademark white shoes. Pat puts the "honk" in "honkey". As if he wasn't white enough.

But how did Pat Boone become the poster mild of lame whiteness? Well, as anyone older than, say, forty can tell you, his career basically involved re-recording less-threatening versions of R&B songs for consumption by white people who weren't comfortable listening to "black music".

Boone also is a die-hard evolution denier, is more than a little homophobic, and regards anyone who doesn't like George Bush as "unpatriotic". This CBS article is kind of a catch-all for his niceness.

But we should have known as much when he released his 1997 album "In a Metal Mood". It says "No more Mr. nice guy", right there on the cover. He can't even be bothered to wear sleeves. That's one dangerous fella!

I know, I know. "That can't be a real album. That's gotta be a Photochop." I wish it were, citizens. Stare with your ears at the splendor of his "metal" album.

You'd think that heavy metal couldn't get much whiter, but Pat found a way. We owe him a debt of gratitude for showing us that you don't know there's any funk in a song until someone strips it away. 

Hey, wait a sec. The first vocal we hear in You Got Another Thing Coming is a couple of backup singers who sound unmistakably black. How did Pat allow this? They must have recorded their parts on a different day, so Pat may not even know they're on the record. I like a lot of the songs on this album, but it seems there's nothing Pat Boone can't ruin. Fuck you, Pat.

Weirdly, Pat himself is the strongest argument against the very idea of evolution.