If you missed it last time, here's another 70's telephone purse -- in which the phone actually works. (In case you don't know Jack, or don't remember when phones were plugged in things, you'll need access to a phone jack to make this old bag phone work.)
It's the "most memorable scene of the week," but as this retro clipping comes from the March 1970 issue of Modern Screen magazine, I can't vouch for what week. Or if this story of "a pink robbed lady with her hair up in curlers" is even true...
From Old Stuff, May/June, 1975, a publication which proudly boasted "All paper in this copy of OLD STUFF is 100% recycled." Something which was almost equally true of the content printed on the paper, for all the stuff is indeed old articles etc. from antique publications -- save for the obligatory letters to the editor (called "Correspondence") and classified ad section (called "Collectors Market").
Today's selection from Old Stuff was previously published in an untitled 1899 newspaper. It's advice from an unnamed male "men's fashion consultant" who was concerned with customers "preserving the finer points of sartorial elegance."
We've all heard that Chevy's Nova didn't go over so well in Spanish speaking countries because Nova means "No go", even though it's not true, so why not leave it parked and let it be a camper? This retro ad features the Nova 6 Hatchback with the "tent-like Hutch", an "available feature" I'm not so sure people took Chevrolet up on.
From McCall's Needlework & Crafts, Spring/Summer 1971, instructions for making these twin Martian dolls. I'm in lurve with the see-thru plastic dress on the female Martian.
Kitschy Kitschy Coo presents... The Hanky Bonnet: The ultimate in icky fashion recycling.
I don't care how much it's laundered, turning your bridal hankie into a christening bonnet for your baby is just asking for a bad case of cradle crap cap.
Inside McCall's Needlework & Crafts, Spring 1978 issue.
Thinking I just might be willing to kill for one of those shirts, I did a search at eBay for Every Girl needs a Boye -- and finding just one (irrelevant) result, do you know what eBay suggested I might have meant?
In the pages of Women's Circle, May, 1978, comes this feature on one Bonie Merrill.
Bonie (pronounced "Bone-Knee", entertained at hospitals, convalescent homes, social & service clubs, private parties and charity functions for 35 years. Her acts were patterned after some of the Phyllis Diller routines, but Bonie wrote her own jokes & song parodies.
Two years prior to this article (so that's be 1976-ish), Bonie decided she needed a gimmick for one of her song parodies and designed a crazy hat. Eventually she ended up with some 200 hats used in her acts -- hence the article's "Hat Comedy Show" titular use & the photographs.
Deciding that some history would be nice to throw into the shows, she made a trip to the library to study the history of hats -- but "You wouldn't believe how dull the history of hats is, so I invented some history of my own." Here's one of Bonie's jokes, on the origin of ladies' wide-brimmed hats, which audiences supposedly believed:
"Way back in history in some European country, the ladies of the court were always passing gossip by whispering in each other's ears," Bonie explains. "Now the king was jealous because he couldn't hear the gossip and decreed that the ladies would have to wear wide brimmed hats so they'd have to talk louder because they couldn't get their heads close together."
But my favorite quote is this:
"Of course, we have to clean up the act a little, when we are performing for a church group or something like that," Bonie said. "Some of our jokes, songs and routines might be considered a little risque."
While the article doesn't explain it, the teasing, tantalizing comment makes me wonder just what sort of dirty hat jokes &/or song parodies Bonie had.
If you know anything about Bonie, or Barbara Ludwig (piano accompanist) and Frances Harvey (Boni's "favorite stage 'stooge'"), please let me know.
Sure, I've been mocking the 1979 National Enquirer bits, but have I ever really considered just how far the National Enquirer has gone? No, I don't mean the depths of hell, the limits of decency -- I mean on the map.
All for me!
Oh, the quality reporting! Logging 1,183,338 miles, they went to London to cover the world's first test tube baby and even went to Guyana twice in '78 to cover the Jamestown suicides.
And don't you go thinking they just sent 'reporters' to Alaska to gather information about "secret Soviet psychic research" -- they went to Moscow too.
Because I love Grover, I almost bought this old plaster mirror with Sesame Street characters; if Roosevelt Franklin had been on it, I would have. (I may love Grover, but I seriously crush on Roosevelt Franklin. Nothing inappropriate, of course.)
An article in the February 13, 1979 National Enquirer by Donald McLachlan warns, "Cocaine Sniffing by Celebrities Blamed For Soaring Use of Drugs by Youngsters."
"The kids see photographs of them wearing coke spoons as decorations around their necks. They read of stars like Louise Lasser and Linda Blair getting into trouble over coke... Kieth Richard of The Rolling Stones being arrested in Canada... comedian George Kirby going to jail for dealing it."
And where would the kids of 1979 see such photos and read such stories? Oh yeah, the National Enquirer.
Then again, who believes anything in the National Enquirer?
But if McLachlan and the National Enquirer really believed that peer pressure or the cool-kid factor were so strong, why didn't they stop publishing the stories -- or advise that parents keep the rag away from their kids.
Maybe the National Enquirer should use the tagline: Promoting the coke spoon & harming your kids since (at least) the 70's.
That 70's font tells you which is salt, which is pepper -- and for you drug-damaged folks, where to put the spoon. The end of table manners & etiquette is thus documented.
Some people Live-Twitter the debates; I opt to Live-Twitter my viewing of Night of the Lepus, starring Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun, DeForest Kelley, & Paul Fix. Here it is, cut & pasted for you, typos and all.
Watching Night of the Lepus - when rabbits terrorize! http://www.imdb.com/title/t... Still less strange than Palin/McCain campaign
Yes, yes, go in cellar to hide from rabbits.
Slow motion humungoid bunnies running to slow version of Twilight Zone's do-do-do-do. Excellent.
Why didn't they stop for the lone guy with a rifle acting so crazy on the side of the road? Huh.
Ah, the turn-off to Woodale is a dirt road... that seems to bode that they are safe.
Giant rabbits fill the wild-west general store!! No need for cheezy music -- I am enthralled!
A helicopter approaches. I am waitnig for a giant bunny to rear up and snatch it from the sky... I wait for it.
Siren sound effect is large kazoo?
Maybe just a child going "wooooOOoooo WoOOOOoooo"
"Attention" police say to drive-in movie attendees, "There'a a herd of large attacking rabbits, evacuate!"
Giant killer rabbits killed on railroad tracks -- electrocuted. Or shot. I can smell the burning fur.
Goodness is restored to the earth. Children play in fields. Roll credits.
Thank you, Turner Classic Movies.
Should this interest you at all, why not watch the trailer?
We're a bit confused because the last time Mackenzie Phillips made headlines it was... well, for the same thing -- drugs.
We're sure that Mackenzie really wishes she had traded places with Marlene Dietrich back in 1976. Marlene was still alive then; so trading now, while it may alleviate some of today's problems, really isn't a good idea.
But did you know there was also a big-eyed doll in the 60's -- complete with tear?
Little Miss No Name by Hasbro Toys (1965) was designed by Deet D'Andrade. Little Miss No Name wore a burlap dress, had a hand made for begging, and that large plastic tear... I'm guessing I never heard of her because few little girls wanted to play adopt the homeless begging orphan (Little Orphan Annie had a lovely red dress -- and too much spunk to let herself go like that). Fewer still wanted to plan & play a day in the life of a pitiful waif (also probably why the Kate Moss dolls never came to fruition).
But I want her.
I'm guessing when I find her, she'll be more expensive that replacing my old retro sad dog bank... But it won't stop me from fancying the two, together, in my office.
It's better to have big dreams of big eyed art -- and be left with a giant plastic tear -- then to never have dreamed at all.
From the February, 1971, issue of Pack-O-Fun, instructions to make a doggie tissue box cover. (This is actually practical too because cutting up old rugs is sure to make you -- and others -- sneeze.)
In 1975 Teen Magazine advised us to "Go Curly", using our makeup pencils as curlers.
OK, I'll admit that we tried this, my friend Mary & I. We were too young & silly -- hopped up on soda pop, disco music and teenybopper posters from Tiger Beat -- not to know what would happen. Which, in case you didn't see it coming, was the following:
dots & streaks in shades of pink, red, blue & lavender on our faces, ears and necks from the pencils
pencils so coated in styling gunk they had to be tossed out (no amount of shaving/sharpening could save them because they crusty stuff would transfer to our hands and flake on our faces during use)
no curls to speak of because we had no clever way to hold the pencils in our hair (we were modern steam-curl girls)
It was an insane, unsanitary, hairy mess; the best thing of which is being able to share this bit from my teen beauty diary with you -- 33 years later.
Shiny black vinyl embossed to replicate alligator, the handle of the purse is the phone handset.
A large and roomy size, it measures 14 2/3" long and 12" high, not including the handle. The bag has a long shoulder strap.
Never used, the hang tag instructions are still attached, the original paper stuffing is still in the bag and the cellophane wrapper is still on the handset (removed for the pictures). The bag is in mint condition and has the telephone cord included. And, yes it does work, tested it.
In January of '71, Teen dared us to do some radical things, like decorate our rooms, to use Kool-Aid labels to decorate our shoes...
And to braid our hair, Bo Derek style -- in precisely 20 braids.
I did that once. Well, I had my sister braid my hair, using those tiny rubber bands which were supposed to be for our braces; and I don't think we ever bothered to count the braids...
Anyway, while I looked nothing like Bo, I wore my hair thus to the one and only car race I went to. On a dirt track.
I was so bored, and annoyed by being sprayed with dirt every turn, that I busied myself with unbraiding my hair, and soon looked like Roseanne Roseannadanna.
Just imagine trying to wash the chunks of dirt out of that.
Like the two-tone lip freak-fest, I do not advise the braiding of hair; it can lead to drinking the Kool-Aid proffered by cults.
But then, hey, your sister can make some cool shoes.
