Category: Saluting General Kitsch

A general collection of kitsch broken down by theme.

Memories Of Messy Marvin

/ Deanna / Leave a comment

Among the Messy Marvin ads, I found this cup:

Perhaps the Messy Marvin cup brings back memories for you. Heaven knows I was too mature to drink from a Messy Marvin cup (but wapatui from a dorm garbage can was fine). I do remember the print ads and commercials; they were everywhere.

Hi, my name’s Messy Marvin.

I got that name because no matter how hard I tried, my room and my clothes were always messy. But then one day, Mom brought home thick, rich, yummy Hershey’s Syrup in the no mess squeeze bottle. And before I knew it, I was making the best chocolate milk I’d ever had. But I wasn’t making a mess. It’s fun, too. I just pull the cap and squeeze. Nothing drips, nothing spills.

Now Mom’s happy and so am I.

My room and my clothes are still a mess, but at least there’s hope.

Look for a quick shot of a very young Tracey Gold in the second commercial in this video collection:

This ad campaign pretty much rendered any kid — even a ‘college kid’ — a Messy Marvin to anyone older; thanks, Hershey’s.

And yes, the child actor who played Messy Marvin was the same kid who played Ralphie in A Christmas Story — Peter Billingsley. Which makes the Ovaltine decoder ring storyline ironic.

Apparently Billingsley too felt some disappointment with the ring; it’s not one of the film’s props that he saved. According to SFGate’s The Poop interview, Billingsley kept the BB gun, the bunny suit and the slate board.

I wonder if he kept any Messy Marvin mementos?

Please Do Not Feed Or Molest Prairie Dogs

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From the first page in It’s a Dog’s Life, by Robert Cunningham (photographs by Ed Bry, illustrations by Ted Cornell, published by The Theodore Roosevelt Nature and History Association; circa 1980).

But I think we all know that if you even think of molesting a prairie dog, you’ll get this look from him:

The Naughty Little Clock

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The amazingly cute and gay lyrics to The Naughty Little Clock:

There once was a frivolous and giddy little clock,
A little French clock very gay;
Very trim and very neat but a creature of deceit,
When you wished to know the time of day.
It’s goings on would shock
The old hall clock, Till it held up its hand aghast;
I’m sure to tell the truth, It went wrong in early youth,
Had a natural inclination to be fast.

Chorus:
Tic-toc, tic-toc, said the silly little clock,
“Oh, life in the house is slow,
So cold and grim, very dull and prim,
I’m getting run-down I know”
So she sighed all day for a life more gay,
She longed for a shady past.
This naughty little, haughty little clock, tic-toc,
That had an inclination to be fast.

“I’m quite wound up,” declared the giddy little clock,
“I’m weary of the mantel shelf;
For years I’ve had to chime to give other folks the time,
Now I’d like to have a time myself.
I’d even run away
With a gay roué,
If he’s show me the town’s great sights;
So she took up with a lamp,
And incorrigible scamp,
Who smoked and always went out nights.

Tic-toc, tic-toc, said the foolish little clock,
“Oh, won’t you elope with me?
I’m yours from today if you’ll take me away
Where something of life I’ll see.
Well, they ne’er came back and the bric-a-brac
Had scandal enough to last
In gossiping about the little clock, tic-toc,
That had an inclination to be fast.

Copyright 1899; music by Reginald De Koven, lyrics by Harry B. Smith. (My copy of the sheet music states that the copyright was assigned 1930 to Theodore Presser Co.)

“My brain is a poor cocoon — the Libby’s jingle goes in like larva, but it never enters the pupa stage and morphs into a beautiful butterfly leaving me with an earworm.”

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I spotted this retro doll, a promotional piece for Libby’s foods, at an antique store.

It reminded me of the following:

1) I am getting really old because more and more stuff from my time is now entering the “collectible” category and being sold in antique stores (if not, yet, actually as antiques).

2) I have a friend whose nickname is Libby; it’s a shortened form of her online user ID “Libertine”. I am forever singing, “When it’s got Libby’s Libby’s Libby’s on the label label label, you will like it like it like it on your table table table,” to her. It’s especially a hoot if you wiggle your eyebrows during the “you will like it like it like it on your table table table” part of the lyric.

3) When you reference “online user ID” in conjunction with “retro 70’s” stuff, your brain hurts a little.

4) No matter what you put in your brain, if there’s a jingle in there, it will over power it all and come out victorious. My brain is a poor cocoon — the Libby’s jingle goes in like larva, but it never enters the pupa stage and morphs into a beautiful butterfly, leaving me with an earworm.

5) Funny thing about recalling jingles, no matter how many times the earworm loops, no matter how many times you find yourself singing it aloud, you suddenly wonder if the version you are singing is the accurate version…

I searched the Internet for a video of the old Libby’s commercial; but none had that jingle.

I wouldn’t call all this a waste of time, an hour later I have these two gems to share with you:

First, a 1960’s commercial in which Libby’s makes up a “Sloppy Joe” dance craze to peddle product:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTs3ERZJMjA[/youtube]

I’m too young to remember that one; but I’m betting if there were any of those t-shirts etc. still around in an antique store I’d want one. Bad.

I vaguely recall this Libby’s canned vegetables ad with Tony Randal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhuOGI8nwJE

I don’t recall these 70’s ads for Libbyland dinners…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pFIS2d7VPA

But then, we weren’t allowed to have TV dinners, so maybe I had no dietary connection to leave a lasting promotional imprint… Those folding tray/boxes are completely fascinating!

Cross-Eyed Ape Joke Still Works After All These Years

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I paid 50 cents for this fragile old piece of paper mocking a woman for the way she dresses. (At first glance, I was certain it was mocking the man; but the ape proffers a red dress with white hearts.) I’m not sure why I had to have it; but I did.

when you walk by
people GAPE —
who picks your clothes
a CROSS-EYED APE?

It’s funny, in that simple childlike rhyming playground mockery sort of a way.  And I just love the illustration.  Certainly someone saved it all these years — charmed by it for all the reasons I am.  But I have no idea what this fragile piece of old paper is supposed to be…

Was it a page in a book?  While there’s no printing on the reverse, it’s possible; sometimes illustrations (especially those with color) had single pages to themselves (these are called “plates”).

If it comes from a book, what was the book about?  Just a silly joke book?  Or was it a silly page illustrating one point in the text?

Were there more pages like this?

Did the original owner find the page loose and save it?  Or did they tear it out themselves?

Or maybe it’s not from a book at all.  Only the right edge of the paper seems to be without nibbles, cuts and other imperfections — suggesting this is not the original size.  Maybe it was an advertising or promotional piece… Some sort of flyer, an advertising circular, whose product &/or company name have been cut away by an original owner who liked the joke &/or illustration.

Then again, there’s all those hearts… Was this some sort of Valentine’s Day themed thing?

Since there is nothing else on the paper to identify it, no artist credit, date or other copyright or publishing credit, I may never know what this paper was originally intended to do or where it comes from.  But, like the heavy crease lines from folding which have begun to tear, it doesn’t decrease the value to me.  Not just the 50 cents I paid or even the thrill of research to figure it all out (I am geeky like that), but the fun of looking at it.  The joke still works, after all these years.

Dogs In Advertising

/ Deanna / 1 Comment

An ad for Black & White Blended Scotch Whisky featuring a Scottie and a Westie, found in the July, 1974, issue of Psychology Today (I shared an article on political activism from the issue here, and sent scans of article pages on nuclear families to Shawnee too).

I don’t think dogs should drink whisky. Even if the dog treats are healthy.

But these dogs are less worrisome than the bulldogs mentioned in the latest T-Mobile commercial. Have you seen it? The grumpy guy is complaining that he doesn’t like commitment, so the wife says, “We’ve been married 40 years.” He retorts it’s only been 38. And that he doesn’t like sticking with the same thing, to which the wife replies, “We’ve had 11 bulldogs, all named Steve.” What the hell are they doing to their dogs?!

I’m no math geek, but that’s like what, 3 years per dog?

I could get a calculator & do the math, but I keep loosing my calculator. I should have saved one of those giant calculators I sent out for Valentine’s Day for myself.

I’m not exaggerating; the calculators were huge. I knew you wouldn’t believe me, so I took pictures. See, just one is the size of my Cairn Terrier (named Toodles Squirrel-Face Davidson III).

I gave them to folks double-dog-daring them to lose them. They even can be hung on the wall. (Just $3.99 each at Hobby Lobby — because you know I love the Hobby Lobby.)

Huh. I guess I just made my own ad featuring a dog.  But my dog wasn’t drunk.  And she’s well over 3 years old too.

You Can’t Cover Your Fingernails In Velvet, Even When You Want To

/ Deanna / 3 Comments

I thought I was going to have this fab-u-lous Valentine’s Day beauty project for you, but I ran into a few problems along the way…

I had the concept: Wrapping your fingernails in red velvet.

Ridiculously impossible sounding as far as living with them goes — they’d be sure to get full of gunk and even showering would be a disaster. But the idea of one romantic night where you could both look and feel so glamorous that practicalities were of no consequence was seductive… What would it feel like to run bits of velvet along my skin… His skin… So unexpected!  Plus, I just lurve red velvet, so practicality be damned!

I knew a few things would be problematic going in to this project… Like fabric itself was going to be a real bitch because getting it to adhere and keeping the edges from fraying were going to be too monumental for my wee crafting skills. So I immediately thought of flocked paper — the very same paper used by altered artists and scrapbooking folks. I headed out to Hobby Lobby.

But it was February 11th, and if they ever had red flocked paper, they were out. So I went to Michael’s. Even worse, no flocked paper at all.  So back to Hobby Lobby again to buy the pink flocked paper — and a paper with a red flocked pattern because, I figured, with the size of fingernails, I could get a few out of those wide areas and maybe a stripe of red ‘velvet’ would be cool too. (OK, and I bought a few other sheets of a pink pattern because it was on sale at 50% off. And because I could.)

I went to Wal Mart, intending this to be a quick run-in for a box of Lee press-on nails — only to find that the world of fake nails has become much larger and cheesier than ever. No Lee press-on nails either. So I carefully selected fake nails that did not involve the dreaded acrylic powder (which would render my very temporary red velvet nails far more of a mess at removal time than making them would be) and ended up with a box of 100 Kiss Active Oval glue-on nails for like $5.

I got all my items together and ambushed hubby when he came home for lunch today to take the pictures — because I knew with my hands busy, someone would need to snap the photos.

The plan was relatively simple:

1 Select the nail that fit you, file off that center ‘prick’ with a nail file. Shape it a bit if you wanted to.

2 On the back of the flocked paper, trace the nail — rolling it as you did so, in order to get full coverage of the fingernail.

3 Cut out the fingernail shape you traced, staying just slightly inside the tracing line so that you’d fit the nail and not end up with discolored edges along the sides of your nails.

All that went swimmingly; now it was time to for step 4: glue them on. In order to better assess which type of glue would be best (and to inspect the fit of the flocked paper nail), I placed the paper cut-out nail on the top of the curved plastic Kiss nail. Quickly I discovered that the paper was too thick; it would not nicely curve around the plastic nail without leaving a bump or fold-like area. Hmmmm…

Hubby suggested I tear off the white paper backing, removing a layer to make it thinner. So we did that and it curved much better. As a razor was required to get the separation started, I decided to cut a section from the flocked paper sheet & separate if first, then trace and cut. Now I had two pink flocked paper nails to apply.

I figured the Super Glue would be problematic; be too fast drying for all the curving & smoothing required, that the glue might seep through the paper making an unsightly mess of the paper, or that I’d end up gluing my fingers to themselves or attaching them inappropriately to the fingernail. So I decided to try US ArtQuest’s Perfect Paper Adhesive 8 Ounce-Matte first. (It’s my favorite glue/adhesive.) I applied an even, medium coat to the plastic nail and formed the pink flocked paper over the top of it. The edges just didn’t want to remain down.

I briefly considered a few other options, such as making larger pieces of the paper nails to fold around the edge — but then I’d have to cut sections to fit the curves. Ugh.

I decided that we were close… but not quite there… Maybe the Super Glue would work. So I used that on the second try. The bad news was that it worked even worse. The good news was that I was right about how much more troublesome the glue would be — and that even with a few scary moments, I did not end up glued to anything.

(Nail on the left was created with Super Glue; nail on right using PPA.)

So, I’ve not yet found a way to get red (or any other color) velvet fingernails. Not for this Valentine’s Day, anyway.

Got any ideas on how to do this? Hit me with ’em.

13 Kitschy Finds

/ Deanna / 11 Comments


(Thursday Thirteen header by Jenn.)

Just 13 things I found shopping online and had to share this Thursday…

1. Time out of whack? Whack it back with this ping pong paddle clock:

2. Ever wonder what your kitchenware does when you’re at work? They play croquet, of course:

3. I just love this vintage watercolor of Browning, Montana’s “Drugstore & Moving Picture House, in the Snow”:

4. Is it just me, or does it look like this retro poodle got drunk on kitty whiskey?

5. Vintage 1940’s porcelain, wood and fabric Carmen Miranda pin:

6. Two great things that go great together: flamingos and black velvet!

7. Because I often write as Pop tart, you know I’m loving this Cherry Pop-Tart Ring:

8. This is a reproduction, but if you love the style of those classic retro heads — authentically colored turquoise, yet — this head’s for you:

9. Cuddle & coo with this retro Dankin Dream Pet poodle:

10. Get a bit of vintage cheesecake for your cupcake:

11. Miss Piggy went to the UK in the 80’s; bring her back.

12. Go nutty with vintage style peanut bags:

13. And what can go better with circus-style peanuts than vintage hot pink clown shoes? Answer: Nothing. Then again, few things do ever trump vintage clown shoes.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here

Red Velvet From Head To Toe

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I have a weakness for red velvet — it may not be kitschy, but when you wear so much of it, you run the risk of looking like a flocked Valentine. Not that I care.

Wrap yourself (and whatever’s not covered in red velvet) up in this red velvet cloak by Von Lancelot — it’s not vintage, but who cares when it’s this much red velvet!

Now for the tip of your toes… Well, almost — these vintage 1940’s red velvet HiLarks have peep toes! So get out the red polish, I feel a pedicure comin’ on!