History's Dumpster = GLORIOUS trash! Kitsch, music, fashion, food, history, ephemera, and other memorable and forgotten, famous and infamous pop culture junk and oddities of yesterday and today. Saved from the landfill of time...
Kellogg's Just Right cereal was introduced in the USA in 1985. My mom bought a box and I remember us trying this, only getting a few bites in until we had to dump the rest of our bowls into the trash. It was nasty.
My peers in high school had the same opinion and we called it Just Sucks. The cereal was basically a fruitcake in a box. It had bran flakes, corn flakes, dates, raisins, almond bits and oats and pretty much targeted at the yuppie bunch.
This cereal had a massive ubiquitous TV advertising campaign for it (perhaps the largest I had ever seen for a cereal) and discount offers that moms of that time couldn't resist. But everyone under the age of 30 hated this commercial as much as the cereal because it was guaranteed to pop up at least 4 times an hour during daytime TV, it was nearly as bad during prime time and late at night too in 1985. It was everywhere on every channel.
But unbeknownst to the rest of us, this commercial would ironically be the launch pad for the career of one of the biggest pop stars of the '90s.
(For years, I thought Tori Amos' 1994 hit "Cornflake Girl" was her way of venting her angst over this commercial and the disgusting taste of that cereal that never seemed to go away. An interpretive sort of thing. But that wasn't the case. The interpretive venting over this disgusting cereal was probably Y Kant Tori Read.)
Just Right cereal was discontinued in America in the early '90s, but it's still sold in Australia.
I love simulation video games. Especially the "civilization building" types like Sim City.
But there's one game in particular I have a special fondness for that has never been updated or given a modern makeover and it's still every bit as challenging (although graphically challenged itself) as it was when it came out in 1993.
It's called Shadow President.
In this game, you are the Commander In-Chief. Yes, you. You have the ultimate power to create world peace, a roaring economy and make the quality of life in the world a global benchmark. Or you can send us all back to the stone age. You can be a wise peacemaker and a statesperson. Or a brutal tyrant hell bent on world domination. You can force regime changes. Or live and let live. You can test your deepest held ideology. Or define yours through a series of surprisingly accurate situations and how you would handle each of them. Any way you go, there are benefits and ramifications to every decision you make. Just like what a real president has to deal with.
The game starts in June of 1990. If you remember that time (and it seems like yesterday to me), The Berlin Wall had come down, the Soviet Union hadn't become Russia again (and it wouldn't until 1991, but the change was already afoot in the Kremlin.) And most of all, Saddam Hussein's Iraq was getting it's dander up with Kuwait and would eventually invade it. This would be your first major test of how you would deal with a major world crisis in the Oval Office.
Like I said, this game isn't big on graphics. And it's not a high action game. It can be pretty tedious at times with all the seemingly mundane things going on. But each situation, no matter how trivial they may appear has some indirect benefit or consequence to your leadership effectiveness, popularity and world standing. It's one of those games that really belong in a classroom. But if you love a good game of mental chess rather than 3-D explosions and insane graphics, this is for you.
You can also balance the budget, increase or decrease spending in the Military, Social spending, Investment in the country and Foreign Aid. You can raise or lower Personal, Corporate and Sales taxes and well as Tariffs. You can consult with your advisors on which route to take that would ultimately shape your presidency. This means encountering a lot of things you weren't even prepared for. You may be forced to make decisions that fly in the face of your own ideals (like all presidents are forced to do sometimes.) But then again, being President means inheriting a nation and world left behind by the previous President and what you make of it will determine your legacy.
When you select a country (just move the mouse cursor to a country on the map and click on it until it lights up. Another way is to press the ? key and use the up/down arrows to find the specific country you're looking for), move your mouse cursor the the extreme left on the map, the options menu will appear. Click on SOC/ECO/CIA/MIL or NUC for each option menu and decide what you will do to the selected country.
You can decide what to do with each country. You can send them humanitarian, economic, intelligence, military and nuclear aid. You can declare war on them or defend them. Arrange for surgical strikes, issue peace delegations, give them Most Favoured economic status or block trade. Set up coup d'etats Or blow them up in a nuclear holocaust. But remember, your every move is going to either have success or catastrophic ramifications.
Your popularity level is what ultimately determines if you get elected to another term. A popularity level of 50% or higher can mean you get another term. But anything lower could jeopardize that. A popularity rating of less than 30% can set you up for serious trouble and less than 20% could put you at risk for impeachment or even assassination. It's very very hard to build your popularity, but much easier to screw it all up. You're walking on eggshells - just like a real president.
The Game:
Shadow President is a DOS game (it's 23 years old.) And while DOS is pretty much the Latin of the computer languages these days, it's not entirely defunct (you'd be surprised at what our own government computers still use in 2016.) But regardless of your computer operating system, you can still play it on DOSBox. Download DOSBox here and install it on your computer (there's versions for Windows, Mac and Linux and others as well as an Android version for your smartphone or tablet.)
Next, download the game here (it's free abandonware as there are no current versions of this game.) Unzip and place the SHADOW folder in your Games folder. When you want to play, just click on the SHADOW.exe file in the SHADOW folder. DOSBox should handle it from there.
And don't forget the manual. You can download the PDF file here. Keep it in the SHADOW folder for safekeeping (it won't affect the performance of the game.) You will need this as there is a primitive security system of quotes in which you must answer with who said them and the answers are in the manual. If you do not answer them correctly, the game goes on a 30 day trial and that's not 30 actual days in real life, but 30 days in the game itself (on average speed, the clock goes at one hour per second.) The manual also goes into explaining the game in deeper detail.
To stop the clock during the game, press the 0 (zero) key. This helps when you need to make a lot of changes. To start back up/ change game speed, press 1 for 1 hour per second, 2 for 2 hours per second, 3 for 4 hours per second, 4 for 8 hours per second or 5 for one day per second. Beware that faster speeds can make interaction very difficult. You'll have to experiment to find the one that's right for you or adjust as you play. (Click on images to enlarge.)
In the System Menu, there's even an Auto-Pilot feature where the game plays itself for you. But be aware that the game can often make decisions you may not want or even screw it up for you.
After going through the "security clearance", you will be treated to the opening scenario and a tutorial overview. This allows you to get a feel for the controls of the game options and there's a button on screen for saving the game. Use it - a lot. Because you may want to play for certain periods of time and pick up where you left off. Or try different strategies. Other options include running the game without elections (oh yes, there are elections.), With/without audio (the sounds are also pretty primitive by today's standards.) Or different scenarios, such as a Super Iraq, Virtual Earth, US Economic Decline and others.
The game also includes the 1990 CIA Factbook, which is useful in determining the history of a certain country as well as calculating potential strategies of each. But bear in mind as you play, you change the course of world history and the entries can become meaningless beyond that if say, you take over or change the regimes of North Korea. Or Iraq. Or even go full Benedict Arnold and actually support our enemies. (Yes, you can even do that. But there could be some pretty big consequences. Just like in real life.)
The only problem is the game does not have one very important aspect to the real life workings of the President; Congress. In a real life presidency, you have to work with Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate.) And that more than anything else determines your leadership effectiveness. If you can't get anything past them, you're what's called a "lame duck". But since this game does not have a Congress to deal with, you're pretty much a dictator in spite of being an elected President. So for the purposes of simplicity and hypothesis, you're in control of everything. A Congress feature would magnify how difficult the presidency actually is, but it would have also resulted in a game perhaps too big and advanced for the old computers of 1993.
Strategies:
My preferred personal strategy to this game has always been the Peacemaker/Good Guy because it's super hard. I follow a sort of Bernie Sanders-like strategy of keeping military conflicts at the barest minimum while keeping a close watch over the economy and spending on Social programs and Investment high. Cut or raise taxes according to what affects common people more than corporations and the 1%. And it works amazingly well. (Click on images to enlarge)
June 1990
November 1992
The changes are pretty dramatic, but they were made very gradually. Just a little bit month by month, but it's given me a landslide election victory the day before in the 1992 screenshot. With massively increased social spending and investment, homelessness is a thing of the past. Everyone has free college, Cannabis is legal. Life is pretty laid back. And it shows.
On the right side of the screenshot you'll see some lines with TEAQ under them. They stand for:
Total Influence Economy Ambition Quality of Life
In the 1992 screenshot, the Total Influence is down because I'm not trying to be world cop and focusing on matters at home. The Economy is roaring, Ambition is very low because we're not picking fights or invading other countries (the legal weed helps too) and Quality of Life is crazy good. And 76% popularity is not too shabby.
On the other hand, you could try other things that are less challenging and more fun, like invading Canada. But I love a hard strategic puzzle.
It's a fun game for the intellectual sort, maybe not so much for the raging gamer. But it's always worth a shot....If you dare.
For those of you who love those old budget label Christmas records (the kind your parents randomly picked up at the drug store just as something different to play on the stereo around the holidays.) I have a tub of pure Cheez-Whiz for you today.
In the 1950s and well into the '80s, It wasn't uncommon to see racks of super cheap anonymous Christmas records in your local drug store or supermarket selling for anything from 88 cents to $1.98. A cheap "impulse" thing you bought when your Christmas spirit was high, but money was tight. This made an even balance. You got your gifts and wrappings, ornaments for the tree, a quart of dairy egg nog and...Wait...I gotta have tunes!
And there they were. Conveniently close to the check-out stands for ridiculously low prices. Problem. Solved. Granted, it was "mystery music". But who knows?
Sometimes these records became family heirlooms, others donated to the thrift shops. But there's always been a soft spot for those over 40 who can still remember seeing these records at drug and discount stores.
And a very special thanks to Kaiwaza for finding some of these aural samples.
"Christmas With The Caroleers" The Caroleers (Promenade/Diplomat/Spin-O-Rama, 1963)
First, let's get started with the biggest known of the budget label acts (and absolutely mandatory in any collection of cheapo vinyl); The Caroleers.
As mentioned here, "The Caroleers" weren't technically an actual group. Although some Caroleers tracks have the same vocalists, it appears to be the generic umbrella name for anonymous holiday material from Synthetic Plastics Company (famous for their Peter Pan label of cheap kids records) and their various subsidiary labels regardless of the actual performer. Many of the same songs also appear across several Caroleers LPs on the various Peter Pan/SPC label LPs, 45s and EPs in the 1960s.
Putting names and faces to this music is next to impossible. SPC/Peter Pan (as well all the other budget labels) only paid their studio performers a flat rate with no royalties. They rarely had credits for anyone.
But in my research last week, I made a major breakthrough. I found one actual person that not only appeared on some Caroleers tracks, but could very well be the mysteriously female sounding voice on the "Nuttin' For Christmas" song I wrote about a few weeks ago that was credited to Bobby Stewart as well.
Her name was Toby Deane, a comedienne and voice actress. Bob Purse has an excellent post on Toby's career on his blog, The Wonderful and the Obscure. Toby Deane recorded for Peter Pan/SPC label records and various other budget labels from the 1950s to the 1970s. Her voice is believed to be on several hundred children's records.
And the Eddie Maynard Orchestra. But once again, I run into the same dead ends in my research while looking for Eddie. All that is known is they appear across several Peter Pan/SPC label albums and their holiday music appears on LPs credited to The Caroleers.
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town The Caroleers (Diplomat/Tinkerbell, 1970)
With
the release of this album, the sound of The Caroleers radically
changed. No more old recycled tracks, here was a
Caroleers album of mostly actual original material. Sung by Toby Deane and Ray Dorey. A pop vocalist who, like Toby Deane, also performed with Benny Goodman's Orchestra in the 1940s. Ray was also a fixture on Boston area on radio and TV in the 1950s and in later years, recorded chidren's records and other material for Peter Pan/SPC.
It
sounds more cohesive than other Caroleers albums in that it wasn't a
grab bag of whatever was in the SPC/Peter Pan vaults and that it was single group in a session specifically for this album.
Christmas Is For Children; Merry Favorites from Santa's Little Helpers (Design Records DLPX-2, 1957)
Toby Deanealso appears on this album. In fact, many of the Caroleer vocalists from the Peter Pan/SPC labels appear on this Pickwick distributed LP. It appears there were no exclusive contracts to the budget labels, as these performers seemed to appear on nearly all of them.
Design
Records was Pickwick's subsidiary label. They're best known today as
where Lou Reed got his first break in the music industry as a staff
songwriter and recording as session musician and occasional vocalist
with some musicians who would later form The Velvet Underground. While
most of Design's output was knockoff cover versions of pop songs and
sound-alikes, Design occasionally licensed older material of various pop
acts. When stereo LPs became the norm, Design took a few, shall we say,
liberties with their licensed material (Such as this infamous Roy
Orbison "remix".)
And down here, I dug out some of the earliest stuff that was available back
in the day. Perennial, old-timey fruitcake-like music you probably heard
dropping from the automatic record changers inside your
parents/grandparents BIG console stereos of the time. Choruses, orchestras and pipe organ music. Mostly playing public domain
traditional carols.
Christmas At Our House; Favorite Christmas Carols Martha Tilton and other Great HOLLYWOOD Vocal Stars, George Mather at The Console (Tops Records,1956)
Martha
Tilton was called "The Sweetheart of Swing", best known for her 1944 hit "I'll Walk Alone". After 1950, Big Band swing music had given way to the pop balladeer and her career was fading and she was recording for
Tops.
This album also features Marni Nixon, who was a movie playback singer (she recorded the vocals for Deborah Kerr's singing parts in The King And I.) She is also fondly remembered in the Seattle area as the host of KOMO-TV's kids TV show Boomerang.
Thurl Ravenscroft was a radio and animation voice actor and basso singer who sang the classic 1966 version of "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch" (not on this album.) and the legendary voice of Tony The Tiger in TV commercials for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes.
Doris Drew (Not to be confused with Doris Day) was a jazz singer and like Marni Nixon, often recorded songs for actress singing parts in movies. Norma Zimmer would join Lawrence Welk's orchestra as it's religious singer. John Gabriel would find later fame as a soap opera actor in the '60s, '70s and '80s. and probably best known as Seneca Beaulac in Ryan's Hope. All that is known about John Gustafson is he had an uncredited role as a background singer in the 1954 movie musical Brigadoon. And I can't find anything at all on Bill Reeve.
Tops
Records was a typical budget label that specialized in the "knockoff",
sound-alike record and often sold packaged compilations of these. When
the LP was invented, they changed to recording originals by fading and
B-List stars. At their peak in the late 1950s, they were the most
popular budget label in America.
They also pioneered the "cheesecake"
album cover (With Hollywood actresses on the covers, including Jayne
Mansfield, Mary Tyler Moore - who appeared on several Tops LP covers.
Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak.)
Jayne Mansfield
Mary Tyler Moore
Rita Hayworth
Kim Novak & Rita Hayworth
But then after a strange merger with failing Geiger counter maker Precision Radiation Instruments in 1958 (which established it's own subsidiary record label)
and a couple years later, a disastrous acquisition by an investor who
was completely inept to the record business, Tops was bankrupt and it's
catalogue was sold to Pickwick Records just two years after the
acquisition.
Another strange coincidence was Tops
Records were also pressed at the same South Central Los Angeles pressing
plant as the Bihari brothers' infamous Crown Records. Just what connection Tops had with
Crown is still unclear with many collectors. It's believed the plant
was originally owned by Tops and sold to Crown and then used again by
Tops as a cost cutting measure. Even some Tops recordings appeared on
Crown (attributed to different artists) and vice-versa. At this time,
Crown's record quality was still fairly decent. But after Tops folded in 1962,
Crown's quality tanked. And like Crown, Tops covers were known for
splitting at the seams as they were just two pieces of cardboard held
together by a cover slick.
Hail To Christmas Peter Raymond Carolers (Wyncote, 1966)
On this album, it appears the lead caroler on some tracks on Side 1 is a very off-key caroler who sounds like he's trying to shout over the orchestra. He also botches the lyrics in "Jingle Bells".
It takes work to botch up the lyrics in "Jingle Bells".
Wyncote was owned by Cameo-Parkway Records, a major independent label based in Philadelphia and named for a Philadelphia suburb.
You'd
think Wyncote, being owned and operated by a major independent would
have better quality albums than the usual budget label dreck. But
nothing could be further from the truth. They were amongst the very worst
budget labels I have ever seen. Every Wyncote record I ever owned (all
of them clean and some close to mint) was plagued with ghastly surface
noise, the vinyl often had bumps and even a few air bubbles. Like
Tops/Crown, Wyncote covers were slapped together with no inner paper or
plastic sleeves and the quality of the music? Well, let this sink in.
Christmas Favorites
The International Choristers and Orchestra Featuring George Mather (HIM
again?) at The Mighty Console (Craftsmen/Golden Tone/Tops, 1959)
Nothing says international
Christmas like four random average American-looking white people from
the Midwest and a rather annoyed looking sidewalk Santa, who seems to be
pondering "How much did they say I was getting for this stupid photo
shot again?"
And it really shows on this album in particular. They sing in perfect English with exaggerated German and French accents.
From here, we go to the late '70s and the disco-themed Christmas budget albums.
Christmas And New Year's Party - Irwin the Disco Duck with The Wibble Wabble Singers and Orchestra (Peter Pan, 1977)
Disco Noel Mirror Image (Pickwick, 1979)
Mirror Image was Pickwick's house band in the 1970s. They appeared on several "sound-alike" Pickwick albums of the 1970s.
Disco Noel included a free disco dance lesson.
Pickwick was so confident in the success of the Disco Noel album, it was immediately followed up with Yuletide Disco.
And they did sell quite well, in spite of disco rapidly falling out of popularity at this time.
But this would be the end of the era of the budget label Christmas record. Pickwick had been sold to PolyGram earlier in 1979 and would soon cease operations and Peter Pan/SPC would concentrate solely on their kids records.
Still, it was an era. And it still feels weird walking into a discount retailer and not seeing the bins of budget label Christmas records like I used to.
When I was a kid, I hated this record. Like smash this record to atoms, melt it into an unrecognizable blob, jump on it, toss it into a woodchipper, melt it back down into another blob, toss it into a lead barrel, seal it with concrete and launch it into deep space hate this record.
Up With People is a musical troupe that goes around the country (and even the world) trying to bridge cultural differences and create global understanding through public service. And musicals. They released several albums (all including this song) from the 1960s to the 1980s. Actress Glenn Close was a member in the '60s
Good intentions and wholesomeness aside, UWP became infamous for four years as being the selected Super Bowl halftime act from 1976 to 1986. They were lambasted as utterly the worst Super Bowl halftime act ever and, well, here. Take a look.
UWP's incredibly choreographed and cheerful singing and dancing acts were remarkable visually. No sleazy "wardrobe malfunctions", hard rock music, hip-hop or anything remotely disturbing to heartland American sensibilities. They were as threatening as milk and cookies.
But in spite of it as time wore on, Up With People's brand of entertainment had become increasingly stale and dated. Halftime became the time you made a run to the 7-Eleven for more beer, chips and ranch dip. It wasn't until 1987 when they were permanently dropped from the halftime act roster and were replaced by hipper, edgier pop acts and commercials you just have to see.
They returned as the pre-game act in 1991, but that would be their last Super Bowl appearance.
While some people may look at Up With People as some pseudo-hippie musical act about peace, love and understanding, I look at them as just one big, if somewhat creepily happy glee club.
However, They've received corporate funding, including from Halliburton (cue Jaws theme), General Motors, Exxon, Searle Pharmaceuticals - major progressive no-nos. Leading to criticism that they are more closely linked to right wing politics than they let on. They've also received praise from John Wayne, Pat Boone and Presidents Nixon, Reagan and George H.W. Bush, not exactly the most liberal statesmen.
You know Bernie Sanders as America's Senator, the lovable underdog determined to take on the Koch brothers, corporate greed mongers and corrupt government policy.
But did you know he has a musical side?
Bernie released this cassette album in 1987, Side One is a mix of traditional folk covers, Side Two is a recorded conversation with Bernie.
It's needless to say a song with "illness" in the title probably doesn't get much pop radio airplay. And "Emily's Illness" certainly didn't. Certainly not in The Summer of Love, when musically you had West Coast acid-rock, Brit-pop and Motown ruling the charts. But this song was far ahead of it's time.
Nora Guthrie is the daughter of Woody Guthrie (and the sister of Arlo, singer of the perennial Thanksgiving Day classic "Alice's Restaurant Massacree".) She was 17 years old when she recorded this. There's an incredible back story to this song however.
And when you read the lyrics (written by her then boyfriend, Eric Eisner) you might even realize it could be the very first prototype "Goth" record. Granted, they didn't invent the genre, but this song probably opened the door to it.
Because there weren't any pop songs that lyrically dealt directly with the process of someone dying (of leukemia, I'm guessing) until "Emily's Illness". Death itself was still a pretty taboo topic in American pop music in 1967 and very few acts even indirectly mentioned it. To say nothing of the word "blood", which outside of "Young Blood" The Coasters and a mention in "Eve of Destruction" Barry McGuire, was hardly used is any non-religious pop song until 1967.
Nora Guthrie today is the curator of her father's musical legacy, overseeing various recording projects, re-releases and historical recordings, including a very early live Woody Guthrie album called The Live Wire, which was recorded on magnetic wire.
When you think of Giorgio Moroder, you automatically think of kickass '70s and '80s electronic disco-synthpop. Most notably, his collaborations with Donna Summer.
Not '60s surf-bubblegum pop. But you gotta start somewhere and this 1969 single, "Looky Looky" was Giorgio Moroder's first big break in the music business (as "Georgio"). While largely ignored in America, the song went gold in Europe and Canada.
When I first heard this song, I knew it was going to happen. Like radioactive debris from Fukushima, J-Pop was going to wash up on our shores sooner or later. Or maybe it was an advertisement for Kawaii Crush that somehow escaped the security of the Saturday morning TV kids show block.
Then I found out who sang it.
And yes, her husband Chad Kroeger (a.k.a. that Nickelback guy) co-wrote and produced this. After talking with some Canadian friends, we mutually agreed Canada is on it's way to a diplomatic crisis if they don't get these two under control.
