Jeno's Frozen Pizza

You gotta LOVE Jeno's Frozen Pizza.

Usually on sale for $1.50 or less each in most supermarkets, they are a cheap and super tasty way to get your tummy full in 11-12 minutes in a 450° oven. College students LIVE on Jeno's pizza and air.

But I'm also old enough to remember when Jeno's pizzas were also a little bigger than the 8" in diameter they are today. They used to be 12" in the '60s and '70s....

10" from 1983 to the 1990s. And 8" from then to today - mostly because of cost cutting, but also because Jeno's had been bought by it's budget frozen pizza rival, Totino's (both now owned by General Mills Inc.) Totino's pizzas are still 10" diameter.

Jeno's even made pizza mix. In fact, this came out before they made frozen pizza!

I always thought Jeno's tasted better than Totino's, even though technically, they are actually the same. But the one thing everybody complains about Jeno's is they never put enough mozzarella cheese on their pizzas. So you usually had to buy a bag of shredded mozzarella to compensate.

In 1967, they released this album, a selection of accordion music called Music to Eat Pizza By.

TV Tray Stands

TV tray stands....STILL mandatory in many households (namely mine!)

Shhhhh! Milton Berle is on.....

The TV tray stand wasn't necessarily a by-product of 1950's television. They actually had lap tray sets as far back as the 1930s for families to listen to the radio while eating their dinner.

Yma Sumac

Yma Sumac "Voice of The Xtabay" (10" inch LP, 1952) Right here is where "Exotica" music began.....

Before Minnie Riperton and Mariah Carey, Peruvian singer Yma Sumac was considered to have the widest vocal range of any known singer, over FIVE octaves (that's a range going nearly the entire human vocal spectrum, from a gut-deep basso to an ear piercing C-note. The best opera singers can barely accomplish two octaves.)


But WHO was she?

She was reportedly descended from the last Incan emporer, Atahualpa (although no DNA evidence was ever presented, it's a claim supported by the Peruvian government.)

It was also claimed in the 1950s she was nothing more than a housewife from Brooklyn named Amy Camus (and "Yma Sumac" was this name backwards.) However, that rumor has been discredited by several Peruvian and Argentinian records she recorded for Odeon in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

The shellac doesn't lie......

Her popularity peaked in the 1950s during the hi-fi craze. Her exotic look, music and voice made her very popular with young hi-fi fans. In fact, before the first formal hi-fi demonstration albums, it was her records that were the bench test of hi-fi enthusiasts.

One of her most famous was Mambo! (10" inch LP, 1955)

 

Here's Side One.....

Yma Sumac died November 1, 2008.


 

Marcel Marceau's Lost "Best Of" Album

In 1970, famous mime Marcel Marceau (spelled incorrectly "Marceao") released an album.

It was silent on both sides, except for one minute of roaring applause at the end of each side.......

Homemade Records

You know? There's a part of me that's REALLY kicking myself for not buying a similar Presto K-10 in Eastern Washington for $40 14 years ago. If I only known you could use disposable plastic plates as blanks...... 

It's straight, warm, tubey sounding lo-fi mono sound and disposable plate "vinyl" makes it perfect for recording punk or DYI/Outsider music