Halloween III: Silver Shamrock Commercial

It's almost time kids.......

The Oobi

It seemed like a cute idea....

Message on top "I'm Oobi. I contain a message to another human being. Please further my journey an inch, a foot, or a mile. Add a note, if you wish. Then help me to the next nice person like yourself!" 

A strange little toy came on the market in 1971.

A little plastic thing that looked like a giant M&M with eyes. It was for kids to transport written messages to each other using the kindness of strangers. The kids would write the address of their receiving friend on the bottom of an Oobi and leave it out anyplace someone would find it. And, assuming that person had nothing else to do, would presumably take it directly to the kid who was to receive it.
 

That was the idea at least behind the Oobi.

They were sold in packs of three, so they were probably weren't reuseable.

 

"oobi is a message center for conveying your written thoughts to other human beings. oobi has no home, no owner, but is forever going somewhere, on his way, in transit, never dying. oobi counts on the kindness of strangers to journey him towards his destination, but only the person to whom oobi is addressed may open him. When he is finally broken open, it is only to free oobi's spirit.

          You may buy oobi, but you never "own" oobi. You buy oobi to make him free.

oobi is love"

Parents however weren't as nice to Oobi. And this weirdo hippie 'love' babble only made them extremely nervous (or seriously pissed them off.) And you can't really blame them. They had every reason in the world not to like them. Even in that more innocent age, the very last thing you want is some pervert or creep knowing you and your child's address. The slits that held the notes were also big enough and useful for making your kids unsuspecting drug mules as well. So cops were naturally suspicious of these things as well.

It was the biggest toy failure in Parker Brother's history. And they were off the shelves within months.....

More on the Oobi here:

http://www.deuceofclubs.com/oobi/index.html

Loop-A-Lot Toy Commercial

Unquestionably the LAMEST toy ever invented.......

Aqua Dots

 

It seemed like a good idea.....

A kids art toy that made art out of little beads (aka "dots") and it was 2007 Toy of The Year, what could go wrong?

Well, everything.

The beads were manufactured in China and when combined with water, the chemicals did more than make art. When little kids swallowed the colourful dots that looked like candy (as little kids tend to do), and when mixed with water (or saliva) they combined to make what is known as GBH, infamously known as a "date rape" drug. Several kids were hospitalized after ingesting them. Fortunately no fatalities.

They were immediately recalled and parents rightfully began to question toys made in China and to no one's surprise, the vast majority of American toys are manufactured in China. Which is out of the jurisdiction of American regulators and where American toy corporations manufacture most of their toys because of the extremely cheap labour in manufacturing.

The product was reintroduced as Bindeez, Beados and Pixos using a non-toxic formula that was coated with a bitter tasting substance to discourage ingestion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bindeez

TV Dinners Part 2

It Seemed Like A Good Idea - Part 2

Now here was a disaster waiting to happen: The packaging was nice, a prepackaged gourmet meal (utterly the biggest oxymoron) and a little bottle of wine. There was just one problem. The wine wasn't for drinking, it was for preparing the meal with....

Yes...THIS existed in the '70s too.......

An actual food product of the '70s.....Gerber Singles.....for ADULTS.....

Oh Dear.......

If you need something to keep you from uncontrollably masturbating every six hours, I kinda think you probably need something a little more substantial than gum.......

STILL can't lay off your junk? Now here's........

Now with MORE salt and metal shavings!

Happy Easter!

PAUL IS DEAD!

Remember those "Paul Is Dead" Beatle rumours that spread around for decades. They all started with this INFAMOUS 1969 WABC broadcast.

WABC 770 AM New York had a MAMMOTH nighttime skywave signal that could be heard as far west as Denver, CO. And people everywhere tuned in. They even showed up in the Pittsburgh radio ratings!

Granted, Roby Yonge did not last long on WABC. There's a story about this Rick Sklar (his former program director at WABC) wrote in his book "Rocking America" (A GREAT READ - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!) you should read.....

You can just imagine the HORROR on his face when he heard this!......

Before They Were Stars: "Ringo I Love You" Bonnie Jo Mason (1964)

From 1964, here's a 17 year old baritone chick named Bonnie Jo Mason and her tribute to the Beatle's drummer dude.

Who was Bonnie Jo Mason? That was a pseudonym given to Cher by one Phil Spector for her first ever single.

"Baby....I'M gonna make YOU a star....."

The single flopped, namely because it's been said that radio stations and Beatles fans thought it was a love song from a gay (male) fan of Ringo's. Female singers weren't supposed to have such big baritone voices back then.

Come 1965, and enter Sonny Bono. Actually, he's been there the whole time, but it was about this time Sonny & Cher had their first hit "Baby Don't Go" (they originally released the song under the duo name Caesar & Cleo for Reprise Records.) By this time, Cher's voice had been adjusted (under Bono's pressure, I presume.) Instead of him coming down to her key, she had to come up to his.....and have a bit of that trendy Bob Dylan twang that Bono was aping himself back then......And the rest is history....

8-Track Flashback: The Flipside

Remember those old 8-Track music tapes you still probably got stashed somewhere?

How one day, somewhere in the summer of 1980 as you're driving your AMC Pacer to a Sambo's for pancakes, you decided to break out that Loverboy 8-Track out of the glove box.  Thirsty as hell, you stop by a Tradewell store on the way to Sambo's and buy a can of Tab.

You open up the can of Tab and the can erupts, spilling the fizzy brown saccharine flavoured liquid down onto the Loverboy 8-Track.

Well, it looked like only the label got soaked. So you think 'why not' and put the thing in the player. "Working For The Weekend" plays and...well...never mind, just listen to this:

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/BT/Egnekn_-_Going_off_the_deep_end.mp3

Now how MUCH would YOU pay to hear THAT again?

For only $15, you can have this damaged classic and more JUST LIKE IT on one dysfunctional CD. Introducing 8-Track Magic, a compilation CD of music from messed up 8-Track tapes from Artists Throwing Money Out the Window.

And surprisingly, this disc was made in 1994.

http://www.generatorsoundart.org/GL-02.html

ATMOW has either gotta be the trippiest bunch of aural freaks I've heard since Negativland (or even The Residents.)  Or the biggest rip-off in the name of "art" in history. Perhaps it should be "People Throwing Money Out the Window"

I mean, for that same price, I could buy a whole box full of REAL messed up 8-Track tapes (including the player) and actually get a more artistic experience because I am WATCHING the machine destroy the tapes before my eyes.

Here's another one.

Check this out: OK, your buddy calls you and dude says his refrigerator is silent. I mean like, REALLY silent. So for some reason, you don't plug it in, call the landlord (or even maybe grab a blow dryer and do a defrost.) Instead, you stick a tape recorder in it (WARNING: THE FOLLOWING AUDIO MAY BE SHOCKING TO SOME LISTENERS):

http://www.generatorsoundart.org/sound/GL-06.mp3

This ENTIRE smash CD The Silent Fridge of POP.AC also is yours for $15:

http://www.generatorsoundart.org/GL-06.html

Do YOU Dream about THIS Man?

He kinda looks like Donald Fagen of Steely Dan...



But THOUSANDS of people say they've had a dream about him

http://thisman.org/

Personally, I think they fell asleep listening to Katy Lied.......

THINK WITH YOUR DIPSTICK, JIMMY!!

Attention all units we have an all-points-bulletin for a crazed Scotsman in a 2009 TV commercial for Castrol motor oil who has assaulted several people with a large automobile oil dipstick. Subject is described as about 5'10"  Caucasian male in his late forties to mid fifties with red hair and beard, a red plaid flat cap and thick Scottish accent. He approaches at random, assaults victims and shouts "Think with your dipstick Jimmy!"

Citizens are advised not to publicly discuss their motor oil. On top of being dangerous, subject is considered a major pain in the ass and most likely is mentally ill......

"Shannon" Henry Gross (1976)

Here's the story......

You're 7 years old and you hear this song for the first time, but you can't figure the lyrics out. You hear it a second and third time and finally your sister buys the 45 because she loves the song. You "borrow" it from her and try to solve what could be a grisly situation. You know it's about Shannon and she's female. And she.....ummm...well,

The chorus goes like this:

Shannon is gone, I hope she's drifting out to sea
She always loved to swim away
Maybe she'll find an island, with a shady tree
Just like the one in our backyard....

Lyrics as creepy as this are usually grounds for a homicide investigation. Did Mr. Gross throw this poor girl overboard off his beachfront property, expecting her to swim to Tahiti or something in shark infested waters? (this song came out at the same time as America was beach nervous because of the movie Jaws....) My 7 year old mind was abuzz with suspicion. And sharks.

As it turned out, "Shannon" was about Brian Wilson's Irish Setter, who had passed away, (hopefully of natural causes.) But singing a song about somebody else's dog is kinda creepy too......

It became a gold single for Henry Gross (and one of the biggest one-hit wonders of the '70s......)

The Nestles Jingle

The horrendous (and creepy) Nestle's jingle from the late '80s.....

Back in school, we made a joke about it: "What comes out your ass/N-E-S-T-L-E-S......"

North Korean TV Commercials

Check out the female voice over on them.....she sounds like your North Korean fairy godmother......

This one is for ginseng:

Here's one for a quail restaurant in Pyongyang (the fairy godmother female voice over sounds orgasmic on this one.) And a quail restaurant? In a nation where 2/3rds of it's citizens starve.....Hmmmmm......:

 Here's a North Korean beer commercial (you mean they actually HAVE beer in North Korea?):

You Think YOU Have A Lousy Boss?

Meet George Pullman.



Well, you really wouldn't want to. He's been dead since 1897 and even if you were given the chance, good luck getting past the eight tons of solid concrete and lead over his grave.

You heard me.

There's a reason why they put all that concrete over his grave, and by the time you're done reading this you'll understand why this man was as toxic as anything they bury in at the Hanford Nuclear Waste Dump.

Let's get into the Wayback Machine (could get crowded, so wear deodourant) and time warp back to Chicago in the 1880s.....

Chicago was a booming town. It just got over a massive fire and things were on a roll. it was one of the few major cities in America at that time where you could be black or an immigrant and still find a way to make it.

George Pullman seemed like a visionary and on paper, you'd think he was.

Pullman ran a company that made luxury railroad cars. There were few automobiles in those days and they moved with the speed of the mail. Airplanes were still science fiction. So horse and buggy was the way for people to get around the city. If you wanted to go see your Aunt Sadie in Peoria, well....you'd be going through a lot of horses too. So passenger trains were invented for that purpose and like Greyhound buses these days, they were uncomfortable, cramped, smelly and (did I mention uncomfortable?)

Anyway, enter the Pullman railroad car. This thing was to change all that. It had seats big enough for the American butt of the time (or at least larger than the butt of an average praying mantis.) It was made of the finest materials. It was the first railroad passenger car with a design and function not resembling a maximum security prison. It was even considered stylish (a word a designer of a maximum security prison would hear and grunt at.) Railroad travel really didn't have to resemble a week in the hole anymore.

This was the Gilded Age, and it was luxury over sanity, flamboyant style over basic safety features. It was a brave new world and George Pullman was going to milk every drop of it.

He constructed a company town for his employees called (what else?) Pullman in Chicago. Pullman had everything you could ever want in 1880. It was totally off the grid from the rest of Chicago, it had it's own sewer and water towers, it's own electricity plant, phone system The very first shopping mall in history called "The Arcade". It had a theater, several shops, a public library and a post office. A public school, a grand hotel, several parks, it's own newspaper and a church. Several streets lined with nice little rowhouses for his employees. There was no litter in the strrets, lawns were well manicured. Everything was as neat and tidy as Martha Stewart on speed. There was NO crime, NOTHING could go wrong, right?

Something did go wrong. Like any travel brochure to paradise, you have to read between the lines. You see, when you work for, rent from, get all your stuff from, you kids educated by and live under the same rules by the same guy, there's gonna be a problem.

First, everything was basically on loan. You were not allowed to own your own little rowhouse. Second, FORGET starting any "alternative" to Pullman's status-quo businesses. Your kids were educated in the Pullman way, all books in the public library were carefully selected by Pullman himself, what you saw in that theater - yep, he picked that too. And the church? Well.....NOBODY used the church, as one church and a zillion denominations of Christianity (we haven't even begun to talk about the non-Christian religions) are just too much for one building.

And everybody's house was so spotlessly clean in these rowhouses that looked perfectly alike. That happens when you can be evicted with only 10 days notice for so much as a dirty dish in the sink. Pullman sent goons out to inspect every house to make sure everything conformed....or else.

Now, if you thought things really fell apart right there, just remember his employees were paid not in solid American cash, but in Pullman's own currency. Meaning once you got outside of Pullman and into Chicago itself - SURPRISE! You're worthless. And when in Pullman, watch out for company spies. They were all over the place. They could be your next door neighbour, the nice guy at the grocery store. And if everyone could settle on a religion, the priest would probably be forced to report back to company headquarters with your juiciest confessions. There was no independent press, no town meetings, no public discussion. Nothing.

Naturally, people began having a problem with all that. But you kept your big mouth shut tight....if you knew what was good for you......

In 1894, Pullman began losing business. Things were rough all over as the American economy was in a mini-depression. But Pullman thought he knew which side his bread was buttered on. So jobs and wages were cut. But rent, utilities and everything else in Pullman stayed at the same prices. And things REALLY went to hell. People went on strike - 90% of Pullman's workforce went on strike. And then it really got ugly. Pullman got in touch with a political buddy, one President Grover Cleveland to send in federal troops to squash all dissent. 

However, once the smoke cleared, it was revealed Pullman had too much control over everything and he was forced to relinquish his control over Pullman. Chicago quickly annexed it.

He died in 1897. And just to make sure nobody dug up his grave and beat the crap out of his corpse (like anyone would), he asked for all that cement and a lead lined coffin to be buried in, per his burial arrangements. Actually, it was a good thing. At least he'll never rise again with another STUPID idea.

That's why right wing company towns and gated communities work as badly as the most liberal hippie communes. Social engineering is a public matter, not a private one.

And that's how we should leave it.

The Girl With The Three Blue Eyes

Scream Gems

When you were a kid, did the Screen Gems logo at the end of several popular TV shows of the late '60s/early '70s ever freak you out?

I actually liked it, but I'll admit - it was a bit....well, ummm.....creepy......

But believe it or not, there actually a movie out now that documents cases of kids who were actually TERRIFIED by this thing, called "The S From Hell"

But you know what REALLY freaked me out when I was a kid - The old PBS logo at the end of Sesame Street:

At least Screen Gems was thoughtful enough to not include a DISEMBODIED HEAD as part of it's logo.....

Halloween Hits: "Dark Lady" Cher (1974)