Seeing as the Lustrous Lipstick display was so popular yesterday I moved my vintage Ponds face cream up in KOTD status to grace the shelves at The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch today. Along with Jergens, Ponds ruled the middle class moisturizer market in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. Growing up, I don’t ever recall going into a friend’s house whose mom didn’t have a jar of this stashed next to the cotton balls.
Made by Chesebrough-Pond’s Inc., NY,NY this is the 10.4 oz. economy jar, the product’s most popular size. Pond’s famous Seven Day Beauty Plan included slathering this stuff on twice nightly for “smoother, lovlier” skin.
I remember stocking up on Ponds for college but then being too embarrassed to abide by the Pond’s famous Seven Day Beauty Plan for fear of having to walk my dorm around looking like this woman:
Here’s a 1960’s Ponds ad:
This commercial wasn’t for Ponds but for a competing more boutique line of facial cosmetics in the 1950s. It’s astounding to watch because of one of its secret ingredients, radioactivity!
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I love sculptures like this, especially when they’re crafted by mechanics and stuck out on the street in front of their shops. I’m assuming that “Mofles” means muffler in some language. If not, there’s more that I love about this place than just the metal foliage.
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him
As I was sitting here minutes ago swamped with deadlines and in a panic because I didn’t write my Kitsch O’ The Day post yet I got an email from my good friend and reliable Kitsch spotter, Tom Trujillo, telling me that I HAD TO watch this video, “Pardon Me” by Maxine Swaby. My first thought was we finally have a few moments of sunshine here in LA and this video opens up with brightly colored tulips so wouldn’t that be nice? My second thought was this isn’t so bad, a little lethargic perhaps but no big deal. My third thought was Maxine Swaby is leading me down a very subtle yet precious path of Kitsch because many of her notes hide somewhere under the melody, most of the shots and transitions are too literal interpretations of the lyric, and the energy of everything – Maxine, the shots, the color palette, et al – always stays so even keel you just want to show Ms. Swaby a picture of a clown or something that will make her laugh, give her a big shot of sugar so her hands won’t stay within the 3 inch range she confines them to, anything at all to add little ooooomph to the overall video situation.
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His autograph etched on the back, TV kingpin Ralph Edwards handed out these etched gold keychains as promotional swag from “This Is Your Life”, the TV behemoth he hosted from 1952 to ‘61. The show, precursor to current documentary faire such as “Biography”, featured surprise salutes to prominent show business luminaries, politicians, sports stars and the like. Edwards was one of the first TV personalities to produce his own show. Hence, the particularly fancy giveaways like this keychain.
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May everyone’s New Year be off to as sunny, bright and choreography filled a start as this romp through cheesy video effects and bouncy hair is. I hope you go-go-GO wherever you are (and turn off the hideously obnoxious Google advertising that sucks up the bottom quarter of the screen so as not to lose the thighs, crotches and go-go boots it so insensitively covers up).
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Clothes,
Dance,
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Kitsch,
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As most of you know by now, I’m one of the few songwriters who loves when their songs are used or performed inappropriately as it turns the songs into masterpieces of Kitsch. I never set out to write Kitsch as I love music too much but if I leave it in the hands of all the people who love to see themselves on YouTube I’m rarely disappointed.
As opposed to a performance, this is someone who’s chosen to verrrry sloooowwwwly show us how to achieve a Dominican hairdo using two Earth Wind & Fire songs as background music, “After The Love Is Gone” and “Boogie Wonderland”, the latter of which I co-wrote and the significance of neither in regards to the the subject matter make any sense.
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Nothing better than celebrity Kitsch! They have enough money and should know better but that’s when some of the biggest Kitsch gets committed. The killers happen with products that have nothing to do with the person’s name that adorns them like Mohammed Ali shoe polish, products that have all too much to do with the celebrity like a Brigitte Bardot bra, or products that shouldn’t have anything to do with the celebrity like Lucille Ball cigarettes. It’s all here in Film #4 in my “What Is Kitsch?” film fest commemorating the opening of the Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch.
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Here’s how I spend my spare time, making this highly sophisticated -NOT- animation with Prudence Fenton, of Pee Wee’s Playhouse and Peter Gabriel videos fame. After being a private joke for 15 years, we’ve finally committed (in all senses of the word) the Pigmy to film. If anybody deserves a place on the mantle of Kitsch Klassicism, it’s Pigmy Will.
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