New Heights Video: Meet John Doe

A flick for all us "heelots."

Meet John Doe (1941)

via Internet Archive

Soupy's On, K-bone!

This one looks like better quality than the others we've seen.

via Classic Television Showbiz: The Soupy Sales Show (1965)

The Grapes of Art Deco

What would the Joads have thought if their truck had broken down in front of one of these joints back in the 1930s?



via BibliOdyssey: Art Deco California

The Al Capp Radio Show Tapes: Issue #2

We continue with another historic installment of The Al Capp Radio Show, a satiric spot feature from the turn of the 1970s. Be sure to check out our other posts here at MangMade regarding this venture into controversial talk radio by the creator of Li'l Abner, Al Capp.

THE AL CAPP RADIO SHOW: Tape 1, Episode 2
"Mr. Capp, Julie and David Eisenhower have been criticized for not joining moratoriums. What do you have to say about that?"

The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam was actually a series of protest events which topped its highest peaks of success in raising awareness for opposition to the war on October 15 and November 16, 1969. Anti-war activists mobilized millions of participants engaging in huge peace protests spread throughout the country. A crowd estimated to be 100,000 strong rallied in Capp's own Greater Boston area while 500,000 marched on Washington DC in November.

Popular figures of past and present joined in. Singers Joan Baez, Eartha Kitt, Dr. Benjamin Spock, the writer of our nation's baby owner's manual and frequent target of Capp's ridicule, George McGovern (ditto), and Ted Kennedy (mm-hmm) all took part, with the senators calling for the troops to be withdrawn by '72. While at Oxford, a young Bill Clinton helped to organize the simultaneous Moratorium demonstrations in England. This act became an issue years later in his 1992 presidential campaign.

The events included the era's now iconic forms of splashy organized protest: marches, school walkouts, even closing campuses in some cases to allow students to discuss the war. The manner of tactics employed were increasingly the inspirations for Capp's plots and gags in Li'l Abner and targets of his withering contempt elsewhere. During this time many fans felt the strip's tone had become shrill. It's apparent Capp would think, "likewise." Abner fans, while fondly remembering the strips of short years prior, hold these sequences as the strip's nadir. As to how fondly the radio show is remembered... well, people still remember the Li'l Abner "comical strip."

In this episode, the woman posing the question uses the word "moratoriums" (yes, you heard right, not the proper, more uplifting moratoria). These demonstrations and others would be filled with rock music, a hearty mix of celebrities and the likes of the profanely romantic S.W.I.N.E. (Capp's Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything). But they were certainly not attended by squares like Julie and David Eisenhower, whom Capp believed actually represented 98% of the day's youth that would eventually have to clean up the mess left by the strident 2% receiving sympathetic coverage by the press and pandering from politicians like George McGovern.

Richard Nixon's 20-year old daughter Julie had married Dwight Eisenhower's 20-year old grandson David in December 1968. Their year-long engagement had been part of the Nixon presidential campaign story. "I always campaign better with an Eisenhower," Nixon would capably wink on the trail.

Young Julie and David were celebrities by virtue of being the progeny of the political administration that had led America through the relatively graceful, stable 1950s. Observing the couple, each attending Smith and Amherst, the establishment would regard them as what was right about collegiate America: sensible, good, Republican youth. To his peers, David's opinion that it would be unfair to abolish the draft (as Nixon had proposed) and leave the nation's defense to a volunteer army left most campus baby boomers cold. Capp would indeed find it strange that today it is these same baby boomer liberals suggesting to reinstate the draft in the same name of fairness.

Capp's sarcastic response to the question is simply that these kids can't get anything right. Their traditional courtship and (SHUDDER) marriage had become passe by apparent standards in 1968. The couple's core values were anathema to the counter-culture crowd. Much of the vocal idealism of the day's youth was simply to embrace contrariety of whatever the previous generation may have held dear because that's a drag, man. So, Capp rattles off a litany of David and Julie's actions and inactions as though they were obviously misguided innocents clueless of their being so very square. "What else can you expect from kids with fathers like theirs?" Capp closes by postulating what would have happened had Julie and David's fathers and grandfathers supported moritoriums and American surrender in their youth and what it would have meant for 1960s moritorium leaders.



Related Links:

Julie and David Eisenhower TIME article
The Vietnam Moratorium by Jeremy Brecher (1969)
BBC On This Day: Millions march in US Vietnam Moratorium
Moratorium - Vanderbilt Television News Archive
Great Al Capp articles from Animation Archive
"Joanie Phoney" Li'l Abner episode strips at Mark Kausler's CatBlog
Art from Capp's Hardhat's Bedtime Story Book

That's Very Rock and Roll of You

Season 2 Online Premiere - Flight of the Conchords (US Only) - watch more funny videos

Haven't even watched it yet and had to share (and test this embed).

via Bedazzled!

Do I Sound like That?

Here I am recording vocals at MangMade Studios (click to enlarge). In fact, this is a pretty fair illustration of the whole recording process, with steps 2 and 3 repeated until the point of exasperation.

Google Book Search now has scanned magazines going way back, such as this Popular Science issue from 1920.

via Popular Science - Google Book Search

The Al Capp Radio Show Tapes: Issue #1

Al Capp was a 20th century humorist who ruled newspaper comic pages for decades with his satiric hillbilly adventure strip, Li'l Abner. Starting with the strip's 1930s introduction, he became celebrated and recognized over the years for his popular culture contributions: the Schmoo, the Double-Whammy, Sadie Hawkin's Day, and the Miniskirt (his assertion) among many others. But by the end of the 1960s, the "Old Left" Capp had come to be viewed as a conservative polemicist. An adversary of the "New Left" and, generally, the youth of the day, Capp is the cranky old establishment figure that exchanged views and insults with the Lennons at the famed Montreal "Bed-In for Peace" in May 1969.

The man held many opinions and offered them, well, not necessarily freely. Capp surely commanded a nice payday for the frequent work he performed as a wit on radio and television panel discussions. That is not to mention the scratch he was making with his public speaking engagements (notably, his confrontational college campus appearances), or from his newspaper and magazine opinion pieces. He felt it fair to say he loved to share his opinions and was popular enough to earn money doing it; he delivered them repeatedly in nearly every flow of popular media available throughout his career. This series of articles will tune the dial to one of these channels, his eponymous radio show. From the turn of the 1970s: this is The Al Capp Radio Show.

While there are currently some wonderful sites with great information on Capp, his art and his controversial history, there is very little to be found regarding his radio show. These articles will cover this particular vessel of Capp's opinions and attempt to place it within some historical context. We also hope to hear from anyone with more information regarding the show itself. As we move the story along to "the grid," we will share what we have determined and any information you the reader may have to contribute, whether it be fact or reasoned speculation.

In this first issue, we introduce The Al Capp Radio Show with (HAW!) an introductory presentation reel intended for prospective buyers of the show:

THE AL CAPP RADIO SHOW: The Presentation Reel


For more than seven minutes Capp and Pepper-Tanner staff hype each other and the show. Capp describes his fee for his question and answer sessions at the nation's universities as a bargain for his hosts because they get "two David Brinkleys, an Art Buchwald and a half, and four Ann Landers' for the price of one Al Capp." The implication is this bargain works in a similar fashion for your radio station as well.

Pepper-Tanner pitches the production will provide "with the music of Li'l Abner...fifteen new shows a week, a 90-second feature" with Capp providing a custom opening for the station or client. Here, it seems the show may have actually been called Al Capp On the Spot, as Capp runs through some sample openings combining this title and various sponsers.

Then, it's on to excerpts of his show, including his take on welfare mothers with "Mrs. Fruitful" of Detroit, pornography, as well as popular singers Joan Baez (more on her later) and Johnny Cash. But of course, Capp lets the listener know that these selected bits were merely the mildest of the bunch. Only if Capp joins your team will you get the "really good stuff."

"Oh, we're tricky, Pepper and Tanner and Capp," Capp trails off chuckling and leaving it for Pepper-Tanner to slam it home:

"Right, AL!"

THE AL CAPP RADIO SHOW: Tape 1, Episode 1
"Mr. Capp, why don't we see you on talk shows any more?"

The episodes generally begin with the voice of an unnamed "man/woman-on-the-street-type" posing a question to Capp. This, we will find, was a common device for Capp: introduce a topic through a question a typical person would ask, framed properly for a typically thoughtful Capp response. His response would be slick, no doubt honed to its finest edge from campus engagements.

Here, Capp describes a tour of Asia he took with fellow writers Art Buchwald and George Plimpton ("a rising young novelist"), visiting wounded troops in Vietnam. For the young men, the simple pleasure of seeing famous faces from home, faces they knew from television talk shows, was a treat.

He suspects the reason he isn't on those shows anymore may have something to do with a question he wants to ask these hosts -- the much more popular Johnny Carsons, Merv Griffins, and Mike Douglases.

(By the way, that isn't a self-portrait of Capp with Carson depicted here, but rather a Capp drawing of Senator George McGrovel sounding off on Tommy Wholesome.)

THIS SERIES IS SOMETHING NEW to MangMade. Stick around for the "really good stuff."

"Right, AL!"



Related Links:
Great Al Capp articles from Animation Archive
"Joanie Phoney" Li'l Abner episode strips at Mark Kausler's CatBlog
Art from Capp's Hardhat's Bedtime Story Book

Don't Forget to Wipe: Art for Barflys

Novelty cocktail napkins and other vintage bar related designs in this flickr set.

via Swizzle, Stir & Shake - a set on Flickr

There Goes My Launch

via CHUCKMAN'S NON-SPORTS TRADING CARDS 1950s VOL 2

60s Spidey Fan

via Filthy Film Noir - a set on Flickr

And the Wichita Lineman

is still on our blinds.



via LIFE: Woman looking at wall hanging made from ... - Hosted by Google

mm.

You can't Fight in Here, This is the War Room.

Checkout the control panel for a 1960 Atlas missile launch.  The one in the back seems as if it's still in shrink wrap.  This looks like it could have been from a 1970s sci-fi movie set.  Sharp and clean with great lights.  Today, I imagine it would be a large flat screen touch surface LCD display.


"Don't mess."

via LIFE: Technicians working in the Launch Contro... - Hosted by Google

My Tuba, my Tuba, They Love to Hear my Tuba

This used to be a holiday perennial.

I'll skip little Ritchie singing "Little Drummer Boy."  Let him eat Crummy Buttons.

via YouTube - "I Am a Fine Musician" from The Dick Van Dyke Show

Who Can Figure Out Such Devices?

via YouTube - 1967 Future Prediction - PC

DX the Night Away in Style

Many more and even more beautiful radios at the site.

via Tom Kipgen's Tube Radio Sales Page

Have Fun Be Popular Be A Rock! - The ACME ARTIFICIAL ROCK

The ACME mail order catalog.  Don't forget the ACME Aspirin.

"The ACME Trick Bone unwinds when swallowed, hours of fun!!!"

The ACME House Instant Girl - as featured in "Boston Quackie"-McKimson/1957

via The ORIGINAL Illustrated Catalog Of ACME Products

LIFE with Jayne at Home

Every one an album cover.

via LIFE: Sex symbol actress Jayne Mansfield - Hosted by Google

That's Life

LIFE magazine has made a huge number of photos browsable and searchable with Google here.  Or you can simply type your keywords followed by source:life in the Google Image search box to return items only from the LIFE photo archive.  Most have never been published before.



via LIFE: Portrait of actress Julie Newmar - Hosted by Google

Syd Hoff City

When I come to think of it, I believe Syd Hoff's books were the earliest children's books I read and enjoyed, coming very quickly after the primal "See Us Play" variety.  Because of this, his clean round figures bring instant recognition of his work for me.  It's personally strongly iconic, even when viewing this "adult" material from the 1940s.

Having a two-syllable full name does not hurt the recall time involved, either.

via Hairy Green Eyeball: Syd Hoff

Hot Diggity Dog Diddly-Iddly

"I'm gonna really hit the spot."

Awesome shots of "Polock Johnny's Polish Sausage" joint's mascot.  Check it out -- he drew his own ketchup and mustard eyebrows!  Thanks, Draplin!

via 1265 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

These Girls Have You Covered

I don't want to forget these.  Gonna have to hit John King Books soon, I suppose.

via Good Girl Art Paperback Gallery

100 Years of Tickering

The sexy history of stock tickers.  One wonders how many miles of ticker tape went through these devices through the years.  They were also nice for keeping up with sports' scores, too.  The one on the right was the last new model offered in 1960.

via Stock Ticker Company: The History of the Stock Ticker

Under the Milky Way Tonight

Happy Halloween, Hoo-Hah!

Here's a great early example of a Mad Magazine sensibility brought to bear by the great Chas Addams:

And here's a timely one:

Judging from the rest of these from his 1943 Drawn and Quartered collection, I think I'm going to have to pick one up.

via Hairy Green Eyeball: Happy Halloween from Chas Addams

Working Blue

Vinyl art goodness here at this japanese website collecting jazz album art from the 40s to the 70s.

via Blue Note covers » Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

How Many Licks Does it Take?

"Why don't ya watch it"

Sweet, literally.  I remember this from the turtle onward.  But today, even that length has a lot of lines cut out of it.  Is this the longest running, least updated commercial on television?  Let's find out...One...Ta-hoo...

via Cartoon SNAP: How Many Licks, indeed? The full-length UNCUT version of the classic Tootsie-Pop commercial!

Better Read Embed

Hey cool! We can now embed whole books from Google Book Search:





via Inside Google Book Search: Book Search everywhere with new partnerships and tools

"Carrier Wave" - Lyrics

by Jim Howe

Your dirty wings
And crooked halo
None of those things
Will get you through your holiday
The cancelled letters
Lost their way home
Lines denied though forever
Running down your face

There's no doubt about it
You're bleeding through
There's no doubt about it
I'm reading you

Find the frequency, yeah
And turn your dial
Set to receive
The flickering faith you crave
Declare the time
And place you go to
Relieve your mind
And warm your heart on the carrier wave

There's no doubt about it
You're bleeding through
There's no doubt about it
I'm reading you

WTOP Election Night 1972

Great quality video from Election Day 1972.  Brought to you by McDonald's Restaurants and Ford "No Unhappy Owners" Motor Company.

via YouTube - WTOP Election Night 1972

IBM Online 1975

Let IBM make your business BOLDER by taking it ONLINE in 1975. Great window in time forms with this slide deck of actual photographic slides, not a PowerPoint file, advising the viewer that a "Data Base" will provide accurate data quickly.

It's funny how the whole thing reminds me of Colossus: The Forbin Project.

via IBM Slides at Square America

New Bob Dylan Bootleg Series Collection

NPR is providing a stream of the whole album ahead of its release.  Got some Time Out of Mind and World Gone Wrong alternates, outtakes and live versions.

via Exclusive Preview: Bob Dylan's 'Tell Tale Signs' : NPR Music