As I said yesterday in the post about gigantic cassette tapes from the 1950s, mocking old technology (and the awe and wonderment that accompanied it when it was new) is low-hanging fruit. But it isn’t just for a laugh that we marvel at yesterdays technical detritus. It also serves to
What happened to the massive cassette tapes pictured in the above posted RCA promotional film about the ‘revolution in tape?’ Huge consoles seemed to hold four of these biggies which required no threading–imagine! It’s easy to be amused by dead technology but this one is a real puzzler. Did it
Ten or so years prior to the delightfully comedic Peter Sellers TWA ads of the mid 1970s that I posted yesterday TWA had a different vision of how to present itself to the public. Above is a one-minute ‘informercial’ ad from 1961 featuring Miss Mary Ann Lynch in a ‘day
The great Peter Sellers picked up a little bread and butter cash doing a series of ads for TWA in the mid-seventies and the first of the above posted ads, where he plays an Italian ‘Via Veneto or Bust’ swinger, was one of my favorite ads of my childhood. This
If you set out to make a parody of a 1970s TV commercial for a Stereo store you might wind up with something like the above–if you were very very talented, of course. (By the way, whatever happened to Sansui? It’s mentioned in yesterday’s clip as well). Thoughts of stereo
Stereos were once an incredibly important bookshelf-filling music-delivery system. Much time was lavished on discussions of which were the best components, whether it was better to have an all-in-one receiver or a power amp, pre-amp and tuner, which massive speakers to buy (and how many). A true stereo-head preferred to
Enjoy a two-minute ad for the then brand-new 1977 IBM 5100, a fifty-pound computer that appears to have been invented to help people figure out what to do with their cows (you have to watch it). By the way: is she holding an I-Pad in that opening scene? Or, more
https://www.youtube.com/embed/qjxb1bpceok%20width=560/iframebr%20/ Did you know that K-Tel didn’t just put out junky record compilations but also created a series of crappy utilitarian household items? Dig the Omlette maker ad above–the thing can be separated to be two half-pans though to do so would be at your own risk since they clearly
https://www.youtube.com/embed/vtQwEog6cuE%20width=560/iframebr%20/%20br%20/https://www.youtube.com/embed/VVLMQ8Ay0ic%20width=560/iframebr%20/%20br%20/https://www.youtube.com/embed/POHjl_Xhxe4%20width=560/iframebr%20/%20br%20/ The above three blooper albums from K-TEL records were another early purchase of mine via the phone, using my parents credit card with no permission. For some reason I didn’t fear the arrival of the records and whatever questions might arise as a result of their presence (to say
Subscribe in a reader What on earth was the above video made for? It’s a short film in the style of a tourist-lure travelogue promoting New York. Only its point is how lousy New York is. The Youtube poster is at least ten years off in his estimation of when