Archive for March, 2006

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Pettin’ in the Park

March 31st, 2006

My Mindjack Film review of the new 6 DVD set The Busby Berkely Collection is up. Cool, cool set. I’ve said it here before, but these DVDs also include period shorts and cartoons which capitalized on the music in these movies. Love how those early Merrie Melodies have a different feel from the later, more […]

Wookies Don’t Let Wookies Drive Drunk

March 30th, 2006

Wow: a 1979 “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk” PSA set in the Star Wars cantina. YouTube is turning out to be a goldmine for old music videos and TV commercials I’ve never heard of, much less saw in the first place.

Crazy, Man, Crazy

March 29th, 2006

Recently I revisitied the Jim Flora gallery and was reminded again of what a brilliant artist he was. Mostly he’s known for a series of eye-popping album covers drawn for RCA and Columbia Records in the ’50s, but he did amazing magazine and book illustration as well (I actually saw a Flora children’s book at […]

Gruesome Twosome: Generic Perky Chorus Edition

March 28th, 2006

Francis Lai: “The Bobo”
LP: The Bobo Soundtrack, 1967
Neal Hefti: “Waltz for Jeannie”
LP: Harlow Soundtrack, 1965
Today’s selections spotlight that ’60s soundtrack staple, the Generic Perky Chorus. Many soundtrack albums of that era substitute a film’s actual soundtrack music with more palatable fare — and that includes vocal numbers sporting the inevitable Generic Perky Chorus. Not that […]

White Lace and Promises

March 26th, 2006

Several months ago, I went on a crazy quest to locate every recording of “We’ve Only Just Begun” I could find. Now I’ve collected 20 of them onto a mix CD with the artists listed below. Why “We’ve Only Just Begun”, of all things? In the Carpenters songbook, it tends to be unfairly overlooked in […]

Humans Are Funny Animals

March 26th, 2006

This news could be good or bad: CBS is ordering an American version of the animated Brit import Creature Comforts to air midway through the 2006-07 season. ‘Round here we are still enjoying the UK Season One DVD, hoping that Season Two will get an American release. Don’t let us down, Sony!

Small Spaces with Panache

March 23rd, 2006

This Smallest, Coolest Apartment Contest 2006 site is a neat resource for those living in smaller spaces. Paging through the Western entries and reading the comments, I’m impressed with the style and ingenuity on display (and it’s fun to read the nasty reactions to the few apartments which don’t measure up). Who’da thunk one can […]

Technical Difficulties, Please Stand By

March 22nd, 2006

Don’t know if many have noticed this, but leaving a comment on this weblog is not an easy thing to do. Previewing a comment leads to an error page. Posting one results in a hanging page. Whenever that happens, you just need to hit “reload” in your browser and it will take. Sorry about that. […]

An Overdose of Cute

March 20th, 2006

Awww, how cuuute. I’m in love with these Mary Blair illustrations from Baby’s House by Geolo McHugh, a vintage Little Golden Book (via Drawn!). The page takes an extremely long time to load, but bear with it and be rewarded with drawings so insanely cute they’ll make yer teeth hurt. Dan Goodsell’s Mary Blair flickr […]

My Favorite Blonde

March 18th, 2006

Hey all! You might know that, in addition to scrubbles.net, I run The Joyce Compton Shrine — the only website entirely dedicated to “dumb blonde” character actress Joyce Compton. Lately I’ve been pretty happy that Turner Classic Movies will be broadcasting several vintage films with our Miss Compton in the next couple of weeks.
First up, […]

The Incurable Collector

March 16th, 2006

Tim Lucas Video WatchBlog on the collecting instinct. Lucas writes candidly about his own completist desires in collecting DVDs, but his post really could refer to any kind of collection. The reader responses also contain many insights. What makes people collect — a hoarding instinct? In my experience, the people who get extremely obsessive […]

Larry Tate Would Approve

March 15th, 2006

Another marvy flickr set: ads with cartoon elements (thanks, Julie!). You could probably lose a day or three of productivity just glancing through all of Leif Peng’s flickr photo sets containing all sorts of cool vintage illustration art.

Gruesome Twosome: Reheated Nostalgia Edition

March 14th, 2006

Lady Flash: “Street Singin’”
LP: Beauties In The Night, 1976
The Rubettes: “Tonight”
LP: Wear It’s At, 1974 | BUY
Old was new in the mid-’70s, and this pair of enjoyably retro efforts put me in a Happy Days frame of mind. Oreo-like trio Lady Flash were formed as backup singers for Barry Manilow’s touring show. Barry himself wrote […]

A Ceramic Fantasia

March 13th, 2006

Just finished being wowed again while re-watching Walt Disney’s Fantasia. Yeah, we all know that it’s a gorgeously animated marriage of animation and classical music. But I think it’s fascinating how, in this movie, Disney essentially captured America’s aesthetic tastes as of 1940. For all its highbrow aspirations, the film drew a lot of its […]

Ya Know Who You Look Like?

March 10th, 2006

Both Gael and Max have linked to this fun site where you can upload a photo of yourself and it tells you which celebrities you supposedly resemble. So of course I had to give it a go. My results are below. If you want to try it, just ignore the site’s badgering to register with […]

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