Not really. Sorry, I mean. But why? Or, to make a new word, i Okay, that's awful.
The reason for my absence can be found in all the banners for the week. It's all there. In fact it's been there for a few weeks now.
No, not that.
Now and then it's good to break the paradigm and do something different, both in life and in this place. A deep dive into this or that. Today it's 1959 TV Guides, because why not?
Back in late July I posted a few pictures from Hunt & Gather that showed a lot of old TV Guides. I bought some.
Riverboat is an American Western television series starring Darren McGavin and Burt Reynolds, produced by Revue Studios, and broadcast on the NBC television network from 1959 to 1961. Reynolds was replaced by Noah Beery Jr. halfway through the series in the wake of conflicts with McGavin.
Citation needed, and wouldn’t you love to know what that was about.
The name of the boat: the Enterprise. Series composer: Gerald Fried and Alexander Courage. Really! But the theme was by Elmer.
The Nebbish is confused, but then he finds clarity in life, removes the emasculating eyeglasses, and turns into a canny wise guy.
The brand was new. They’d find a different approach in a few years, with a fresh slogan: Alpine puts the Men in “Menthol.”
They also went with the coupons, like Raleigh. Take it away, Roy:
The Christmas cover in the style of the times - naive art? Folk art? Illustrators borrowing from crude untutored styles for a modern sorta-kinda abstract look?
I wonder how many people actually liked it, or just rolled with it because it was the Contemporary Thing.
I’m always on the lookout for more in this series. I love them so much. THE THINKING MAN’S CIGARETTE.
Thinking man’s filter. Smoking man’s taste.
I’m not saying the popular culture was pitched a little higher in ’59, but . . .
Side by side with all the vast-wasteland stuff, of course. Popular with the highbrows or the aspirational middlebrows.
Borge is featured a lot.
Much beloved! I think. I hope.
A young Dave Moore, who would go on to a long and acclaimed run.
Every market had one of these guys. Ours was up front about the nature of his job: acting. Loved a nip from time to time, I’m told. I interviewed him once and he was a joy - imagine Lou Grant, but more cheerful if you caught him at the right time, with a keener intelligence.
Local TV news was different in those days; Minneapolis was different. Here's something quite typical.
There's more, and eventually I'll post an entire annotated listings section in the 50s site.
You knew I would, right?
Today: PAIN.
Great day at the lunch counter: new drugs! No worries about bounce-back headaches.
This one has a distinctive tone, thanks to the actors. Don’t know who that guy is, but he nails the role.
From the head to the toe, we enter the grim, gritty, dirty, greasy world of the early 70s. Coach is the slovenly sort who chews dead cigars, and always runs his hand through his hair in frustration and irritation, not realizing he was using the same hand to eat French fries. Or, he’d just been given a swirly in a toilet full of motor oil.
Clever end.
The problem with ads for this product? No one wants to see where it goes. Same as Prep H, although not as bad. Other ads used a model, but later ads just leaned right into the problem, ignored it, and showed enormous itchy feet, with Mickey Mantle pitching the goop. If nothing else, you remembered the brand.
It was TOLNAFTATE, which is still used today.
Back to the head, or rather the throat. This poor guy wakes in pain, and decides to go infect everyone on the job site. Notable for the store display, which is perfect cartoon 60s man.
It’s got neomycin sulfate gramicidin!
VIREX. Kill it before it kills you, right? Why not douse the air in your house with aerosol disinfectant? A germaphobe’s dream, this stuff.
Formulated for this year’s viruses.
Somehow I doubt that’s exactly true. But then there’s this one. Seems to be from its first season release, and specifically references the viruses of 1970.
You don’t often hear a guy with that accent doing TV spots. But it works.
Before Virex, there was . . . what, this? As a disinfectant?
I think this was a brand extension, not the original purpose of Glad. It was introduced in the early 50s as a scented room freshener, so they piggybacked on that.
Kills germs for a month! So if you get sick on day 29, don’t blame them.
Now two ways to chip in!
Oh, you thought I'd forgotten? I did not.
Another aspect of male behavior that hasn't changed a whit.
That'll do. More tomorrow, and don't go trying to find it. All in good time!
