The Wonder Of 1950's Technology: Philco's Port-O-Sound Cart and Predicta TV

Since we like our music here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, the above ad for Philco's Port-O-Sound Cart (turntable + tube amp + two-way speaker on cart = COOL) definitely struck a Bb13 #9 chord and confirmed that Mrs. John Q. Public in the suburbs was listening to those classic Charlie Parker Dial records while cooking the roast. In 1948 and 2018, music just makes dinner taste better.



Selling state-of-the-art audio technology to the home market was nothing new in the 1950's. Two decades earlier, the stop-motion animation geniuses of the George Pal Studio were selling Philips radios - the last word in 1930's audio - with elaborate, imaginative and painstakingly produced animated films. This one illustrates how Philips radios bring music and entertainment from all around the world to one's living room.



Yes, the Dutch loved American jazz and, in the latter portion of the following George Pal Puppet-toon, as was frequently the case in movies made before World War II, paid homage via 1920's vaudeville/minstrel show stereotypes . . . all part of a boiling cinematic bouillabaisse featuring incredible stop-motion animation, expert use of color, deft matching of sound to image and the ever-buoyant dance music by Bert Ambrose & His Orchestra. The music has got me ready to buy a top-of-the-line Philips radio right now!



Philco's Port-O-Sound Cart would not be its only high tech in the home product. The futuristic and state-of-the-art swivel screen Predicta TV, origially designed for the Holiday Inn hotel chain, was, like the Edsel, expected to take the world by storm. It didn't. The commercials were very cool, nonetheless.





At one point in the 1960's the stereo reel-to-reel tape deck was the height of audio coolness.





The ultimate version of the Port-O-Sound Cart would arrive decades later, at the end of the 1970's, as the Sony Walkman, The writer of this blog very sincerely hopes he didn't look as ridiculous as the actors in this 1980 TV ad for Sony Walkman did when he took his frequent constitutionals, every step tuned into Charlie Parker recordings, dubbed from vinyl and CDS to that wonder of technology, the cassette tape.

The Wonder Of 1950's Technology: The 3-D TV Headset

Think virtual reality is cool? Here, from the pages of Life Magazine, is the way to watch TV and escape your humdrum existence: use the patented 3-D headset! Here's inventor-publisher and Godfather of Science-Fiction (not the Godfather of Soul), Hugo Gernsback, doing just that!



The television audience could see Uncle Miltie in drag in multiple dimensions!



Just imagine - Dagmar as you've never seen her before!



Watch Bwana Devil on TV - in 3-D and in THRILLING COLOR!



Add a second pair of the patented 3-D glasses and see Bwana Devil in 4-D!



Take LSD with two or three pairs of 3-D glasses atop your 3-dimensional TV headset and see Bwana Devil in 5-D! Then, keeping that headset on, listen to the album Sunrise In Different Dimensions by Sun Ra & His Arkestra.

The Wonder Of 1950's Technology #129: Motels

Presenting a KFJC Psychotronix Film Fest is tons of fun, but also tons of effort. That means fatigue and a bit of sleep deprivation the next day, so Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog's post for this weekend, December 2-4, 2016 is mostly a desperate attempt to figure out what the heck to write about today.



Like it or not, may end up traveling in 2016-2017, possibly even taking a road trip. Yes, we'll be on the road, not quite with the savoir faire of Willie Nelson and more like Jack E. Leonard than Jack Kerouac.



Looks like it will be time to "get your kicks on Route 66."



And with the full understanding that such an expedition would be six decades after the fact!




As far as roadside motels go, here's one that looks promising!



I like this motel because it has air conditioning! Such a deal!



Now if your name happens to be Janet Leigh, for cryin' out loud, don't let your cheapskate narc husband sell you on that all-expenses-paid Honeymoon In Mexico.



Make no mistake about it, those accommodations can leave something to be desired!



Also, while engaged in business travel, think twice about pulling off the road here, even if it is a genuine motel.



Far less dilapidated and more interesting: the Peter Pan Motor Lodge in Anaheim, CA. This blogger, always interested in vintage signage, remains a sucker for cartoon characters used to sell products entirely and laughably unrelated to their adventures onscreen. I hope the lodge didn't hire an out-of-work actor to wear a Peter Pan getup while taking reservations.



There actually has been a website on the San Jose State University faculty page, penned by Andrew and Jenny Wood, not All About Eve but all about lodgings. It's called Motel Americana and was established in 1995. After finding out if the motels mentioned actually still exist - Best Western or Worst Western - one might plan a potential road trip, the ol' jalopy and not that robust physical constitution willing.



Should, once profoundly gripped by wanderlust, this weary traveler somehow find himself in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska - by golly, there's always Skinny Dick's Half Way Inn. . .



One will find some very cool stuff about Roadside America throughout the Motel Americana website, but, alas, not any of Frank Zappa's 200 Motels.

The Wonder Of 1950's Technology #89: The Nash Ambassador

We're pleased as pomegranates at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog to emerge from a two month hiatus to post print ads and TV commercials for 1950's cars, A.K.A. boats.



Since American Motors was a key sponsor for the Disneyland TV show, even the Mick, Pluto and Jiminy Cricket got into the car commercial act.





This blogmeister, well known for the curious ability to watch hours on end of 1950's and 1960's car ads - and then beg for more - is thrilled to find the following advertising film plugging the Nash Ambassador.



For more info, there is an in-depth article about the Nash Ambassador on Wikipedia.

The Wonder Of 1950's Technology #372: Potato Fudge

Consider the above curious print advertisement for a spectacularly unsuccessful consumer product that never actually existed - the less than scrumdiddlyumptious Potato Fudge - the tentative return of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog.


While still reeling more than a bit from a death in the family and its aftermath, this blogger shall stick his toe in the hopefully still waters of semi-regular writing for this blog, plus a little guitar playing. Will be back to weekly posts later this month - really.



Although the perpetrator of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog pleads guilty - no contest, actually - to preparing all kinds of grossly unhealthy diabetic-unfriendly food (including brewing 7.85% alcohol dark ales with the consistency of Grandma's Molasses and the color of Kiwi Shoe Polish), he absolutely will NOT be tackling the following C&H Sugar recipe for, you guessed it, Potato Fudge.



The closest this diabetic will get to making Potato Fudge is to watch a standup comedy video starring the very funny Ron "Tater Salad" White, the Blue Collar Comedy tour's answer to W.C. Fields.



While Potato Fudge did not exactly to America by storm, some elements of the product found their way into the following campaign for canned spaghetti.



In addition, this blogmeister's showman persona A.K.A. Psychotronic Paul, shall return in December.



Along with intrepid colleagues and film archivists Robert Emmett, Sci Fi Bob Ekman, Scott Moon, that Psychotronic Paul fellow will also return, bearing boxes full of odd 16mm film reels, to Foothill College's hallowed Room 5015 for the 24th anniversary KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival on December 3, 2016 at Foothill College in the Los Altos Hills, CA.



There will also be a show Yours Truly will be curating at Angelica's in January - silent movies accompanied by the always swingin' Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Septet.


Your correspondent, post-oyster consumption

The Wonder Of 1950's Technology, #46

And there she is, not Miss America, but the fair Geene Courtney, demonstrating the wonder of 1950's technology, sausages as a fashion accessory, with panache and extra mustard. Ms. Courtney was crowned Sausage Queen during National Hot Dog Week (sponsored by the Zion Meat Company), specifically in the year 1955. Nutritionists be damned - I like her!



And of course, we know what the theme music was when Geene accepted her official Sausage Queen tiara. Couldn't have possibly been Bert Parks singing the Miss America theme, but that's okay - we like this ditty by Perry Como better.



Invariably, this brings to mind a very cheesy TV ad, to this day branded into the minds of baby boomers as a red-hot brand burned cattle - this gem's from 1967 and no less ridiculously unsubtle almost 50 years later.



As is THIS commercial.



For alerting Your Correspondent to the Geene Courtney photo, Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog must extend tips of a grand top hat worn by Oliver Hardy (or at least Hilliard Carr) to Paul Malon, Chelsea Nichols from The Museum Of Ridiculously Interesting Things and the Ridiculously Interesting.com website (responsible for an astonishing December 2012 post about Bizarre Beauty Contests) and, lastly, our friend Madeline Burke.

The Wonder Of 1950's Technology, #8

With this paean to the Fabulous Foodarama mega-refrigerator, the folks at Vintageadbrowser have done it again.

Even better: this TV ad for the Kelvinator Foodarama (ONLY 47 inches!) narrated by Hillary Brooke, still revered by comedy geeks love her poise, charm and beauty amidst the wall-to-wall mayhem of The Abbott And Costello Show.

The Wonder Of 1950's Technology, #43: Vitamin Donuts!

And pardon me whilst I check my blood sugar level. . .

The Wonder Of 1950's Technology #14 - The Edsel!

The Edsel remains one of the most enduringly fascinating of product failures.

Here's just one of many wonderful vintage print ads from the Old Car Advertising and Old Car Blog websites.

Tons of late 1950's money was spent promoting the Edsel, including half hour sales films, and tons of commercials like this one: