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Not sure what kills me most about this Christian Crusaders LP cover: The guys’ matching shirts, ties and Good Humor pants, how the spaghetti-thin flip-adorned female’s 70’s rug-like skirt misses the color scheme completely, the arrangement of flesh under the large guy’s pants, the twists and turns of his greased hair helmet and pork chop sideburns, the mystery of the exact size of the scrunched up guy on the ledge or that this religious LP features “The Monkey Song”. If the Christian Crusaders and Al Davis sound anywhere as good as they look we’re all in for a joyful noise!

coldstone-butterscotchvelvet_cone-thumb-lgSwear to God, this week Coldstone introduced some of the cold stuff that turns into pudding and never melts. Only available through July 28th, this joint venture with the King of Kitsch foodstuffs, JELL-O, has the texture of pudding but is cold like ice cream and stuffed into cones or cups. Jello Pudding Ice Cream, as this test monkey is known, comes in Chocolate-y Goodness™ with peanut butter, caramel and fudge and Butterscotch Velvet™ with Butterfingers, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and caramel. I’ll miss the drips but look forward to even more chemicals lighting my system up. I’ll have some red balls Orbitz to wash that down with, please!

For recipes using the new chemical treat go here. Really.

lawrence-welk-vase_9014One of the most spectacular examples of television Kitsch are reruns of The Lawrence Welk Show, 1955 to ’82, on PBS. My favorites are late 60’s/ early 70’s with their over-saturated technicolorish hues, cheesy sets and costumes, massive bouffants and Disco tweaked JFK hair helmets, bouncy musicians, extreme middle of the road interpretations of old and new pop songs, insert shots of the dancing octogenarian audience, not to mention the thicker than wiener schnitzel German accent of the wunnerful, wunnerful host himself, Mr. Champagne Music, Lawrence Welk.

His dedicated group of sidekicks included accordionist Myron Floren, his son-in-law, ex Mouseketeer Bobby Burgess, and platinum follicled pianist, JoAnn Castle, of whom TV Guide said, “Castle doesn’t tickle the Ivories, she hammers them—as if she is building the piano instead of playing it.” Appropriately sponsored by Geritol, a health tonic that zoomed to popularity in the post Atomic Age, The Lawrence Welk Show is a Kitsch lover’s Woodstock.

Mr. Welk embraced merchandising, including his ever popular ashtrays, bubbles and musical spoons but the accordion vase is among the most collectible of his stable.

                                                                                                             Welk’s Big Hit:

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                                                                                                            JoAnn’s big hair:

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Really really nasty cheap packaging on this pack of gum and 6 “full color” movie cards put out by Paramount Pictures Corp in 1977. Six dark photos printed on incredibly flimsy barely card stock, the back of which looks to be a cut up overstock movie poster with nary a fact about John Travolta or the film printed anywhere. Boasting that the Super Bubble gum inside blows larger bubbles I doubt it very much as there’s only half a stick of gum included – not a even a full pancake of dextrose and corn syrup. Such a classic film is worthy of a finer chewing experience, altho the packaging catapults this to high Kitsch status.

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Everything goes down smooth, Smokey style at 7/11.  At the time, early in the stars cross-promoting with retail establishments 1970’s, I thought Smokey was too smooth to be on a cup.  But I loved Slurpees, Big Gulps and such and forgave him with my first swig back.  I still collect these cups.  Grand Funk Railroad and The Fifth Dimension sit right next to Smokey on my desk holding pencils, tv remotes and the like, still working round the clock in the studio.

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I made this “Arnold Palmer Coat Rack” out of golf clubs and balls in 1987 for a Debbie Harry video, “French Kissing In The USA”, that I art directed in my house. I’m a big fan of using objects for purposes other than for which they were created. I sold a lot of these as well as a baseball bat and mitt version in the 80’s. I never golfed myself but still have hundreds of clubs, all picked for their sturdiness as furniture parts. 

Here’s a link to the video on YouTube. I can’t even remember if the coat rack made the final cut but it was there among a zillion other things I custom built.  

I could post a much clearer copy of the video than whoever posted this but YouTube retains its hideous policy of selectively notifying people to take copyrighted videos down, oftentimes leaving those who made the video empty-handed while allowing those who made copies off TV or DVDs unscathed. Greedy, greedy, greedy YT.  Duck before a golf ball slams your profits in the head!

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