Allee Willis Blog » Celebrity

06Jan 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Autographed “This Is Your Life” Keychain

06Jan 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Autographed “This Is Your Life” Keychain

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His autograph etched on the back, TV kingpin Ralph Edwards handed out these etched gold keychains as promotional swag from “This Is Your Life”, the TV behemoth he hosted from 1952 to ’61. The show, precursor to current documentary faire such as “Biography”, featured surprise salutes to prominent show business luminaries, politicians, sports stars and the like. Edwards was one of the first TV personalities to produce his own show. Hence, the particularly fancy giveaways like this keychain.

I have one more of these gold “This Is Your Life” books, based on the big red book Edwards read his guests’ life stories from. It’s a locket that hangs on a Pop-it bead chain and used to contain the key to my Ponytail diary.

Here’s a slice from a 1954 “This Is Your Life” featuring Laurel & Hardy. L&H were evidently unhappy about the stealth appearance, saying after that they never planned to make their live TV debut on an unrehearsed network show, especially one they weren’t getting paid for.

04Jan 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Buckskin Bill Coffee-Milk Mug

04Jan 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Buckskin Bill Coffee-Milk Mug

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I don’t know much about Buckskin Bill other than his last name was Black and he had a TV show in Baton Rouge, Louisiana that began every episode with the greeting “Chickama Scouts!”. He was famous for saying things like “Remember, you’re never completely dressed until you put on a smile.”. For whatever else he did, Buckskin Bill certainly knew how to make a good-looking coffee mug, this particular one manufactured by Esco in Japan.

I drink my coffee so light I was elated to find this “coffee milk” mug that I thought finally honored my choice of coffee hues, cranking the brown down so low it’s almost white. I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve gone to where assistants ask if I’d like coffee and how I like it made. It doesn’t matter how many beige walls, tan pillows or cream colored file folders I point at to give reference, the coffee always comes back looking like watery deep brown shoe polish. So I live with my coffee deprived of its proper lightness and had high hopes when I found this mug that I thought justified my preference.

But alas, upon closer inspection I realized that Buckskin Bill’s intention was to create a mug for EITHER coffee OR milk as opposed to promoting a blend of the two. But I’ll take the mug any way I can get it, preferring to honor my interpretation of it in hopes that someone else may join me in a cup of milk, or in my case half and half, with a little coffee.

27Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Dionne Warwick “The Psychic Within” Board Game

27Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Dionne Warwick “The Psychic Within” Board Game

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With 2010 only inches away I wouldn’t mind a little psychic vision as to what the coming year will hold. Would love a few more coins dropping in the pocket, a few more hits rolling out of the brain and a whole lot more kitsch kluttering up my life.

I don’t know why I didn’t buy this board game during Warwick’s ’91-’98 run with the Psychic Friends Network. I guess the infomercial was on so frequently I just never thought it would go away. As much as I enjoyed the massive cheese wheel served up every night, I was glad it tanked as Warwick made such historic records in the 60’s and they were all but forgotten under a mountain of psychic slop. But I do wish that I had a little bit of the slop to remember this Warwick phase by, namely this board game which I will now content myself with enjoying at The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch.

This Kitschtastic item is the winner of the prestigious Classique d’ Camembert award, the highest honor bestowed upon an object submitted to The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch at awmok.com. I thank aKitschionado Jason Mecier for his excellent and discerning taste.

25Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – “Season’s Best” 45 From Dinah Shore

25Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – “Season’s Best” 45 From Dinah Shore

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“Seasons best” from Dinah Shore, Chevrolet and me! Dinah warbled “See the USA in your Chevrolet” throughout the Atomic Age when the auto maker sponsored The Dinah Shore Show from 1956–63. The jingle became her best known song and kept her working steady so she could afford lots of Christmas and Hanukkah presents.

Though Dinah was a nice Jewish girl there’s nary a Hanukah song in sight on this promo 45 that was handed out by GM dealers, in this case Price-Roche Motors of Petaluma, California. The disk features “Silent Night”, “Jingle Bells”, “The Coventry Carol” and “You Meet The Nicest People“.

Dinah ended all of her shows by throwing a big “MWAH!” kiss directly to camera, prompting Frank Sinatra to say “Dinah blows the best kisses.” In her tradition, and I’d like to think with Frank’s approval, I’m blowing you all a big “MWAH!” this Christmas Day!

21Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – ‘I Love Lucy’ Phillip Morris Christmas Gift Cigarettes

21Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – ‘I Love Lucy’ Phillip Morris Christmas Gift Cigarettes

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It says a lot about the Atomic Age that America’s pre-Kennedy First Family, the Ricardo’s, hawked cigarettes for the holidays. Now we know why Lucy’s voice was lower than James Earl Jones’ as she progressed through the years most likely puffing on her lifetime supply of Phillip Morris.

09Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Debbie Reynolds Dress Designer Kit Colorforms

09Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Debbie Reynolds Dress Designer Kit Colorforms

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Why I love thee – 1) The fact that this is a Dress Designer Kit and Debbie’s wearing pants? 2) The twisted organs pixie pose that 3) Debbie’s striking in the middle of the street? 4) Her matching hair and lipstick? 5) The shoe/sock combo whatever-it-is on her feet? 6) The Technicolor hues on the box? 6) The perfect Atomic Age font? 7) The fact that it includes “a gay selection of town & country clothes”? I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the answer is all of the above!

This beautiful bit of Kitsch is the winner of the prestigious Classique d’ Camembert award, the highest honor bestowed upon an object submitted to the Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch at awmok.com. I thank aKitschionado Slazz for her excellent and discerning taste.

Complete submission at http://www.awmok.com/2009/10/08/colorforms-debbie/

30Nov 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Ultra Cheap Donny and Marie Microphone And Song Sheets Set

30Nov 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Ultra Cheap Donny and Marie Microphone And Song Sheets Set

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Donny Osmond may have won Dancing With The Stars and a whole lotta money for his favorite charity but a whole lotta money was the last thing that was spent on manufacturing this toy microphone and song sheets set at the height of the Donny & Marie Show frenzy in 1976. Despite the claim on the package that you too can “CREATE YOUR OWN SONGS • MAKE YOUE OWN MUSIC” the non-working plastic mic attaches to nothing and won’t get you much farther than singing into a candle or a shoe or anything else remotely microphone shaped.

The “song sheets” are literally blank sheets of paper that you write the notes to your own song on should you have enough songwriting chops to pull one out of the blue and be blessed with the knowledge of how to notate music, the latter of which I don’t even know how to do.

To make matters worse and even lower-rent, the song sheets are stapled together at the top and the bottom and it’s next to impossible without surgical instruments to remove the staples without ripping the one-ply-thick-thinner-than-toilet-paper paper it’s printed on.

Made in Hong Kong during the heyday of the bro/sis acts’ ABC variety show by the family’s own Osbro Productions and distributed by Gordy International (how did Motown get into the act?) it also appears that Donnie got the shaft on the shaft of the microphone as Marie’s name got bumped up to all caps and Donny’s remains crushed into diminutive lower case letters.

All around, this belongs in an express elevator up to the Penthouse of Kitsch because it is sooooo totally and completely cheaply made, meant to be dumped into bargain bins at all of the dollar discount stores that were just starting to get a smelly toehold on the American merchandising scene.

23Nov 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Captain & Tennille Toni Tennille Doll

23Nov 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Captain & Tennille Toni Tennille Doll

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In my formative years of being a songwriter, the Captain and Tenille covered the AM radio landscape thicker than astroturf. Even their bulldog, Elizabeth, was part of the act that made wearing a dorky captain’s hat and walking around with a bowl haircut that looked like it had marshmallows stuffed in the curled under ends fashionable. But for whatever can be said about their ultra bubblegum, cringingly cute look, Captain and Tenille made equally as cute yet great Pop records like “Love Will Keep Us Together”, 1975 Record Of The Year, and the evermore schmaltzy “Muscrat Love”, a song with a great melody whose arrangement featured scrunched-up-rat’s-nose synthesized rodent sounds.

This Toni Tennille doll is a “fully poseable fashion doll” that’s 12-1/4 inches tall and features “cut out accessories”, which means you have to cut out cardboard shapes of Elizabeth the bulldog’s bones and bowls and then play with them flat on the table.

Ms. Tenille was made in 1977 by C&T’s own Moonlight and Magnolia, Inc. in association with Mego Corp, maker of some of the most popular and cheesiest dolls of the 1970s as evidenced on the back of the box where photos of other dolls in their TV Starz series feature Tenille’s identical face.

22Nov 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Mahalia Jackson Sunday Church Fan

22Nov 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Mahalia Jackson Sunday Church Fan

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Vintage 1970’s cardboard Mahalia Jackson church fan, courtesy of the Robert L. Parks Funeral Home of Cedartown, Georgia. When Jackson, the original Queen of Gospel, passed away in 1972 this fan with her likeness, made by the A. Sheer Company, flooded Black churches in America to join the rest of the church fan flock of Martin Luther Kings, sentimental portraits of African-American families and pastoral scenes courtesy of mostly funeral homes, cleaners and and car dealerships.

Church fans are still in heavy use today and Mahalia is still there waving with the best of them.

18Nov 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vega$ TV Show Puzzle

18Nov 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vega$ TV Show Puzzle

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The Aaron Spelling produced Vega$, the first TV series to be filmed entirely in Las Vegas, ran on ABC from 1978 to 1981. A kind of run-of-the-mill detective show, what I liked most was that its star, Robert Urich, aka private dick/ Vietnam vet Dan Tanna, a name spun off of a popular LA eatery, spun around town in a red 1957 T-Bird, gorgeous but no KITT and whose parking space was in Tanna’s living room.

Although I didn’t really watch the show – it seemed a little slick for what I was into at the time – I was excited when Robert Urich and his budding B-star wife, Heather Menzies, both longtime friends of my then boyfriend, invited us to stay at their new pad in Vegas when Bob first got the show, becoming the first TV star I ever met. I don’t remember so much about the visit because I was always so eager to get out of the pad and start photographing the vintage 1950s hotels and artifacts that still populated Las Vegas. I do remember they made great salads.

This is a 10″ x 14″ 150 piece jigsaw puzzle made in 1978 by Aaron Spelling Productions Inc. and distributed by H-G Toys of Long Beach, CA. I’ve never actually put the puzzle together as that kind of thing takes far more time and patience than I’m ever willing or able to allow. My favorite thing about it anyway is the box, with poses of Urich stuck into heart, club, spade and diamond shapes and printed with a cheap color process that allowed the ink to sink tight into the cardboard giving it a kind of porno-y look. All this topped off an all-too-blown-up and blurry cut-out of what looks to be a Urich look-alike sitting in the T-Bird. Mmm… if there’s even a prayer of the puzzle art being that kitschy I just might stay home tonight and put it together. Although there seems to be a preponderance of solid green pieces, perhaps a tribute to the salads.