This awkwardly made 1988 plastic drink kooler is one of the rarest and kitschiest of all my MJ memorabilia. You put the puppet kooler in the freezer til the patented freezing gel kicks in, insert a can in MJ’s torso once it’s out and flip his Smooth Criminal hat to get at the drink which supposedly stays cool for hours. It comes with a plastic drinking glass, a total inconvenience as there’s no place to keep it once the drink is popped into Michael. The bottom of the cooler reads “Sherman Oaks, CA., Made in Mexico”, a mysterious combo indeed.
I would not suggest wearing matching white clothes while using this apparatus. The drink has a weird fit inside of the kooler and I’ve stained my own clothes along with Michael’s fabric legs when attempting to operate.
One 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.
