Allee Willis Blog

04Mar 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Rubber Waffle

04Mar 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Rubber Waffle

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Of all the things I have in my house, a 40 year collection of Atomic, Soul and Kitsch memorabilia, this rubber waffle that’s sat out on my kitchen counter since I bought it in the 1980’s is one of the most popular things in the joint. Made by Iwasaki Images of America, the premiere display food manufacturer in the world, this waffle looks so drippingly, syrupy and buttery real even I’m tempted to chomp a bite out of it every now and then.

I also have a huge roast beef, some sushi, a dozen sweet rolls, donuts, a glass of milk, a glass of orange juice and some scrambled eggs. There’s rubber food that looks like it’s made out of rubber and rubber food that looks good enough to eat. No question that Iwasaki serves up the latter.

16Feb 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day -Leave It To Beaver Coloring Book

16Feb 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day -Leave It To Beaver Coloring Book

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When I was a kid I was SO into Leave It To Beaver, probably as much because of the glow from the Sylvania Halo Vision tv I was watching it on and the Velveeta sandwich on white with one thin leaf of Iceberg draped across it that was the ritual meal of my childhood. I’m sure I’ve seen every single show of the original series that ran from 1957-’63. I was also into Lassie, My Three Sons, Dennis The Menace and other series that showed life from a kid’s point of view but I always liked Beaver because he was so inquisitive and annoying.

As an adult, once I moved to California I was elated to find a very kitschy restaurant in the middle of a golf course at the end of the runway of the Van Nuys airport owned by Beaver star, Barbara Billingsley, and named, appropriately enough, Billingsley’s. It was a steakhouse built in 1969 that served blue Jell-O for desset and remained pretty much intact until it finally and sadly closed a few years ago.

I went to Billingsley’s constantly on Sunday nights because of the great Graydon Wayne, ex- Three Suns member who faithfully sang and played three organs at the same time holding court around a classic piano bar. But as much as I loved listening to songs I otherwise never would’ve listened to while munching Surf ‘n Turf and sipping drinks out of a seashell I never lost sight of what excited me most – the fact that The Beav’s mom owned the joint.

P.S. I didn’t do any of this coloring. I was the type who always liked my colors very bold so there wouldn’t have been any of this frail, lighter-than-a-feather technique in any crayon execution of mine:

08Feb 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vintage Liverwurst With Coke Sign

08Feb 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vintage Liverwurst With Coke Sign

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I can’t think of anything Coke would go better with than a nice slab of liverwurst! Not sure what inspired anyone at the company to pick this meal combo to advertise the drink but I’m awfully glad they did because this 8″ x 24″ Litho cardboard sign has hung happily in my kitchen for almost 20 years. I’ve never done it the honor of munching down liverwurst when I pop the cap on a Coke but the sign inspired me enough that my alter ego, Bubbles the artist, painted a beautiful still life of the meal in 1999…

…and soon after also made this beautiful and appetizing dinner plate.

Both for sale. Actual liverwurst accompaniment is extra.

01Feb 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vanessa Williams Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Box

01Feb 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vanessa Williams Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Box

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When Vanessa Williams snagged the Miss America crown in 1984 one of her first honors was to grace this box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. But the box was banished as quickly as her title when sexy photos emerged. Ironic when the text includes lines like “It is with this intent that Kellogg Company provides this limited edition Commemorative Package as a lasting reminder that…we must continue to promote the American dream and encourage all Americans to freely pursue life, liberty, and happiness.”. vaness-a-williams-cornflakes-box_2353

Very few of the boxes survived as the inventory that was left in Battle Creek, Michigan where the flakes were made was destroyed in the midst of the scandal. I was friendly with Vanessa at the time and so felt she didn’t deserve to lose the title let alone the cereal box. But she certainly pursued life, liberty and happiness and lost no time crying over spilt cornflakes.

25Jan 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Corn People Salt ‘n Pepper Shakers

25Jan 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Corn People Salt ‘n Pepper Shakers

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Corn is a popular motif in salt and pepper shakers but usually it’s the stalks of corn themselves. Here we have a happy corn couple, born of ceramic, ready to shake at human request. Despite the fact that most salt shakers have more holes than their pepper mates, this 3″ green textured guy and gal’s holes are as perfectly matched as their outfits. They were both born around 1950.

18Jan 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Jell-o Spoon Candy

18Jan 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Jell-o Spoon Candy

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“The dessert that tastes like a candy bar” was a junk food lover’s xtreme fantasy when it hit the shelves in 1972. Short-lived – it was gone by ’73 – Jell-o Spoon Candy was a puddingish dessert with a topping you cracked through as you would the chocolate shell on a Dairy Queen. Spoon Candy, a kitschingly brilliant name especially when combined with the word “jello”, came in a variety of combo flavors like peanut butter and chocolate, chocolate with chocolate, vanilla with chocolate, caramel with chocolate, I guess chocolate came on everything. The topping inhabited a separate package stuffed into the box that you cut and squeezed onto the pudding.

The official reason given for Jell-o Spoon Candy’s demise was the rising cost of sugar but junk food lovers the world over still mourn its early demise and would have happily paid a few pennies more to get their fix.

07Jan 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Shriners Salt & Pepper Shaker

07Jan 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Shriners Salt & Pepper Shaker

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I’ve been collecting Shriners artifacts since I found a group portrait of hundreds of Zurah Temple members in their Fezes in the mid-1970s looking like little lined up Pez dispensers. I never knew the difference between Shriners and Masons or what either of them really did. I just like any organization that has hats, pins and a super-costumed regulated look. My alter ego, Bubbles the artist, has even honored them in her popular “The Funsters Of Zurah Temple” line of collage art, ceramics and paintings.

This transparent red plastic salt and pepper shaker is a two in one deal, salt on one side, pepper on the other.

I imagine it was shaked over many a Salisbury Steak and meatloaf since its birth in 1950 when it was given away as a souvenir at the 76th Shrine Convention in Fresno, California, courtesy of Tehran Temple of Fresno,California, the “Baby Temple Of Shrinedon”. I think that The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch is in its own way a “baby temple of shrinedom”, more deserving of its own salt & pepper souvenir shaker for glorifying kitsch in all of its glory, not the least of which is this fantastic Shriner S&P shaker.

24Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Inflatable Fruitcake

24Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Inflatable Fruitcake

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This is the only version of this festive holiday treat (or torture, depending on how you look at it) that I can stand having in my house. I would sooner eat this plastic version than the real thing as fruitcake is one of those things that my tongue has never adjusted to. Made by Accoutrements and billed as “the fruitcake they’ll actually want to eat”, the package includes everything you need to send the flatter-than-pancake thank-God-it’s-not-real fruitcake to those you love (or hate) this holiday season.

18Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1970 Space Food Sticks

18Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1970 Space Food Sticks

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World’s first “Chewy nutrition snack – you carry them… they carry you!” Developed for astronauts, Space Food Sticks went to the moon so a year later when Pillsbury knocked out jerky looking logs of chocolate, peanut butter, carmel and chocolate malt, earthlings sucked them up by the bushel full. This is the pamphlet and a hefty 10 cents off coupon towards this pre-Jolt, Red Bull “sustain the energy lift” space stuff.

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17Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Better Than Flex-Straws: Vintage Flav-r Straws!

17Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Better Than Flex-Straws: Vintage Flav-r Straws!

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The next revolution in sucking power after the Flex-Straw was this product that I made my mother stockpile so I’d never have less than a month’s supply. Though chocolate and strawberry were my favorite flavors, the success of mixing the flavor with the liquid you were drinking depended on the sucking power of your cheek muscles as the granules or whatever it was inside – some people remember it as a chemically soaked felt strip – oftentimes clumped leaving one with no other choice but to rip the straw open and dab bits on your tongue as you drank. Whatever the contents, process or the amount of effort it took, I still enjoyed the personal power I felt over relieving myself of the tedium of milk.