Allee Willis Blog

11Aug 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1950’s Luer Lard Box

11Aug 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1950’s Luer Lard Box

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I’ve never actually chomped down on a hunk of Luer Pure Lard but it sure comes in a pretty box. Not only is the box coated with enough wax to make you feel like you’re actually picking up a fistful of lard but many important lard ladden foods are illustrated in glorious color on it.

I especially love this graphic of the chocolate cake:

I’m not sure how much the lard had to do with it but the way the cherry pink frosting is positioned on that cake knife hovering in perfect symmetry above the crumbs of chocolate is picture perfect.

I’m also not sure how ‘Luer” is pronounced but I have a feeling it’s not a perfect rhyme with “sure” as they’ve implied.

It’s a good thing that whoever came up with that was writing slogans and not lyrics. Always better with a perfect rhyme in songs though I can’t tell you how many songwriters throw that one out the window.

I never understood the use of these kind of boxes to package lard. Not that I ever bought any to know for “sure” but wouldn’t the product goop out of the sides and top and be more appropriate in a tub? I’m just glad that none of it slopped on this box before I got to it.

Manufactured by Luer Bros. Packing Co. of Alton, Ill. sometime around 1950, I have a feeling that the boxes were actually more popular than the lard inside. A search on Google turns up enough of these 2-1/2″ x 3″ x5″ honeys to paper a path from Manhattan to LA.

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Thank you, aKitschionado Ginger Durgin, for your generous contribution of ten Luer Lard boxes to the permanent collection of The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch!

10Aug 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vintage Plastic Peanut Purse

10Aug 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vintage Plastic Peanut Purse

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For someone like me who likes to have the right purse for any possible theme this 13″ long plastic peanut seemed like it was perfect. Excellent as a summer BBQ fashion, it would also appear to be the perfect vessel to house the plethora of electronic gadgets I carry around with me which includes two cell phones, two digital recorders, two cameras and multiple batteries for all. I’m a firm believer in ‘two’ for any vital electronic gadget. Whether it’s dead batteries or service providers not working in certain areas, I learned long ago that dependence on a single electronic gadget is not the life for me. So I was elated to find a purse as cute as the peanut that could house all my paraphernalia and lined up in an orderly fashion no less. But a dead battery would have been a lot better than the dead phone, camera and recorder I experienced when I opened my peanut for the first time on a subway platform only to watch a train crush all three after they spilled out of easily the stupidest purse I ever carried. Though I suppose it was me who was really stupid. Anyone who wasn’t so carried away with the aesthetics would have realized that the way the two sides of the peanut were attached wasn’t really going to serve anyone well as a purse.

In my past, I oftentimes overlooked functionality for style. I was very taken with my peanut because I loved rubbing my fingers over all the little indented peanut textures. This is not how a normal person would judge a purse.

One also might’ve thought that aging would curb my propensity for walking around with a purse in the shape of another object. But that would be said by someone who didn’t know me very well.

These days, as my electronics arsenal grows, I carry a more practical purse and the peanut stays very close to home where it’s got lots of other peanut friends to keep it company.

27Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Beethoven’s Fifth Popcorn

27Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Beethoven’s Fifth Popcorn

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Other than the fact that it’s packaged in a 750ml bottle, the standard size vessel for champagne, the stretch to connect product with name is so thin and precarious here as to induce the medical condition known as Kitschago. As a writer, it’s painful to see so many plays on words in trying to make elements as disparate as popcorn and classical music seem connected. As a kitsch lover, however, it’s ecstasy. Let’s see, how many ways can we thwack the creative brain with a lead pipe and make this popcorn/ Beethoven connection work? The label, Château de Musica, implores the popcorn ingestee to “HANDEL with care”. I don’t understand what care it takes to eat “Le grand Pops” but if one does apparently HANDEL it wrong the bottler, RACH MANINOFF, guarantees “your money BACH”.

Unfortunately, the LISZT price isn’t stamped on the bottle. And I don’t know enough about classical music to know if Albert Elovitz has anything to do with the art form but somehow the military managed to get in on the wordplay as Distilled by credit goes to KERNEL Albert Elovitz.

Thankfully, the bottom of the bottle remains pun free.

I cringe when people send me really cheesy song lyrics to critique, so pun filled at times I find it necessary to tell them that connecting together a bunch of plays on words isn’t an original concept and rarely works unless something else so unique is tossed into the mix. In this case, it’s thankfully not a crappy song I have before me but a champagne bottle, vintage 1986, filled with popcorn. It may not be musical but it’s definitely what I would stock in the bar to serve with the cheese wheel at my next party.

And while we’re on the subject of Beethoven’s Fifth…

26Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Japanese Portable Banana Keeper

26Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Japanese Portable Banana Keeper

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I’m not sure which kitsch factor I enjoy most about this made in Japan Portable Banana Keeper, the fact that it’s pierced with hearts because it loves bananas so much,…

…or that you can wear it as a necklace,…

…or that the little latches that keep your banana secure are so hard to pop open it will only last for two or three reloadings,…

…or that my cat loves it…

…or that there’s a special one for green bananas…,

…so special, in fact, that it’s called a Banana Case…

…as opposed to its yellow big brother,…

…The Banana Keeper,…

…and is scientifically designed with tiny holes instead of large hearts…

…to ripen your fruit quicker despite the fact that few people I know would walk around with their banana around their neck for days while they waited for it to ripen.

Or maybe it’s simply the fact that all bananas aren’t created equal and some don’t fit into their new home.

Whatever the case may be, I love plastic convenience products from Japan. And I don’t really care if the Banana Keeper/ Banana Case works or lasts at all as long as it continues to make my cat happy.

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Thank you, aKitschionado Margaret Lewis, for your generous contribution of one Banana Case and two Banana Keepers to The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch at AWMOK.com!

18Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Meat Shower Cap

18Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Meat Shower Cap

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There’s nothing more I like to throw on my head to protect it from a raging shower stream than a shower cap covered with T-bone steaks. I wish it were more of a meat directory up there but, alas, despite giving the cap the general category name of “meat” only the lonely T-bone made it to immortality.

I found this elegant “Deluxe” shower cap a few years ago when I was looking for party souvenirs. There they were, 30,000 glistening meat caps for sale at some online overstocks place for 15¢ each. I was so excited my teeth started chattering as if I had been locked in the freezer with a side of beef for days. It took all my strength not to figure out a way to get all 30,000 of them. $450 would buy me enough meat chapeau souvenirs for a lifetime. But I behaved and held myself to 300 so I had enough money left to concentrate on the real beef that guests could put in their mouths and not on their heads.

I’ve won many awards in my lifetime. Finally becoming FDA approved is right up there with the best of them.

15Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1950’s Betty Crocker’s “Dinner for Two” Cookbook

15Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1950’s Betty Crocker’s “Dinner for Two” Cookbook

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Featuring 425 “new” recipes plus a special “When-Company-Comes” section, this cookbook, published in 1958 by General Mills, was designed expressly for “brides, business girls, career wives and mothers of married children”. Divided into sections like Regional Meals USA, Pennywise Dinners and What Every Good Cook Knows, as is often the case with vintage cookbooks the quintessentially Atomic 50’s graphics and fonts are even better than the recipes themselves.

There are also many tips for what to do in the presence of meat and its other food friends. Like when you’re at the market “select canned goods economically.”

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I never realized there was such a distinction between peas. Then again, I’m not much of a cook unless cooking means going online and ordering in. I’m the type to fast forward to “Foreign Lands–Hawaii” where I find this excellent dessert relying solely on colored toothpicks, maraschino cherries, canned pineapple and ice. This degree of culinary skill is right up my allee.

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There’s even a lesson on setting the table correctly as “an atmosphere of charm at mealtime forms the background for fine living.” Look how the career wife, while learning how to give a dinner party for four, sweeps into pose to peer at her table through a microscope making sure no detail is overlooked in planning a buffet to insure that “an atmosphere of informal hospitality prevails.”

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This illustration of a tourist couple taking photos next to whoever the famous Dane is depicted in statue on the rock makes the Danish Apple Pudding recipe taste even more Danish.

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As an artist, I’m especially drawn to page 169. Not only does all it take to make Croissants is yeast, Bisquick and water but it suggests that you serve Chocolate Eclairs along with them. Better yet, the recipe merely points you in the direction of a box of Betty Crocker Cream Puff Mix and you’re on your own from there.

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Look how interested the potatoes are at how they’re going to be sliced:

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When not looking at the pictures there are wonderful ideas to cook for your +1 like Baked Prune Whip and Unbaked Prune Whip.

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I’m actually having three people over for lunch today and two more over for dinner tonight. One group will be eating Italian and the other Chinese and, despite the fact that Betty Crocker says this cookbook is perfect for “the working girl, active in her career and social life”, I will be spending no time in the kitchen at all.

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12Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Mislabeled Orange Measuring Cups

12Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Mislabeled Orange Measuring Cups

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Because of their perfect shape and glowing color the orange has captured the imagination of designers since the beginning of time. In this case, the glowing hive is cut into four perfect horizontal slices making for four different measuring cups, each daintily festooned with a little leaf handle. One would think because of the precision round shape of an orange that this dividing up into four sections should happen with no mishaps. But to this kitsch lover’s heart’s delight two different size slices are labeled 1/3 cup.

This shouldn’t affect any mis-measurement here at Willis Wonderland as cooking is not among my many skills. Instead, I use this as a candy and nut dish, four levels for four different snacks.

I’ve never been the type to naturally gravitate toward fruits and vegetables though oranges are the one healthy snack I can eat without being force-fed, even if they’re not ceramic.

I still like the kitschen accessory orange the best.

03Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Happy 4th of July Ball B-B-Q!

03Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Happy 4th of July Ball B-B-Q!

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Designed by William Wiggins for Shepherd Products of Toronto in 1970, this aluminum ball shaped barbecue which featured a double stack of cooking racks and a rollover cover was about as modern as you could get back in the day. The hottest of the colors it came in was a gorgeous shade of red orange which this one originally was when I rescued it for 99 cents from a Salvation Army. Here it is in brand new, pristine shape:

But through the years of chicken juice and hot dog grease all that was left of its color by the time I found it were a few flakes that peeled off if you even breathed on it. I hate when vintage things are restored to look “brand-new”, translation: too cheesy for a purist to even look at, so I couldn’t consider that. But the opportunity for cosmetic surgery presented itself when I art directed a Debbie Harry video over here in 1987 and covered the B-B-Q with a coat of chrome spray paint to use as a prop. Which made it look gorgeous but even more dangerous to eat anything that was cooked in it. So through the years it’s served a variety of other functions, mostly at parties. Sometimes I use it as a candy dish…

A lot of times it’s used as a name tag container as I hate to be responsible for introducing everyone myself…

At a party over here a couple of years ago when the musical I co-wrote, The Color Purple, came to LA, Adam Wade, who played Ol’ Mister, dipped into the Ball and used the flip top as a ledge to fill out his name tag.

This is significant because decades before I met Adam I had photos of him plastered all over my bedroom because I swooned over his Johnny Mathis-smooth-as-wine-which-I-don’t-even-like-so-I’ll-say-smooth-as-Skippy-Peanut-Butter-smooth voice. Here’s what I looked at on my ceiling every night as a teenager when I got into bed:

I can’t believe I have no photos of the bedroom I grew up in. It was decorated to the max and gave all indications of how and who I would grow up to be which is exactly how and who I grew up to be both from a decorative and musical standpoint. But me having no photos is another matter entirely so suffice it to say this is why I document everything so incessantly now. But back to the Ball B-B-Q…

My little Ball B-B-Q may not be capable of smoking with the big guys…

…and it may not be capable of turning out food like this…

…but as it sits in my yard this Fourth of July, probably wishing it had a big bulging steak or some burgers sweating on its grills, it just makes me happy to look at it and celebrate the fact that I had the good taste to buy it in the first place.

30Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Misprinted Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Candy

30Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Misprinted Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Candy

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This may not excite the average person as much as it excites me but when I bought this piece of Hershey’s Dark Chocolate for a penny on eBay I felt like I hit the Kitsch motherlode. With as much candy as I’ve seen in my lifetime I’ve never come across one made by a major manufacturer, let alone Hershey’s, that had a wrong wrapper. Not only is the graphic not centered on the candy bar but it’s not even the right color. Here is a non-mutant piece pictured with the orphan:

I’ve been popping these things into my mouth for years. I can spot one miles away in the candy terrarium that greets visitors as they walk into my house and which I fill and art direct daily.

Upon acquiring the runt, I now guard it like it’s a gold bar. I have it sitting in a special place on a special shelf so no one mistakes it for an available piece to munch on. Last week when I saw someone pick it up I yelled ‘NOOOOOOO’ so loud you would have thought I was stopping someone from pressing the button to activate a nuclear bomb. This is one freak of candy nature I intend to be able to enjoy the rest of my life.

28Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Chili Dog Lighted Sign

28Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Chili Dog Lighted Sign

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I love lighted signs. Most of the ones I collect are African-American from the 1950’s and 60’s but I also fall for big fat trouts popping out of picnic baskets, gushing motorized waterfalls and the blinking lights of a big metropolis. But my absolute favorite genre which I constantly stop myself from buying because I have no room to keep any more are lighted food signs, not the least of which is this one commemorating one of my all-time favorite snack foods, the chili dog.

I love Chili dogs.

This was consumed two months ago at Cupids Hot Dogs in Tarzana, CA, where the decor is just as good as the hot dogs.

There are also two outstanding specials offered at Cupid’s that I haven’t seen offered at very many other hot dog stands:

I don’t think Cupid’s uses Castleberry chili though, which is good as in 2007 many cans of Castleberry were recalled for possibly containing Botulism.

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As I’m too lazy to cook my own anything this has not deterred me from enjoying a good hot dog stand-bought chili dog every now and then…

… especially if it comes in the form of a vintage lighted sign.