Allee Willis Blog » Allee Willis

25Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1960’s Rubber Doctor Puppet

25Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1960’s Rubber Doctor Puppet

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As I lie in bed with food poisoning after ingesting some of the worst food I’ve ever eaten in LA Saturday night (at an expensive downtown restaurant which shall remain nameless as I’m only 99.99% sure it was the scene of the crime and not 100), this rubber doctor puppet seems a very appropriate Kitsch O’ The Day offering. Made by Childcraft in 1968 and used in African-American classrooms to teach about good role models the set also includes two girls, two guys, one kid, a grandmother, a grandfather, a policeman and Nelson Mandela.

The grandfather and Nelson Mandela look suspiciously alike. I like how one can merely change their suit and go from leading a family to leading a nation:

Because I have so much memorabilia and because I throw so many parties and used to shoot a lot of music videos here I always get asked if anything is ever stolen. For 30 years I’ve been very proud to say only one thing and that was an ashtray that was so common among 50’s collectibles that the person who stole it deserved it because anyone who knew their stuff would take one look at it and think that person didn’t really have discriminating taste. All I know is that it was someone in this photo during a Kid Creole and The Coconuts shoot over here in 1989. I have no idea who the guilty party was but it was most certainly not the person in the sunglasses:

Now as I stare at the puppet group three photos above I see that one of the girls is missing too.

This had to have happened during the last six months during which time I threw two parties. I’m at least thankful that whoever copped it didn’t make off with the whole set though I must say that this discovery makes my stomach ache as much the ratty restaurant downtown does.

I’ve loved my Childcraft puppets since the day I found them, not only because they’re one of the few mass-produced vintage products made specifically as African-American teaching aids but because once your hand is stuffed inside of them they’re very malleable and lifelike looking.

Here are two of my favorites with Sammy Davis Jr. guarding my gold records:

Despite the fact that it gave me a great excuse to drag the doctor out, the unnamed downtown restaurant screwed up my entire weekend causing me to miss a panel I was speaking on regarding new technology and the theater, two parties, one photo shoot drive and a movie. I would’ve preferred to make the weekend activities decision on my own rather than let the horrific buttermilk fried chicken that tasted like wood and could chip a tooth, the creepy little cheesecball freebie (thanks for nothing), and tuna tartare, the sloshy mound that I suspect was the main culprit, doom me to a weekend of Gatorade, bananas and saltines between bathroom runs. And I certainly wish my rubber doctor could be of more help than just looking cute.

But then I realize that this is the gift of writing a daily blog, that one can vent about restaurants that think they’re fancy but are merely annoying and in this case dangerous. Thank God there was a doctor in the house to cheer me up somewhat. I have a feeling if I ate the puppet it would have made me feel better than that dreadful meal did.

22Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Jeweled-Look Jeans on Half Mannequin Crossing Guard at Fancy Italian Store

22Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Jeweled-Look Jeans on Half Mannequin Crossing Guard at Fancy Italian Store

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There are many things I love about this “Italy” fashion emporium in Van Nuys, California:

• The thoughtfully placed swathed-in-jeweled-look-denin-jeans torso-less mannequin so that her ass is facing incoming customers and hogging up much of the walkway.

• The only entrance to the store being from the crowded parking lot in back.

• The accent traffic cone.

• The Hush Gentleman’s Club sign on the roof adding even more exterior elegance.

• The big sale for 1 suit, 1 shirt and 1 tie for $99 despite there being no evidence of men’s clothing inside.

• The bar outside:

• The decidedly tropical, nowhere near Rome mural painted on the side of the store.

But more than anything, it’s the jeweled-look jeans at the end of the store’s asphalt carpet that race the distinctly non-Italian named Virgil’s the final mile up the mountaintop of Kitsch. Dotted with paint, the glittering rhinestone patterns are sure to glisten forever, insuring the classy Virgil’s vibe stay with each and every discerning customer long after she leaves the parking lot.

21Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Cootie Game

21Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Cootie Game

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I can’t remember any game more popular than Cootie when I was growing up. But forget about the game itself, I loved playing with the little plastic body parts. I’m quite positive that the full-on-plastic-soaked-saturation of the pink Cootie legs is where my love of that particular color came from.

My house is the same pink:

So was my car:

I still get a thrill when I touch any of the Cootie contents today, especially those pink legs.

I’m sure that looking at all this saturated color all day when I was a kid influenced me as an artist. Here’s my very first art piece I made as a grownup artist in 1983:

It was a 5 1/2′ x 8′ collage of made out of (primarily) pink house paint, 70’s Ebony magazine clips and 50’s TV knobs. It was called “Dialated Pupils”.

Here’s a blurry photo of James Brown sitting in front of it when we worked together in the 80’s:

None of this has much to do with the subject at hand other than my life is filled with pink and there was no bigger fan of my memorabilia collection than The Godfather. But back to Cootie:

This particular Cootie game was the victim of a flood just weeks after Mr. Brown was over when some of my underwear clogged the drain that the washing machine dumped into.

The same flood ruined the my Beatles wig…

… but that doesn’t have much to do with Cootie either.

I don’t even really remember the rules of the game – I just liked twisting the little pink legs into the Cootie bodies. But I do remember not liking the directions because they were so slanted towards the dominant sex it was assumed would play the game:

Cootie, my house, my art, my car, James Brown, my Beatles wig – this post is all over the place, just like the Cootie legs are going to be as soon as I pick this up:

As much as I loved/love those pink legs the Schaper Manufacturing Company of Minneapolis, who made the game in 1949, never mastered a tight enough fit of them into the body holes. The last time I officially played Cootie I was 10, stepped on one of my beloved pink legs and slid into a bridge table with a cup of coffee on it, the contents of which dumped on my pristine white buck shoes forever staining them just like they had been in a flood over here all those years later.

20Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – “Don’t Forget” Paperweight Hand

20Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – “Don’t Forget” Paperweight Hand

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Every morning I wake up to a pile of notes that I’ve dropped on the floor from my bed the night before as I don’t like to keep anything in my head so I have a running chance of falling asleep. My M.O. is to scribble things down as soon as I think of them anyway so no brain space is occupied with to do lists or thoughts of any kind and creative ideas have ultimate room to race around and breed.

In general, I’m better at tackling things in the morning than letting them make mush of whatever brain cells are left by midnight but I will remember nothing unless it’s immortalized in solid print somewhere. This method works fine for me but it’s a horrifying sight every morning to see the river of notes that await me and threaten to overtake my day. So they all end up under this handy little 1950’s transparent plastic “Don’t Forget” hand that psychologically improves my mood just looking at it holding the tasks in place that lie before me.

Of course, within days the girth of the pile is enough to tip “Don’t Forget” over but I love the feel of the lightweight hand made in Hong Kong and never mind picking it up and rifling through the first couple of notes to see if there’s anything I can stand doing at the moment, thereby whacking away at the pile.

But most of the time I just spend looking at the delicate hand and ever-growing pile it’s meant to serve and protect. Everything eventually ends up getting done and I enjoy crumpling up the tasks and throwing them into the shredder so that they may eventually return to their natural pristine paper state and I can start scribbling on them all over again so my third hand has something to do.

19Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Murder, She Wrote Board Game

19Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Murder, She Wrote Board Game

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I never really watched Murder, She Wrote during its run on CBS from 1984-1996. I was in a very heavy songwriting and technology phase and although I always had the TV on – or should I say TVs as I had 28 of them at the time, one against every wall in each room so I wouldn’t miss a moment – I never had the sound up. All I ever watched then anyway were comedies. I didn’t have the patience for any of the more complex murder shows. To appreciate and understand what was going on in them I would have needed the sound up and once that happened it became more about me listening to the score and looking at the hairdos and fashions than actually following the plot. Following the intricacies of a murder case demands concentration. Just like trying to figure out how to play the Murder, She Wrote game does:

I know the rules are too hard to read this small but I devoted 500 pixels to trying to make them readable and, in my opinion, anything that’s supposed to be played for fun should not demand this arduous of focus.

I also don’t like boardgames or books or any other kind of memorabilia based on something that began as a TV show when you don’t get an actual photo of the star.

Although this illustration kind of looks like a (Paint-By-Number) Angela Lansbury it also looks like 3 trillion other women who didn’t start using skin cream early enough and have always kept their hair in a convenient and generic bob. I should know as I’ve seen the real deal Jessica Fletcher up close and personal when I was up for a Tony in 2006 for The Color Purple.

In 1995, Murder, She Wrote met its demise when CBS moved it to Thursday nights where it crumbled faster than a lame alibi against NBC’s reigning behemoth, Friends. Normally I wouldn’t be happy to see someone as iconic as Angela Lansbury slide down the tubes but seeing as I wrote “I’ll Be There for You” (the theme from Friends) if someone had to win I’m glad it was who was paying me royalties and not the series that spawned this board game.

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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14Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Mispackaged Chuckwagon Airstream Combination Salt & Pepper Shaker

14Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Mispackaged Chuckwagon Airstream Combination Salt & Pepper Shaker

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It’s no secret that one of my favorite genres of Kitsch is when something goes tragically wrong in the manufacturing process of the product yet it still hits the store shelves. In this case, the fumble occured on the packaging assembly line. Inserted snuggly inside The “Chuckwagon” combination salt and pepper shaker box is one combination salt and pepper shaker that, in the spirit of the old West, reads “Travel Joy, Travel Luxury – Airstream”. I don’t know about you but the last Airstream I saw didn’t have a wagon wheels and wasn’t being pulled by a horse.

There’s not really anyone to blame as there’s no sign of a manufacturer anywhere on the box or on the shaker itself. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before in a commercial product. It’s as if they knew they were going to insert the wrong thing in the wrong box and didn’t want to be blamed when that happened.

Whatever the reason for the forgetfulness or sloppiness or just plain brain-tweaked-so-tight-these-kind-of-mistakes-are-bound-to-happen,I for one am ecstatic because it has given me a completely unique piece of Kitsch from something that, if they had just decided which product it was, The”Chuckwagon” or The “Airstream”, would have been very cute but not as KITSCHTASTIC as it is now.

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.

11Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – James Dean, Main Drain and Brown Material Roads

11Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – James Dean, Main Drain and Brown Material Roads

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I drove up to Monterey on Friday from LA. Most people would get excited about going to the Aquarium or Cannery Row but I get excited about the cheesy names of the roads on a shortcut we take from the 5 to the 101 off an exit called Lerdo Higway that connects you to Highway 46 where James Dean met his maker. Once you exit the 5, the first “main street” you hit is Main Drain.

I don’t know about you but other than myself I can’t think of many people who would be happy to live on a street so eloquently named. A couple of miles further comes a road I’ve also always loved the name of as I can’t figure out how anyone could have arrived at naming it such:

Exactly which brown material I’m not sure of though the fact that there are a lot of cows in the area brings a certain brown something to mind. We were very excited as we approached the actual street sign, only 50′ away.

But just as I was about to hop out and be photographed under the street sign I’d sworn I would capture myself under one day as I sped past it my last five trips to Monterey I realized something was wrong. We slowed down trying not to disrupt traffic, a couple of tractors and a van with a bucking bronco ridden by a pig painted on the side. To our horror, all that was left of the Brown Material Rd. signage was a lonely pole, a screw plate and one dangling rusty bolt. As many times as I’d thought about doing the same thing I can’t believe someone actually had the balls to do it. If you know anyone with a Brown Material street sign hanging anywhere please let me know. But thankfully, Brown Material is apparently a U-shaped road as 100 feet ahead we came across this:

Not as impressive as spelling out the full word but Brown Mat will do. It’s still such a silly name for a street. Maybe out here in the country Mat means what Place often does in the city. For example, there’s a 21st St. and a 21st Place right next to each other in Santa Monica. The Place is just as long as the Street but apparently something distinguishes the two and maybe that’s the relationship between Material and Mat. Either way, I’m happy just to have gotten this shot. The tractors and bronco pig van were already too annoyed with us with slowing, almost pulling over and then not so although I was able to get this street sign shot there is no evidence of me standing under it.

Three minutes later we hit the last place James Dean stopped before climbing into his Spyder 550 and smashing head on into a 1950 Ford that entered his lane, entering Immortality.

The original Blackwell’s Corner used to be a small vintage structure but was modernized recently into this faceless hulking industrial shed.

But the inside is still wonderful where they sell hundreds of different kinds of home harvested nuts displayed alongside excellent kitsch-heavy merchandise. Note the East of Eden Fudge Factor sign behind the elegant plastic ice buckets with foil stuffed inside to show off the “crystals”:

I always get some chocolate covered pistachios for the road and then shoot a few photos of the giant James Dean head out in front, one of many heads that pepper the highways in these parts although all the others are men in overalls harvesting broccoli or a grandma enjoying a nice head of lettuce.

Now that I’m here in Monterey the streets have normal coasty kinds of names and there are no giant heads of Doris Day, Clint Eastwood or any of the other notables who live here. I always have a nice time when I’m here but if left to my own devices I’d be exploring the sights – or lack of them – on Brown Material Road.