Category:
1970s

Mystery Illustration 47









All of these women either won or competed for the same Beauty Queen title. What was that title?

The answer is here.

And after the jump.


More in extended >>

Posted By: Paul - Mon May 29, 2017 - Comments (3)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Contests, Races and Other Competitions, 1970s

Goblu and Beatosu, Ohio

The 1978-79 Michigan Highway map included some creative geography. If you looked at the part of the map that depicted neighboring Ohio, you found two new towns. There was Goblu, shown just east of Toledo near Bono, and Beatosu, shown to the west near Elmira. These names sounded a lot like the cries of University of Michigan football fans against rival Ohio State University.

They were included in the map at the order of Peter Fletcher, the highway commission chairman, who said he included the names to demonstrate his "loyalty to the Athens of the West, the University of Michigan." The fictitious towns were deleted from the next edition of the map. The map with the towns is now a collector's item. One is currently available for $32.55 on eBay.

More info: wikipedia





Lansing State Journal - Dec 23, 1977 (click to enlarge)

Posted By: Alex - Wed May 17, 2017 - Comments (4)
Category: Geography and Maps, Hoaxes and Imposters and Imitators, 1970s

Long arm saves dolphin

February 1978: A dolphin named Dr. Spock who lived at Marine-World swallowed a 3-inch bolt. The animal doctors there didn't have any instruments long enough to reach into the dolphin's stomach and remove the bolt. So, hoping to avoid surgery, they called up basketball player Clifford Ray of the Golden State Warriors and asked him if he would be willing to use one of his four-foot long arms to reach into Dr. Spock's stomach. Ray hurried over, removed the bolt, and saved Dr. Spock's life. Ray said that Dr. Spock later always recognized him when he visited Marine World and would come over to say hello.

More info: SFGate, NY Times

Muncie Star Press - Feb 25, 1978





Ray shows off the bolt to his teammates
Hattiesburg American Sun - Feb 26, 1978



Posted By: Alex - Tue May 16, 2017 - Comments (7)
Category: Animals, 1970s

Captain Sky




His Wikipedia page.




Posted By: Paul - Mon May 15, 2017 - Comments (2)
Category: Aliens, Eccentrics, Music, 1970s

His and Her Bikinis

Fashion from the 1970s. For couples that like to match.

The Oshkosh Northwestern - Jan 8, 1970


Unisex apparel goes one step further with the advent of "His and Her" two-piece bikinis, shown in New York from the design board of Rudi Gernreich, creator of the topless bathing suit. The male's top looks like an athletic shirt that ends mid-point between the shoulder and elbow, exposing the abdomen from that point to the waistline.

Posted By: Alex - Fri May 12, 2017 - Comments (8)
Category: Fashion, 1970s

Salongo



A forgotten early album by the Insane Clown Posse?

Ramsey Lewis at Wikipedia.

Posted By: Paul - Wed May 03, 2017 - Comments (3)
Category: Music, 1970s, Body Painting, Face and Facial Expressions

Around the world on commercial airlines

In 1979, two Vancouver businessmen, Orst Perry and Adolf Schiel, set a world record for traveling around the world on commercial airlines. They started in Vancouver and ended up in Vancouver. They did this in 54 hours, 42 minutes. It cost them $7000 each.

I can think of a lot better ways to spend $7000 than sitting on a plane for several days. But it seems that others have pursued this same record. A press release from Nov 2016 says that Brother Michael Bartlett set a new record for flying around the world on commercial airlines by doing it in 57 hours, 17 minutes.

That's slower than the time set in 1979, but I'm guessing that Bartlett must have adhered to stricter rules. It says that he had to "cross the equator and land at points that are approximately 108 degrees apart and roughly on the same north–south longitude."

Notre Dame Observer - Feb 28, 1979

Posted By: Alex - Sun Apr 30, 2017 - Comments (3)
Category: World Records, Air Travel and Airlines, 1970s

Looking Forward to Being Attacked



In 1977, Lieutenant Jim Bullard of the Memphis police department published a self-defense manual for women titled Looking forward to being attacked. The general theme was that if a bad guy attacked you, it gave you the chance to beat him up, which could be fun. His idea was to use some humor to make the self-defense lessons more interesting.

Some of the self-defense tips from his book:

  • If you're grabbed, don't scream. Even if he didn't intend to hurt you, it'll be an automatic reflex to shut you up.
  • If he grabs for your purse or any personal belongings, let them go. Defend personally. Don't defend property.
  • Don't try to kick, scratch or punch him. Instead, through the principle of attack the "weakest point" you can escape 90 percent of the time.
  • If you have a chance, jab any sharp object including your thumb into his trachea — his adam's apple. That is a man's most vulnerable area.
  • One hundred and fifty pounds of pressure will kill a person. Seven pounds of pressure is all anyone can comfortably stand.
  • The ears are the second most vulnerable area. Slap your hands against them.
  • The eyes are the third choice and always carry your car keys when going to your car in a dark parking lot. If you can, scrape them across the assailant's eyes. Use a ball point pen, if you have it out of your purse.
  • A fourth choice, especially when held around the waist from behind, is to reach back and strike at a man's testicles.
  • If you find a burglar is outside your home, warn him first, and then you can take a cannon and blow him into the next county. 99.6 percent of the time you scream when someone's outside, warn him, he'll run. If he doesn't, you can legally assume he's coming in to kill you. A shotgun is the most efficient weapon. Kill him. You're doing society a favor when you do do it. I've seen those that didn't do it, and it's a very sad case.




More images at Awful Library Books.

Posted By: Alex - Sat Apr 29, 2017 - Comments (1)
Category: Martial Arts, Books, 1970s

Macho Cologne

Introduced by Faberge in 1976. It was described as being "packaged with a startlingly new futuristic look." Which is to say that it was packaged as a giant phallus.

I like the ad promoting it as a Father's Day gift. I can just imagine a son or daughter giving this as a present to their dad.



Indianapolis Star - Oct 30, 1976



The Pocono Record - June 17, 1977


The marketing of the cologne must have gained some notoriety. I found a brief discussion of it in an academic study of marketing — Marketing and Semiotics: New Directions in the Study of Signs for Sale (1987):

The juxtaposition of the grossly physical with the structurally normative produces a profound effect: Norms and values become saturated with emotion while emotions are ennobled through contact with values. The monolithic (or rather, ithyphallic) print ad for Macho cologne run by Faberge several years ago, effectively condensing referents to male sexuality, aggression, wealth, and ethnic stereotyping in its rhetorical and iconographic symbolism, nicely illustrates this principle. Thus, symbols function as both storehouse and powerhouse, encoding information which is ultimately authoritative.


Update: Thanks to Brian for drawing our attention to Pierre Cardin Man's cologne, which also featured a suggestively shaped bottle.

And I just noticed that the Father's Day ad features both Macho cologne and Pierre Cardin Man's cologne. So if you gave your dad both, what message would you be sending him?

Posted By: Alex - Wed Apr 26, 2017 - Comments (8)
Category: Advertising, 1970s, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

Mystery Illustration 42



The splendid sartorial sense of this fellow is explicitly deemed by the advertisement to be inducement to trust his taste in another area. What product would you imagine his clothes are justifying. Liquor? Cars? Hairspray?

The answer is here.

And after the jump.

More in extended >>

Posted By: Paul - Thu Apr 13, 2017 - Comments (5)
Category: Fashion, Advertising, 1970s

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