Viddy well this choodessny set of Clockwork Orange bubblegum cards, oh my droogy brothers and all you malenky devotchkas.

[Link: Orange Bubblegum, pg. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Posted by MrBaliHai at 4:24 PM | Permalink

The Bubblegumfink is featured in today's installment of Interviews With Bloggers over at Bella Rossa. I got a big laugh out of his description of me: "...he blogs about his parents' old crap." Technically, my parents weren't into tiki culture, they were lounge lizards, and I'm actually old enough for it to be my crap.

Speaking of tiki, I also find it interesting how many folks seem to think that it's the main thrust of the Goof. Admittedly, it's a significant part, but looking at my category stats, I've actually posted far more often on music, general retro, and art.

[Link: Bubblegumfink Interview]

Posted by MrBaliHai at 6:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The Bubblegumfink has been extremely busy of late, churning out set after fabulous set of faux-bubblegum cards like this incredible sequence from the cult film, Wicker Man. If Topps made stuff like this, I'd start collecting again.

[Link: Wicker Man Cards Set 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]

Posted by MrBaliHai at 7:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Mod Generation was a set of Topps bubblegum stickers, designed in part by the great Norman Saunders (of Mars Attacks fame). A flop in test-release, they were never widely distributed. The guy on the right looks like a pre-release version of the Simpson's Disco Stu.

[Link: Topps Mod Generation stickers][via the unfortunately named Crotch Wizard]

Posted by MrBaliHai at 4:55 PM | Permalink

This trailer for the 1955 George Pal special-effects extravaganza, Conquest of Space, with it's Chesley Bonestell-designed rocketships, and a storyline inspired by Werner Von Braun's Mars Project, epitomizes retro-futurist design.

I loved this film as a kid, but never realized until today that its plot, in which a general attempts to sabotage a mission to Mars because of his religious beliefs, was based on a 1940s controversy over whether or not the Bible forbade humanity to leave the Earth. Noted Christian theologians like C.S. Lewis insisted that the vast distance between the planets was God's way of quarantining us from His other creations. Lewis even went so far as to write the Perelandra Trilogy to drive home his belief that space travel was nothing short of blasphemous, which is odd, because I've read the trilogy a couple of times and never got that message out of it.

Up until now, I've always had a lot of respect for C.S. Lewis, but I may have to re-evaluate that in light of this information.

Update: The original link to YouTube is dead, but you can still view the trailer at the Internet Archive. I've updated the link accordingly.

[Link: Conquest of Space]
[Link: Wikipedia entry]

Posted by MrBaliHai at 2:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)