Two pages of beautiful movie-serial cover scans, courtesy of One Man Safari.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 8:07 PM | Permalink

Radio today is in a pretty sad state of affairs. I don't much care for the stale musical formats, or the spittle-flecked demagoguery of political pundits, so I prefer to imagine myself back in radio's Golden Age, a time when receivers were works of art in wood and plastic, and kids listened to thrilling action serials like the Batman Mystery Club, and Hopalong Cassidy westerns, saving box tops and labels to send away for fabulous premiums like a Captain Midnight Mystery Dial Code-O-Graph.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Welcome to Slickville, where it's still cool to use a handful of grease, or a can of 3-in-1 Oil to style a perfect part, a gigantic pompadour, or a shiny duck tail.

Don't have enough hair left for any of that? Not to worry. You can still give yourself this Greased Combover look that'll drive the chicks wild!

Posted by MrBaliHai at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When I was in high-school, I bought an old 8mm projector at a thrift store. It was a beautiful piece of equipment, but a nightmare to operate; it broke down frequently, and burnt holes in my film with frightening regularity.

But what I really liked about 8mm films were the cool boxes they came in, so I was delighted to find this superb collection of Super-8 films with 6 galleries of high-quality front and back cover scans, along with film synopses (auf Deutsch).

Note that many of these film titles have been changed from their English version, to something more suitable for the German audience. For fun, I ran a couple through Babelfish and got predictably hilarious results:

English: Smokey and the Bandit Ride Again
German: Das ausgekochte Schlitzohr ist wieder auf Achse
Babelfish: The Expenditure-cooked Slot Ear is Again on Axle

English: W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings
German: Ein Supertyp haut auf die Pauke
Babelfish: A Supertype Strikes on the Bass Drum

Apparently, Burt Reynolds movies don't translate well.

schönen Dank, Filmtagebuch!

Posted by MrBaliHai at 8:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This Czech site offers up several galleries worth of scans from a Russian broadcasting magazine called "Radio". Excellent images, well worth waiting for them to load.

via GGTH

Posted by MrBaliHai at 9:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Wish I'd known about the L.A. Time Machine before I visited Los Angeles last Christmas. This site is a treasure trove of information about L.A.'s historic hotels, bars, and my special area of interest, restaurants. I'm a former resident of the area, and retro aficionado, but you might be surprised to know how few of these eateries I've actually dined at. I definitely plan to rectify that on my next trip.

One of the most interesting restaurants on the list is Clifton's Cafeteria; built in 1939, with an amazing cascading waterfall on its facade, and fabulous faux-Polynesian interior. Sadly, it no longer exists, but Clifton's current location still retains much of the original's bizarre charm.

Thanks, Matt!

Posted by MrBaliHai at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The BMW Isetta, AKA "Die Rollende Ei" (The Rolling Egg): here are some awaiting restoration, others with trailers, manufacturer's literature, advertising, illustrations, and of course, toys. Elvis drove one, and they've even inspired their owners to poetry. Can there ever be too many sites about bubble cars? I don't think so.

Thanks to Control-o-blog for starting me on this cramped journey

Posted by MrBaliHai at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Here's 12, count 'em, 12 fabulous galleries of incredible Scandinavian color advertisements from the wonderful World of Bwaanaman. Just look at how happy Dad is eating his psychotropic Danish Swedish margarine on toast! Where can I score some?

spotted at Tacky Times by way of PCL

Posted by MrBaliHai at 9:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Remember going to the museum or amusement park and begging your parents to let you drop their hard-earned coin into one of these babies? For me, watching the machine go through the injection-molding process was far more interesting than the cheap-looking plastic tschotkes they pooped out as souvenirs. Although some of them, like this glowing green bust of Abe Lincoln have a certain creepy appeal.

Apparently, there's a company working on an updated version, because, ya know, there just isn't enough useless kitsch in the world.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)