Tiki Farm’s New Spring Tiki Mugs

Spring is in the air! Ok, well some of you still have snow, but spring is coming, don’t worry. And with it comes a flock of new Tiki Mugs from the infamous Tiki Farm, that wonderful company who has been bringing us some of the best Poly Pop stuff for years.

Digga Digga Doo, by Artist Brad Parker

For those of you unfamiliar with Tiki Farm - they are the world’s largest manufacturer of ceramic Tiki mugs, with estimates of over 1000 designs and 2 million mugs being produced. Yet with all that volume, they’re products remain unique, high quality, and a very kool. Chances are if you’ve been to a Tiki bar, you’ve drunk (drank? drinked?) from the Tiki Farm mug.

For Spring 2010 they’ve introduced some kookie new themes, including the Sunrise Tiki Mug, the first mug by Tiki Farm to feature a 4-color process art print fire-glazed in. (Art by Scott Scheidly). Can you say, “Instant Collectible”?

Modern Primitive Tiki Mug by Artist Philippe Tilikete

Personally, I am digging the Modern Primitive Tiki Mug by Philippe Tilikete, and the Frankie’s Tiki Room’s “Maile Kula” Tiki Mug with it’s Art Deco styling.

The BEST part about Tiki Farm mugs is that they don’t rip your wallet to shreds with prices. All these great, collectible pieces are priced between ten and twenty clams each, so unless you’re stocking a bar for 100 guests, these usable works of art can be yours for a song. They’re strong to, so you really can use them when you’re not displaying them. After all, what’s the fun of having a Tiki bar if you’re not drinking from the groovy mugs?

Make sure you poke around all of Tiki Farm’s website. It’s a fun site with lots of kool features, and they sell more than just mugs. Sometimes they feature stuff you can’t find anywhere else. And for a little rero-Tiki silliness visit the Tiki Theater. It’s all loads of laughs with some swingin’ tunes and a few surprises.

Sunset Tiki Mugs with 4-Color Imaging

In case you’re wondering, no I don’t get paid for pushing their stuff. The people at Tiki Farm probably never even heard of me, or Tiki Lounge Talk - I’m laying this down for you kats and kittens out of the kindness of my little ole’ heart because I want the world to know how much fun living the Tiki life can be. And, I got a really good deal on a Volcano Bowl from those guys at Tiki Farm, so I feel I sort of owe them.

So order a few mugs, and in a couple of days you’ll be sittin’ pretty in the spring sunshine, sipping a Zombie from one of these beauts. Or you’ll be sitting in your kitchen looking out the window at four feet of snow, drinking a Zombie from one of these beauts. Either way, you can’t lose, kiddo.

-Tiki Chris reporting from Sunny South Florida

The Party, with Peter Sellers, 1968 - Mod Movie Monday at The Tiki Bar

Get out your Naru jacket, tune up the sitar and get ready to watch a truly mod movie from the psychedelic ’60s, baby! Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards got together only once to make a comedy that wasn’t about The Pink Panther.  The Party, 1968 is a crazy, mod, very ’60s flick about Hollywood craziness of the day, and spoofs a big hippie-era Hollywood party so well you’ll wish you were there.

Peter Sellers plays an Indian actor named Hrundi V. Bakshi who is trying desperately to get his big break in American films. As you might expect, he does more harm than good on the set and gets himself put on the black list, only to be accidentally put on the invitation list to the big Hollywood shindig instead. Add every 1960s mod movie gag in the book, hot women, pot smoking musicians and a baby elephant and you can’t miss. And I guarantee, for the rest of your days every time you see a parrot, you’ll want to call him Birdy Num Num.

You’ll have to put yourself in the era to enjoy this flick - it’s not exactly action-packed, and there’s no real story, just one funny scene after another. (According to IMDB: “This film was improvised from a 56-page outline. Each scene was shot in sequence, and built upon the previous scene. To aid in this experiment, the film’s producers had a video-camera tube attached to the Panavision camera and connected to an Ampex studio videotape machine, allowing the actors and crew to review what they had just filmed.”)

Since the movie is about a big swingin’ Hollywood party in 1968, suitable fare should include fondue, caviar, California salad and cucumber sandwiches. For drinks, Champagne would be grand, or Beefeater Martinis for the cocktail set.

-Tiki Chris for Tiki Lounge Talk

How to find Tiki Lounge Conversations

How do people find the Tiki Lounge?

In the 1930s, the call would have been: “Tune in to WTLT Tiki Lounge Talk Radio, 1040 on your AM dial, for Topical News, Tropical Weather, and Exotic Cocktail Concoctions.”

In the 1950s it would have been: “Hey you kraaaaazy kats and kittens, dig in and set your peepers to WTLT-TV Channel 7, the swingin’ place to meet face to face with hep cats, hip kats, swingers, hipsters, flipsters and all-night tripsters. Can you dig it, baby? Then pull up a V.O. Manhattan and get fabulous.”

In the 70s it would have been “Breaker 1-9, got yer ears on good buddy? Dial in to the Tiki Lounge, get some suds and go-go juice and join the convoy all the way to Fort Lauderdale! Don’t worry about Smokey the Bear on yer backdoor, put the pedal to the metal and keep on truckin’! Over and out.”

And in the 90s it would have been 20 minutes of statticky beeps, bongs, whirs and whistles, followed by a busy signal, then another half hour of beeps and bongs, then “You’ve got mail!” Several minutes later your black and white screen would show jaggedy type saying something like “Does anyone remember what a Tiki Bar is?” with a little line drawing of a Tiki Bar, cockeyed from being scanned in quickly at work while no one was looking.

Ah, the old days. Not so easy to get a message out then. Now, if I want to tell people about Conversations at the Tiki Bar, all I have to do is broadcast it on Twitter, post it on Facebook, or run a cheap pay-per-click ad on Google.

So, in an attempt to spread the good word of living the retro & Tiki life, I thought I’d post a few links here to help you follow our antics. Tell your friends; pass the links along and tell them if they’re truly kool they will follow that swingin’ hipster Tiki Chris aka ChrisPFLorida aka Mack aka Zoot on Twitter, be a fan on Facebook, get email updates as a subscriber, Digg the posts, and bookmark TLT on delicious! (whew, so many ways for me to annoy you and your friends!)

So here goes:

Follow me on Twitter: @ChrisPFlorida

Be a fan of Tiki Lounge Talk on Facebook

Follow TLT Posts on Blogger

Subscribe to new  posts via email (100% spam free) –> enter your email in the field in the side bar!

Get RSS feeds for the Tiki Blog

See a funny video on YouTube

And always feel free to leave a comment, so the conversations aren’t too one-sided!

So there you go - in the ‘teens it will be: Follow me, fan me, friend me and feed me, Seymour!”

-Tiki Chris for Tiki Lounge Talk, the Retro Blog for kool kool kiddies.

Mod (Retro) Movie Monday: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, 2004

Sky Captain

Direct from the Tiki Blog - When I started Mod Movie Mondays, I said they might not always be mod, and they might not always be old. Here’s a flick that will have anyone into Art Deco, retro-30’s style and the sci-fi future of yesteryear drooling.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, 2004

Beautifully created Art Deco sets inspired by the work of Norman Bel Geddes (of 1930s World’s Fairs fame) transport you back to an alternative history, a 1930s New York where retro-futuristic technology co-exists with fat-fendered cars, where ray guns are real and Nazis are more interested in flying luxury airships than conquering the world. So if Nazis aren’t the nemises in this pre-WW2 adventure, who is? An evil scientist, of course, played by Sir Lawrence Olivier (yes, he was long dead at the time this movie was made - they made fantastic use of B&W archive footage!)

Sky Captain is an airplane pilot who flies a modified P-40 fighter (it not only flies, it’s a submarine). His mission is to protect the world, basically, from anyone who tries to crack things up. When a small army of giant iron robots lands in the Big Apple and start tearing things apart, Sky Captain swoops in. The story progresses from there in a 1930s comic book-style and takes him to exotic lands like Shangri La.

But enough about the story, time to talk about why this flick is being featured here. As I said, the sets are incredible - works of art in every scene. And almost none of it was real - this was one of the first full-length movies to be filmed almost entirely in front of a blue screen, with all of the sets digitally sequenced in. Some sets came from actual photographs, some from vintage art, and the rest were created electronically just for the film. What this translates into is a work of art on a moving canvas living behind the action of the actors. If you like the retro life, you will wish you lived in this movie.

Since the action takes place mainly in 1930s New York of the Future, I’d suggest a retro-futuristic dinner and drinks. Try a deli style sandwich platter of corned beef, roast beef, Swiss or Havarti cheese, and coleslaw on marble rye, served up on your favorite Jetsons-style dishes with a side of waffle fries. For dessert, Dove chocolate ice cream banana splits in Art Deco, blimp-shaped bowls. And for the drinks - Highballs, Slow Gin Fizzes, and of course, Manhattans, served in your finest futuristic stemware.

-Tiki Chris Pinto for Tiki Lounge Talk, South Florida’s Swingin’ Scene for Retro Hipsters and Tiki Lovers

A Tiki Gift from a Good Friend

Sometimes it’s the little things that can really make your day.

A few weeks ago, I was following a thread on Twitter among some Tiki fans who were discussing a cool Tiki desktop fountain they found at Walgreens up North. My good friend Matt (twitter @k9radiotiki) posted a photo of it, and of course I had to have one. I motored the Caddy down to the nearest Walgreens, and nope! They didn’t have em.

I checked out two more in the area and they didn’t have em either. So I reported back on Twitter that couldn’t find one, and a week later I got one in the mail from Matt, no charge. Just goes to show there are still some very groovy people out there! Thanks again buddy, the little Tiki fountain has found a place of honor on the Tiki Bar!