1950’s Car Commercials…The Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To

A lot of you kats and kittens are big on the MAD MEN series. But are you hip to the ad jazz they were laying down? Here are a few Automobile TV commercials and print ads from the golden era of Advertising.

I currently have a 1953 Chevy in my garage. Have had it for 20 years.

This bat-winged beauty was marketed toward big business presidents and tycoons. It cost more than a Cadillac.

There are few cars more elegant, beautiful and powerful as the 1963 Pontiac. Always wanted one. This commercial makes me want one even more!

For fans of the “little” Fords…I love how they point out “no dog leg”. That’s a reference to the wrap-around windshields popular on GM models (esp Cadillac) through the early 1960’s.

Ah, one of my favorite all-time rides, the 1958 Cadillac. We had one (already vintage) when I was a kid. I will have one again someday.

An here’s some old print ads from ’50s and ’60s magazines (click on each to enlarge):

Hope you kids dug this little trip down memory lane to the days when cars were made of steel and chrome and horsepower meant everything. My my how times have changed. Sorry kids, but after looking at ads like this, how could anyone ever get excited about a Honda Accord? bleh.

-Tiki Chris reporting from the showroom floor of the Imperial dealership down the block from Tiki Lounge Talk.

PROOF That Real Pirates Still Roam Key West!

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It’s a drag when someone breaks into a museum, busts up a display and steals a $550,000 gold piece of history, probably to melt down and sell for booze, gas and grass. But when it happens to be a gold bar from a 300+ year-old Spanish wreck in Key West, Florida, well that’s a whole other story.

According to this article in the South Florida Sun Sentinel, two thieves entered the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, broke the thick acrylic case surrounding the real gold bar and made off with it in the night. The bar was on display in a special enclosure that allowed people to lift and hold the bar, so we could feel the weight and history of it. (I held this bar myself a couple of years ago while on a KW trip). The gold bar was salvaged from the wreck of the Santa Margarita, a Spanish ship that went down off the Keys during a hurricane in 1622. The bar was recovered in 1980 and has been on display for more than 20 years.

Then along came two pirates. I call them pirates because A) these kats didn’t knock over a gas station, they went after treasure, treasure from a Spanish ship that sailed during the heyday of pirates. GOLD treasure. If two real pirates came back to life as zombies, they couldn’t have planned this better. B) It happened in Key West, where a very high percentage of the year-round population claims to either be pirates themselves, or descended from real pirates (or pirate hunters). C) They did it right under everyone’s noses, didn’t care about the security cameras or the alarm, and just took what they came for. And D) because I will bet you any amount of doubloons that there was rum involved.

It is a drag for the museum. Even though they have hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of these bars, it’s still not cool to steal from a place that makes it so much fun for the public to enjoy.

Unless, of course, you’re a pirate.

These guys might be crack-head scumbags. They might be lowlife petty thieves who made a run for the big time. Or they might have had it up to their necks with all the wealth being in the hands of the few while the majority of the world is sweating to make a buck. Who knows. I know one thing: I kinda hope they’re more the Jack Sparrow type of pirates…and I kinda hope they get away with it. At least until the Coast Guard finds their pirate ship and blows it out of the water.

-Tiki Chris reporting from Pirate’s Cove Tiki Bar, in the cavern under the waterfall on Pirate Island.

Murder on Tiki Island Coming Along Nicely

The much anticipated “Murder on Tiki Island” by Tiki Chris Pinto (me) is more than half finished. My goal is to get it laid down by the end of September. Then will come the re-writes and edits. With luck, it will be ready to pub by the Christmas Season.

Murder on Tiki Island takes place in 1956, on a private resort Island off the Florida Keys. Detective Bill Riggins (from Murder Behind the Closet Door) takes a vacation from his NYC cop job only to get caught up in a murder that goes beyond mystery, beyond our own plane of existence into the realm of the paranormal. Hot dames, steamy nights, fast cars and tropical cocktails come together like rum and lime juice in this vintage-style noir thriller. If you dig what you read here, kids, you’ll dig this tome.

Murder Behind the Closet Door by Chris Pinto

If you can’t wait for December then check out Murder Behind the Closet Door, my first novel now available at Amazon.com. I’ve gotten all great reviews on this book (and not just from my pals). Again, it’s a book for people who dig the past and like to relive it through their minds. Set in Wildwood and Ocean City, New Jersey in 1978-79 with flashbacks to 1938, Murder Behind the Closet Door is a 600 page journey through the lives of ordinary people who find themselves thrown into extraordinary circumstances. Read more about it here at StarDust Mysteries, or at Amazon.com

-Tiki Chris Pinto reporting from the library under the coconut tree,
Tiki Lounge Talk is THE Tiki Culture/Retro Culture blog for kats and kittens who dig it all, baby. Yeah.

For The Mad Men Lovers: How To Succeed In Business Without Even Trying, 1967 for Mod Movie Monday

In honor of Sunday’s Season Four Premier of Mad Men, I thought I’d treat you swingers to a little fun flick from 1967…based on the Broadway musical, here’s

How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying

from 1967 starring a young and crazy Robert Morse as J Pierrepont Finch.

When I first watched Mad Men four years ago, the one person that really clicked in my head was Cooper. He had a very familiar look, especially his expressions. Through the magic of the modern interwebs I was able to do a world-wide search for this actor’s previous accomplishments (Ok, I went right to IMDB) and realized I had recently seen the kat in How to Succeed in Business!

Robert Morse in "How To Succeed In Business"

Man, what a great circle of events. Robert Morse originated the part of “Ponty” in HTSIBWET in 1961 and won a Tony for best actor. When the movie came along he, along with Rudy Vallee, Ruth Kobart and Sammy Smith all recreated their roles from the Broadway version. His character starts out as a window washer who, with the help of a book entitled, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” decides to take a shot at climbing the corporate ladder. Executive is written all over his future, and his goal is to someday run the company.

Robert Morse in Mad Men

Change the timing by 30 years, and it becomes very easy to see Cooper’s character starting out with some of the same characteristics, basically making his character in How To Succeed a possible background (although a goofy one) for Burt Cooper. (What’s really funny is how the film treats the Advertising Department and its stigma at the company).

Basically, it’s a very kool connection for the retro series Mad Men to make by hiring an actor who actually portrayed these types of characters at the actual time this series takes place. Dig?

As for the movie itself, what a fun flick it is. It’s a musical with some swingin’ tunes. The sets are fantastic…more early-60s style than late. Ultra Modern and swanky-galore. Since it was originally staged in ‘61, the movie maintains that era’s look and feel.

There are a lot of laughs, and by the end you’ll be hoping the kid makes it. When it’s over, watch a first season Mad Men and you’ll see a few cues from this movie. The kids that put this series together definitely watched this flick once or twice!

-Tiki Chris reporting from the screening room at World Wide Widgets.
This is Tiki Lounge Talk, the swingin’ retro tiki blog for kool kats and hip kitties.

Retro Lovers: Futurama is Back, Baby!

Finally after almost seven years off the air as a series, FUTURAMA is back on Comedy Central.

If you dig Futurama you probably already know that the new series will premier with a one-hour special on Thursday, June 24 at 10:00 p.m. From the Official Futurama Site: “After a devastating spaceship crash, the Professor attempts to resuscitate the crew with his birth machine. Later, Leela and Zapp Brannigan find themselves stranded on an Eden-like planet.”

For you retro kats & kitties who aren’t hip to this fantabulous show, knock your peepers to this: Futurama (The name taken from the General Motors exhibit at the 1939 New York World’s Fair) is a krazy mix of mid-20th century sci-fi, current-day tech and the world of tomorrow, tomorrow being the year 3000 (or so). The plot is simple: Fry, a bumbling but sort of lovable (most of the time) pizza delivery boy (man) accidentally (sort of) gets cryogenically frozen on New Year’s Eve as the world is about to turn the date to 2000. After 1000 years he’s thawed, welcomed by a goofy scientist who yells “Welcome to the world of tomorrow!” (sound familiar?) He meets a sexy cyclops, a partying robot and eventually his great great (etc.) grand nephew Professor Farnsworth, (who is a mad scientist six or seven times Fry’s age), who just happens to own an inter-planetary delivery company. There’s a lot more, but you’ll have to watch the show for that.

What’s really groovy is that Mat Groening’s (Yes, The Simpsons guy) idea of the far-out future is far-out indeed, filled with 1950s-style sci-fi monsters, aliens, spaceships, and educational films. The hovercars all have fins and chrome, most of the sound effects are made with a Theremin or are lifted from Star Trek TOS, and the TV sets look like floor-model Zeniths that would have been in your grandmother’s pad.

So check it out. It’s as clever as The Simpsons with the added value of that retro flair.

AIRS: Thursday, June 24, 10pm on Comedy Central

-Tiki Chris reporting from in front of the 65″ RetroVision,  with an Atomic Cocktail in hand.