Tag: Old Vintage Retro Stuff

Prized Possessions Vol. 3 – Super Friends Mini Planters

I was worried I had lost these. Luckily, they turned up in a box a few months ago. Needless to say I was very relieved. They’re from 1976, they’re weird, and they’re fabulous:

Super Plant2

Why do these exist? Why? To make me happy, that’s why. These are four ceramic planters, just a few inches tall, and each of the heroes is proclaiming “SUPER PLANTS” for no reason. I like to imagine the four of them brainstorming and trying to come up with something clever they’d all say and that’s the best they could come up with. Also Batman seems to have a talking armpit.

Notice that you have your three standard Super Friends/Justice League heroes: Wonder Woman, Batman, and Superman, and then you have Gomer Pyle Captain Marvel, or/and/also known as Shazam! because of weird DC/Marvel comics shiz.

Super Plant1

No Aquaman despite that fact that water, Aquaman’s realm, is one of the things plants need to survive.

Not that I would plant anything in them. The last thing I would want would be to plant some seeds, and then, OF COURSE, they would become super plants and the roots could potentially crack my beloved ceramic planters. No, no, that wouldn’t do.

I looked these up and found this interesting post (interesting if you are interested in 1970s plant-related superhero merchandising which, duh, everyone is).

I got mine about 9 years ago off of ebay, and if you search right now, you can actually buy the entire store display piece plus 3 of each of them for 70 bucks. Although if you do end up with something that powerful in your possession you must promise only to use it for good.

1977 JC Penny Catalog – People had serious dressing problems that year

I was looking around wishbookweb.com, which I love to do a disturbing amount, and decided to flip through the 1977 JC Penny Catalog, even though I already did that a little bit before. Here’s what else I found:

JC Penny was really the place to get clothes if you were dead but didn’t know it yet. These days I’m not sure where the dead-but-don’t-know-it crowd get their wardrobes:

1977 JCPenny Christmas page007
They took a break from unknowingly haunting their former house to model for the catalog.

You gotta get a CB radio just in case you have an emergency.

aaCB

 

First, “I’d like some sugar” could seriously be misconstrued. Second, if I were that horse, I would probably say “please free me from this torture device.”

aaHorse

 

There’s just not as many nightmare children’s toys these days. Tell me where you can find a good “horrifying clown plays peek-a-boo where you sleep” toy in 2013.

aaClown

 

On the other hand, a Redd Foxx talking doll that says gems like, “Your daddy sat on me” and has two faces? I will give you all my money for one of those.

aaRedFoxx

 

Now we get to the apparent inability for women to dress for cold weather.

aaCold1

 

The uncomfortable strangle-y feeling of a turtleneck combined with the more cumbersome bathroom experience a leotard brings topped with the 70s version of Uggs and then also freezing cold thighs. Fashion!

aaCold2

 

And then these people just don’t know what the hell they’re doing:

aaCold3

I guess maybe since it’s two of them they kind of egged each other on? Then they went out in the cold and died of hypothermia, I’m guessing.

1980 JC Penny Christmas Catalog – The Year of the Mime Model

I was looking around wishbookweb.com, which I love to do a disturbing amount, and decided to flip through the 1980 JC Penny Christmas Catalog. Here’s what I found.

First of all, it is very obvious this cover was just a photo-op (or painting-op) for Santa because what the hell is he going to do with that big brush smothered in red paint? Give the doll a Joker smile?

Phony Santa

 

 

Next, what a welcoming sight. You just don’t see many modeling opportunities for conjoined twins these days (or maybe since they aren’t identical they were voluntarily conjoined – was that a thing in the 80s?):

Rare Models

 

I would seriously not want to run into these two in a dark alley, or really anywhere. I guess my best approach would be to grab that big bow on the lady with the bun’s shirt – maybe swing her around with it:

1980 JCPenny Christmas page069

1980 JCPenny Christmas page106

 

I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth repeating – there are not enough photos in catalogs nowadays of kids who hate the product being advertised. I will never get tired of angry child models:

1980 JCPenny Christmas page203

You know what’s disappointing? Ordering your child a playhouse and when it arrives finding out that an important accessory isn’t included:

1980 JCPenny Christmas page391

 

And last, here’s another relic from early 1980s modeling – the mime-trapped-in-a-box pose.  With a fashionable outfit like this one, surely someone will come along and break her free – maybe the wrench wielding maniac?

1980 JCPenny Christmas page078

Prized Possessions Vol. 2 – Plastic Charm Necklaces

Who remembers those plastic chain-link necklaces from the 1980s? The ones you would get charms for from a vending machine to add to the necklace. If you’re my age and a girl you probably had one. You’d go back to the grocery or drug store, again and again, scratching yourself like a crackhead (probably from the plastic against your skin), holding a quarter, looking for your next fix – a charm in the shape of a frying pan, for example.  Then you’d add the charm to your necklace, more and more until you looked like Mr. T but instead of gold chains it was little plastic tennis rackets and lipstick and baby bottles and records.

The ones I had were sent to outgrown toy heaven by my mom at some point, but that has never deterred me. I just went to eBay and bought me some new ones several years ago.

Every single charm had a little bell on it, which means there would be no sneaking up on anyone when you were wearing them. And they came in every random item little girls loved!

Numbers 1

1. Tennis racket and little shoes 2. lipstick  3. rape whistle  4. PINK baby bottle for future teen moms of girls  5. something called a “record”  6. something called a “typewriter”  7. sunglasses  8. ping pong paddle  9. choo choo train  10. ballerina slipper  11. corn on the cob (of course)  12. a red football  13. a wrench for all the handygirls out there  14. a ball-peen hammer (forget that claw hammer bullshit – those are for boys!)  15. sausage (aww yeah)  16. uh, a half-eaten fish carcass  17.   an adorable turquoise ax for all the little Lizzie Bordens out there.

Numbers 2

1. toothpaste (as Crest tells me now with their commercials, a lady needs her some non-yellow teeth if she wants to attract a husband!)  2. little yellow lion  3. a heart – girls love hearts!  4. a PINK baseball and 5. PINK baseball bat  6. white elephant  7. a translucent aqua bulldog (probably created after unrelenting demand from 1980s kids)  8. football  9. the word “happy,” it’s just important to be reminded how to feel  10. a bathtub (no dirty girls!)  11. a BLUE baby bottle for future teen moms of boys 12. a comb for lice, I’m assuming 13. a horseshoe and….14. the things that little girls love the most in all the world.

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A blue googly-eyed lady thing wearing a bra over a shirt with a misshapen left foot. SO RAD!

I think my favorite charm, which I don’t own, is the mutli-colored abacus. One day I’ll get my hands on one, and then I can finally do some math!

Who remembers these or had one?

I can only hope…

I hope when my lady friends and I get into a major brawl with some dudes that we have as much fun as Charlie’s Angels are having on this lunchbox:

IMAG0791

Even the one that’s tied to a post seems to be enjoying herself.

Kate Jackson looks like she’s thinking about the ice cream she’s going to treat herself to after she finishes casually flinging that grown man across the room. And look at the form of that head-knee chop – exquisite! Jaclyn Smith knows it, too – such a twinkle in her eye.

Personally, I would have probably gleefully swung one of those 2x4s and yelled something like, “I don’t want you to get board!” And then we’d all laugh, and I’d slip in the head wound blood and get my plaid bell bottoms dirty but it wouldn’t matter because it kind of blends in and I know they won’t notice it at the ice cream parlor.

Then, when we got to the ice cream shop, I’d order a banana split and they’d say, “You know who has a banana split-ing headache? That guy you hit with the 2×4!” And we’d laugh again as the sound of the ambulances responding to a call reporting several seriously injured men in a warehouse speed by.

Anyway I hope that’s what happens.