What better way to start off a Friday morning than digging deep into the retro archives? Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing” was actually released as a “B” side to another song you probably never heard of – “Blue Night” since the producer didn’t think it had hit potential. Further proof that anyone could make it in the music business back then.
You Sexy Thing reached number 2 in the UK charts in 1975 and number 3 in the U.S. a year later. It’s enjoyed a resurgence in recent years thanks to a cover version by Dee-Lite and also being featured in “The Full Monty” in 1997 which prompted the song to chart again. In fact, it is the only song in the UK to enter the charts in the 70s, 80s and 1990s. Not even Elvis or the Beatles did that.
Month: August 2009
Vintage Ads From A Simpler Time – That Are Sexist As Hell
In a previous post we covered retro ads from a simpler time that were among the creepiest I’ve ever seen. (Click here to see that post) Let’s now take a look at some ads that were done in a time when it was considered a man’s world and women were here only to serve men, be a perfect wife, do all the house work, try not to do stupid things and always be fresh and pretty regardless of what they were doing.
We all know that not only does such a Utopia not exist (I’m kidding ladies) but in retrospect, the people behind the creative direction of these ads really missed the mark not only conceptually but the ad wording (or copy in technical terms) is just plain awful. Clearly, these ads were designed by men, written by men, sold by men and bought by men.
“Husbands admire wives who keep their stockings perfect.” I love how this ad implies that being married is no reason for a woman to let herself go and should always look her best. Especially since the guy took the trouble to put on a suit and tie to read the paper while she knits. What’s going through his mind? “What’s this? A run in Jane’s stockings? Could I have married the wrong woman?!? How many more years before divorce becomes an acceptable society norm?!?!?”
You really don’t need to read beyond the lead line to know where this ad is going. The copy goes on to say that the beauty photographed in the picture is “stacked and endowed” with the most refined developments for culinary perfection. I’ll bet it is. Of course they are talking about the appliance but the double play on words is typical for the ads in the late 60s and early 70s. 
So to recap, in the 70s, cooking was what wives were for………and they better not have a run in their stockings while they are cooking and whatever they knit better not be in weird colors damn it!
Forget Victoria’s Secret or a day at the spa – if you want your woman to look better, simply give her more to do around the house. Oh, she also needs vitamins apparently.
Thank god Delmonte made a ketchup bottle that woman could open when their men weren’t around. Although how the heck is she supposed to open the mustard and relish? Were women condemned to have ketchup as the only condiment option when their men weren’t around? The woman in the ad looks so shocked and thrilled she’s liable to start putting ketchup on everything. Why? Because she can!!!!!
Apparently men were too stupid to operate Telex machines back in the day but they sure knew how to hire sweet operators. By the way, the price for the glorified word processor in the picture started at $6800. To contrast, I’m pretty sure my toaster has more processing power and it only cost $28 and it wasn’t even a sale!
Newflash – if you have 14 fingernails, a dirty oven is the least of your concerns. You’ll never get people to stop staring and good luck finding a decent pair of gloves. Also note the puke green color of the oven that was actually a very popular color for appliances at one time. Although I think they called it something nicer than puke green. Having said that, judging by the content of these ads, you never know.
Classic Retro Wendy’s Ads
The late, great Dave Thomas created the Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers franchise (who knew old fashioned hamburgers were square!?!) after making a name for himself with Kentucky Fried Chicken. Working with Colonel Sanders himself, Dave was responsible for trimming down the menu offerings, and focusing the restaurant on specializing on chicken and turned the business into one of the most successful fast food franchises in the world.
Taking what he learned with KFC, he poured all his energy into making Wendy’s (named after his daughter) more than just a pain in McDonald’s and Burger King’s side. It was because of him that other fast food restaurants had to change certain processes and begin offering certain things that were never done before, like the larger sized portions (yeah – thanks for that Dave), salads and the super value menu.
The real Wendy (Melinda actually)
Wendy’s was also pretty creative in the marketing department as well. Before Dave became the spokesman and created over 800 ads featuring himself, the company took some risks to get noticed in the burger wars. Let’s look at two of these ads.
One ad that raised a few eyebrows was an ad that was set in Soviet era, cold war Russia. The ad showed a Russian fashion show where the woman of generous proportions paraded in the same outfit with only quirky accessories to distinguish evening wear from day wear. This hammered home the point that Wendy’s was all about choice, unlike what Russians had to endure supposedly. This was done before the age of political correctness and before the Berlin wall came down but it’s interesting to note that an ad like this would never see the light of day today.
The other ad gave birth to an 80s catch phrase from the most unlikely of sources. In 1984, Clara Peller ensured her place in the retro hall of fame with the phrase “Where’s the beef?” The ad campaign, featuring the 80 year old, was one of the driving factors behind Wendy’s turnaround and helped make the brand a force not to be ignored by the larger chains. Interesting side note on Clara, she was fired by Wendy’s as their unofficial spokesperson after she made a commercial for a spaghetti sauce featuring the now famous phrase. I hope she didn’t spend all the Wendy’s cash in one place or finding the beef would be alot harder.
Retro Video of the Day – Blind Vision
There are many bands that truly embody the 80s electro-synth sound and Blancmange would have to be high on that list. Riding the wave of the 80s electro revolution, Blancemange was growing in popularity alongside the likes of Depeche Mode, Ultravox, Soft Cell and other bands forging a new sound for the decade.
Although their first real major hit was “Living on the Ceiling”, they did have some other decent songs that charted fairly well. “Blind Vision” reached number 10 in the UK in 1983 thanks in part to this creepy video. The group recently reformed and are working on new material for a new album.
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Retro Arcade Game of the Day – Pac Man
One of the all time greatest arcade classics, Pac Man brought the video games out of the arcades and into the public consciousness. Even though it was critically not well received, it was the hottest selling game for the Atari 2600 and one of the biggest games in terms of revenues at the arcade for it’s time.
The simple game play yet challenging levels meant hours of fun for people of all ages and was simple enough for anyone to play. Here it is again in the original arcade version. Just click start to begin and use the arrow keys to control the little yellow quarter bandido.
Retro Video of the Day – Can You Feel It
When they were known as the Jackson 5 signed with Motown, Michael Jackson and his brothers only received less that 3% of the Royalties so when they made the jump to CBS, papa Joes made sure the boys received a massive 20% which obviously changed quite a few things for the now renamed Jacksons and their family.
Even with the success of albums like Destiny and Triumph, Michael still cranked out solo work that outsold the Jackson’s work by a significant amount. When Thriller was released, instead of going on tour to promote the album, he rejoined his brothers for the Victory tour which meant if you wanted to see Michael doing Billie Jean, you had to go see the Jacksons.
“Can You Feel It” was released from the Triumph album in 1981 and charted well in many countries reaching number one on Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Play chart until Cool and the Gang pushed them off with their monster hit, “Celebration”. The video was voted one of the Top 100 videos of all time in 2001 for MTV’s 20th Anniversary.
Retro ’80s Fashion Trends
When you think back to the ’80s you will no doubt look back on many things with fond memories and in some ways yearn back to those simpler times. Nothing really defined the ’80s as much as the fashion. Some was really good, some – not so much. Here now is a look at some trends you may have forgotten about but likely were into back in the day.
Big Hair
When I say big, I mean large. Perm, fluff, spray – repeat. Not sure who to thank for this look but most videos from the ’80s by female artists were well represented by massive hair. This was a particularly dangerous look if you were a smoker.
Rubber Bracelets
If you owned a rubber gasket company in the ’80s you suddenly had a new demographic besides mechanics and plumbers. Suddenly teenagers everywhere were wearing little black rubber rings as bracelets (thanks Madonna!) and were asking for funky colors besides black (cue the neon again). The more you wore the cooler you looked (and the longer it took you to get ready in the morning).
Shoulder Pads
Not sure who was responsible for the linebacker look, but back in the 80s, both woman and men’s jackets and suits would have padded shoulders whether subtle or extreme. Perfect for when a sudden game of pick up football erupts at a party.
Neon
Thanks to Miami Vice, neon came back in a big way in the 80s and our eyes have never been the same since. Neon was everywhere, not only in actual lighting but the colors of our clothing which is never a good thing. To make things worse, neon colors were mixed with some of the other trends on this list adding to the ugliness in many (who am I kidding?) all cases.
Huge T-shirt with Clips
For some reason, t-shirts came in only two sizes in the 80s. Extra large, and Freakin’ Huge. To tame these beasts, girls would clip them up on one side with a huge plastic clip (probably neon!) to try and normalize the look.
Choose Life / Frankie Says / Don’t Worry Be Happy…..
When you’re wearing a T-shirt that can cover you and all your friends at once, the best thing you can do to distract a person’s eye from realizing how strange that looked was to slap a phrase in huge, bold, black letters. Hit songs of the day by Wham, Frankie Goes to Holly Wood and Bobby McFerrin gave inspiration for the phrases.
Stone and Acid Wash Jeans
There was a time when Levis jeans became lame in the eyes of teenagers. Hard to believe but the in thing was stone wash and acid wash jeans where you basically took a good pair of jeans and splashed bleach onto them and then rolled them in a dryer with rocks to age them. The effect was a patchy mixture of dark and light colour and if you were really hip, they’d be ripped and held together with safety pins to give you that punk, Billy Idol wannabe look. Also – they had to be skin tight. If you could breathe, you were wearing them wrong.
Spandex & Leg Warmers
With the success of the “Twenty Minute Workout” and Olivia Newton-John’s “Let’s Get Physical” video, people everywhere wore spandex, sweatbands and leg warmers whether they worked out or not. In some cases it was a very good look if you were blessed with the right proportions – in most cases though spandex is not a good thing………not a good thing at all. Unless you’re going for the stuffed sausage look, stay away from the spandex.
Off the Shoulder Look
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Jennifer Biels and the producers of Flashdance for giving us the sleeves-off-the-shoulder look and for making welding a sexy career option for teenage girls back in the 80s. Speaking for all males that were going through puberty at the time – thank you…….thank you very much.
Before They Were Famous Part 2
Here’s the second installment of a glimpse into famous celebrities early start in show business thanks to the retro miracle of VCRs. When you’re first starting out, any role you land to try and pay the bills is a good one.
In our first installment we featured the McDLT commercial with Jason Alexander. Here he is again in another commercial with Bruce Willis for Levis’s Jeans.
Before suffering Growing Pains or sinking on the Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio was just a cute kid who liked to chew gum and listen to really big boom boxes.
The late Farrah Fawcett was one of the most beautiful women on television. Before her big break on Charlie’s Angels, Farrah took really good care of her most second famous attribute besides her hair, her teeth.
Retro Video of the Day – No Promises
If you’ve been following my retro videos of the day, you’ll notice I tend to steer towards some of the more obscure and not overplayed tracks. Today is no exception. Australian synth-pop group Icehouse’s first single from their 1986 Measure to Measure album was a sleeper hit called “No Promises”. It reached #9 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts. This album featured the help of Brian Eno which was very evident on many of the songs on this album.
Steven Tyler Hopes To Walk This Way Soon
Steve Tyler, the lead singer of Aerosmith was showing his age the other night when he fell off the stage while doing his little dance during a performance at the”Buffalo Chip Campground and Trailer Park” – What the hell did I just type? A campground? My how things change. How do you go from playing the Superbowl to a campground?
The 61 year old front man was air lifted to hospital after suffering minor head, neck and shoulder injuries after falling off a catwalk of the stage onto some fans. Back in the day that was called crowd surfing but at 61, that’s just falling into a crowd. The clapper can’t be too far behind at this point.