Thank heavens there was a girlfriend to help our singing star find the path to a lovelier complexion...with Palmolive!
"Look here, Marge...here's the score. Us girls down at Monsieur Henri's House Of French Coiffures have been cleansing our skin the Palmolive way...and you should, too!"
Personally, I'm a big believer in doing beauty the old-fashioned way (or what we would consider "old fashioned" today). I switched recently from fancy-schmancy facial wash to plain old Dr. Bronner's rose bar soap for facial scrubbery. My skin has never been cleaner nor clearer. And it's cheaper and organic!
I can't find an exact date for this darling commercial, but it's a real favorite of mine.
The Rolling Stones got into the Rice Krispies game with this jingle that Brian Jones wrote with the J. Walter Thompson ad agency in 1964. It aired on the BBC's Juke Box Jury.
The Monkees did a number of commercials for Kellogg's Rice Krispies, featuring their own version of the "K-E-Double L, O-Double Good...Kellogg's best to you!" tagline, with Micky on lead vocal. This is one of my favorites because it features the Monkeemobile.
'Round the Linger homestead, Sunday Night tends to be Laundry Night.
Ken dreads it, because invariably I get to pining for Laundry Detergents Gone, But Not Forgotten. Like Duz. Or Salvo. Or even Solo, which was actually a fabric softener.
1950
1965
date unknown
Some of the classic old brands are still around, but damn, you have to work triple-time to find them. I have the most luck at Big Lots, should I want to take a walk down Rare Laundry Detergents Lane (and, of course, I always do).
The laundry detergent I love to remember the most is Oxydol. Not only do I remember my own Mom using it when we were kids, it is prominently featured in the 1981 John Waters' classic Polyester. Remember when Dexter is looking for a foot to stomp in the grocery store? Look in the background at the brands. There it is, in all its green-boxed, early eighties' glory: Oxydol.
I scored a big bottle of the stuff at Big Lots last spring, and it was wonderful...but I haven't seen it on the shelves since.
Obviously some of the women from Jonestown were recruited for Oxydol print ads.
In this ad, more psychotic housewives, possibly while overdosing on Miltown, enjoy the whiter whites their Oxydol detergent delivered.
This ad for Oxydol was obviously someone's graduate thesis. Well, laundry is a science, after all. The Monkees and Julie Newmar taught us that.
From 1949, the earliest days of television. I think this model of washing machine actually was called "The Mangler."
This lovely housewife took a little time out of her busy schedule of penciling on eyebrows that Joan Crawford in Trog! would envy and multiple layers of Revlon's Cherries In The Snow lipstick to tell the world about the wonders of Clorox, complete with its revolutionary No-Drip Lip.
However, are we to believe that those are her hands? They just seem to be floating from nowhere.
No matter, gals...get yourself some of Today's Clorox (and a Philco Duomatic from 1960) now!
If there's anything I like more than morbidly obese animated children extolling the virtues of My Canned Childhood (we ate a lot of Campbell's in my house growing up), it's using wink-wink nudge-nudge stereotypes about Scottish people to sell soup. "It's thrifty, too...aye, you can add seven or eight cans of water to that soup to make it stretch farther!"
Gary Lewis fronted a group called Gary Lewis and The Playboys, who released a marvelous tune called "This Diamond Ring." They also had a modest hit in a ballad called 'Tina," written for Tina Sinatra.
Gary Lewis went on to serve in Vietnam. He returned as so many others did: a broken man, addicted to heroin.
Jerry Lewis responded to his plight by shunning him. As I said, grade-A asshole.
Enough about that.
Any time a TWA spot crosses my path, I literally squeal with joy.
The real gem in this clip, however, is the promotional bit for Gene Autry's Continental Hotel. One year after this program aired, the hotel was sold and renamed The Continental Hyatt House. That's right, ladies and germs: this hotel is the legendary Riot House.
Ken and I stayed at Riot House when we visited L.A. in summer 2000. It was really kind of a dump. A faded beauty with secrets to share. In other words, I loved every single minute I was there. It's also very handy to all of the seediness on the Sunset Strip.
Finally, there's a beautiful "snake" NBC logo with the three tones at the end.
Somebody get me a cigarette.
Massive thanks to Anonymous, who sent this to me. I can understand not wanting to be associated by name with me and the rabble who read this blog, but couldn't you have come up with a pseudonym? I want to thank you for reals!
