From 1976: Mark, Age 11

Mark, I don't know you...but I think I love you.

Vintage Boobage

Jerry Hall makes a Nip Slip in June, 1976.

Photograph by Francesco Scavullo.

It's hard to believe, but this actually graced newsstands across the United States without any sort of paper wrapping. How prudish we have become. It's quite a change...and not for the better.

And the diaphragm is back in town! I hear it went backpacking in Europe for a while, but ran out of money when it smoked up all of its funds in Amsterdam. Diaphragm had to call Masters and Johnson for plane fare home, and boy, were they ever pissed!

From 1976: Beautiful Bebe Buell

Some pictures just scream "The Seventies" without any captioning necessary.

Cameron Crowe used Bebe Buell as a source of inspiration for his genius film Almost Famous. When you look at the second photograph, is there really any doubt as to why?

From 1976: Oh, How I LOVE These

I'm old enough to remember The Bicentennial. That summer, I was five years old.

I remember going downtown in Lafayette, IN, for the big parade. My sister and I were wearing matching red, white, and blue outfits that Mom made for us (in those days, Mom made all of our clothes...she is a superb seamstress).

I don't have any videos of that day or that parade or that summer of 1976, but these two videos come very close to what my memories look like. Enjoy.

Grocery Store Favorites: Moonlight Feels Right

You know those songs that you always hear at the grocery store, over the sound system, but you never hear them anywhere else?

Yeah, those songs. And I've decided to celebrate them.

From 1976, here's Starbuck with "Moonlight Feels Right." I feel like I should be squeezing avocados and remembering to pick up some of those godawful Totino's frozen pizzas Ken loves so much.



If you'd like to suggest your own Grocery Store Favorite, shoot me an email.

The Things You Find When You Are Cleaning Out Your Files!

I tagged McCalls and Ladies Home Journal. While I am unsure which magazine was the source, I am positive that it was one of these two!

From 1975: A Corey Feldman Christmas

Before he broke into the movies, Corey Feldman was an incredibly prolific child actor in television commercials from a very young age.

Here, Feldman is roughly three years old.

The young people of today simply do not understand that, to a Seventies Kid, a booklet of McDonald's gift certificates was one of the best presents you could ever get under the tree. Oh, the joy: playing with your new Maskatron (by Kenner!) on Christmas Day 1976, secure in the knowledge that some piping-hot McDonald's fries and one of their delicious cheeseburgers was in your near future, courtesy of Santa and those wonderful McD's gift certificates.

Those were the days.

A Christmas Present From Our Friend Doug Over At Dougsploitation

If there's anything I like more than tacky late-70s network Christmas extravaganzas, it's tacky late-70s network Christmas extravaganzas sponsored by McDonald's!

Now, apparently the gem of a program aired in December 1976. The only way this show could have been possibly improved upon was if then-presidential daughter-elect Amy Carter made a A Very Special Appearance to sing a medley of holiday favorites with a bicentennial flair. And Tony Orlando and Dawn, Rerun, Donny and Marie, and Kris Kristofferson could have joined in the Christmas magic just before the commercial with the Budweiser Clydesdales.

From 1976: You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman...Through The Magic Of A Lower pH Perm

Modern Beauty Shop

May 1976

It is now officially my goal in life to own that bonnet in time for Halloween, so I can go as "that woman in the La Maur, Inc., ad in Modern Beauty Shop back in May of 1976. You know, with the scientific thermal processing system."

From 1976: Kitty Porn!

Don't be fooled by the cute packaging. Whisker Lickins was, in fact, a hardcore underground kitty porno starring none other than The King Of All Kitty Sluts, Morris!

Let's just put it this way: you have no idea the depraved things Morris would do for chicken and liver flavors.

From 1976: With Ayds, Dieting Has Never Been So Downright Delicious!

McCall's, April 1976

A great double-clicker. And I am still on my diet and could sure use some goddamned diet candy around these parts right about now. I've had to settle for chewing my own toenails, and they just are not the same. Maybe if I have my feet a light dusting of Hershey's Cocoa? Light on the calories, heavy on taste? Or chocolate Slim Fast, perhaps?

From 1976: When A Cherished Catchphrase Just So Happens To Also Be The Name Of A Beloved Kids' Magazine, Hilarity Ensues

For Doug: A Good Friend In A Graceless Age

December 11, 1976

Which means that Joe just dumped her, in what might have been the single most traumatic event in my childhood. I still get too upset to watch those scenes in one sitting.

From 1976: In The Seventies, Swine Flu Sounded A Whole Lot Like VD!

Slim Down Just In Time For Stan and Linda Facemeyers' Bicentennial BBQ Pool Party

1976

A terrific double-clicker.

Because In My Little Corner Of The Universe, You Can Just Never Have Enough Of Michael Jackson Robot Dancing

Okay, I think that I may have stumbled upon a clip that is even cooler than The Official Coolest Clip On The Planet, that of Cher doing a robot dance with Michael and his brothers on a 1976 telecast of the Cher show. (You have to watch until about the 3:50 mark, but it's so, so worth it, and you get to listen to Cher add her vocal stylings to Jackson 5 classics in the process!)

However.

Here is a clip of a Jackson 5 funkdown on The Merv Griffin Show in 1974. And as much as I love Cher and her glittery jumpsuit, I think that this clip might just be a serious contender for the Coolest Clip title (that, incidentally, I just made up as I was washing the lunch dishes...and is still more valuable than an Academy Award, but I digress).

I mean, this clip has it all. My evidence:

Michael doing a robot dance that has finally shown me once and for all what The Youths Of Today mean when they say something is "fucking SICK!"

Jermaine sporting a hairdo that looks like the afro equivalent of a porn 'stauche!

Funky soul brothers wearing pimped-out 1974-style fededoras providing the percussion and the keyboards!

Conga drums, courtesy of a Jackson brother (Randy? Marlon?)!

Stupid White People unable to get the funk going in their hearts for fifteen seconds, even for Michael Freaking Jackson! (I would have completely embarrassed myself by getting up and doing a little White Girl get-down, all totally off beat, of course. But still, that would have been cooler than Merv's All-White Audience Of Blinding Caucasian Lameness.)

And, of course...it's got Merv!

Consider My Christmas Wish List Officially STARTED

"You don't have to drive a truck to wear it...but considering that this is 1976 and the entire country is currently obsessed with CB radios, convoys, and Kris Kristofferson, chances are that you do."

There's Nothing I Like Better On A Thursday Morning Than A Bunch Of Funky Soul Brothers Commemorating The Bicentennial Through The Medium Of Jumpsuits

From 1976

A Photo So Awesome, It Actually Transcends Words

Perardi's parents' wedding photo

1976