
It's Independence Day as I write this, and here in the USA we have a lot of oddball ways of celebrating the history of our country. In the last few years, USA kitsch has been coming on like gangbusters. Before that it took an event like the Bicentennial to bring on the bushels of tributes to Americana.
These 7 inch busts are of presidents, and uh... Ben Franklin (the only President of the United States that's never been President of the United States...). You twist their heads off and then dribble on some Wild Country aftershave and pretend that you smell better.
Dating back to 1977, the aftershave in the heads of these presidents still smells pretty good. I don't know how much of the original essence has evaporated, but I could see still using this sweet smelling stuff after one of my typical abortive attempts at shaving.
Avon missed the boat though. It would be better if the different presidents had cologne that matched their character. Washington could be cherry blossoms (remember the cherry tree? Not too manly tho...), Roosevelt would be some sort of musky smell to honor the teddy bear incident, and Jefferson could perhaps smell of Mulberries (I'll let you look that one up yourselves...) or maybe capture the aroma of a nice pile of shiny nickels.
I'm not sure what Ben Franklin's signature scent could be, but let's remember he did write a book entitled "Fart Proudly" - so perhaps it's not that hard to imagine. God Bless America.
Plastic Presidents - one of Retro Thing's most popular posts!




When Mother's Day rolled around, there were some crappy gifts that even a kid could afford. Among the "classiest" were these antique finished miniatures. Not only were they models of gadgets of yesteryear, but they doubled as pencil sharpeners. Um... handy, I guess.
the camera's bellows open up (conveniently dumping out the shrapnel from the sharpener), etc.

The company is still around, at least in name - perhaps they are another 
A reasonable copy (certainly well beyond my skills as an artist) took shape, but take a closer look at the face. It's another woman! Call the Louvre! Break out your daVinci Code decoder rings! 
Hours of high pressure sales lectures later, my parents were presented with the above drek. Unfortunately my father wasn't type of guy to say, "Ha ha... a car shaped phone. Great, ya got me. Now which of you should I talk with about punching in the face?"
We've written about
Looking back to the year 1900, the world was entering an age of incandescent light bulbs and considering the possibilities of the internal combustion engine. The benefits of X-Rays had been discovered, and motion pictures were an amusing curiosity. However, modern assembly line manufacturing was unheard of, airplanes were still a few years off, and electronic miniaturization and most of today's clever gadgetry made possible by the transistor was still a half century away. 

The sports card publisher Fleer got the video game bug in the early 80's. They seem to have suffered especially from Pac-Man fever, and produced collectible stickers and rub-off games.
When I bought these as a kid, what I was interested in was the rub-off game. The maze was similar to the arcade's, but instead of little dots to eat the course is covered in golden scratch off circles. You grab your favorite gaming nickel (ahh, so THAT'S where this post's title refers to) and scratch away revealing dots (gulp!), blue ghosts (yum!), or the evil colored ghost mosters (wah-wah-wah).
I found a few of these cards from my childhood, and the scratch-off dots are now impenetrable. They were always a little hard to scratch off (probably to protect against rough handling and packaging), but the mysterious material is now molecularly bonded to the card, What's the lesson here? Don't save every little piece of junk from your childhood thinking you'll have fun with it again someday!
James has been out of commission for about a week - not only due to the holiday, but his internet access got conked out. He'll be posting again in the next few days, so here's a post to welcome him back.
No space age good times here. The stuff in the box embraces another 60's concept - that of the "mini". The noisemakers and confetti are full sized, but the rest of the package is a pile of toy food, a mini red carpet, and other doll-sized party accoutrements.
Happy New Year! One of the symbols of New Year's Eve is the fancy dress top hat (the collapsable kind pictured here is called an Opera Hat). Men's formal hats have mostly disappeared, but the top hat still sticks around as
a symbol of wealth or formality. Or.. um... stage magic, but that's another story.
and it's the perfect party hat for New Year's Eve. When a top hat is a bit ragged, it goes with practically any outfit. :)
While my beat up top hat and I hat are out celebrating the New Year
tonight, I'll be reflecting on the 2006. I can say sincerely that one of the best experiences
for me this past year has been writing for Retro Thing. It's nearly a year
since James invited me to collaborate on this blog, and its been tremendous fun all the way. I'm proud of our many quirky posts (a few have even been cited as sources in the Wikipedia!), and that so many of you have taken the time to write in say that you enjoy what we're doing.
James and I have been planning a number of things behind-the-scenes for 2007 (more free giveaways for one thing!), so this should be a fun year for us all. Of course the best way to help make this blog what you want it to be is to keep writing in! We love reading comments, and it's the most direct way to let us know what you keep coming back for.
I got these glasses years ago at the thrift for pennies a piece, and I still see them for sale from time to time. The Sugar Shack must have sold a lot of these back in the day for them to still litter Chicago thrift stores 20 years later.
