Category: Heavy Pet-ing

Kitschy kitties, puppies & other animals — and their tales.

Horsing Around With Lolita Smut

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Because (nearly) every little girl loves horses (I sure did!), it shouldn’t be surprising that a shelf full of horse figurines would be among the decor shown in smut to designate the juvenile status of the woman. However, in this case, one would be pretty hard-pressed to suspend their disbelief that this “babe” disrobing to her stockings and suspenders is an innocent teen; she looks a lot more like a mom in her daughter’s room — perhaps there to dust the Breyer horses, nodding dogs, and 45 RPM records. For more thoughts on this: When Lollipops Make Us Suckers (NWS).

A Black Cats Mystery

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When I posted this image to Facebook, I did so with a quickly typed quip of, “She ain’t no holler back girl, she’s a derby grrl!”.

Now my quip came, in part, from the title of the post at Retronaut: Black Cats Roller Derby Woman, c. 1800s. My sister in law, who knows a lot more about roller derby than I do, commented that she didn’t think the quip or title were correct:

hrm. i don’t think she’d technically be a derby girl, at least not someone who competed. as far as i’m aware, women didn’t compete in derby until the 30’s. *shrug* i still like the picture. :)

This is the sort of thing that happens when people post and share things without providing any context. If only Retronaut had stated where they found the image. Grrr.

I tried to do a little (quick) research myself (as time is limited this morning; I have to go perform some maintenance — dusting and filling — of our case at Antiques on Broadway). But found nothing definitive…

Perhaps the Black Cats had something to do with performances, not roller derby, and the name references La Chat Noir, widely deferred to as the first cabaret? Then again, the images on her hat or crown look a lot like the logo for the Sunderland Association Football Club, an English association football club dating to 1879, often called the Black Cats. Anyone else know more?

UPDATE: Thanks to Marianne of Ms Dow Antiques, we have more info on this photo:

Mystery solved — Black Cat was a popular cigarette brand. So popular that people dressed up in Black Cat costumes for parties.

The Black Cat cigarette was introduced in 1904 as one of the first machine-made cigarettes manufactured in Britain.

During the early 1920s enthusiasm for the Black Cat was at a peak, with many people wearing badges and stickers featuring the cat and even going to fancy dress parties in black cat costumes.

She also noted that posing in roller skates was also quite a fad.

Thanks much, Marianne!

Whatjamacallit Wednesday: How Do You Get Kitten Hips? And Why Would You Want Them?

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Kitten hips. No, not the furry kind — the “lithe young American” kind, as described in this vintage girdle ad published in Harper’s Bazaar, 1946.

You feel and look as if you’d just stepped out of a success course when you step into Carter’s “Mouldette.” The entire beautifully molded back is made with new synthetic elastic. Carter’s own Sweetheart panel flattens the tummy. Every seam’s a scheme to give you that lithe young American look.

You can find these ads on eBay.

Pinups Perverting With Pink Plush

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This is Jayne Mansfield, surrounded by her pink plushies; but lots of babes of yesteryear posed with stuffed animals and little girl gear (yes, I now are a “tumbl tard”).

I have really mixed feelings about sex kittens taking their “adorable youth” and “cutesy girl” status past shy coy smiles while wearing babydoll lingerie and dresses and move right on into props which promote themselves as children or as having a somewhat diminished emotional &/or intellectual status; then it’s pushing pedophilia and issues of consent. And both creep me out.

Whatjamacallit Wednesday: Waste (Can) Not, Want (Can) Not?

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In response to my Gadabout post (about a vintage composition dog), Laura (of Doodle Week) said, “I really like how you know all this stuff about old things and how they were made. But how do you manage to keep all these collections without running out of room for yourself?”

Well, Laura, here’s the painful truth: Occasionally I sell stuff.

I don’t like to do it — it does actually pain me. But sometimes, in the continual space battles that collectors face (both living space and the empty space in your wallet — spaces you & your spouse must agree on!), selling items is the proverbial poo that happens.

In this case, hubby (shown here miserable that I’m not only buying another one, but that he’s forced to carry it lol) was right that I had no more room for using another wastebasket…

forced-to-carry-scotty-trash-can

So I’m selling this retro metal waste can with a huge, adorable, Scottie dog on it — despite my deep affection for vintage metal waste cans.

I console myself not only with 11 more inches of space and the extra bills in my wallet, but by imagining the thrill such a find will be for the new owner — who will melt every time they see those warm brown eyes, that black plastic nose, and that red felt tongue.

retro-kitsch-trash-can-huge-scottie-applique

Whatjamacallit Wednesday: Myrtle The Turtle

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My mother is the one who started it, this tradition of making up silly songs to sing to your kids. I’ve twisted it onto singing songs about my children, usually silly rhymes sung to melodies from television themes songs — like Hunter’s Boo-Bear, Meet The Boo-Bear based on The Flinstones.The kids used to love it, but then they grew older and not-so-much… I must now wait for them to grow old enough to appreciate them again.

One of Allie’s favorites was grandma’s Myrtle The Turtle who would “swim any hurdle — just to be near her Allie.” So when I found this Myrtle The Turtle, a story by Ernestine Cobern Beyer (illustrations by Mildred Gatlin Weber), inside the July 1964 issue of Wee Wisdom, I instantly thought of Allie and began singing the song. Thank goodness I was home alone flipping through the pages & singing, or… Well, let’s just say that if the kids who know the songs and presumably love me no longer can rise above my crazy singing to enjoy the special memories created by such silly songs, how can I expect the general public to?

myrtle-the-turtle
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My mom bought me this vintage copy of Wee Wisdom when we were out antiquing together because she know how much I love Great Danes. Now that I’ve found Myrtle in here, I wonder if she’ll want it back? …I myself am tempted to remove the Myrtle pages (ack!) and frame them for Allie for Christmas. Better yet, just make really high quality scans, print two great copies and frame a set for each of them… (If either one of them pop in here, all bets — and gifts — are off.)

wee-wisdom-july-1964

Whatjamacallit Wednesday: The Flirty Red Retro Octopus

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Check out Miss Flirty the octopus, a retro sawdust-stuffed red velveteen plush toy from someone’s past:

vintage-miss-flirty-lips-octopus

Wearing nothing but a jaunty hat, a seed bead choker necklace, pouty lips and a wink, she’s just dying to get into someone’s bed… Hey, and some of her tentacles have wires, so once she wraps her arms around you, she’s not letting go!

If you’re interested, buy her quick — because now that I’ve named her, I might just change my mind.

Whatjamacallit Wednesday Is Nearly Cheap Thrills Thursday

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Shopping in an antique mall, there are many charming things to distract one from one’s mission — if one had a mission. Which I usually don’t. I just let serendipity direct me in the real world (while online, libraries, etc., are for dedicated, obsessive, researching). So I walk along, taking as much as I can in with my eyes until I spy something…

Can you guess what I spotted?

antique-mall-shelf

Here, I’ll narrow it down for you:

vintage-animal-figurines

Out of all the adorable items to charm the pants off a person, I selected the 2 inch high figurine now dubbed Mr. Yellow Yarn Ears.

mr-yellow-yarn-ears

(At just $3.50, he could have been a Cheap Thrills Thursday — but I’m pretty sure I can find something else for tomorrow lol)

He now sits with my “Vintage Ceramic Figurines With Fur Applique” collection — even if (I’m pretty darn sure) his ears are made of yarn. Though, I must admit, I’m completely willing (and capable) of starting a collection of animal figurines with yarn ears. So who knows?

Cheap Thrills Thursday: The Bear Facts

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I got this vintage mechanical wind-up bear toy at a rummage sale at an old folks home senior living center; I paid a whopping 10 cents for it.

vintage-windup-bear-toy

When I grabbed it with glee, hubby thought it was A) in bad shape & B) a modern reproduction. (Like for a dime it matters?) But he was wrong on both counts; A) the fur on his right side is not torn, just the glue which held it in place has gone kaput, and B) the old plastic muzzle & paper dealio beneath the wind-up turn thingy marked “Made In Japan” signify it’s a vintage toy.

old-wind-up-bear-toy

vintage-wind-up-mechanical-bear-toy-made-in-japan

And yes, it works! Wind him up and he walks!  What a find for a dime!

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PS The doll you can see in the background of this last photo is posted here.

PPS My neighbors are beginning to look at me oddly for taking objects from inside my home outside to photograph them on the porch. But you understand that the sunlight makes for better photos, right?

Mixed Reactions To A Literal Three-Ring Circus

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Trying to move past my fear knowledge of clowns and their assassination attempts on my life, we went to the circus on Saturday — El Zagal’s 58th Annual Shrine Circus, at the Fargodome. You’ll never guess who the opening act was…

Sanjaya Malakar.

sanjaya-malakar-fargo-shrine-circus-2009

Yup, that kid with the weird hair from American Idol season 6. The one who makes young girls cry (and that, I guess, is due to puppy love — not the whine of his voice or the sight of his knotted-up hair).

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My daughter, Destiny (age 12), upon hearing the news that we were going to the circus, warned alerted me to the Sanjaya performance with a, “Everyone from school is going to see Sanjaya!” I guess he still makes pre-teens swoon. I don’t get it. It’s not like he’s Andy Gibb or Parker Stevenson… But hey, I guess I’m just old.

But how far down the talent totem pole do you have to sit to perform at a circus? A circus in Fargo, North Dakota, yet.

Pretty far down.

Even if folks are talking about his being here for some flood relief benefit. (Bryan Shinn, public relations spokesman for the El Zagal Shrine Circus, supposedly said that “Malakar’s appearance is a byproduct of the region’s flooding, which postponed the first scheduled dates of the circus earlier this month and threatened cancellation when replacement acts were hard to find… Malakar will congratulate us on what a great job we did fighting the flood.” I didn’t hear the kid say that…

Oh, but see, he was in town for a local bar’s American-Idol style singing competition called Fargo Star. And while that’s not a hell of a lot better than performing at the circus, I guess the boy’s got a book, a five-song EP — and, yes, a reality television show to promote.

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Anyway, my hysterical laughter at Sanjaya’s performance wasn’t a thing to be contained. I cackled like an old lady from my nose-bleed seats. Especially when he shook is tiny butt.

But several acts later, I found myself crying.

It was over a bear act — Rosaire’s Bears. Call me crazy, call me a chick; but bears are not supposed to walk on their hind legs (for such lengths of time), suck from bottles and fake-smooch men.

bear-show-shrine-circus-2009

I don’t care if young men and women in gilttering Lycra outifts swing from trapeze or are juggled by their parent’s feet; they (sort of) have a choice. In fact, that stuff pretty darn thrilling. At least for me. Not many of the kids seemed as impressed as the adults. But maybe that’s because today’s kids are overweight and only “do” stairs when the escalators are broken — or when they have to walk steps to get into the house to sit and play a video game.

Yeah, I’m saying that too many kids are so out of shape & mesmerized by digital action & special effects that they don’t even realize what a feat it is to do the stuff that was right in front of their cotton-candy-eating faces.

But I loved the human circus performances. Then my entertainment isn’t spoiled by wild carnage (other than my motherly sense of worry) or neglect/abuse.

Maybe I should just be expecting my period.

But the other acts cheered me up a bit — until the elephants came out. They were also a ticketed ride attraction too. Riding an elephant… Mmmm, OK… But why did one of the women have an elephant lay down on it’s side & do the splits on top of it? Demeaning. And probably a sticky mess too, based on the skimpiness of her costume.

All I could think of was what has happened to trained performing elephants, and I was ready for another cry over them and the bears…

Bears aren’t supposed to pose for photographs with kids either. For the sake of the bears & the kids. (I don’t care that they had pretty painted canvas dividers — I know what bears can do. And these are tamed wild animals, not domesticated animals. Even domesticated dogs bite, maim, kill…)

Sanjaya was posing for photographs at the circus intermission (autographing stuff too, I guess); but he has a choice. And if thinks the promotion helps his career, his choice to be a dancing bear, fine. But spare the bears. Please!

And then it hit me; the best photo-op of the day would have been to get a photo of Sanjaya with the bear. Because that one photo would have summed up so many things that are wrong in this world.

The Tale Of The Dachshund

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The Tale of the Dachshund, A Humorous Song, by Harvey B. Gaul, is another silly little ditty:

I had a little dachshund once,
So long, you haven’t any notion,
The time it took to notify
His tail of his emotion;
And so it happened when his eyes,
Were full of woe and sadness,
His tail would still be wagging on
Because of previous gladness.

* He thinner grew each day,
Till ht stretched himself away!
I had a dachshund once
The hot-dogs know him now.

* “Text for ending is optional.”

And I think I’d opt “No, thank you.” That last line is especially icky.

The Tale of the Dachshund, copyright, 1923, Harold Flammer, Inc.; dedicated to May Peterson.

Please Do Not Feed Or Molest Prairie Dogs

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From the first page in It’s a Dog’s Life, by Robert Cunningham (photographs by Ed Bry, illustrations by Ted Cornell, published by The Theodore Roosevelt Nature and History Association; circa 1980).

But I think we all know that if you even think of molesting a prairie dog, you’ll get this look from him:

Cross-Eyed Ape Joke Still Works After All These Years

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I paid 50 cents for this fragile old piece of paper mocking a woman for the way she dresses. (At first glance, I was certain it was mocking the man; but the ape proffers a red dress with white hearts.) I’m not sure why I had to have it; but I did.

when you walk by
people GAPE —
who picks your clothes
a CROSS-EYED APE?

It’s funny, in that simple childlike rhyming playground mockery sort of a way.  And I just love the illustration.  Certainly someone saved it all these years — charmed by it for all the reasons I am.  But I have no idea what this fragile piece of old paper is supposed to be…

Was it a page in a book?  While there’s no printing on the reverse, it’s possible; sometimes illustrations (especially those with color) had single pages to themselves (these are called “plates”).

If it comes from a book, what was the book about?  Just a silly joke book?  Or was it a silly page illustrating one point in the text?

Were there more pages like this?

Did the original owner find the page loose and save it?  Or did they tear it out themselves?

Or maybe it’s not from a book at all.  Only the right edge of the paper seems to be without nibbles, cuts and other imperfections — suggesting this is not the original size.  Maybe it was an advertising or promotional piece… Some sort of flyer, an advertising circular, whose product &/or company name have been cut away by an original owner who liked the joke &/or illustration.

Then again, there’s all those hearts… Was this some sort of Valentine’s Day themed thing?

Since there is nothing else on the paper to identify it, no artist credit, date or other copyright or publishing credit, I may never know what this paper was originally intended to do or where it comes from.  But, like the heavy crease lines from folding which have begun to tear, it doesn’t decrease the value to me.  Not just the 50 cents I paid or even the thrill of research to figure it all out (I am geeky like that), but the fun of looking at it.  The joke still works, after all these years.

Dogs In Advertising

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An ad for Black & White Blended Scotch Whisky featuring a Scottie and a Westie, found in the July, 1974, issue of Psychology Today (I shared an article on political activism from the issue here, and sent scans of article pages on nuclear families to Shawnee too).

I don’t think dogs should drink whisky. Even if the dog treats are healthy.

But these dogs are less worrisome than the bulldogs mentioned in the latest T-Mobile commercial. Have you seen it? The grumpy guy is complaining that he doesn’t like commitment, so the wife says, “We’ve been married 40 years.” He retorts it’s only been 38. And that he doesn’t like sticking with the same thing, to which the wife replies, “We’ve had 11 bulldogs, all named Steve.” What the hell are they doing to their dogs?!

I’m no math geek, but that’s like what, 3 years per dog?

I could get a calculator & do the math, but I keep loosing my calculator. I should have saved one of those giant calculators I sent out for Valentine’s Day for myself.

I’m not exaggerating; the calculators were huge. I knew you wouldn’t believe me, so I took pictures. See, just one is the size of my Cairn Terrier (named Toodles Squirrel-Face Davidson III).

I gave them to folks double-dog-daring them to lose them. They even can be hung on the wall. (Just $3.99 each at Hobby Lobby — because you know I love the Hobby Lobby.)

Huh. I guess I just made my own ad featuring a dog.  But my dog wasn’t drunk.  And she’s well over 3 years old too.

13 Kitschy Finds

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(Thursday Thirteen header by Jenn.)

Just 13 things I found shopping online and had to share this Thursday…

1. Time out of whack? Whack it back with this ping pong paddle clock:

2. Ever wonder what your kitchenware does when you’re at work? They play croquet, of course:

3. I just love this vintage watercolor of Browning, Montana’s “Drugstore & Moving Picture House, in the Snow”:

4. Is it just me, or does it look like this retro poodle got drunk on kitty whiskey?

5. Vintage 1940’s porcelain, wood and fabric Carmen Miranda pin:

6. Two great things that go great together: flamingos and black velvet!

7. Because I often write as Pop tart, you know I’m loving this Cherry Pop-Tart Ring:

8. This is a reproduction, but if you love the style of those classic retro heads — authentically colored turquoise, yet — this head’s for you:

9. Cuddle & coo with this retro Dankin Dream Pet poodle:

10. Get a bit of vintage cheesecake for your cupcake:

11. Miss Piggy went to the UK in the 80’s; bring her back.

12. Go nutty with vintage style peanut bags:

13. And what can go better with circus-style peanuts than vintage hot pink clown shoes? Answer: Nothing. Then again, few things do ever trump vintage clown shoes.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here