Tag: vintage

Cross-Eyed Ape Joke Still Works After All These Years

/ Deanna / Leave a comment

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.

Bridal Madness: Vintage Bridal & Baby Shower Party Plans

/ Deanna / 10 Comments

(Thursday Thirteen header by Jenn.)

Are a lot of your friends announcing engagements, getting married and having the stork visit — so many, that you’re running out of party ideas and ways to celebrate? Here are 13 vintage ideas, loaded with kitsch and just begging you to use them, maybe even update them a bit…

Remember — all the images get much much larger when you click them — so read away!

1. How To Tell The Secret, aka bridal announcement ideas, from The Bride’s Party Book, published by Dennison. Some of these may be tweaked to fit other announcements — or even used to invite guests to the next event.

2. The next few bits come from Bridal Shower Party Games, “For As Many As 20 Guests” (presumably because it originally had 20 copies of each of the game sheets), Leister Game Company, Toledo, Ohio, (N-1400). The company is still around (but the site isn’t working — or they did just perish — so some links are to Goggle cache).

Inside the front cover, ads for baby & bridal party games and products. The company has gotten racier since then; now they have “Naughty Bingo” and “Condom Blow Jobs”. So you may prefer the quaint & corny vintage Leister games.

Anyway…

One of the party games is Card Pass — “a relay race that’s a little daisy!”

Totally believe you should open a brand new pack of playing cards for this; you don’t know where the hands of previous card holders have been and you’ll be sticking them in your mouth. :shudder:

3. A game called Lucky Pairs:

4. Want-Ad Marriage (which, by the way, is also a fun game to play on girls’ night — having you write each other’s ads):

5. Variation Mystery Feelers

(Don’t know about you, but I don’t want any of the objects back — they’ll be covered in toe-jam!)

6. A Game Of Pairs


(I could be crazy, but didn’t we just do that?)

7. This next one is a fill-in-the-blank game — but don’t get excited thinking it’s a Mad-Lib; it’s a geography quiz. You fill in the blanks of the Honeymoon Trip.

Sadly, the answers were on the back cover which has been cut; so you’ll have to figure out some of these by yourself. (Treat it like a test — like you have to be this smart to get married.)

8. This next one, Wedding Spell, is some twisted spelling bingo thing. Too complicated for me these instructions are. May Yoda help me.

9. Back to the Dennison’s book again…

This time, it’s the bride who gives a party (and isn’t it about time!)

I love the sweet-kitschy-goodness of making these little dolls with faces cut from magazines — I totally want to do this for other parties (but that could be another list of 13…)

And the legal team wants me to tell you not to stuff the cuff party favor with cigs; totally not healthy or PC, you know.

I’m totally skipping the wedding day stuff; I’m certain your bride is not going to let you make crepe paper couple centerpieces. Or crepe paper anything. That doesn’t make her Bridezilla either; she just doesn’t want the kitsch enshrined forever in photos on the in-laws mantle.

(If, for some reason, you need these crepe paper frights delights, let me know.)

10. “There Went The Bride” is “A Mock Wedding for Your Anniversary Celebration” — complete with kitsch skit.

Highlights include:

The bride “as seen by her future mother-in-law — carries rolling pin decorated with flowers”.

The clergyman begins the ceremony with, “Dear Friends, we are gathered here before this congregation of fellow sufferers to join this headstrong couple with the shackles of matrimony. If anyone present can show just cause why this painful ceremony should never take place — for heaven’s sake — speak up — tomorrow may be too late!”

The groom, repeating after the clergyman, vows: “I ____ take thee ____ for my duly wedded wife, to hold, if I have to, from this day forward, in spite of your ceaseless conversation, your unappetizing cooking, your nagging and complaining, your silly girl friends and willful spending — until death do us liberate.”

The bride, repeating after the clergyman, vows: “I ____ take thee ____ for my duly wedded husband, to hold if I have to, to tolerate your black cigars, to laugh at your corny jokes, to clean up after your poker parties, to balance on your budget, until death do us liberate!”

It’s not just me who sees the bitter irony in these two sets of vows… Is it?

Well, at least the ceremony ends with handcuffs… :wink:

11-13 First comes love, then comes marriage — and if you make it through the mock wedding anniversary celebration — next comes your friend with a baby carriage. Some announcements for the new arrival:

Upon My Sole! Announcements with a shoe theme
Non-Stop Flight Announcement has a flying stork theme
The Family Tree is an announcement stretching things — using a hat rack?
Ship’s Log has a nautical theme.

All the patterns for these baby announcements are found on page 24 and the scan is here:

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here

13 Kitschy Finds

/ Deanna / 11 Comments


(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

It’s 1936: How Badly Do You Want To Be In Moving Pictures?

/ Deanna / Leave a comment

So you want to be a glamorous Hollywood star, hmm? Well, it’s time to get beautiful, baby!

Have a few extra pounds, but exercise is leaving you without your pep? Did dieting only take the weight off of your face and neck, leaving you feeling irritable and looking like a scarecrow? Did diet pills take too much weight off, leaving you without your feminine curves? What’s a woman to do?!

Well, if it was 1936, you’d have The Roving Reporter to help you. But then, she’d be stuffing you into a girdle. Like a sausage maybe even.

Apparently it takes a long time to get you into this girdle; you have 10 days to lose 3 inches — or is that 3 pounds in 10 days? The ad states both… Maybe that’s the way around the money-back offer; confusion.

The good news is that the Perfolastic Girdle also massages you. I can’t imagine how… Damn, now I can’t stop imagining it. Ack!

Meanwhile, as your nether-regions sweat it out, your hair is breezing through life.

In that same 1936 issue of True Confessions, an ad for the “Air-Conditioned” Hollywood Rapid Dry Curler:

Hollywood stars like Jane Hamilton fawn over these curlers — likely that’s what they used to set their hair (while sitting in girdles), preparing for a chance to get in the movies. Which is exactly what the next ad from this vintage magazine is about.

Hey, little girl, step into my truck and I’ll make you a star!

Super Bonus Points for the talent truck to be sponsored by The Hump Hairpin Mfg. Co. (makers of Hold-Bob bobbypins).

My mom would totally kick my ass if I went near that truck.

Red Velvet From Head To Toe

/ Deanna / Leave a comment

I have a weakness for red velvet — it may not be kitschy, but when you wear so much of it, you run the risk of looking like a flocked Valentine. Not that I care.

Wrap yourself (and whatever’s not covered in red velvet) up in this red velvet cloak by Von Lancelot — it’s not vintage, but who cares when it’s this much red velvet!

Now for the tip of your toes… Well, almost — these vintage 1940’s red velvet HiLarks have peep toes! So get out the red polish, I feel a pedicure comin’ on!