Category:
1950s

Miss Cloak and Dagger

Aug 1957: Pat Strasser was awarded the title of Miss Cloak and Dagger at the National Counter Intelligence Corps Association's 10th annual convention.

The association's new femme fatale was actually chosen by the dispassionate electronic mind of an IBM machine guaranteed not to give way to the weaknesses of ordinary conventioneering beauty contest judges.

Miss Strasser, who is 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 118 in a bathing suit, was judged along with nine other finalists by a unique system that considered only one part of her shapely anatomy at a time.

First the 1,000 delegates scored the girls on legs, while the rest of their bodies were hidden. They worked their way up from there and the score cards were fed into the IBM machine.



San Francisco Examiner - Aug 4, 1957

Posted By: Alex - Sun Mar 27, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Spies and Intelligence Services, 1950s

Follies of the Madmen #528

Our shirts will enable you to join the cast of Jackass.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Mar 27, 2022 - Comments (2)
Category: Fashion, Stupid and/or Dangerous Products, Advertising, 1950s

Ideal Fighter Jet Toy



Posted By: Paul - Sat Mar 26, 2022 - Comments (2)
Category: Toys, War, Weapons, 1950s

The cat that climbed the Matterhorn

Sep 1950: A group of climbers who made it to the top of the Matterhorn were astonished to find a kitten at the summit. Apparently it had made its way up there without any human assistance, perhaps following some other climbers. The climbers put the kitten in one of their backpacks and carried it back down.

While the story seems hard to believe, it's pretty well documented. The website Cervinia Icons has a brief article written in 2016 by one of the climbers, Luigi Orombelli, who found the cat. From his account:

Shortly after seven o’clock a lone mountaineer arrives on top: he’s about my age, confident, elegant.

We introduce ourselves, but the conversation is soon interrupted: we hear strange noises. “It must be those guys” says Daniel, indicating the group of climbers playing around the Swiss peak. The calls continue and more start sounding like a mew. But, suddenly, two ears appear: a cat is struggling on a thin ledge just below us, meowing and rushing toward us. The meows and his movements revealed fact that he was cold and hungry.

Climbers at the Matterhorn summit with cat



Coshocton Tribune - Sep 7, 1950

Posted By: Alex - Thu Mar 24, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Cats, 1950s

Existential Tattoos

I think that in the 1950s anything slightly non-conformist was labelled 'existentialist'.

This tattoo, on the back of a young Italian woman in Milan, Nov. 5, 1952, is in a new fashion taken up by young feminine followers of the post-war existentialist philosophy of Jean Paul Sartre, the French writer. The tattoo reads: "I have loved. I am grateful to God." This girl likes to be called Ginetta Sartre in honor of the leader of the movement. The tattoos are usually sentimental phrases or symbolic drawings. (AP Photo)


Wichita Eagle - Oct 27, 1952



Anyone with an existential tattoo should make sure to also wear an existentialist hat.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Mar 08, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Fashion, Philosophy, 1950s, Tattoos

Robert Mitchum Sings

Add Mitchum to our list of "singing actors who probably should have stuck to acting."



Posted By: Paul - Wed Jan 26, 2022 - Comments (4)
Category: Crime, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Movies, Music, 1950s, Alcohol, Cars

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Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.

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