Category:
1950s
1950s
Documenta
I'm sorry I learned about the Documenta Art Festival only just now. The thirteenth one occured this past September, and there won't be another for five more years.We'll have to content ourselves with these videos till then.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Dec 06, 2012 -
Comments (3)
Category: Art, Avant Garde, Performance Art, Bombast, Bloviation and Pretentiousness, 1950s, Europe, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Queen Elizabeth, Teenybopper
[Original article here.]
Courier Mail Wednesday 19 September 1956
The Queen sees Rock 'n' roll Film
London. September 18. (AAP)- Queen Elizabeth has asked to see the film “Rock Around the Clock” which has led to rock 'n' roll disturbances in several British towns.
A copy of the film was sent from London yesterday to Balmoral, where the Queen is on holiday, the Daily Mirror said today.
The Daily Express reported that showings of “Rock Around the Clock” has been banned by country councils in Stockport, Cheshire, and Gloucestershire yesterday.
But at Burt St. Edmunds in Suffolk, no objections were raised by members of a watch committee after a private showing of the film.
Sir Malcolm Sargeant, conductor of the BBC symphony orchestra, said to day that rock 'n' roll music was “nothing more than an exhibition of primitive tom tom thumping, and was ‘centuries old’. It was not ‘new and wonderful’ as many young people thought. It had been played in the jungles for centuries.”
At age 86, Queen Elizabeth reminds no one of a rocker--although she does hand out a lot of knighthoods to musicians. But in 1956, at age 30, she could really groove.
She was obviously remembering those days in 1979, when she and Bill Haley reconnected for the first time in nearly 25 years.
[Original text here.]
Posted By: Paul - Tue Dec 04, 2012 -
Comments (3)
Category: Music, Royalty, 1950s, Europe
A Knight in her Armor
Came across this in Newsweek, Jan 19, 1953. I bet a lot of WUvies were pretty weird as kids, but how many of us wore suits of armor to school? And this was several decades before the invention of Dungeons & Dragons. I wonder what became of Tina Inge. She's quite likely still out there somewhere, but is she still wearing her armor?
Posted By: Alex - Sun Nov 25, 2012 -
Comments (3)
Category: Children, 1950s
Intermission Ads: An Abandoned Artform
Artforms are not eternal. Sonnets don't get written much anymore. And certainly the Golden Age of the intermission advertisement is, lamentably, long gone.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Nov 12, 2012 -
Comments (5)
Category: Art, Food, Movies, Advertising, 1950s, 1960s
Rocky & Bullwinkle: “Sex on Planet X”
[Click to enlarge]
I've been reliving my youthful TV watching by streaming episodes of Rocky & Bullwinkle on Netflix. I certainly catch a lot more of the jokes than I did when I was in elementary school.
And in the screen shot above, you'll see a risque easter egg I encountered in Episode 5.
Anyone else have similar favorite moments from the media?
Posted By: Paul - Sun Nov 11, 2012 -
Comments (9)
Category: Aliens, Sexuality, Television, Cartoons, 1950s, Parody, Pranks
The New Science of Same-Gender Attraction
[Read left to right columns above, then left to right below]
"New," that is, for 1957.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Oct 31, 2012 -
Comments (8)
Category: Sexuality, Gender, Teenagers, 1950s
Miss U.S. Television
The Miss America pageant has been conducted since 1921, but it's only been televised since 1954. Before then, it briefly had competition when the Miss U.S. Television contest, conducted by the DuMont Television Network, aired in 1950. Watch the full pageant at the internet archive, or a version edited for length below. It has a strange opening segment in which the contestants introduce themselves, framed by a fake TV set. Then they go on to their talent performances, some of which were truly awful. The winner was a young Edie Adams.According to wikipedia, the Miss U.S. Television contest only took place once, but there must have been subsequent pageants that used the same title, since once can find women being crowned Miss U.S. Television in later years, such as Phyllis Maygers (below), who won the title in 1952.
Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 28, 2012 -
Comments (5)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Television, 1950s
Second Shortest Man in the Air Force
This picture and caption ran in papers back in October 1951. It's not clear why it was considered newsworthy. It also left unanswered the question of who the shortest man in the Air Force was, if Sgt. Perkins was the second shortest.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Oct 25, 2012 -
Comments (10)
Category: Military, 1950s
An Icicle That Looks Like A Bird
It must have been a slow news day when this photo ran in papers back in 1959. The icicle that looks like a bird was found outside a Detroit home.
Posted By: Alex - Fri Oct 19, 2012 -
Comments (4)
Category: Freaks, Oddities, Quirks of Nature, Nature, Weather, 1950s
Prehistoric Women
Wikipedia offers this summary of the 1950 film Prehistoric Women:
Prehistoric Women is a 1950 science fiction adventure film, written and directed by Gregg C. Tallas and starring Laurette Luez and Allan Nixon... Tigri (Luez) and her stone age friends, all of which are women, hate all men. However, she and her Amazon tribe see men as a "necessary evil" and capture them for potential husbands. Engor (Nixon), who is smarter than the rest of the men, is able to escape them. He discovers fire and battles enormous beasts. After he is recaptured by the women, he discovers fire and drives off a dragon-like creature. The women are impressed with him, including their prehistoric queen. Engor marries Tigri and they begin a new, more civilized, tribe.
It seems like the kind of movie that might be so bad it's good. But PopMatters warns that, though you might hope it would have some cheeseball value, it's "actually not very good." If you watch the clip below of the catfight scene, you'll probably have seen the highlight of the movie.
Posted By: Alex - Sat Oct 13, 2012 -
Comments (3)
Category: Movies, 1950s
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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. Paul Di Filippo 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. Contact Us |