Category:
1970s
1970s
Long arm saves dolphin
February 1978: A dolphin named Dr. Spock who lived at Marine-World swallowed a 3-inch bolt. The animal doctors there didn't have any instruments long enough to reach into the dolphin's stomach and remove the bolt. So, hoping to avoid surgery, they called up basketball player Clifford Ray of the Golden State Warriors and asked him if he would be willing to use one of his four-foot long arms to reach into Dr. Spock's stomach. Ray hurried over, removed the bolt, and saved Dr. Spock's life. Ray said that Dr. Spock later always recognized him when he visited Marine World and would come over to say hello.More info: SFGate, NY Times
Muncie Star Press - Feb 25, 1978
Ray shows off the bolt to his teammates
Hattiesburg American Sun - Feb 26, 1978
Posted By: Alex - Tue May 16, 2017 -
Comments (7)
Category: Animals, 1970s
Captain Sky
His Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Mon May 15, 2017 -
Comments (2)
Category: Aliens, Eccentrics, Music, 1970s
His and Her Bikinis
Fashion from the 1970s. For couples that like to match.
The Oshkosh Northwestern - Jan 8, 1970
Unisex apparel goes one step further with the advent of "His and Her" two-piece bikinis, shown in New York from the design board of Rudi Gernreich, creator of the topless bathing suit. The male's top looks like an athletic shirt that ends mid-point between the shoulder and elbow, exposing the abdomen from that point to the waistline.
Posted By: Alex - Fri May 12, 2017 -
Comments (8)
Category: Fashion, 1970s
Salongo
A forgotten early album by the Insane Clown Posse?
Ramsey Lewis at Wikipedia.
Posted By: Paul - Wed May 03, 2017 -
Comments (3)
Category: Music, 1970s, Body Painting, Face and Facial Expressions
Around the world on commercial airlines
In 1979, two Vancouver businessmen, Orst Perry and Adolf Schiel, set a world record for traveling around the world on commercial airlines. They started in Vancouver and ended up in Vancouver. They did this in 54 hours, 42 minutes. It cost them $7000 each.I can think of a lot better ways to spend $7000 than sitting on a plane for several days. But it seems that others have pursued this same record. A press release from Nov 2016 says that Brother Michael Bartlett set a new record for flying around the world on commercial airlines by doing it in 57 hours, 17 minutes.
That's slower than the time set in 1979, but I'm guessing that Bartlett must have adhered to stricter rules. It says that he had to "cross the equator and land at points that are approximately 108 degrees apart and roughly on the same north–south longitude."
Notre Dame Observer - Feb 28, 1979
Posted By: Alex - Sun Apr 30, 2017 -
Comments (3)
Category: World Records, Air Travel and Airlines, 1970s
Looking Forward to Being Attacked
In 1977, Lieutenant Jim Bullard of the Memphis police department published a self-defense manual for women titled Looking forward to being attacked. The general theme was that if a bad guy attacked you, it gave you the chance to beat him up, which could be fun. His idea was to use some humor to make the self-defense lessons more interesting.
Some of the self-defense tips from his book:
- If you're grabbed, don't scream. Even if he didn't intend to hurt you, it'll be an automatic reflex to shut you up.
- If he grabs for your purse or any personal belongings, let them go. Defend personally. Don't defend property.
- Don't try to kick, scratch or punch him. Instead, through the principle of attack the "weakest point" you can escape 90 percent of the time.
- If you have a chance, jab any sharp object including your thumb into his trachea — his adam's apple. That is a man's most vulnerable area.
- One hundred and fifty pounds of pressure will kill a person. Seven pounds of pressure is all anyone can comfortably stand.
- The ears are the second most vulnerable area. Slap your hands against them.
- The eyes are the third choice and always carry your car keys when going to your car in a dark parking lot. If you can, scrape them across the assailant's eyes. Use a ball point pen, if you have it out of your purse.
- A fourth choice, especially when held around the waist from behind, is to reach back and strike at a man's testicles.
- If you find a burglar is outside your home, warn him first, and then you can take a cannon and blow him into the next county. 99.6 percent of the time you scream when someone's outside, warn him, he'll run. If he doesn't, you can legally assume he's coming in to kill you. A shotgun is the most efficient weapon. Kill him. You're doing society a favor when you do do it. I've seen those that didn't do it, and it's a very sad case.
More images at Awful Library Books.
Posted By: Alex - Sat Apr 29, 2017 -
Comments (1)
Category: Martial Arts, Books, 1970s
Macho Cologne
Introduced by Faberge in 1976. It was described as being "packaged with a startlingly new futuristic look." Which is to say that it was packaged as a giant phallus.I like the ad promoting it as a Father's Day gift. I can just imagine a son or daughter giving this as a present to their dad.
Indianapolis Star - Oct 30, 1976
The Pocono Record - June 17, 1977
The marketing of the cologne must have gained some notoriety. I found a brief discussion of it in an academic study of marketing — Marketing and Semiotics: New Directions in the Study of Signs for Sale (1987):
The juxtaposition of the grossly physical with the structurally normative produces a profound effect: Norms and values become saturated with emotion while emotions are ennobled through contact with values. The monolithic (or rather, ithyphallic) print ad for Macho cologne run by Faberge several years ago, effectively condensing referents to male sexuality, aggression, wealth, and ethnic stereotyping in its rhetorical and iconographic symbolism, nicely illustrates this principle. Thus, symbols function as both storehouse and powerhouse, encoding information which is ultimately authoritative.
Update: Thanks to Brian for drawing our attention to Pierre Cardin Man's cologne, which also featured a suggestively shaped bottle.
And I just noticed that the Father's Day ad features both Macho cologne and Pierre Cardin Man's cologne. So if you gave your dad both, what message would you be sending him?
Posted By: Alex - Wed Apr 26, 2017 -
Comments (8)
Category: Advertising, 1970s, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents
Mystery Illustration 42
The splendid sartorial sense of this fellow is explicitly deemed by the advertisement to be inducement to trust his taste in another area. What product would you imagine his clothes are justifying. Liquor? Cars? Hairspray?
The answer is here.
And after the jump.
More in extended >>
Posted By: Paul - Thu Apr 13, 2017 -
Comments (5)
Category: Fashion, Advertising, 1970s
The BS Patriots
1971: After relocating the Boston Patriots from Boston to Foxborough (a half-hour south), team owner Billy Sullivan decided he needed to rename the team. So they became the Bay State Patriots.
A month later he changed the name again, to the New England Patriots. The reason this time: a radio announcer had referred to the team as the "BS Patriots." Sullivan explained, "We didn't think that abbreviation would reflect well on either the team or the league."
The Palm Beach Post - Mar 23, 1971
Posted By: Alex - Wed Apr 05, 2017 -
Comments (2)
Category: Odd Names, Sports, 1970s
Volkswagen Beetle Limousine
So maybe you don't want to turn your Beetle into a lawnmower...
Original ad here.
Article here.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Apr 05, 2017 -
Comments (3)
Category: Excess, Overkill, Hyperbole and Too Much Is Not Enough, 1970s, 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. 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 |