The Retro Blog

Have you eaten any of these retro cereals? WMFU’s Beware of the Blog has a post about these breakfast food items that didn’t make quite enough gains in popularity to stay on the market. This is shocking to me, because what sounds more appealing than crunchy logs? Or how about OKs? [...]

Last night I saw Wall-E, the latest Pixar film, and I highly recommend it to just about everyone. Pixar has a long tradition of retro influence in their films. Wall-E is a rare exception, but they made up for it with these exquisite posters by artist Eric Tan. Modeled after the old Disney ride [...]

The Automata Blog jus posted an entry about these new Hallmark cards that have a little crank that brings them to life. I dig the retro party happening here. Apparently it plays music too. I haven’t actually seen one on the streets, though, despite having just gone card shopping. (Happy birthday, Dad)! Hopefully I’ll get [...]

Old electronics are some of the easiest retro items to find at garage sales, thrift stores and the like. People are quick to do away with their vintage electronics because they seem so incompatible with modern technology. If you’re in the mood for a little “do it yourself,” however, there are a lot of great [...]

What’s more retro-fabulous than towing a Vespa behind a classic VW Beetle? Towing it on a VW Beetle styled trailer. I imagine this rig wasn’t cheap, but it sure looks nice. They also get points for the chrome luggage rack on the car. Who knew Beetles had so much power? [via neatorama]

Hey Coney Island fans! Today’s the 81st anniversary of the opening of the famous amusement park. To celebrate, Mental Floss has a quiz so you can test your Coney Island IQ. I got a only got a 50 :-(.

When you’re not forced to look at them for school, science books can be awfully pretty. The folks over at the vintage science pool at flickr seem to understand this. It’s a gallery filled with wonderful retro science textbook illustrations.

Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi has posted a series of retro science fiction book covers to his blog. The art is all by Richard Powers, an illustrator whose work looks like Paul Klee in space.

In 1969, Russian writer Boris Zahoder decided little Soviets needed their own Winnie the Pooh. Behold Vinni Puh. The Soviet bear is rather different from his Western counterpart. Most notably, the backgrounds are made to look like brightly colored children’s crayon drawings. I have to admit, I find Vinni Puh a little scary. The Soviets [...]

Keith Moon is famous for a lot of things: his innovative drumming style, his penchant for blowing up toilets with cherry bombs, driving cars into swimming pools, and taking horse tranquilizers. Notice that singing is nowhere to be found in this list. Moon was also well-known for trying to sneak his voice onto Who tracks, [...]

Barbie’s done just about everything a girl can do. She’s been an astronaut, driven a camper, and worked at McDonalds. One thing Mattel has forgotten to do has been to make Barbie get attacked by birds. Oh wait, now she’s getting attacked by birds. This stylishly retro dressed Tippy Hedron Barbie comes complete with a [...]

I occasionally have a hard time determining what was cool in the eras I write about. If I wasn’t there it’s hard to know whether or not a certain song or tv show was only liked by losers. I’m going to take a wild guess here, though, and say that the cool kids probably did [...]

Look out everybody! There is some wild teenage dancing in this clip! Actually, this clip from the 1957 Chinese film Man Bon U Lang (aka Mambo Girl) features some cha cha cha–ing with the least amount of hip movement that could be allowed while still calling it a dance. In fact, the scene consists mostly [...]

I can barely stitch up a hole in a pair of pants, but I’ve always had secret aspirations to sew elaborate retro dresses. Maybe someday I’ll hunker down and learn how to sew something other than a straight line, and at this time Sew Retro will become a resource rather than an envy inducer. It’s [...]

I think being a tester for Consumer Reports would be a pretty sweet job. Who wouldn’t want to spend all day beating up a bunch of products to see what it takes to make them break? I think this job was probably most fun back in the 50’s and 60’s, when a ton of new [...]

Artist Chris Reccardi has contributed to such wonderful animated shows as Ren & Stimpy and Samurai Jack. These shows regularly exceeded my expectations and showed how fantastic televised animation could be. (Seriously, you might think Ren & Stimpy is all booger jokes, but I think more effort went into the animation of that show than [...]

The much-anticipated Charles and Ray Eames stamps are now available from the United States Postal Service. They feature the most famous of the couple’s designs stylishly laid out with vertical text. They’ll make every letter you send a little more retro fabulous. I guess sending a letter via snail mail in itself is a little [...]

This Disney Innoventions Dream Home currently in Tomorrow Land reminds me of how there seem to be houses of the future every few years and yet I never see half the stuff in them implemented.
Here’s a look at a kitchen of the future from 1967. Thing is, most of the stuff they showed is very [...]

Here’s a little 60’s go-go styled soul music video by The Mighty Hannibal for a song called Jerkin’ the Dog.

With headwear like that is it any wonder he’s an Obama supporter?????

I kid.

As you can likely tell by the fact that I’m a 22 year-old maintaining a blog about the 1950’s and 60’s, I’m really into false nostalgia. This is why I think the emotoscope is a brilliant idea. Essentially it’s viewfinder that makes the world around you look like it’s playing out in super 8mm. You [...]

On my trip to Japan a couple of months ago, I kept noticing that all the supremely hip Tokyo girls were sporting the exact same set of green headphones. Turns out they’re called Panasonic RP-HTX7 headphones. They have a gorgeous retro flare with their moderately large size, rounded ear covers, and metal size adjusters. Unfortunately, [...]

This week MoCo Loco brings to our attention two modern artists that make retro style art with a twist.

First is Lauren Bergman, an artist who paints mid century women in their typical manner (pin-up girls and domestic goddesses), but adds a touch of post-modern irony. Her subjects look stunning and optimistic despite standing near dead [...]

Oh the bumper car. As a child, I looked forward to driving them, thinking of the mini cars as little driving simulators. As I aged though, my goals changed, and they became a method for me to bash and possibly give whip lash to my friends.
The method for making little cars powered by an electric [...]

I’ve waxed poetic about my preference for retro tv styles in the past, but here’s one way to get a retro look while staying high tech. The Wilkerson M21 is a flat panel LCD tv built into a vintage style wooden stand. Looks like an excellent idea for getting your HDTV to match your Danish [...]

Isamu Noguchi was a Japanese-American artist whose designs were influenced by the best elements of both cultures. Take his 1950’s Akari light sculptures for example. They give off the lovely diffused light of Japanese paper lanterns, but also have the incredible retro style of a 1950’s modern design. With lovely atomic legs, these lamps [...]

Want an easy way to write a jingle that’ll get stuck in people’s heads? Just set it to the tune of a well known song people are forced to sing in kindergarten. That seems to be the approach the producers of Roger Ramjet took. Roger Ramjet first aired in 1965. It follows the adventures of [...]

I’m a renter and am thus not allowed to have any pets. The boyfriend and I have decided, though, that if we could have a pet we’d want a basset hound. We think these lazy, short dogs would suit us perfectly. But since we can’t have one, what’s the next best thing? Ideal toys has [...]

The Retro Kid pool at flickr celebrates illustrations of children from the 1940’s through the 60’s. These drawings are glorious examples of vintage artwork from the U.S. and abroad.

I hate driving, but I love drive-in theaters. You can bring a three course dinner, sit in your pajamas, put your feet up, and heckle the film to your heart’s content. If the movie is bad, (and hopefully it is (trashy movies are the most fun)), you can flip through the audio of other [...]

Here are two excellent galleries of classical album covers from the 1940’s and 1950’s. Who knew classical music could be so hip?
The World of Light Classical Music Record Group
Vinyl Gallery: Vintage classical album cover graphics

Retro styled swimsuits can be pretty pricey, but with a little sewing knowledge (or at least a really good friend with some sewing knowledge) you can make your own. Craftster user ecinahs3000 has posted a tutorial on how to make your on 50’s style bathing suit. Just make sure you pair it with a nice [...]

Flickr user DSchrubbe managed to squeeze a modern computer and flat screen monitor into the guts of a 1957 television. I’m jealous. Despite their great efforts, even macs don’t look this good. [via make]

“Steampunk” is a phrase the internet rapidly embraced and then turned on. It refers to a retro-future aesthetic in which Victorian looking things perform very futuristic tasks. A lot of people like the look of these objects, but now everybody’s getting pretty sick of all the people slapping some brass plates on an iPod and [...]

The Diana camera was first produced in the 1960’s, and became a favorite among artists who celebrated the photographic flaws it frequently produced. Made entirely of cheap plastic, (including the lens), the camera often suffered from light leaks and blurry images. Now, of course, every hipster and their mother wants one. The reissue, called the [...]

I always looked forward to days when we got to watch movies in school. It was like having some sort of unspoken agreement with your teacher: you are lazy, I am lazy. Let’s both relax for awhile.
But what about the poor schools in the 1940’s that couldn’t afford their own 16mm projector? What was a [...]