The Retro Blog

Generally, The Retro Blog doesn’t post about porn, but I have to make an exception. And that exception is Bat Pussy. Now, I haven’t seen the film, but it appears to be an early 70’s Batman based parody about a redneck superhero. You don’t want to know how she senses a crime being committed. Actually you [...]

Land of the Giants was an hour long 1960’s Sci Fi series that attempted to prove that using mattes to make everyday objects tower above your main characters makes for quality television. The series was devised by Irwin Allen, who structured it along the same lines as his hit, Lost in Space. It takes place in [...]

Looking for a cute pinup girl calendar for 2009? Want to support a good cause while you’re at it? Get yourself a Pinups for Pitbulls calendar. The profits go to help out pitbulls, the eager to please dog breed that gets a bad rap because of irresponsible owners. When they’re trained right they make great [...]

Here’s a clip of a 1960’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Who better to accompany Santa than The Munsters. Wha?

When Alvin and the Chipmunks had a hit in 1958, it seemed obvious to make a cartoon out of the characters. Production was slowed down due to problems with character design, and an imitator quickly swept in with an earlier premiere date. Meet “The Nutty Squirrels.”

They sang slightly hipper numbers than their chipmunk counterparts, but [...]

This roundup of free Photoshop brushes has a wonderful retro/vintage category. Remember Teenage Mother? Now she’s a graphic design tool!

While the idea of canned chow mein is rather unappealing, I rather like these 60’s muppet commercials for La Choy chinese food. Here’s the introduction of the semi-frightening, rambunctious La Choy dragon who will annoy you and destroy your grocery store because he’s so excited to tell you about his crispy noodles.
 
I especially like how seriously [...]

 
In Soviet Russia all toys were all designed and mass produced by the party, so there wasn’t a lot of variety. Still, some of these toys look like they might have been pretty fun when they were still in their prime. Maybe not as fun as these babies, but not bad.

I’ve written of my love for actress Jayne Mansfield and her unique interior design choices before. Now, thanks to the LIFE magazine image archive on google I’ve been able to get a better look at “The Pink Palace” she and Mickey Hargitay called home.

Here’s the Mansfield/Hargitay clan enjoying some family time on a polar bear skin rug [...]

Google is trying to put LIFE magazine’s excellent image archive online. There are some really great images on there, and you can sort them by decade.

I heart vintage travel posters, so I made a little gallery of art for destinations of every letter:
Ok, so I couldn’t find one for ‘x’. Sue me.

This sweet clock is gear driven and manually flips through the time. Very cool and not too expensive at about $34.

 
I’m actually pretty impressed with the 3d and multi-plane effects on this fun retro Japanese clothing commercial. The song’s pretty fun, too!

I’m not sure if he’ll appreciate it, but your three year old can be uber stylish if you get him one of these 50’s and 60’s inspired chairs at Three Potato Four. So many to choose from!

Saul Bass was a graphic designer who shot to fame due to his swank movie credit sequences. Some of his stylish titles are exhibited in North by Northwest, The Facts of Life, and Psycho.
This sequence for It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World sums up the style he’s famous for.

 
I am a bad person [...]

Here’s a wonderful flickr set of Scholastic book cover art from the 60’s and 70’s. I think I still have this version of Pippi Longstocking at my parents’ house. [via boing boing]

Lab Partners consists of a pair of designers from San Francisco. They have a big flickr gallery of their wonderful retro styled work. They currently have a flea market inspired exhibition going on called Hunt & Gather

Eve Arnold stumbled into the world of photography when she figured out she liked it better than dancing and writing. Showing obvious skill, she ended up joining Magnum Photos, a co-op for photojournalists. This allowed her to travel the world and shoot many celebrities. Her photographs of stars are her most well known.

Eve was asked to [...]

The Dixie Cups were a nice little family group consisting of two sisters and a cousin who had been singing together since they were little girls. Their first and biggest hit “Chapel of Love” was written and produced by the great Phil Spector.

  
The group’s final hit was a number called “Iko Iko.” A rather unique [...]

The Chicago Tribune has posted another great photo collection. This one is of clothes of questionable taste from past decades, like this Warhol inspired number.

In the late 50’s a bunch of French film critics decided to take the Hollywood filmmaking style combined with Italian neorealism and make it, you know, French-ier. They had spent years writing about “the auteur theory” (the idea that the director is the primary artist behind a film) and finally decided to put it into [...]

For some reason in the early 1960’s ladies decided they wanted to look dead. Pale faces with dark eyes and white lipstick were the in thing to do.
Here The Ronettes sport the ultra awesome combination of white lipstick and beehive hairdo. 

White Lipstick was the original title for John Waters’ Hairspray. The beauty product gets a [...]

Time Warp Wives is a British documentary television series about three women who are living in the past. Meet Joanne, a housewife who lives in a fabulous retro home and finds that the most rewarding thing to do with her life is to stay at home and keep her husband happy.

I haven’t been able to [...]

This alarm clock looks like a mini vintage TV and wakes you up to the sound of old game show theme songs. It displays a retro TV test pattern on the screen and you can control it with a little remote. Cute! [via boing boing gadgets]

Johnnie Ray was an unlikely candidate to become a world renown singer. An incident at Boy Scout camp left him deaf in one year, and a surgery in 1958 nearly lost him use of both ears. He used hearing aids to help him out and scored a few big hits with “Cry” and “Just Walking [...]

Do you want a voice in the people’s choice?

Ok, so you probably didn’t need to be reminded, but I’m a sucker for jingles.

“Brothers and Sisters” is a 1953 educational film strip. Strangely, somebody decided to add a creepy computerized narration to it and put it on youtube. Young Steve has a lot of siblings, (Bruce, Babs, Dick, etc.), and one day he decides he’s not fond of this situation. Then, a la It’s a Wonderful Life, he [...]

The Chicago Tribune has compiled a set of some of the oddest retro photos in their archives, like this 1941 photo of a “sniper bike,” a 15 gun bicycle made for the “Police and Fire Thrill Show.”