Goodnight, but not goodbye

Bea Arthur passed away this weekend after a long battle with cancer. Best known for her roles in Maude and the Golden Girls, Beatrice got her start as a lounge singer and eventually found her calling in comedy. Nobody could deliver a razor-sharp punch line like Bea. As you can see from the photo, my fondest memory of Bea was her guest appearance on the much maligned Star Wars Holiday Special as Ackmena, the owner of an intergalactic cantina. In the skit, Ackmena tries in vain to keep her cantina open against curfew orders from the Empire, all the while pursued by the smitten alien Krelman (Harvey Korman, also pictured above).

Hahn's Shoe Stores

Hahn's Shoes had been a fixture in Washington DC since the late 1800s. The shot above is from their store at 7th and K Street in the early 1920s. Not quite sure what ever happened to it... seems it merged a few times and then sometime in the mid-1990s went out of business... Seems this building is no more as well... If anyone has the history, let me know.

Seeger 38 years ago...

Apparently HBO is sending its army of lawyers after anyone posting video from the Inaugural concert from a few weeks ago. One of the more noteworthy appearances on the program was Pete Seeger, who performed “This Land is Your Land”. When I saw this, I recalled a much earlier clip I had of him at a Vietnam war protest 38 years earlier at the other end of the Washington mall… the steps of the US Capital. Performing with him is Barbara Dane and the Reverend Frederick Douglas Kirkpatrick (aka Brother Kirk).

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Here's a couple Christmas themed spots from 1970. The first is a TV station animation package that local affiliates used to put their logos on. Not sure if these were just time-fillers. The second is a Goodyear record promotion for the Great Songs of Christmas... and you thought they only made tires and blimps.

A Royal Pain

A Burger King ad from 1978.

The last time I ate at Burger King was probably the time this ad aired... At the time I was a McDonald's kid... eating Burger King would have been an act of betrayal. Even during the Star Wars glasses promotions I stayed away. I guess that stuck with me as I got older since I never made an effort to eat at Burger King, even when I was hungry and there was nothing else around... that is until last week. I found myself stuck in Yuba City, California on Dec 24th with a hungry family and every store around me closing down for Christmas. Much to my reluctance, Burger King it was...

I can’t say that they stole my heart… after ordering a chicken sandwich, they gave me a Whopper. Took a few minutes to get that fixed up… then we discovered our fries were stone cold… The first bite of my sandwich had me reeling in flashbacks of my paste and cardboard eating days. When I examined the sandwich I found a slight smear of some sort of mayonnaise. Certainly not enough to disguise the taste, so I decided to ask for a barbeque dipping sauce pack. “That will be 25 cents sir.” Are you kidding me???

Perhaps it was American Airlines reaming me for $30 for two checked bags, twice… or perhaps it was the Hilton in San Francisco that gouged me for $36 a day for parking… or perhaps it was Hertz who didn’t have the car I reserved and upgraded me to a vehicle half the size… but I’d had it with the nickel and diming, crappy service world. So right after I slid my quarter across the counter, I gave that teenager a piece of my mind… did I mention that I was hungry?

I don't want to grow up...

With Christmas fast approaching I’ve decided to post some rare toy commercials from my favorite decade, the 70s. To kick things off, how about one of the earliest examples of a Toys R Us commercial. This ad aired in 71-72 timeframe when Toys R Us was owned by Interstate Stores. Interstate, which already owned several other chains (White Front and Topps Department Stores and Children's Bargain Town USA) purchased Toys R Us from founder Charles Lazarus in 1967. During this timeframe, Interstate was expanding its operations aggressively with stores in Washington DC and Baltimore markets. Lazarus remained to run the stores, eventually becoming CEO in the mid-70s, outlasting Interstate’s bankruptcy and re-emergence as Toys R Us, Inc. You can read an excellent summary of the history of Toys R Us over at the Pleasant Family Shopping Center’s blog.

Ever feel plain lousy?

What do you do for an hour while waiting for the Advil to kick in? Waste time doing a montage of cold & cough ads... here's the result.

I posted a few more commercials last week as well.

Google - Life

Google never ceases to amaze me. This past week they announced a deal to put Life’s image archive on the web… 10 million photographs… of which 97% have never been seen before now. Photos include now famous photographers like Gordon Parks, Margaret Bourke-White and Dorothea Lange. You can check out the stunning collection here.

The Dark Side of Star Wars...

An important milestone in Star Wars history managed to slip past me this year... It was 30 years ago this past Monday that the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special aired on CBS (Nov 17, 1978). Think of a Star Wars variety hour... with a troupe of 70s stars filling in where the script ended... Bea Arthur, Harvey Korman, Art Carney, Diahann Carroll and Jefferson Airplane mixing it up with Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher... in an uncomfortable affair that would give new meaning to Newton Minow’s “vast wasteland” speech.

"...when television is bad, nothing is worse.”

It was the first and last time it ever aired on US television, although fans have been able to satiate their appetite by buying, trading and downloading copies for the last 20 years.

Even though I missed the official date, I was able to unknowingly take part in the festivities by NOT watching it again.

For those of you who can't get enough of the special, check out the unofficial headquarters for all things Star Wars Holiday Special related, including some brand new interviews and pictures.

More NASA...

While the recovery and restoration of the Lunar Explorer tapes has been a great success, we must not forget about the missing Moon landing footage. In 1969 NASA had live images of the Moon landing broadcast around the world. To accomplish this, they had the image transmitted, processed, re-transmitted, re-processed and broadcast. The results were poor quality, ghostly images of what was mankinds greatest achievement. However, NASA did record the raw lunar footage at their tracking stations, which is much crisper and sharper than anything you or I have ever seen. Unfortunately, NASA boxed up the tapes, shipped them back to their headquarters and then proceeded to lose track of them. They’re now in their 2nd year of the search. You can read a pretty good summary of what happened, and an appeal for help here.