Kel's Musings About Things Past

Saturday, February 25, 2017

The Lambeth Walk

So my current Musings on Things Past focuses on a song with a very interesting story that continues to this day.

In 1937, the show "Me and My Girl" opened on the West End in London to great critical and audience acclaim. One song, in particular stood out.

Written for a local street that was once home to street markets and a lower socioeconomic class, the song "The Lambeth Walk" was an instant hit all over the world.

But this song was more than just another number in a musical show. It would pull together a nation together that was being torn apart by war. It unified the world, as the dance became wildly popular in living rooms and ballrooms internationally. It became the basis for a film that so infuriated the Third Reich that a certain innovative British filmmaker made it to the Nazi extermination list. It even became the subject of a early British television in 1939 as the first televised musical ever and also the subject of the first music "remix" video!

So what was it about this jaunty, rollicking tune with its simple innocent lyrics that would cause both unification and outrage?

Other blogs have been written about the history of it, so this one will focus on the media presentations! The most fun (I think) version is this one from the 1987 revival of Me and My Girl. This version stars Robert Lindsey as the main character; a cockney lad who is thrust into high society. Just as he unifies two socioeconomic classes; the song did as well. The joy of this rendition is absolutely contagious.

As it would have it, art imitated life (or life would imitate art rather) and in the late 1930's, King George and young Queen Elizabeth attended a performance and even joined their voices in the cockney shouts of "Oi!" in the chorus of the song. They confessed that they had been doing the Lambeth Walk the "wrong way - the ballroom way" and promised to do it "right" in the future! " As you can see, the song was one of inclusion and the audience is also delighted to be included in that particular Youtube performance.

As Germany crept through Europe, the "Lambeth Walk" took the world by storm. Check this out!

Soldiers and their sweethearts doing the Lambeth Walk. One signature move was a thrust of the thumb over the shoulder with an "Oi!"

Small preschool aged children doing the Lambeth Walk and "Oi"!

The Lambeth Walk and dancers in New York City

Children in the slums of London demonstrate the Lambeth Walk for a photographer!

A French magazine taught ballroom dancers how to do the Lambeth Walk.

Countless artists and swing bands in the United States and Europe did covers of the song.

Here is the televised broadcast of the number from 1939 with the original West End cast! How seriously cool is THIS!?

The song and dance became not only a distraction as England entered the war but also lifted the spirits of a nation during a very bad time.

So now we get to the Hitler connection, as the song took on a new direction. Hitler mentioned the song and dance in a speech as "Jewish mischief and animalistic hopping".

In 1940, the Palace Theater where the show was still playing was bombed during the Blitz and the show was forced to close.

In 1942, Charles A Ridley, of the Ministry of Information would have a bit of sweet revenge. He took the song and set it to footage of marching Gestapo troops and leaders and released it, uncredited, to newsreel companies, making it look like the Nazi armies were dancing the Lambeth Walk. Decades before Youtube and Movie Maker, he had unknowingly created the first popular "REMIX" that would have gone viral had there been a Youtube at the time! Its pretty hilarious. When the film was shown to Nazi leaders, reportedly they cursed, shouted and stormed out of the room. The result was that Ridley was put on a hit list for elimination should Germany occupy England.

Check it out!

And since "everything old is new again" here at Kels Musings, the Lambeth Walk story continues today. This innovative Youtuber has created a modern version of the Ridley film starring North Korea and Kim Jong-un doing the Lambeth Walk in the same style as the Ridley film, This is some seriously funny stuff! '

People today continue to dance the Lambeth Walk.

So there you have the story of the Lambeth Walk. I hope you enjoy these videos and history of this fun song as much as I did! If you even watched a couple of these videos, you no doubt have the song stuck in your head, so my apologies!

Until next time.......

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Kel is the owner of SuburbanTreasure, an Etsy shop feature eclectic items celebrating the popular culture of the past decades. Check us out at https://www.etsy.com/shop/suburbantreasure?

Friday, February 17, 2017

So we just finished watching an episode of "The Goldbergs", in which the teenage son and daughter get a job in a Spencer Gifts store in the 1980's. Spencer Gifts! A flood of memories came back as a nine year old standing under strobe lights looking at racks of whoopie cushions, lava lamps and flies in ice cubes. At one point, we actually came out of Spencer's with a black light bulb that we put in our basement so that we could have the novelty of roller skating and glowing in the dark.....

Since the mall near our home wasn't built until 1978, this was a whole new world we had never seen. Before that, trips to the "mall" meant only the yearly tradition of driving 45 minutes away once a year to sit on Santa's lap at Christmas time, only to get carsick and throw up on the lengthy drive home.

But now we had a mall five minutes from our house! And in the winter, or at night, or on rainy days, taking a trip to "walk the mall" was a new novelty

It's hard to believe, but in the 1970's, this is what malls looked like. Oh the browns and oranges and wood theme!

And what was it about the 1970's that led mall architects to think gigantic, abstract sculptures added to the ambiance of shopping for a pair of shoes? This one has some kind of gigantic maggots suspended from the ceiling.

This yellow megalithic sculpture was created especially for our mall in 1977 and placed in the center of it when it opened. Supposedly the creator made it to "inspire shoppers". Maybe it was urban legend, but we were told that at some point, some brilliantly minded person decided to try to jump from the second floor railing onto the top of this thing and fell. Eventually it was moved outdoors, out of danger of ambitious jumpers.

Speaking of shoes.....once you arrived at the mall, your parents might have dragged you to this place. Not exactly the most fun place, but where you visited every August for school shoes....hopefully not in danger of being speared in the head by the heels of a boot falling from the string of boot garland hanging across the front.

And how about Hickory Farms? The name sounded appetizing enough, and something about those holiday gift boxes with all the tiny individually wrapped cheeses and sausages that somehow magically did not have to be refrigerated made this place a novelty. That and the free samples. I have no idea if that Santa looking guy in a business suit is a statue or a real guy in a getaway disguise making off with a large gift box...

I saw this picture online and I had totally forgotten that was what the front of The Children's Place looked like. We never shopped for clothes there, but we used to love to go sit in that little hole that was the special entrance for kids!

No trip to the mall was ever complete without a visit to Kay Bee Toy and Hobby. It was the only toy store in our mall when it first opened. And it was the place that you secretly hoped to talk your parents into stopping into if for nothing else to just look at the toys.

I have many memories of this place imprinted in my mind. There was the year I came out with this

when my mom took me birthday shopping. I was so thrilled that all the way to the car I kept saying "I can't believe this!"
I also remember an epic mall parking lot experience with these in a Kay Bee bag when I was ten.

And of course, no trip to the mall Kay Bee was complete without visiting the bargain bin of the Atari games where we'd pool our allowances to buy whatever we could afford!

Then there was this store. With its simple, unassuming store front, Walden Books was always of great interest to me as I loved to read. I actually did spend quite a bit of money on paperback books when I was young and this was a great place to browse for as long as my parents would let me.

Another favorite place was "The Occasion"; a small card and gift store that held great interest for a ten year old because they had these.

and these....

Of course, not all mall trips resulted in a new Smurf or puffy stickers to add to the Trapper Keeper. The ones that happened days before school started in September were pure torture. I hated school shopping. And unlike most young girls, I hated clothes shopping. Usually a clothes shopping trip meant that we hit JC Penney first. Is it any wonder clothes shopping was less than exciting when this was pretty much what you were looking on the Penney's racks.

The other yearly unpleasant mall experience happened around Christmas. My grandmother would take us shopping for a Christmas outfit. Usually here.

Looming at the end of the mall, this big, stuffy "fancy lady" store held zero interest to a kid whose mind was most certainly not on jewelry, perfume and clothes. I hated this place as a kid. Even the name was presumptuous.

Neatly dressed in a polyester skirt suit and heels, she would always inevitably lead us to Bamberger's, even if we were at the opposite end of the mall. Her reason was that this, and Penney's, were the only stores where she would use the bathroom. My grandmother had apparently developed some kind of phone mall grapevine consisting of other people who enjoyed talking on the phone about such things, where she would receive a weekly mall rape and crime report.

Apparently she'd gathered through this grapevine, that the regular mall bathrooms were havens for rapists or gunmen. Therefore, was convinced that if she used the regular center mall bathrooms, she, I or both of us would be attacked, maimed or even killed. Once we had safely used the Bamberger's facilities, we always had to eat there. Yes, Bamberger's had a restaurant.

I recall one day having to go to the mall with my grandmother and begging to eat here:

I was told "absolutely not, that is a filthy place. In fact, you can smell it just by walking by. Do you know cousin so-and-so told me they gagged out loud just walking past that place??" I had absolutely no idea what she was taking about. My parents frequently took us to Blimpie and the thought of the smell of salami, oregano, oil and vinegar made my stomach growl. I was instead dragged, complaining, to "Bams" for lunch where I attempted to order "pizza." When it came, it was whole wheat bread, soggy with tomato sauce and cheese on top. Figures. In my mind, if anybody could wreck pizza, it was Bamberger's.

Having survived the bi-yearly chore trips to the mall, here was another great place to browse. Remember going to "record stores" when it was all vinyl?

The early 1980's held a new mall phenomenon that sparked my passion; the "Mall Antique Show".

Local dealers would set up for a week at the mall in various places. They'd bring tables and showcases and to me, it was like heaven. Like having an antique mall within the regular mall! Just a few minutes from my house and open until 9 pm! It was not always easy to get my parents to stop often enough at antique and junk stores on Saturdays for me to shop, so this was the best of both worlds; tag along to the mall and get to shop the antique booths! I purchased several things as a kid on these shopping excursions. Sadly, these shows became extinct as Ebay took hold in the mid 1990s.

Of course, as we grew up, "the mall" became a place to hang out, go for coffee or ice cream and actually enjoy clothes shopping. Nowadays with online shopping and large chain stores like Walmart and Target, malls are less frequented than they were and many have closed up or gotten much smaller. But in the 1970's, it was an exciting novelty for a kid!

This Pinterest board has some more great photos of 1970's mall storefronts https://www.pinterest.com/ctbfa/70s-mall-storefronts/

----------------------------------------------------------------

Kel is the owner of SuburbanTreasure , an Etsy shop carrying all things vintage from the turn of the century to the 1990s. Check out the retro fun today! https://www.etsy.com/shop/suburbantreasure

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Somebody Come And Play: Musings on the Art of Sesame Street

If you grew up in the early 1970's you no doubt were raised on what was a new and innovative show at the time, Sesame Street.

At the time, most moms were staying home with their children, and while preschool was an option, the majority of three and four year olds stayed home until their first day of kindergarten at five or six. For children in poorer, urban areas, preschool was even less of an option. But that didn't mean they didn't learn! For these children, in fact, for all of us kids and our moms, Sesame Street was a lifeline; broadcasting on public television daily.

The original cast of Sesame Street; November 1969

The project was conceived in the late 1960's in an attempt to use the "addictive" nature of television to enhance the learning of young children; especially those in urbanized, low income areas. The show was ground breaking, in that it zeroed in on this previously overlooked-by-television population of youngsters; helping to bolster the grasp of the English language for Hispanic kids and yet broad enough to be appealing and educational for children of all backgrounds and cultures in the US.

Originally the concept was to write the show for young children, but also appealing to a broader audience. Guest stars added a touch of sophistication (somewhat of a wink over the heads of the kids to the viewing parents ) and "artsy" animated clips held the attention of older children and even adults; encouraging families to watch it together (since older kids and adults tended to control the TV!)

Popular adult comedienne Lily Tomlin and her famous "Edith Ann" character

Some of the most lovely songs of the 1970's were composed for the show by Joe Raposo, a Portuguese-American composer (also known for composing the theme song to Three's Company and working on the music for the off-Broadway show You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown). Several of his songs from the show crossed over to adult audiences and were recorded by popular artists. When The Carpenters recorded his "Sing", it hit #3 on the Billboard charts for a single in 1973.

The first album of songs from the show was launched and was hugely popular. Today, many of us remember this album as a staple in their LP collection growing up!

Raposo's sweetly simple and often poignant and thoughtful lyrics touched the souls of children, whose daily viewing numbers reached into the millions by the mid 1970's.

Even melancholy songs like "Bein' Green" let children know that it was okay to be different, without getting preachy, but by simply by letting them surmise it from the song's lyrics. The early years of Sesame Street seemed to be held together by the golden thread of "present the material in an artistic and interesting way, and kids can figure out a lot more than we've given them credit for".

When the character who played Mr Hooper, Will Lee, died suddenly of a heart attack in 1982, the producers of the show decided to tackle this fact of life head-on for kids. Rather than recasting the role (something children certainly would notice), they addressed the death head on, right on the show, without mincing words or emotions. It was one more example that the show, as originally conceived, made the assumption that children were thinking human beings, able to comprehend much more than previous children's television shows had been willing to give. (Come on, are you not moved to tears seeing Bob's grief here??)

The show also featured something new to television; Jim Henson's "Muppets". Puppets were nothing new to television (think Howdy Doody) but the Muppets, originally called the "Anything People", were different because they were not racially distinct - in fact, they usually weren't even species-distinct. (Hence the name "Anything People" - "they can be anything"). Friendly monsters let children know that not all monsters are scary. In fact, they can even be lovable and afraid. Who remembers this awesome book? Children delightfully turned pages as Grover broke the "fourth wall" and talked (and yelled) directly at children, instructing them not to reach the end of the book because of his fear. Of course when we arrive at the end of the book, the monster he has feared is only himself.

Muppets with orange, blue, red and yellow faces gave children the message that people of all colors, shapes and sizes are equal and that people are not to be feared if they look different. Characters like Oscar the Grouch helped children know that we can treat someone well even if they are unpleasant. Characters with clashing personalities like Bert and Ernie subtly taught kids, without slapping them in the head with it, that not everyone thinks alike but we can get along.

Of course, the characters didn't always look like the ones we are familiar with today. Oscar was originally orange...as seen in this first version of "I Love Trash" from 1969.

And consider what Big Bird originally looked like. Admittedly, there is at least one thing that has improved over the decades; the size of Big Bird's head.

Several toy companies launched lines of products for eager children. One of the best, highly sought after today, is Fisher Price's Sesame Street "Apartments". This early set featured classic Sesame Street graphics, a chalk board between the buildings and specially made little people in the shape of the classic characters.

Toy lines of character puppets were very popular with young kids.

I remember my brother having an amazingly simple Cookie Monster puppet that could actually eat cookies (by a slit in the back of the mouth, into the open hand of the child!) No need for a "talking Elmo", just a simple hand puppet and a kid was happy!

So I mentioned it to him, and he says my nephew still plays with Cookie and he sent me this picture. Looks like Cookie's appetite is still going strong nearly 40 years later!

And "back in the day" we had no VCR's or Ipads, so, our parents got us these - a small handheld movie camera that you looked into and turned the handle and you could watch small, silent clips of your favorite Sesame Street episodes! Lasting only seconds long each, I can still recall playing the film of the guy with the birthday cake falling down the stairs - backwards and in slow motion over and over . (Thanks Fisher Price! Whoever thought of putting a "reverse" on the crank was ingenious!)

The show continued to soar in the decades to follow, and when many of us had children in the 1990's we tuned back in, hoping to see the classic shorts such as this one, featuring Jim Henson's daughter featuring a dollhouse he built himself for her. The segment was shot in her bedroom and the cats were the pets of the Henson family. (Don't you just love everything about that??)

Upon tuning in for our children, we found that the show now consisted mainly of the hugely popular "Elmo",a baby-talking red monster with a sing-song shrill voice and no grasp of how to use personal pronouns, and even worse, characters like "Baby Bear"whose speech impediment left parents wondering if this was a show to help their toddlers and preschools grasp language and vocabulary or an adult's version of what was "cutesy" and commercialized. Clips such as the one above were considered "dated" looking.

By the 2000's many parents were disgusted with Sesame Street's dumbed down characters, watered down content and lack of the early artistic flair that distinguished the show from previous children's programming.

Enter the internet. It wasn't long before classic clips began to surface on Youtube. Classic clips like the one below from 1972.

I know it looks like a 70's acid trip and the ending is kinda creepy, but as a child, this one fascinated me with its colorful Monty Python type animation! Approaching 450,000 views on Youtube, it's proof that grown up kids remember it so well from their early childhoods and went searching for it again!

Whole Youtube channels launched classic Sesame Street episodes and memorable clips. In the "early days" we'd sit, with tots on our laps, in front of desktop monitors, singing along with our favorites!

(The "Queen of Six" -1970 stop action animation. Background is painted cardboard; the puppet's skirt was created with a lampshade)

These days, tots with Ipads and kiddie tablets now have at their fingertips, tons of early Sesame Street episodes and music clips, sharing with parents and now even grandparents, what we all grew up with!

Below are a few of my favorite early Sesame Street clips with some little known and fun facts about each. Enjoy!
-------------------------------------------------------- Original Season One Intro, featuring the classic "Can You Tell Me How To Get To Sesame Street?"

One of my all time favorites "It's Springtime". I was never clear if this was a kid or a pig in clothes.

The falling baker!

"The One-Two-Three Ball". In this version, is Jim Henson's daughter Heather, again. This was Frank Oz's directorial debut - it took him four days to build this ball raceway.

A little know fact though, is that this was originally shot with the ending shown below. Apparently it was too distressing to children that the ball gets ground up in the end, (by Frank Oz's son) so they reshot the ending as shown above, with Heather and the ice cream!

One of the catchiest songs ever on the show, the Alligator King! Recorded by jazz musician Turk Murphy, the song originally had the ending of "I got it on sale at Monkey Ward's (apparently a slang term for Montgomery Ward). The lyric was changed to "discount store" possibly for legal reasons.

"Somebody Come And Play". A poignant song that most certainly struck a cord in every child at one time or another. "I want somebody to play with". For adults, the sweetly sad lyric "Somebody come before it's too late to begin" reminded them of the brevity of their children's and their own, childhoods. (The song was reused many times on the show, but this is the original version, showing a lonely orangutan in a really pathetic zoo.)

These are just a few of the many classic Sesame Street clips available on Youtube. It's a great place to seek out your favorites!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kelly Wenarsky is the owner of Suburban Treasure, an online shop with an ever-changing stock of all things nostalgic, retro toys and related fun! Come and play with us! https://www.etsy.com/shop/suburbantreasure?

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Have you seen this video? It's circulated on social media and is actually a lot of fun. For those of us who grew up in from the 50's to the 1980's, it was our childhood. We had the best toys that could never be made today!

For instance, who remembers these guys?

All those years we played with them, and we never understood that in actuality, they were an army, bent to kill us all!

Yes, in 1990, Fisher Price ceased production of all the timeless "Little People Play Family" toys because it was deemed that the small people were small killers of small children in that they might be disassembled and swallowed. Although there were never any reports of a choking on a whole Little People figure, when the toys were taken apart, they posed a hazard.

Thus brings the question, is anything ever safe? The Little People are held together by a nail up inside the body that attaches the head to the body. It is pretty darned hard for an adult to disassemble one, let alone a small child. And if your child is smart, strong and skilled enough to get one apart, they are probably old enough to find something else to choke on, like marbles.

Thus, sets like the ones below, were phased out completely by 1990.

Today, these sets carry tremendous nostalgic appeal. Consider the farm alone. First issued in 1968, the production ran for over 20 years; probably longer than any toy ever issued! We not only survived them, we cherished them. We passed them onto our children and even grandchildren, (none of whom are choking on them as far as I have been able to find out) for whom they still hold special appeal.

To the dismay of children (and adults) everywhere, "little people" were replaced by "Chunky People" monstrous in both appearance and width compared to the classic Little People.

Because of the massive size, to assure that no child could cram them down their throats, the playsets were far inferior to the detail and creativity of the previous sets.

At the same time, child safety standards changed for dolls as well. For well over a century, dolls had been held together by metal hooks inside the body. Millions and millions of dolls in Europe, Asia and the United States had been made this way. As far as I know, no child was ever injured on a stringing hook, as shown below in a 1970's Sasha doll.

These hooks were held tightly into the body by strong bungee cord. Again...if you have a child who can disassemble a doll...hopefully they are old enough not to eat the components. If the danger was injury, it's not like we're talking machete knives and razor blades here; we're talking a piece of metal inside a doll. However did we survive? Consider Ideal's "Shirley Temple" doll; one of the most iconic toys of the 20th century. Millions were manufactured; millions were played with by young children in the 1930's and not one case of choking, bleeding to death by hooks, tetanus or whatever else a piece of metal could inflict, can be found Still....

the perceived danger forced modern doll companies to create their dolls with a plastic plug-like insert that is embedded into the leg itself with the cord going into it. The way the cord is inside the bodies causes decreased mobility to the leg joints and they are often difficult to pose to stand alone. (Unlike this 1935 Shirley Temple doll, standing 80 years later) This renders it almost impossible to repair some of these dolls when the cord becomes loose or broken. Dolls like the American Girl doll can be easily repaired, because of the plastic used, but for a Magic Attic or newer Sasha doll, where the hole in the leg is very small, and the vinyl is very thick and hard, forget it. It is possible but as I have learned from experience, the time, effort and risk of breaking the plastic piece isn't worth it.

Burned in our collective Christmas memories in this house was the year that my 6 year old received her very coveted "Terri Lee" play doll. She already had several of these dolls; having asked for them for every Christmas and birthday.

Terri Lee Associates had reissued the classic 50's doll for children today. As we removed the newely treasured Terri from the box, her arm popped off. The crappy piece of plastic that held her arm in place snapped right in half. This led to an emergency repair of creativity on my part, in rummaging through my doll repair supplies, found some hooks attached to large plastic pieces used to repair dolls, and I figured out a way to actually string the arms together (instead of separately as they were manufactured) one to another. (Now that doll actually has better mobility and pose-ability than the others)

Maybe we can laugh about it now, but I was not laughing on that Christmas morning! I averted a teary Christmas day but I was certainly none too happy about the experience! I wrote to the Terri Lee company and complained and the response was "sometimes these things happen; please send your doll back (on your dime) for a replacement". Well my daughter did not want a replacement-she wanted that doll! So there I was, 10:00 Christmas morning with a hair dryer trying to soften the vinyl enough to get the remainder of the plastic pieces out. (Did the child safety laws ever take into consideration quality standards? This was a bigger hazard than hooks!) I noted several complaints of similar nature to mine on the internet. The dolls continued to be made for a couple of more years, but as far as I can find out, the company is now defunct.

So where is the line drawn? Will the day come when marbles and jacks will be banned? What are we teaching kids about responsibility in completely insulating them from any potential perceived danger?

And what about THIS amazing toy? Metal plates were put on an open hot plate that you plugged in, and plastic "goop" actually cooked in the molds until you had marvelous (chokeable I'm sure) toy insects and other critters! This was the BOMB of creative play! My only issue with the ad below is that we girls liked to make kooky and creepy things too! :)

In fact...THIS was burned into my childhood memories as one of the best creative toys I ever got.

Yes, it's a shrunken head kit. Complete with (is that Vincent Price?) creepy guy on the front. I guess this could not be made today, as kids might eat the apples. (Yeah...actually I did try that once it dried once...and survived). Pins were stuck into the eyes and teeth and the apple dried in a weird electric heated oven like thing. Note that it says that the cooker "hooks to any table lamp"!

On the subject of monsters, I think every boy in the 1970's remembers this guy. He could NEVER be made today!

I remember my brother had this, actually he had the stretch Monster I believe, and eventually his curiosity got the better of him and he poked him with a pin to see what was inside. To our delight, it was a strange red gel that oozed out. (No doubt, ultra toxic..for those supposed kids today who might get the bright idea to eat it) However, it was only when we realized that that band aids would not fix Stretch Monster, especially when we stretched him again, that it was chalked up to be a fatal, and regrettable, mistake. For Stretch Monster at least.

So what are we to do as parents? As a society? We gotta keep kids safe after all. Clearly toys like THIS should never have been made. In 1952, someone got the bright idea that perhaps an atomic energy kit for kids would be a great idea. Teach the next generation how to make their own A-bomb! It contained radium and uranium.

But somewhere between an atomic energy lab and this

we have to have a degree of common sense. Maybe it's teaching kids about respect. And responsibility. Maybe it's actually sitting down and teaching a child how to use a toy. About playing with them to teach respect for that toy and not just bombarding them with a million things to play with for the purpose of keeping them out of our hair while we complete the next level of Candy Crush. I think kids really haven't changed very much at all; they are a whole lot smarter than we give them credit for. After all, we survived!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kelly and Joe Wenarsky are the owners of "Suburban Treasure"; a shop filled with nostalgic toys, jewelry and collectibles from the past. We love, and sell, old Fisher Price toys, vintage dolls and lots of other great childhood items from the Victorian era to the 1990s. (No atomic energy kits though!) :)