You're a Ford Salesman, Charlie Brown!

A lot of people think that A Charlie Brown Christmas, which originally aired in 1965, was the first time that Charles Schulz's beloved Peanuts characters appeared in animated form on the small screen. But it was actually in the late '50s and early '60s that the American public got to see Charlie Brown and the gang brought to life for the first time, when they were commissioned to promote the new Ford Falcon. 

I'm currently half-way through reading the David Michaelis biography of Schulz, called Schulz and Peanuts, that was published in 2007--a couple of years after Schulz's death--and this advertising campaign was a revelation to even me, a lifelong Peanuts fan since I was about three years old. So let's take a look back at this cute and charming campaign that was released during the Mad Men golden age of advertising.

The comic strip had been around for a decade by this time--first as Li'l Folks in 1947, which evolved into Peanuts by 1950. By the late '50s, the income that Schulz was making from the success of his strip was booming--not just from drawing it, but because he was now getting licensing deals from companies. A manufacturing company called Hungerford Plastics Corporation had started producing the very first figures of Peanuts characters--made of polyvinyl--in 1958 (needless to say, an unopened figure in mint condition is worth a small fortune today.) Hallmark began their relationship with Schulz in 1960, introducing Peanuts greeting cards and paper goods. 

But the biggest deal offered to Schulz at this time was when the Ford Division of Ford Motor Company approached the cartoonist for the exclusive rights to have the Peanuts characters promote their new compact car, the Falcon, across all advertising channels including television, print ads, and billboards. Schulz worked closely with Ford's advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson, even consulting on the script, and had the final approval on the children selected to voice the on-screen characters.

The partnership also introduced Schulz to former Disney animator Bill Melendez, who would go on to produce all of the Peanuts animated television specials (and also provided the voices for Snoopy and Woodstock.)

The Falcon, which was touted as a compact car with a lot of space and great gas mileage, was a huge success for Ford, no doubt due to the Peanuts partnering. And no matter how many other deals Schulz was offered through the years, he regarded the Ford licensing as a huge milestone.

Here's all of the Ford Falcon/Peanuts commercials that I could locate on YouTube, including a few clips where characters introduced The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show in the early '60s. The one huge difference I notice between these commercials and the Peanuts TV specials is how Linus is portrayed; instead of the mature and worldly-wise philosopher we came to know and love, he actually comes across in the Ford commercials as very innocent and child-like. Lucy isn't quite the crabby boss lady yet, either. And Charlie Brown isn't being called a blockhead or having footballs yanked away from him!

Also, if they wanted to go for true Peanuts authenticity, the announcer would be speaking in that infamous "wah wah" sound.













Charlie Brown channels Bob Dylan here...

From Simple to Showoff: Why Do Weddings Today Seem To Go Overboard?

Valentine's Day is upon us, and its a safe bet that after the holiday tens of thousands of Americans will be newly engaged. And it's a sure bet that an awful lot of these brides and grooms-to-be will end up spending an exorbitant amount of money on the ceremony and reception. Weddings in America have turned into lavish, showy (and show-offish) affairs, especially when compared to weddings of past decades.

A couple of weeks ago I clicked on an article on MSN called "7 Things That Americans Waste Their Money On." Not surprisingly, item number seven was weddings. The average cost of a wedding today in the States is $26,645. Let's let that figure sink in a moment and do some comparison shopping. The Vince Lombardi trophy, made annually by Tiffany and Co., is worth $25,000. When I looked at gently used Audi A4s the other night online (just for kicks), most of the ones listed that were a few years old with modest mileage were priced around $25K.

$26,645 is also enough to put a down payment on a mortgage and buy yourself a decent living room set, or at least a nice sofa. In fact, in that article I cited, one of the comments left was by a man that attended a wedding of two 20-somethings. The bride revealed that she and her new husband had very little saved for a home, but she was hoping her retired dad (who paid for the wedding) would help her out with that, too. 

Sigh. Millennials. 

OK, with all fairness the rise of the bridezilla started taking place a good twenty years ago, if not more...so it's not just Millennials that have expected a royal wedding-type affair but people from my generation as well. The question is, why? Why waste all of that money on an over-the-top day that few people are going to ultimately remember, except for the couple getting hitched?

The photo above is of my parents on their wedding day -- February 1, 1946. As you can see, my mother didn't wear a bridal gown; she wore her best dress and a fur jacket. My father never gave her an engagement ring. She decided she really didn't want one, when she knew the money would be best served in a savings account to pay for a place to live (decades later, she got a tiny diamond on one of their anniversaries.) Speaking of which, my parents actually lived in a converted chicken coop for a short while on my grandparents' farm while my father went to work and saved money.

That was how it was for a lot of these past generations; they had more common sense when it came to saving and spending. They also weren't so selfish; they were grateful for what they had. 

It used to be that couples would have their receptions in the church basement, or at a local restaurant or the VFW.  Even celebrities kept their nuptials low-key back in the day. When Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward exchanged vows in 1958, it was at a wedding chapel in Vegas. Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman at Marylebone Register Office in 1969, and the bride wore a belted yellow coat. One of the reasons for these underwhelming settings were to thwart the media and fans and keep the event more private (not that it worked judging by the throngs of weepy female fans that showed up that day, upset that they were not the one Paul chosen.) 

When Celine Dion married René Angélil in 1994, however, the wedding was as melodramatic as one of Dion's power love ballads: it featured a massive wedding "cake" comprised of over 2,600 French profiterole (or cream puffs), a seven pound headpiece made of Austrian crystals, real white doves, and artificial snowflakes.

A lot of other celebrity couples seemed to have over-the-top weddings in the '90s. I'm not sure if that's what started to drive the expensive wedding phenomenon, but personally I do think it's possible to spend way too much on an article of clothing that you're only going to wear one day out of your life and never again. Thus came the rise of wedding planners an numerous wedding magazines and websites, all revolved around making your special day as perfect as possible.

Don't get me wrong--I have nothing against people spending and enjoying money, particularly if they actually have it. However, it seems to me that too many young couples are spending a fortune on their weddings when they don't have it. A lot of people would be better off if they tried to curb the expenses and socked that cash away for a downpayment on a starter home instead.

I guess the question is, why? Is it because they're selfish, spoiled, and/or have low self esteem issues where they feel some need to show off a bit? Sadly, some couples also expect guests and members of their wedding party to spend a fortune because of their selfishness, whether they can afford it or not. Thus, we've seen the rise of the destination wedding in recent decades, where couples get married on a tropical beach or another exotic locale. Not only is this expensive for the wedding party, but a bit of an inconvenience as well -- they're being forced to take a vacation whether it works with their schedule or not.

Another thing I've noticed...the numerous amount of bridesmaids. It used to be a bride would have a maid of honor or maybe a couple of bridesmaids; now she usually has a throng of her besties wearing an ensemble that will most likely never see the outside of their closet again. 

The irony is that the most memorable weddings I have been to were the ones where it was obvious the couple did not spend a ton of money on the reception. Thus, these celebrations had their own unique touches whereas the ones I've been to (and one where I was part of the wedding party) that were thrown at local country clubs and involved expensive bridal gowns all kind of blur together for me as nearly one collective memory. 

When a neighbor's daughter was married about ten years ago, the reception was held in the sun-drenched rotunda room attached to their parish. It was simple, yet beautiful -- they had also hired a guitarist to perform during the ceremony. The last wedding I went to was a high school friend's; she wore a gorgeous bargain dress that she found at Filene's Basement in Boston, when they used to have their infamous wedding dress sale and her ceremony took place in a new modern chapel at her alma mater. The reception was held at a notable restaurant in Chinatown; it was a ten course meal, so that probably didn't come cheap, but overall it was a beautiful celebration that didn't go over the top (unless you count her cousin that impersonated Elvis and serenaded the couple on the dance floor.)

I'm not saying that people should hire a justice of the peace, order some pizza, and call it a day, either. I believe in a happy medium, and maybe looking for ways to save money on certain areas (such as the dress or the reception venue) instead of blowing a fortune on what's only one day out of your entire lives.

Just don't lose sight of the real reason you're getting married in the first place.

Clean Up Time

I'm working on a new post, but in the meantime needed to vent a bit. Tonight I got an email from an ad network I work with, that also works in conjunction with Google. Someone at Google came across an old post I did on here seven years ago and said it was in violation of their ad policies. Of course, I promptly removed it, being grateful that I received a warning and a kind email asking me to take it down (I've heard horror stories about Google removing AdSense from blogs without so much as a warning.)

The blog post in question showed three vintage ads (it was part of the "Three Ads Too Good Not To Share" series that I did for a while) and one of them was an '80s ad for a phone shaped like a naked woman. I assume it came from Playboy decades ago. I don't remember what the other two ads were, but I immediately deleted the post.

I'll be honest; I only skimmed through Google's ad policies a few years ago because I always considered this site to be "clean", especially in comparison to another retro themed site that got into trouble for posting a lot of images on a regular basis that contained blatant nudity. I also stumbled upon a strange Blogger site once that had the word "crafts" in the title but contained anything BUT how-to crafts. Let's just say the author was violating all kinds of adult content rules. But because they weren't running any advertising on the blog, they were allowed to publish it.

But after getting this email from my ad network, I'm now a little bit paranoid. I removed a few posts I did last year on sexy women promoting automobile parts (too much cleavage could be a trigger...I'll work on a new post at some point that's more covered up) and a very old, brief post I did about an adult drinking game from the '60s with a suggestive name. However, even after reading Google's adult content policy and watching the accompanying video on it, there still seems to be some grey areas.

For example, I could find nothing in Google's policy about vintage ads and songs that may contain double meaning headlines, imagery, and lyrics that one could take to be sexually suggestive. A lot of blues songs from the '20s and '30s, for example, fall into this category. And yet, if a child were to hear them they probably wouldn't get the meaning. ("Sam the Hot Dog Man", for all intent and purposes, is a song about a man selling hotdogs, after all.) I'm sure we've also all seen the old Chiquita advertisement where a little boy is feeding a banana to a little girl. Would I not be allowed to show this ad on Go Retro? It's kind of hard to prove there's anything sinister behind it for real; it's for Chiquita, after all!

What about clips from The Benny Hill Show? What about sitcoms that tackled controversial adult topics, such as the infamous abortion episode of Maude?

Tonight I deleted the album cover that Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass did with the woman strategically covered in whipped cream from an old post on the band. According to Google's adult content policies, even nudity that is strategically covered is a no-no. They already flagged me a year or two ago for the pantyhose post I did about 7 years ago. It was because one of the images I used showed a topless woman that was covering herself up by crossing her arms in front of her.

I get that Google wants its publishers to be squeaky clean for its advertisers. I have no problem with that. But I think some rules may be just a tad strict. The irony is any kid can go on Google of all places and within three seconds, instantly find images of nudity, pornography, and other adult content. The chances of someone finding anything even remotely close to that on Go Retro is pretty slim.

All this to say, if you go looking through Go Retro and can't find a post that the "you may also like" widget is recommending to you...well, this is the reason why. And I'm also in the process of scrubbing anything that might raise another red flag. I've written the contact person from the ad network and asked them questions about the gray areas. In the meantime, at least Facebook doesn't have these same policies...yet. So images that might get me into trouble here are OK for me to share there.

I think I'll start by digging up that old Chiquita ad...

An Ode to A Fallen Retail Giant: Kmart

"Attention, Kmart shoppers! This is your blue light special..." Although Kmart has tried on and off through the years to resurrect its blue light special (which apparently lives on digitally via its website) I bet it's been decades since you've heard those words announced in a Kmart store.

Heck, the last time I visited a Kmart was at least ten years ago, and I've never returned to one since. The store felt old, dirty, messy, and seemed dimly lit. The merchandise, aesthetics, and employees made Walmart look like a Sachs Fifth Avenue. And ever since Kmart purchased Sears, Roebuck and Co. in 2004 it's been nothing but downhill for the two retail giants. In fact, last month it was announced that 108 Kmart stores and 42 Sears locations across the country will be shutting down for good this year.