The Mystery Photo

I found this photo the other day.

It was in an envelope from WLW.

The envelope was addressed to my mother, and although there is no date on the photo or envelope I believe it was mailed in the early 1950's.

There is a woman on the left side of the photo holding a microphone that reads "50 Club."

I believe I have identified the woman. She is Ruth Lyons, and she hosted a show called "50 Club" (which later became the "50/50 Club") on WLW. The show was named for number of people in the studio audience each day.

Why my mother had this photo mailed to her is a mystery. My mother never lived in Cincinnati, and therefore I believe didn't listen to the "50 Club" (unless the show was broadcast in Detroit too). The best reason I can think of why my mother had this photo mailed is she might have personally known someone on the stage.

Whatever the reason, the photo has good deal of retro charm. People back in the day dressed so well, and seem to have so much more personality than folks today.

Like this guy who I call "Mr. Pinky" (hopefully you'll get the movie reference). I think he must be a broadcaster too.

Then there's this very smart looking woman. She's so glamorous, and must be a local celebrity of some kind.


These boys are amusing too. Each one is such a distinct character, and could have stared in their own 50's sitcom. From left to right you got the socially inept Brainiac, the precocious and popular Rich Kid, the Comedy Relief , and inquisitive and mischievous Junior.

Well if anyone reading this would like add their own 2 cents, or know the people in this photograph please leave a comment.

3D Finale

OK people it's time to wrap up this month long trip in the third dimension with a final 3D glasses blow out.

These very patriotic looking 3D glasses are probably my oldest pair, and they're from a local TV broadcast of Gorilla at Large in the early 80's...


And just because I love to post YouTube videos here is the trailer for Gorilla at Large.



Here are the 3D glasses for the Super Bowl XXIII halftime show "Be Bop Bamboozled" featuring Elvis Presto. I do remember being pretty excited to watch this show, and yes, I do remember being pretty disappointed after it was all over.


Next are the 3D glasses for Yo Yogi which is probably the last Saturday morning cartoon to run on NBC. The show featured a young and "hipper" version of Yogi Bear, and 3D segments you could watch with glasses you got from specially marked packages of Kellogg's Rice Krispies.

This is the very important card that was packaged with the Yo Yogi glasses:

Damn grown-ups have to take the fun out of everything.



I noticed I have a lot of ChromaDepth glasses.

Here are a pair for the VH1 show I Love the 80's 3D...


And here are a pair for the N64 game system...


Heck, they could even be found in some magazines...


But you must heed the warning (damn grown-ups):

Now surely you must own a pair of ChromaDepth glasses too. So please enjoy this following music video in the magical experience that is ChromaDepth 3D.



Special thanks to Todd over at Neato Coolville for keeping me motivated all this month.

3D TV

Now for something slightly different... 3D glasses for television.

The big network have occasionally used the 3D gimmick during the season finales in May. I know that's pretty obvious, but that's about all I can tell you.

Here's a pair for Fox-O-Rama, and according to the glasses not only were some FOX shows in 3D but also Aroma-Vision. Anyone reading this know anything about the FOX Aroma-Vision?

Also there's printing on the back of these glasses advertising Married... With Children and Revenge of the Nerds IV.

American Broadcasting Company, better known as ABC, has 3D glasses sponsored by Wendy's New Fresh Stuffed Pitas.


Lastly but not leastly, the National Broadcasting Company and Barq's brings you a very special 3D episode of 3rd Rock From The Sun

More 3D Glasses

Here's the 3D glasses for Spy Kids 3D: Game Over. It was odd to use the red & blue 3D style of glasses for a 2003 movie, but I guess the RealD 3D system wasn't ready yet. The upside was they didn't charge you $2 for the glasses.

Speaking of charging for a pair of 3D glasses, here's a free pair generic cardboard polarized 3D glasses from the 1980's. I wonder if they would work as well as the newfangled plastic glasses they ask $2 for?


And finally, I found another pair of Hondo 3D glasses, but this time with awesome American Indian graphics.

Comin' At Ya! 3D glasses

Continuing my series on 3D glasses here are the glasses for Comin' At Ya! which was a cheap spaghetti western from 1981 that kicked off a brief 3D movie fad...

Yeah I know, those glasses are not very impressive.

A pair of 3D glasses for a television broadcast of Hondo have much better graphics...


Now that's how you design a proper pair of 3D glasses for a western movie. Simulated wood grain, shotguns on the side, the star's image smack dab in the middle, and all in full-color.

Now here's something fun. If you happen to have a pair of red & blue 3D glasses (like the Hondo glasses above) you can watch the opening credits to Comin' At Ya! in 3D through the magic of YouTube. The effect is acually not too bad. Don't get me wrong, it's not great, but it's not too bad.

See in the Thrid Demention

In at the last minute, and continuing my current excruciatingly exhausting schedule of one post per month I present to you Friday the 13 Part III 3D glasses...



More and more movies today are being presented in that newfangled digital 3D, but I don't need to tell you that 3D movies are nothing new. Over the years and without really trying too hard, I've managed to amass a fairly large collection of 3D glasses. Hopefully, if I don't start slacking (I make no promises) , I'll post more of my collection throughout the summer - maybe even once a week!

The 3D glasses above were not the glasses used for the 1982 film. These are the glasses for the souvenir 3D poster. The graphics on theses glasses are gory fun, and show Jason doing his thing.

Twinkling Eyes

Personal virtual acquaintance and quite possibly the politest blogger around, Kirk, over at Secret Fun Blog spent the month of April posting a different cheapo practical joke novelty thingy each day. Kirk is a novelty collector with an encyclopedic knowledge of such things - in fact he wrote a book about it. Well Kirk's posts inspired me to take a look at what novelties I may have stashed away.

I still have a handful novelties I collected over my misspent youth, but only one miraculously still had the box it came in. So please enjoy the retro graphic goodness of the Twinkling Eyes...

Front

Top

Bottom

Side

Back

There's something extra strange about the pair of Twinkling Eyes I own. The lenticular eyes in my pair are in backwards. Check it out again...

And now compare it to the only other picture of Twinkling Eyes I can find on the Internet...

You see the eyes are backwards. I had noticed this years ago, but since I didn't have any other Twinkling Eyes to compare it too I thought the eyes were intentionally backwards for extra goofiness.

Like that super valuable stamp of the upside-down airplane, I wonder if my Twinkling Eyes glasses would sell for a bundle at auction.

If you owned this stamp you'd be rich.

Maybe I need to talk to Kirk about some sort of appraisal.