Before Mad Men: Familiar and Forgotten Ads from 1950s to 1980s Now Online

in Business, History, Media, Television | July 12th, 2012

Before com­ing up with the slo­gan “Utz Are Bet­ter Than Nuts!” for the real-world Utz pota­to chip com­pa­ny on Mad Men, Don Drap­er and his crew had to study the com­pe­ti­tion, like this ad for Beech Nut or this one with Andy Grif­fith for Gen­er­al Foods.

Today we’re sat­u­rat­ed with ads, more than the ad men that inspired Draper’s char­ac­ter could have ever imag­ined. They’re everywhere—on the dark inte­ri­ors of tun­nels as we speed along in light rail trains, in the games we let our kids play on smart phones—and they reveal a lot to us about our­selves.

Duke University’s John W. Hart­man Cen­ter for Sales, Adver­tis­ing & Mar­ket­ing His­to­ry put togeth­er Adviews, a col­lec­tion that brings togeth­er thou­sands of his­toric com­mer­cials from the 1950s to 1980s. Col­lect­ed or cre­at­ed by the D’Arcy Masius Ben­ton & Bowles adver­tis­ing agency, the dig­i­tal col­lec­tion is avail­able online and on iTune­sU as a free archive. It’s also found at the Inter­net Archive, where ads can be down­loaded as MP4 videos.

Watch Ster­ling Cooper’s (fic­tion­al) ad for Utz pota­to chips and then com­pare it to this goofy com­mer­cial for Dad­dy Crisp chips above.

Vis­it the amaz­ing world of con­ve­nience foods that made house­wives cheer and mir­a­cle fibers that made clean-up a snap.

We may have grown more savvy and sus­pi­cious of prod­ucts that promise bet­ter health and effi­cien­cy, but if any­thing we’re more fas­ci­nat­ed by adver­tis­ing than ever. Since launch­ing the archive in 2009, the com­mer­cials have logged 2.5 mil­lion down­loads.

And for y’all who miss Andy Grif­fith, there’s a wealth of great stuff.

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Cinecitta Luce and Google to Bring Italy’s Largest Film Archive to YouTube

in Film, History | July 12th, 2012

Italy’s Cinecit­ta Luce pos­sess­es more than 100,000 films dat­ing back to 1927. Any­one with an inter­est in Ital­ian cul­ture, his­to­ry, or cin­e­ma will sure­ly want to take a look at them, and now, thanks to a part­ner­ship between Cinecit­ta Luce and Google, they can. As those 100,000 films under­go dig­i­ti­za­tion, they’ll make their way to Cinecit­ta Luce’s offi­cial Youtube chan­nel, which offers, to rough­ly trans­late the Ital­ian on the page, “sev­en­ty years of Ital­ian his­to­ry and social life from the twen­ties to the nineties,” the “price­less pat­ri­mo­ny of our visu­al mem­o­ry.” So far, the chan­nel has bro­ken the films into sev­en cat­e­gories: art, sci­ence and lit­er­a­ture; the Sec­ond World War; movie stars and the cat­walk; pro­tag­o­nists of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry; the “dust archive” (which seems mis­cel­la­neous); mate­r­i­al relat­ed to Cinecit­ta Luce’s cur­rent film fes­ti­vals; and la dolce vita (a phrase, I would argue, bet­ter pre­sent­ed in the orig­i­nal).

At the top of this post, you’ll find a two-and-a-half-minute sequence show­cas­ing the kind of his­to­ry in motion to be found in Cinecit­ta Luce’s archive: musi­cal per­for­mances, beau­ty pageants, culi­nary fes­ti­vals, sport­ing events, movie pre­mieres, impor­tant moments in pol­i­tics and indus­try, and — for what­ev­er rea­son — all sorts of march­es. Just above this para­graph, we’ve embed­ded some news­reel footage of Fed­eri­co Felli­ni fresh off his Best For­eign-Lan­guage Film Acad­e­my Award win for 8½. But the hours of mate­r­i­al now on Cinecit­ta Luce’s Youtube chan­nel rep­re­sent only the tip of the ice­berg. We hard­ly need tell Italophiles that they’ll want to con­sid­er sub­scrib­ing, so as not to miss more from an archive the Hol­ly­wood Reporter describes as “rich in videos from the Vat­i­can, the 1960 Olymics in Rome, and sceners from gen­er­a­tions of every-day life in Rome.” And giv­en that Ben­i­to Mus­soli­ni orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed the Cinecit­ta film stu­dios and the Luce archives as engines of pro­pa­gan­da, they still retain the world’s largest col­lec­tion of Mus­soli­ni-relat­ed film. Schol­ars of dic­ta­tor­ships, take spe­cial note!

Relat­ed con­tent:

Mus­soli­ni Sends a Hap­py Mes­sage to Amer­i­ca, Helps Change Cin­e­ma His­to­ry (1927)

Fellini’s Fan­tas­tic TV Com­mer­cials

Learn Ital­ian for Free

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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40 Years Ago Today: Chess Rivals Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky Meet in the ‘Match of the Century’

in History | July 11th, 2012

They called it the “Match of the Cen­tu­ry.” The eccen­tric Amer­i­can chess mas­ter Bob­by Fis­ch­er and the reign­ing world cham­pi­on Boris Spassky of the Sovi­et Union faced off against one anoth­er 40 years ago today in Reyk­javik, Ice­land. As the world looked on, the Cold War strug­gle between two super­pow­ers was played out in proxy, on a chess board.

The tense atmos­phere and enor­mous fan­fare sur­round­ing the event are cap­tured in this excerpt from the 2006 GSN doc­u­men­tary Any­thing to Win: The Mad Genius of Bob­by Fis­ch­er. Spassky won the first game, on July 11, 1972, when Fis­ch­er made a sur­pris­ing blun­der. Game two went to Spassky when Fis­ch­er refused to play because the tele­vi­sion cam­eras were both­er­ing him. Before the start of game three, Fis­ch­er went around the room inspect­ing TV equip­ment for sources of noise. The entire sequence of events was per­haps an elab­o­rate game of psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare. When Fis­ch­er final­ly sat down to play, Spassky’s equa­nim­i­ty was shat­tered: The third game went to Fis­ch­er, and the tide had turned. When the match final­ly con­clud­ed on Sep­tem­ber 1, the score was Fis­ch­er 12½, Spassky 8½. To learn more about the match, and Fis­cher’s extra­or­di­nary life, you can watch the entire one-hour GSN doc­u­men­tary here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Famous Chess Match from 1910 Reen­act­ed with Clay­ma­tion

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James Baldwin Bests William F. Buckley in 1965 Debate at Cambridge University

in History, Life, Literature | July 10th, 2012

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Author of the nov­el Giovanni’s Room and the non­fic­tion col­lec­tion “Notes of a Native Son,” James Bald­win was also a scathing social crit­ic, a wit­ty yet for­mi­da­ble media per­son­al­i­ty, and a lit­er­ary ambas­sador for civ­il rights. And, as an out­spo­ken gay man, he decried dis­crim­i­na­tion against gays and les­bians. In 1965, he accept­ed an invi­ta­tion by Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty to debate the “father of Amer­i­can con­ser­vatism” William F. Buck­ley on the sub­ject, “The Amer­i­can Dream is at the Expense of the Amer­i­can Negro.” In the video above, Bald­win (intro­duced as the “star of the evening”) deliv­ers his stir­ring open­ing remarks, set­ting the tone he main­tains through­out and pulling his near­ly all-white audi­ence to the edge of their seats.

Buck­ley, found­ing edi­tor of the con­ser­v­a­tive jour­nal Nation­al Review, had come out four years ear­li­er against deseg­re­ga­tion and Civ­il Rights leg­is­la­tion and was in the midst of his ulti­mate­ly failed 1965 New York City may­oral cam­paign. He was always will­ing to engage with his ide­o­log­i­cal adver­saries (see him debate Noam Chom­sky in 1969 on his long-run­ning tele­vi­sion pro­gram, Fir­ing Line), but remained a staunch oppo­nent of lib­er­al­ism. In this clip from the debate, Buck­ley responds to many of Bald­win’s asser­tions:

Bald­win had just fin­ished his nov­el Anoth­er Coun­try when this debate took place. He was 41, Buck­ley 40. While both are well-known for the rhetor­i­cal savvy on dis­play here, in this case at least, Bald­win proved the more per­sua­sive voice. After the debate, the Cam­bridge Union Soci­ety took a vote and decid­ed the issue in his favor, 540–160.

You can (and should) view the full debate above.

Josh Jones is cur­rent­ly a doc­tor­al stu­dent in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

375+ Episodes of William F. Buckley’s Fir­ing Line Now Online: Fea­tures Talks with Chom­sky, Borges, Ker­ouac, Gins­berg & More

James Bald­win Debates Mal­colm X (1963) and William F. Buck­ley (1965): Vin­tage Video & Audio

Great Cul­tur­al Icons Talk Civ­il Rights: James Bald­win, Mar­lon Bran­do, Har­ry Bela­fonte & Sid­ney Poiti­er (1963)

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Drunk History: An Intoxicated Look at the Famous Alexander Hamilton — Aaron Burr Duel

in Comedy, History | July 9th, 2012

Improv com­e­dy troop Upright Cit­i­zens Brigade, who recy­cled U.S. his­to­ry in code duel­lo, an impro­vised enact­ment of the Alexan­der Hamil­ton-Aaron Burr duel, have cre­at­ed “Drunk His­to­ry,” which takes the cringe-wor­thy premise of the man-on-the-street pop quiz and adds some addi­tion­al elements—binge drink­ing and goofy his­tor­i­cal re-enact­ments with actors like Michael Cera (Super­bad, Arrest­ed Devel­op­ment, etc.). In this first episode of “Drunk His­to­ry,” Mark Gagliar­di, after drink­ing a bot­tle of scotch, nar­rates the sto­ry of the Hamil­ton-Burr duel, and Cera, in a ridicu­lous pow­dered wig and a pair of Vans, mimes the part of Hamil­ton. Gagliardi’s slurred nar­ra­tion and anachro­nis­tic touch­es like Cera/Hamilton on a cell phone ratch­et up the absur­di­ty.

The real sto­ry of the duel on July 11, 1804 involves some com­pli­ca­tions of elec­toral pol­i­tics and ide­o­log­i­cal con­flicts between the Fed­er­al­ist for­mer Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Hamil­ton and the anti-Fed­er­al­ist Vice-Pres­i­dent Burr. A long-stand­ing per­son­al feud between the two men was prob­a­bly exac­er­bat­ed by class con­flict: Hamil­ton had hum­ble ori­gins as a poor immi­grant from the Caribbean and Burr was son of a pres­i­dent of the future Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty and grand­son of Puri­tan divine Jonathan Edwards. Although duel­ing was ille­gal at the time, the aris­to­crat­ic prac­tice con­tin­ued to set­tle dis­putes between gen­tle­men, and both Hamil­ton and Burr had been involved in sev­er­al pri­or duels. Nev­er­the­less, Hamil­ton was reluc­tant to meet Burr’s chal­lenge and is said to have delib­er­ate­ly missed his first shot (and in some dis­put­ed accounts, his pis­tol was loaded when he fell to the ground).

The Hamil­ton-Burr duel is one of the most inter­per­son­al­ly dra­mat­ic events in Amer­i­can history—easy fod­der for comedic treat­ment like “Drunk His­to­ry” and code duel­lo and high­ly seri­ous accounts like the PBS series Amer­i­can Expe­ri­ence’s “The Duel.” But what some­times gets obscured behind the dra­ma are the polit­i­cal con­flicts over Fed­er­al­ist posi­tions, con­flicts that have nev­er quite been resolved and form the basis for our most heat­ed nation­al debates, includ­ing the still-rag­ing pol­i­tics, even after the Supreme Court’s rul­ing, of the Afford­able Care Act.

In the video below, his­to­ri­an Car­ol Berkin explains the often con­fus­ing debate between what came to be called, erro­neous­ly, Fed­er­al­ism and those who opposed the doc­trine.

Josh Jones is cur­rent­ly a doc­tor­al stu­dent in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

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Isaac Asimov: “I Am Crazy, Absolutely Nuts, About our National Anthem” (1991)

in History, Music | July 4th, 2012

The Star-Span­gled Ban­ner became the nation­al anthem of the Unit­ed States in 1931, thanks to Her­bert Hoover. And, ever since, the anthem has had its detrac­tors. The Kennedy Cen­ter acknowl­edges on its web­site:

Some Amer­i­cans com­plain that it cel­e­brates war and should be reserved for mil­i­tary cer­e­monies. Oth­ers sim­ply grum­ble that it is too hard to sing with a range that is out of reach for the aver­age vocal­ist [any­one remem­ber Carl Lewis giv­ing it a try?]. Sug­gest­ed replace­ments have includ­ed “Amer­i­ca the Beau­ti­ful,” “God Bless Amer­i­ca,” and “This Land is Your Land.”

And don’t for­get that singers, ama­teur and pro­fes­sion­als alike, often have dif­fi­cul­ty remem­ber­ing the com­pli­cat­ed lyrics. Yes, The Star-Span­gled Ban­ner has its crit­ics. But the great Isaac Asi­mov wasn’t one of them. In 1991, Asi­mov wrote a short piece called “All Four Stan­zas” that staked out his posi­tion from the very start. It began:

I have a weakness–I am crazy, absolute­ly nuts, about our nation­al anthem.

The words are dif­fi­cult and the tune is almost impos­si­ble, but fre­quent­ly when I’m tak­ing a show­er I sing it with as much pow­er and emo­tion as I can. It shakes me up every time.

I was once asked to speak at a lun­cheon. Tak­ing my life in my hands, I announced I was going to sing our nation­al anthem–all four stan­zas.

This was greet­ed with loud groans. One man closed the door to the kitchen, where the noise of dish­es and cut­lery was loud and dis­tract­ing. “Thanks, Herb,” I said.

“That’s all right,” he said. “It was at the request of the kitchen staff.”

I explained the back­ground of the anthem and then sang all four stan­zas.

Let me tell you, those peo­ple had nev­er heard it before–or had nev­er real­ly lis­tened. I got a stand­ing ova­tion. But it was not me; it was the anthem….

So now let me tell you how it came to be writ­ten.

And, with that, he takes you back to The War of 1812, which start­ed 200 years ago. It’s large­ly a for­got­ten war. But it did leave us with our most endur­ing song.  Per­haps you’ll find your­self singing it in the show­er today too.

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Andy Griffith (1926–2012) Gives a Lesson on the American Revolution

in History, Television | July 4th, 2012

As we roll into the 4th of July hol­i­day, let’s take a nos­tal­gic look back at Andy Grif­fith as he tells the sto­ry of the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion on his clas­sic 1960s TV pro­gram, “The Andy Grif­fith Show.” Grif­fith died Tues­day at the age of 86. In the eight years “The Andy Grif­fith Show” was broadcast–from 1960 to 1968–Griffith was a humane and ratio­nal pres­ence in Amer­i­can homes. His char­ac­ter, Sher­iff Andy Tay­lor, was sur­round­ed by eccentrics yet always man­aged to keep things in per­spec­tive, embody­ing what the show’s pro­duc­er, Aaron Ruben, once described as “this Lin­col­nesque char­ac­ter.” It’s a fit­ting phrase, and a good way to remem­ber Grif­fith as we enjoy the hol­i­day.

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Amelia Earhart: In Her Own Words

in History | July 2nd, 2012

It was 75 years ago today that Amelia Earhart van­ished. The famous Amer­i­can fli­er and her nav­i­ga­tor, Fred Noo­nan, took off on July 2, 1937 from Lae, Papua New Guinea in a cus­tom-made Lock­heed Elec­tra 10E air­plane on the most per­ilous leg of their attempt­ed round-the-world jour­ney.

Their goal was to reach tiny How­land Island in the cen­tral Pacif­ic Ocean, more than 2,500 miles from Lae. As Earhart and Noo­nan neared the end of their 20-hour flight (it was still July 2–they had crossed the Inter­na­tion­al Date­line) they planned to make con­tact with the U.S. Coast Guard cut­ter Itas­ca, sta­tioned just off the island, and use radio sig­nals to guide their way in. How­land Island is only a half mile wide and a mile and a half long. The com­mu­ni­ca­tions crew of the Itas­ca heard sev­er­al radio trans­mis­sions from Earhart, but for some rea­son she and Noo­nan were appar­ent­ly unable to hear the ship’s respons­es. “We must be on you,” Earhart said, “but we can­not see you. Fuel is run­ning low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are fly­ing at 1,000 feet.” They nev­er made it.

The pre­vail­ing assump­tion is that Earhart and Noo­nan sim­ply ran out of fuel and crashed into the Pacif­ic. But there is some evi­dence to sug­gest they may have made it to Gard­ner Island (now called Niku­maro­ro), some 350 nau­ti­cal miles south­east of How­land. Tomor­row an expe­di­tion to Niku­maro­ro will set out from Hawaii on a mis­sion to explore the ocean floor around the small island, search­ing for evi­dence of Earhart’s plane. Expe­di­tion orga­niz­ers hope to final­ly solve the mys­tery. In the mean­time you can learn more about Earhart’s extra­or­di­nary achieve­ments, includ­ing her tri­umphant 1932 solo trans-Atlantic flight, by lis­ten­ing to Earhart her­self (above) in a fas­ci­nat­ing news­reel. And below you can watch the very last footage of Earhart, made as she and Noo­nan took off from Papua New Guinea on that fate­ful day exact­ly 75 years ago.

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