Pop Culture In Retrograde: "Daddy" by Julie London

In girl singer terms, it's inevitable that Julie London was always going to be a whole lot more girl than singer; not that she's anything less than a peerless vocalist despite what she herself called 'a thimbleful of voice', just that she's a whole lot more va-va-va-voom, as this video almost - but not entirely - fails to show. Still, you should consider yourself lucky for the paltry baud rate of YouTube, as there's no telling what this performance in hi-def might do your sensitive components*...

As great as this performance is, though, the song leaves me feeling distinctly icky; even watched ironically, I can't help be reminded that this is what today's Republicans have the utter temerity to call 'the good old days', and even 'simpler times'; thank goodness progress is inevitable no matter what obstacles it meets is all I have to say about that. Then again, I've always considered myself a fourth-wave feminist for insisting that women should avail themselves of whatever power they can in whichever way they can, whether in the boardroom or the bedroom - whether as brain or beauty or both** - so what do I know, eh?

Born in September 1926, Julie London died on this day in 2000, following a career on untold turntables, in smoky bars and on silver screens, and even tricked out in wet dreamy nurse's whites on Emergency!, produced by her ex-husband Jack Webb, (TV's Joe Friday of Dragnet fame).

*So totally a euphemism.
**Or neither, for that matter, although how a dumb ugly broad is gonna be successful I couldn't begin to tell you - I can tell you it probably involves really good management. That or a well-known surname...
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Pop Culture In Retrograde: Cigarette Advertising

This post was first published on this day in 2008; I could have rewritten it to bring it up to date, but having just reread it I kind of like the flow of it so I didn't! ~ MSM

Every so often I run across something on YouTube so out of touch with our times I feel strangely compelled to post it; that's when the wheels start grinding, and usually by the time I figure out how to justify it, I've seen something shiny and moved on, or else otherwise lost my window of opportunity.

Well, since I've gone on my reduced doobage diet, those same wheels hardly ever grind. So while physically I could still lose a foot race on level ground to a whale, mentally I'm back to running circles around a cheetah. That's why, when looking for a video to replace last year's Nancy Kulp birthday tribute, I came across this bit of brain toxin; simultaneously appalled and delighted, I knew about three seconds in I just had to inspire the same reaction in my readers. Not content to merely post it, I had to also create a new feature to showcase it; entitled Pop Culture In Retrograde, I hope to use the new feature to discuss those things (such as bigotry, the Republican Party, and in this instance tobacco) rendered disgusting in the minds of thinking people by an increasing social sophistication.

Back in the day, as we see, tobacco producers were allowed to sell poison using the medium of television; everyone, it seems, was in on it - including the cast of The Beverly Hillbillies, at the time one of the most popular sitcoms on the air. Here we see Nancy Kulp as Miss Jane Hathaway inculcating in the brainless rube Jethro (Max Baer, Jr.) a filthy, disgusting habit with the permission of his TV father Jed Clampett (Buddy Ebsen), in much the same way Winston has done on a daily basis since the brand was introduced in 1954.

Nowadays, of course, people have come to their senses; next on the agenda, the elimination of alcohol, cars, and tyranny from everyday use...
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