Louie the Fly

Louie the Fly

Louie da fly, I'm Louie da fly

Straight from rubbish tip to you...

Spreading disease with the greatest of ease
Straight from rubbish tip to you
I'm bad and mean and mighty unclean

 Mortein's 1962  Louie the fly ad campaign was one of the most successful ever launched in Australia. Louie was a tough talking, street-wise insect, who never seriously underestimated the chemical power of a good fly spray. The animation was created by British born cartoonist Geoffrey Morgan Pike and originally voiced by Neil Williams in a campaign  put together by creative director Bryce Courtenay, who went on to become a highly successful novelist.

Afraid of no-one, 'cept the man with da can of Mortein...  
Hate that word Mortein...brrrr...jeeeeeeee

According  to legend, Courtenay scribbled out the ad concept in 1957  while riding in a taxi on his way to meet the managing director of Mortein, Bill Graham. It proved to be a terrific concept and Morgan's drawings and music/lyrics of the jingle, written by James Joseph White,  helped to firmly embed Louie the Fly in the national consciousness.So successful was the Louie campaign  it's been retrieved in a new form  more than once - most recently in 3D animation.

Aeroplane Jelly

Mr. Sheen

Tab Cola

The Crew Cut

50s Actor & heart throb, Tab Hunter

The crew cut - which legend has it, was named after the Yale rowing teams of the late 1900s, became the standard cut in the US armed forces during WW2. Post-war, the  crew's popularity spread into the civilian population and in the 1950s it was the most common style for men.

Traditionally, a crew cut features short or medium length back and sides and  tapered hair on the top of the head, beginning shortest at the crown and getting gradually longer toward the front.Variations include an Ivy League cut which favors longer length all over and a buzz cut, which is shorter all over.

The flat-top crew, often associated with uncompromising military types, is yet another high maintenance variation, where the hair is designed to stand-up, forming a boxy square shape -frequent cutting is required to keep the square look.

In the 80s, Grace Jones gave the flat top new, cool meaning

In the 1960s, the crew cut became deeply uncool, as it was emblematic of the establishment. The mod look, cultivated by British bands required longer hair and the general breakaway from conservative short cuts became a symbol of the youth revolution. However, as fashion has a tendency to recycle itself, in more recent times, crew cuts became fashionable again in a retro kind of way.

The Crew Cuts...were a Canadian vocal group who had a hit in the 1950s with a cover version of Sh-boom,which was originally released by The Chords.
 

Vintage Picnic

1950s Twinco thermos set

Picnic blanket. Amazon

Picnic is an evocative word -  it conjures images of idyllic childhood days, tartan rugs, green grass, games, dappled sunlight and family togetherness...or perhaps romantic settings, chicken drumsticks and cool glasses of wine by gurgling brooks.

Picnics are probably the oldest form of feasting, dating back to the primitive past when we gorged on wild berries and miscellaneous small animals -only without the civilizing influence of accessories, such as a rug, basket, thermos, plates etc.  There is something fundamental about eating a meal outdoors, out in the fresh air, surrounded by the natural world. Sure beats a plastic burger in the food court at the shopping mall.

Nobleman's picnic. Le Livre de chasse de Gaston Phébus 1500s

In the Medieval era,  outdoors feasting was a common pastime for the wealthy. The earliest picnics were hunting feasts, which were enjoyed before the hunting sport began. Servants would set up tables outdoors, laden with hams, baked meats, fruits an pastries.

However the word 'picnic', as applied to outside eating, did not come into common usage until the late 1800s. Picnics became particularly popular in the post-war 20th century as more and more families acquired cars and could move around the countryside with relative ease.

                Retro tumblers, perfect for a vintage picnic. $45 at Urbanites

People still picnic of course but the time factor seems more of a barrier than before or is that just an illusion? Something we tell ourselves because it's easier to go shopping on a Saturday than pile people and supplies in the car and head out to the country. Yet picnics are a wonderful recreation - cheap, healthy and they always offer a change of scene. Viva La picnic!

The essential and classic picnic basket. From Optima

Ankle Strap Shoes

Ankle  straps, as the name suggests, are shoes that have single or multi straps around the ankles - as opposed to a sling back, which has a strap around the top of the heel.

Sam Edelman ankle strap shoes

Assuming one has reasonable ankles and not cankles!, as shoes go, its a very sexy, flattering look. Ankle straps first came on the scene in the 1920s at a time when designers were getting a lot more adventurous with shoe styles.

As skirts had got considerably shorter, shoes became a more prominent part of an outfit - a feature, rather than something which peeped out from the bottom of a long skirt.

However it was in the glamour decade of the 1940s that ankle strap shoes really hit their stride. During this decade many a Hollywood style queen strutted her slim ankles in high heels and ankle straps.

Since then a variety of shoe styles has come and gone but ankle straps remain an option - their ultra-feminine, distinctive look is always an eye catcher on a nicely turned ankle.

Dorothy Lamour in 1940s white ankle straps

1920s inspired cow wrinkle patent leather Nolita shoes. At Mimco

The Lunch Box

Lunch boxes galore. Image from wiki commons

Wags 'n Whiskers lunch box.1978. Wiki Commons

The humble lunch box, which really only emerged as a popular item in the 20th century, provides us with a pictorial history of pop culture. Lunch boxes were among the first functional items to be employed as 'marketing merchandise'. Each decade reflected its own particular lunchbox art and if something appeared on a lunch box -be it a character, toy, pop star or TV show, then it must have been reasonably significant within its own cultural context.

Although lunch boxes themselves had been around for a while, pictures on lunch boxes became particularly popular in the 1950s when lithographed images on metal (which had been used since the late1800s for the production of  tin toys) combined with the emerging  'youth market' of the 1950s and 60s and the aggressive marketing campaigns that accompanied it.

1935 Mickey Mouse lunch box. Smithsonian,

One of the very earliest licensed character pictorial metal lunch boxes was made in 1935 and depicted Mickey Mouse and friends on an oval tin with a pull out inside tray and a thin wire handle - designed by Geuder, Paeschke & Frey. As a collectible, the tin is now worth thousands. Since then of course, countless Disney characters have made their way onto children's lunchboxes.

From the 50s onwards, lunch boxes designed for school children were produced en masse, with anything from Nesquick and Hopalong Cassidy to Barbie or the Beatles imprinted on the top and they served the dual purpose of functionality and marketing. In more recent times, rust-free molded plastic and vinyl replaced metal as the lunch box of choice for manufacturers, though in 2002 consumer confidence  was shaken somewhat by revelations that some vinyl lunchboxes contained hazardous amounts of lead, compelling the industry to test lead levels before sale.

Classic early 20th century lunch box and thermos

21st century lunchboxes....

Chesty Bond

Bonds Underwear Icon

Chesty Bond

An icon of Australian manufacturing, the fictional Bond's advertising model, Chesty Bond, is a nostalgic testament to notions of mid 20th century machismo. With his tanned torso, rippling chest muscles, over-size chin, wavy blonde hair and confident, white-toothed smile, his image spelt out T-E-S-T-O-S-T-E-R-O-N-E...the not so sub-text reading 'real men wear bonds'.

Chesty bond was created by the Ad men in 1938 -chesty because singlets were Bond's thing and they needed a great torso to show off the wares. When Aussie men slipped on a Bond's singlet they could feel powerful by association. The original Chesty model was professional wrestler, Max Whitehead, who died in 2010 at 87.

Chesty's branded logo

Vulcanised rubber models, which are now collectible,  graced the underwear counter of major department stores. Vintage Chesty's are identifiable by a raised logo across the chest, which is absent from modern reproductions.

In 1940 a cartoon version of Chesty Bond (by Syd Miller) began to feature regularly in newspaper advertisements and for the next few decades as well. Australians became as familiar with the jaw jutting man in the singlet as they were with Waltzing Matilda.

Max Whitehead, the original Chesty

Disappointingly, in 2009, the underwear company (Pacific Brands) that was an Australian-made fixture for so long moved shop offshore, closing 7 manufacturing plants in the process. Ah well, as Ned would say...such is industry.

So chesty....Chesty Bond