Five Things – 2.4.13

1.  Super Simon – The last time I shared a Simon commercial, we saw how they positioned it as the must-have device for dominance on the playground.  In 1978, Milton Bradley came out with Super Simon, a device that looks like it was ripped right off of Carl Sagan’s ship in Cosmos. 

 

 

Super Simon also graduated from the playground to the cocktail party, and it brought its little brother along too.

 

 

First of all, can you imagine a party with two Simon machines going at the same time? Conversation would be pretty much impossible. Also, that kid looks like he just closed a big business deal at the end. He may have! Super Simon could become the key to dominance on Wall Street.

2.  Russia in Color – Boston.com’s got a spread of pictures from 1909-1912 Russia.  The photographer used a special camera to create color images, and the results are pretty astounding.  Here are a couple of my favorites:

 

 

3.  Road Runner View Master – Another great set of View Master slides, this one features Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner in a claymation form.

 

 

4.  Engineer Ward – In Disney’s 1941 film Dumbo, a character named Engineer Ward drove the train that Dumbo and his mother lived on.

 

 

Engineer Ward was a nod to Ward Kimball, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men, a group of his core animators. Kimball created many iconic Disney characters, including the Crows from Dumbo and Jiminy Cricket from Pinnochio.  Engineer Ward was cut from the final version of Dumbo, but his image stayed on some of the materials for the film.  Speaking of, here’s a gorgeous ad for motor oil featuring the Dumbo gang:

 

 

 

5.  Everything’s Archie – Archie’s presence in the 1970s included this cartoon. There are other Archie cartoons, but I like this style the best – it’s true to the art of the comics and is just a corny sort of groovy enough to be Archie.

 

-ds