The late animation genius, Art Clokey, the creator of Gumby, describes his experiences in the sixties when he was given LSD by his psychiatrist. From the Emmy award-winning documentary, Gumby Dharma.
 

Via Planet Paul

 
Women in search of crop circles in Wiltshire, England make an amazing discovery, a rare find, a crop circle!  This results in a collective spiritual epiphany. The video was broadcast on Norwegian television as documented evidence of the existence of crop circles. The film makers had no idea that the ‘crop circle’ was created by Quite Interesting Ltd. as part of a promotional campaign for a BBC TV show called ‘Q.I.’. The poor gullible ladies in the video must have been deeply disappointed to discover their magical find was, in actuality, an advertisement.

“I feel a pain in my head.”

 
These ads for the Utah State Fair were pulled from television this past week and the actor who stars in them, Markus T. Boddie, wonders if it might not be racially motivated. Utah State Fair Board members claim the ads “weren’t right” and found them offensive. I think they’re hilarious. They were directed by Jared Hess who helmed the equally quirky Napoleon Dynamite.

Boddie’s performance in the commercials is the stuff of superstardom. Boddie says he was channeling his inner “Barry White.”

“The spirit that we were trying to go for was the old ‘70s singers,” Boddie said. “They were ultrasmooth, ultracool and they could say anything and make it sound good.”

Director Hess expressed concern that the ads were pulled because Boddie is Black.

The ads have been replaced with a little white girl grooming a cow.

If the Utah State Fair is even half as fun as these ads, I’d consider going. Big mistake for pulling them.
 

 
Credit where credit is due: Our man in the Whitehouse throws down the undeniable truth about mosques and Muslims.

‎“We don’t differentiate between them and us. It’s just us.”
 
via Glenn Greenwald’s Twitter feed

 
Fascinating think piece about advertising in the 1960s (and a little beyond) from Century of the Self documentarian Adam Curtis that sheds some interesting light on the actual historical Madison Avenue figures that certain characters from Mad Men seem to be based on.

For instance, although the deeply complex and anxious Don Draper character was obviously invented, there were certainly men in advertising during the era whose accomplishments and attitudes towards their craft might be seen to have an influence on how Draper is drawn, to wit, Rosser Reeves, legendary chairmen of the Ted Bates agency and pioneer of television advertising.

In his book, Reality in Advertising, Reeves delineated the concept of the USP or unique selling point. The idea was to condense the products’ benefits into as direct a statement as possible and then carpet-bomb the population with the advertising campaign so that this message penetrated the mass consciousness

Reeves’ favourite slogan was the one that he—and Don Draper—came up with for Lucky Strike: “It’s Toasted.”

If you are a fan of the series, Curtis’s essay is a must read:

Other than Herta Herzog there were few women in high positions in Madison Avenue. But then Shirley Polykoff rose up because she invented the phrase for Miss Clairol hair colour bath - “Does She, or Doesn’t She?”

Polykoff is the model for Peggy Olsen in Mad Men. She was a junior copywriter at Foote Cone and Belding and she was convinced that women should be allowed to be what they wanted to be - and she expressed that through a series of adverts for Clairol.

Clairol’s products allowed women to colour their hair themselves at home for the first time. But there was widespread social disapproval - only “chorus girls” coloured their hair. Polykoff broke that. For Nice ‘n Easy, Clairol’s combined shampoo and colour she wrote - “The closer he gets, the better you look”.

And then for Lady Clairol - which allowed you to become a platinum blonde for the first time - Polykoff wrote one of the greatest slogans ever:

“If I’ve only one life, let me live it as a blonde”

This campaign was running when Betty Friedan was just finishing The Feminine Mystique. She was so “bewitched” by the slogan, and its message, that she went out and bought some Lady Clairol and bleached her hair.

Madison Avenue (Adam Curtis Blog)
 

 
Thank you, Michael Backes of Los Angeles, California!

 
Ad agency Ogilvy and Mather created this campaign to promote Iodex backache balm. Dwarfs wearing t-shirts with a Iodex bottle image and the line “Need help to get to the lower shelf?” assisted shoppers who had problems bending over to grab merchandise.

Ogilvy and Mather’s press release:

To create awareness that Iodex is a backache specialist balm in a memorable way, we launched a supermarket on-ground promotion/activation with the help of Little People (dwarfs), who wore T-shirts and distributed leaflets informing customers to ask for help if they found it difficult to bend down and reach for items on the lower shelves. Shoppers suffering from backache welcomed the assistance offered by the Iodex team.

Via copyranter

 
After Sunday’s episode of Mad Men, where character Don Draper was seen crying, a new meme has popped up, almost instantaneously on the Internet: witness Sad Don Draper.

(via The High Definite)

 
Two years after the Summer Of Love, Andy Williams drops acid and organizes a be-in on his network TV show.

I experienced the things that most people did when taking psychedelic drugs – the intensely heightened senses, the beauty of colours and sounds, the contrasting phases of feeling. One moment, I would feel like I was a lord of the cosmos, the next I would be focused on a microscopic detail – a coloured thread fluttering in the breeze, or specks of dust hanging in the air.”

In this clip from Andy’s NBC variety series, which aired in March of 1969, Donovan and his parade of flower children create some Aquarian vibes and the audience is swept along on a contact high.

40 years later, Andy’s warm relationship with Rush Limbaugh and comments about Obama suggest he might be be due for another consciousness raising session.

“Obama is following Marxist theory. He’s taken over the banks and the car industry. He wants the country to fail.”

Andy, we love you. Come back. Grooviness awaits.
 

 
Compendium of often amusing Doctor Who bloopers snipped from Great TV Mistakes. Narrated by Robert Webb of Peep Show fame.
 

 
Via Blogtor Who

 
Not what you think it’s going to be. Turn it up!  Many thanks to The Worst Channel on YouTube.