| Vintage Pulp | Oct 14 2012 |
When she says jump you ask how high.
Some call it cheesecake, glamour, or even smut, but we prefer to call it preserving the ephemera of history. For instance, this image by the renowned mid-century photographer Bruno Bernard, aka Bernard of Hollywood, did not exist on the internet a moment ago. And now it does. See how that works? So think of us as archivists, and yourselves as researchers. That probably won’t help if someone sees you looking at this image, but hey, it’s worth a try.
Of late, when reading the Goodtime Weekly quips, we’ve been imagining them delivered as part of a stand-up show—i.e., followed by uproarious laughter. That actually helps a bit. When we obey the two drink minimum that helps even more. Next we’re going to steal a few of these lines and try them out in the real world. After all, the true test of a quip is whether actual living and breathing, flesh and blood humans laugh at it. So we’re going to give some of these a trial run and get back to you. Stay tuned.
Oct 13: Mother Nature still blushes before disrobing.
Oct 14: “Sometimes a man pulls the wool over his wife’s eyes with the wrong yarn.”—Mitch Miller
Oct 15: “Have you heard of an elephant that went on a diet? Now he’s eating like a horse.”—Peggie Castle
Oct 16: “The ten best years of a woman’s life are between her 25th and 26th birthday.”—Jerry Lester
Oct 17: “Overheard at a restaurant: ‘She promised to love, honor, and obey. Now I’d settle for only one.’”—Irv Kupcinet
Oct 18: “Every husband knows the best time to wash the dishes is right after his wife tells him.”—Paul Gibson
Oct 19: “Husbands are like furnaces. You have to watch them or they’ll go out.”—Sam Cowling
Goodtime Weekly Calendar, Bernard of Hollywood, Bruno Bernard, Peggie Castle, Mitch Miller, Jerry Lester, Irv Kupcinet, Paul Gibson, Sam Cowling, nudity
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 1 2012 |
Above, the September 1 page from the Goodtime Weekly Calendar of 1963 with a photo by Ron Vogel of a petite model lounging in the garden in an unclothed state. She has two drinks because when you’re out in the hot sun you have to stay hydrated. Either that or she’s waiting for a friend. The observations this week include one from radio personality John Doremus, and another from Freddie Flintstone. We’re actually starting to think the Flintstone quotes are not actually from the television cartoon. We’ve seen the show, and we can’t imagine Fred making a quip that features the words “bonds” and “interest.” And besides, why refer to him as Freddie? He was always called Fred, as far as we know. Anyone with insight on this question, drop us a line.
Sep 1: Jaywalking: A bad habit that may give you that run-down feeling.
Sep 2: “Labor Day: When cops didn’t hide behind traffic signs, they took their chances like everyone else.”—Pat Sheridan
Sep 3: “A wolf is a guy who picks up your chick instead of your check.”—Sam Cowling
Sep 4: “A woman begins to realize her age when people comment on how young she looks.”—John Doremus
Sep 5: Ballet teacher: A guy who keeps the rest on their toes.
Sep 6: “The bonds of matrimony are not very strong unless the interest is kept up.”—Freddie Flintstone
Goodtime Weekly Calendar, Ron Vogel, Mitch Miller, Sam Cowling, John Doremus, The Flintstones, nudity
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 14 2012 |
Brigitte Bardot really knew how to steam up a camera.
This week’s Goodtime Weekly Calendar image comes from Brigitte Bardot’s 1961 comedy Le bride sur le cou. In the movie she performs a little dance, first while hiding behind a towel, and later undraped. Lots of reviews describe the scene as a nude dance, but it isn’t really. Bardot was famous for showing her lovely backside, but in Le bride her body is blurred because she faces the camera, and it’s obvious as well that she’s wearing something to cover what would have been a pretty sizeable ’60s bush. If you watch the scene, you’ll think you’ve suddenly developed cataracts. But shooting her through what looks like a thick layer of sauna steam makes sense within the film’s reality because the dance is basically the daydream of another character. Director Roger Vadim, who was also Bardot’s husband, created some sharp focus promo stills, and those are the source of the above image, with tinting and a nuclear explosion added by the good folks at her promotional agency Parimage. A couple of unaltered shots appear below, along with those weekly Goodtime quips we know you can’t live without. Oh, and to our French friends and readers, yes, we know that “bride” doesn’t mean the same in English. We’re just taking license because, hey, after four years of thinking up headers we’ll grasp at anything.
July 14: “Once you’ve seen a Brigitte Bardot movie you’ve seen her all!”—Henry Morgan
July 15: “Foreign pictures are getting so popular, they’re starting to make them in this country.”—Simmy Bow
July 16: Honey-dew vacation: Vacations you spent in hearing, “Honey, do this and Honey do that.”
July 17: “A learned man: One who used to keep his money in his sock till a midget picked his ankle.”—Mitch Miller
July 18: Henpecked husband: A man who gives his wife the best ears of his life.
July 19: Courtesy: Smiling while your departing guest holds the screen door open and lets the flies in.
July 20: Hangover: Something orbiting in the head you didn’t use the night before.
France, Goodtime Weekly Calendar, Brigitte Bardot, Mitch Miller, Simmy Bow, Henry Morgan, Roger Vadim, cinema
| Vintage Pulp | Mar 10 2012 |
The resurrection of Lazzaro.
So, last week we mentioned that we had found the best calendar of all time at the Denver Book Fair. Above is the first image we’re posting from it, a tinted shot of Sophia Loren’s famous nude scene in 1951’s Era lui... sì! sì!, in which she appeared as Sophia Lazzaro. By 1953 she had begun acting as Loren, leaving the Lazzaro screen name behind forever. Her nude scene was never a secret, exactly, but until the internet came along stills from Era lui appeared only in porn and scandal magazines—and, apparently, obscure calendars. So thank you world wide web for making formerly impossible-to-find nudity readily available via a mouseclick or two.
This calendar—The Goodtime Weekly Calendar of 1963, printed in the U.S. by Good Time Publishing—has a nude or pin-up image for every week of the year, and in addition, a joke, quote, or pithy saying for every day of each week. The sayings are illegibly small on our posted image, so we’ve transcribed them below. But don’t thank us until you read them. While a couple are mildly amusing, most aren’t, and one is simply incomprehensible (March 14). We hope they improve as the year continues, but if they don’t, think of them anthropologically—i.e., try to value them as artifacts of an older culture that we're going to study for whatever insights we can glean. And if that doesn’t interest you, well, you can just look at the pretty photos. We’ll post one calendar page per week, along with its text, until we run through all fifty-two.
March 10: “Sophia Loren has been awarded an Oscar for Two Women. By gosh, she certainly is.”—Bob Hope.
March 11: Figures don’t lie; that’s why an honest man believes in good sizes.
March 12: “A gossip always gives you the benefit of the dirty.”—Sam Cowling.
March 13: Anybody who still says the sky’s the limit is way behind the times.
March 14: “Tips from outer space: Tired of chimps and dogs and men—try us with a woman.”—He-who Who-he
March 15: “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.—Henry Cooke.
March 16: “Beauty contests didn’t start in Atlantic City or any other city; they began when the second woman arrived on Earth.”—Mitch Miller.
Era lui... sì! sì!, Goodtime Weekly Calendar, Sophia Loren, Sophia Lazzaro, Bob Hope, Mitch Miller, Henry Cooke, Sam Cowling, cinema, nudity
