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Aaaaaaaaayyyy!!!!! The Fonz in Bronze

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The city of Milwaukee is planning to erect a statue of iconic TV character Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli from Happy Days. The statue is expected to be unveiled by Labor Day of this year. The Fonz is just the latest in a series of classic television characters to be immortalized in the locations of where the fictional shows took place: Ralph Kramden in New York City, Mary Tyler Moore in Chicago, etc.

Happy Days...what a great show. Henry Winkler's character was a good TV role model. It's been said that when The Fonz got his library card on an episode of the show, there was a record spike in people applying for their own library cards. I would think that once the statue goes up, hundreds of visitors to Milwaukee won't be able to resist having their picture taken next to the fake Fonz with their thumbs up. Start practicing those "aaaaaaaays" now!
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Roll Up For the Magical Musical Tour

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Sure, Liverpool is famous for its Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour, but if you find yourself in Manchester, England during the next few months you may just want to check out the Magical Musical Tour, being sponsored by Urbis. The tours take place on January 26, February 9 & 23, and March 8 & 15. Here's a bit of what the Urbis site says about it:

"If you love to reminisce about being a teenager in the 60s, or wish you had been, then Urbis has a brand new tour for you!

Starting from Urbis at 10AM every other Saturday from 12th January, the 60s Magical Music Tour will take visitors out around the city to some of the key sites from Manchester's musical heyday. Discover where all the star acts such as The Hollies, The Who and Jimi hendrix played on the circuit.

Visit the spots where Manchster's Northern Soul crowd used to hang and find out how the Twisted Wheel kept its music Manchester's best loved secret!

If you still have 60s clothing in your wardrobe then why not get into the spirit of the era and come in costume! There'll even be a taster of the music discussed as the tour is accompanied by a soundtrack featuring some of the hits of the decade."


Sounds like fun. Too bad I'm 3,000 miles away and won't be in the UK until later in the year. The tour lasts for 2 hours and more information can be found here on the Urbis site.
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Oprah Wanted To Be The Charlie Girl

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Picture courtesy Harpo Productions, Inc. and Oprah.com.

Yesterday's Oprah Winfrey Show was chock-full of retro goodness, and the first trip down memory lane was a segment about the Revlon fragrence, Charlie. You remember the Charlie girl, don't you? The beautiful blonde with the white pantsuit, incredible looking car, and handsome boyfriend who greets her at a nice restaurant. Oprah confessed that she loved the commercial when it came out in 1973 and wanted to be the Charlie Girl. "I wanted to stride like her with confidence. I wanted to be this fabulous." Well, who wouldn't?

Oprah interviewed Shelley Hack, the model who appeared in the debut commercial (and who apparently hasn't aged.) Hack went from being the Charlie Girl to being a Charlie's Angel. Charlie the fragrance was launched in 1973 by Charlie Revlon and was meant to be a perfume indicative of the independent 70s career woman who breezes through her day into the evening. Charlie's classic scent - a mix of sandalwood and cut grass - is still found on drugstores' shelves today.

The rest of the show was pretty iconic, too. Called "What Makes America America", Oprah revealed when the hamburger was invented and showed off Dorothy's ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in The Wizard of Oz. You can read and watch segments of the show on the Oprah.com site.

And that Charlie ad? I still remember the melody. You can watch it by clicking once the video player below.

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Do You Remember These?

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Burma Shave signs, Howdy Doody, and petticoats. I'm too young to remember these, but too old not to appreciate them. I must admit viewing the Do You Remember These? site made me a bit sad. It's a time that is gone forever, and which we'll never see the likes of again. How many do you remember?
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Time Your 15 Minutes of Fame

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Be the next It Girl or It Guy with an official Andy Warhol watch. The colorful and fun timepieces, inspired by the late Warhol's iconic pop art creations, range in price from $35 to $300 and are manufactured by Seiko for the official Andy Warhol estate. You can purchase them online at www.15minutesof.com.

Shown: Candy Flowers which retails for $150.
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Remembering the Dream

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Image courtesy UTSA.edu site.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
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Got Rickets?

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When you were a kid growing up during the 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s, was your mom always telling you to drink your milk? Well, mom knew best. Because for the past few months I've been seeing online news reports that the once-defunct bone disease, rickets, is actually making a comeback in parts of the U.S. and the U.K. because kids are not drinking much milk nowadays. Seems the little, lazy unhealthy fatties much prefer drinking their soda and sports drinks and it's doing a number to their wee bones. Doctors claims to be seeing the disease make a comeback in alarming rates.

I just can't get over how stupid some people can be, especially when it comes to the health of their children. Rickets causes achy bones, swelling of the joints, and bowleggedness. Fortunately, the disease is curable - through proper diet and exercise. So, all you moms (and dads)...do your kids and yourselves a favor by going retro...drink milk! What a concept.
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Smurftastic! The Smurfs Turn 50

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A Smurf tries to woo Smurfette with a big piece of birthday cake. Photography copyright Nevit Dilmen via Wikipedia.

If you were a little girl growing up in the early 80s like me, you no doubt remember watching the cartoon show The Smurfs Adventures on Saturday morning TV and you likely owned several of the plastic figurines. I still have the "La, la, la la la la" theme song stuck in my head.

Up until now I thought the Smurfs were an 80s creation, but it turns out they actually celebrated their 50th birthday yesterday. They were the creation of the late cartoonist Pierre Culliford, also known as "Peyo", who introduced the blue elf-like mushroom dwellers in a comic strip in October 1958. To mark their 50 years of existence in the entertainment industry, organizers are planning a 3-D animation feature film expected to be released next year. Supposedly the new movie is going to include more female Smurf characters, so that Smurfett won't be lonely.

That's comforting to hear. I always thought Smurfette, being the only female Smurf in her village, was either very lucky or unlucky. I guess it depends on how smurfslutty she was.
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GoRetro's Retro Hottie of the Month: Elvis Presley!

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Happy Birthday to the King from a fellow Capricorn.
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Moonstruck: A Tale of Two Lunar Tunes

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“It’s la luna!”

That’s what Vincent Gardenia’s character cries out in the 1987 film “Moonstruck”, while taking his dogs for a walk on a moonlight-illuminating evening. Soon thereafter, Cher falls in love with Nicolas Cage in the movie.

Song composers have also never underestimated the power of the moon to seduce and bring lovers together. Witness the numerous “moon June” ditties that graced the music charts in the 20th century: Blue Moon, Moon River, and Mr. Moonlight come to mind, to name a few. And lately, I’ve been seduced by two vintage moon songs myself: Moonglow and Moonlight Serenade. Both were released during the same era and have haunting, heart breaking romantic melodies that feature prominent clarinets and have stood the test of time. But which is the better song?

Moonglow was written in 1934 by Will Hudson, Irving Mills and Eddie De Lange and originally recorded by the Dorsey Brothers (before their squabbling caused them to go their separate ways) but the most well-known rendition is by Benny Goodman, who recorded the song with his quartet in 1936. This version was most recently heard in the Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Aviator when DiCaprio, playing Howard Hughes, takes Cate Blanchett, as Katharine Hepburn, for a soaring evening airplane ride. But according to the website SpaceAge Pop, the song enjoyed a period of immense popularity in the mid-50s when it was featured in a William Holden movie called Picnic. It actually dissolves into the theme from Picnic, which resulted in those two songs being recorded together after the movie was released. It also features a dreamy sounding instrument that isn’t commonly heard anymore: the vibraphone.

Moonlight Serenade was composed by Glenn Miller in 1939 with lyrics by Mitchell Parish as an accompaniment to Sunrise Serenade. Miller originally wanted to call it “Now I Lay Me Down to Weep” (having a bad day, Glenny?) and indeed, the song is more somber in tone than romantic. It eventually became the trademark opener for the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Where Moonglow is punctuated by a single clarinet melody throughout the song, Moonlight Serenade is a perfect example of the classic “Miller sound” of layering saxophones over a clarinet section. And the lyrics, which are not commonly known since they are often not recorded with the song (two exceptions are Frank Sinatra’s and Carly Simon’s versions) are as every bit as lovely as the instrumentals:

I stand at your gate
And the song that I sing is of moonlight
I stand, and I wait
For the touch of your hand in the June night
The roses are sighing a moonlight serenade.

Moonlight Serenade’s presence in pop culture seems to have endured more than Moonglow. The song has cropped up in numerous television appearances including All in the Family, The Simpsons, Growing Pains, and even Doctor Who, and films such as Big, Jack the Bear, The Notebook, and The Aviator.

So which is better? The answer is neither. Or better still, both. They just don't write those moon Junes like they used to.
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Boom...or Bust?

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Famous news reporter Tom Brokaw wrote another book that got published a few months ago: Boom! Voices of the Sixties Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today. You may recall that Brokaw wrote a book about the 40s a few years ago called The Greatest Generation. This one is a colection of stories from people, both famous and non-famous, about their experiences during one of the most favorite and famous eras of the 20th century.

I haven't read the book yet, but the problem is I can't imagine it's terribly exciting with Brokaw at the helm. I have nothing against the guy, but I don't think there's ever been a stiffer stuffed shirt in the media biz. Brokaw went on Ellen Degeneres' show a few months ago to talk about the book and what the sixties were like for him. It was so boring. I was so hoping Ellen would've asked him, "Tom, do you remember the first time you dropped acid? When did you smoke your first joint?" I mean this was the 60s, after all. That would've thrown him for a loop!

The book seems to be getting positive reviews from readers on Amazon, though. You can buy it there for only $17 or so.
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Happy New Year!

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Three days late...so what? Hope you partied like it was 1999...or 1967.





No, this isn't an old family photo. I snatched it from a site called Mulfalisa.
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