Keep watching the skies - The New York Times looks back at 50s Sci Fi films in anticipation of Alien Trespass, the new film from X-Files veteran R.K. Goodwin. One or two of those classics haven't even been remade yet!
posted by Artw on Mar 28, 2009 - 19 comments

RadioWallah - "Fabulous transistor radios from the fifties." A few more.
posted by Wolfdog on Nov 19, 2008 - 11 comments

The cars of tomorrow, today. Link goes to NYT, you may need to use BugeMeNot. [more inside]
posted by fixedgear on Aug 12, 2008 - 9 comments

Retronomatopeya - cute collection of comic book images and language conveying sound and motion. Also see anastasiav's prior post: Ka-BOOM, the Dictionary of Comic Book Words on Historical Principles. (via oink!) [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Jul 17, 2008 - 11 comments

The first known recording of a digital computer playing music, recorded by the BBC in 1951. The music played on a Ferantti Mark 1, one of the first commercial general-use computers, and was entered via punchtape and played on a speaker usually used for making clicks and tones to indicate program progress.
posted by Artw on Jun 18, 2008 - 14 comments

If you can make it through the glacially paced intro and can put up with the typically clunky, often laughable and jingoistic fifties-style narration, this 1958 film from Chevrolet, The American Look is worth viewing. Chock full of futuristic telephones, toasters, blenders, office machines, architecture and more, it's a mid-century design lover's dream. The film is visually striking and elegant, and presented in widescreen format. Here's part 2 and part 3. Or see it here in its entirety. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on May 12, 2008 - 15 comments

The pictures that horrified America - how comic books tipped 50s America into a moral panic. [more inside]
posted by Artw on May 8, 2008 - 51 comments

Hey daddy-o, when you hear that big brash horn section pump out that oddly familiar riff, only to stop cold and make way for that that prescient single note from an electric guitar, followed straightaway by a twangy voice in perfect rockabilly delivery proclaiming "well, she's got a dress that looks like a sack!", then brother, you're listening to the hoppin' boppin' sound of Wally Deane's Drag On. Once you hear it, you'll wonder why Quentin Tarrantino never put it in a movie. Wally Deane: one of the greatest rockabilly acts you never heard of.
posted by flapjax at midnite on Dec 8, 2007 - 21 comments

Through a Lens Darkly - on September 4, 1957, when 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford tried to enter Little Rock Central High, she was blocked by the National Guard and surrounded by a screaming mob of 250: "Lynch her! Lynch her!" "No nigger bitch is going to get in our school! Get out of here!" "Go back to where you came from!" Looking for a friendly face, she turned to an old woman, who spat on her. Photos. Dramatic news footage. Ernest Green, another of the Little Rock 9 recalls the first day of school. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Sep 25, 2007 - 48 comments

For many kids, the space age made its TV debut years before Sputnik with 1950's TV space serials.
1950 - Space Patrol - The Hidden Treasure of Mars. (Part two)
1954 - Rocky Jones' Space, Space Ranger - Rocky's Odyssey. (Chapters two, three)
1954 - Flash Gordon - Deadline at Noon and Akim the Terrible. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Sep 24, 2007 - 5 comments

Scans from On Becoming a Woman by Harold Shryock, M.A., M.D. (1906-2004).
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Apr 7, 2007 - 24 comments

So everyone's already seen regrettable food over and over, but this chick makes, eats, and reviews it according to the original documentation.
posted by pieoverdone on Mar 23, 2007 - 28 comments

Stand By For Crime! Archive.org presents the astonishing adventures of Chuck Morgan, intrepid radio muckracker and crimefighter, as he battles The Communist Menace, investigates The Wetback Murders, and solves The Marijuana Mystery. Circa 1953; twenty-six half-hour episodes in mp3 format, each approximately 9 MB.
posted by stammer on Feb 4, 2007 - 8 comments

Extracts from the journals of Susan Sontag dating from the 1950s and 1960s were published in this morning's Guardian G2.
posted by nthdegx on Sep 14, 2006 - 9 comments

Still romanticizin' the beat generation? Lovely shots from the Venice West Picture Essay - a photo chronicle of the beat generation in venice west, california circa 1958….from the out-of-print "the holy barbarians" by lawrence lipton
posted by lilboo on Apr 20, 2004 - 21 comments

Alum Falls Ohio. 'An original comic about growing up in the Fifties.'
posted by plep on Nov 30, 2003 - 5 comments

The World's Worst Food. "A naked imitation of the Gallery of Regrettable Food", featuring late 50's and early 60's-era recipes from the UK.
posted by LinusMines on Aug 25, 2003 - 15 comments

Cutting-Edge Critique of TV or Just a Lot of Guys with No Shirt On? Exhaustive website of TV shows from the 1950s to the present with discussion of overt gay and lesbian content. Also a lot of coverage of hidden homoerotic content that could be viewed as a parody of academic interpretive overreaching. On the other hand, that didn't stop Jerry Falwell from denouncing Tinky Winky's alleged sexual orientation.
posted by jonp72 on Dec 6, 2002 - 15 comments

Googie? Does your bowling alley have an inexplicable Tiki motif? Does your neighbor's house vaguely resemble a flying saucer? Does your coffee shop suggest, architecturally, that the secrets of the atom are being exploited within? Well now, you can call it by name. Googie. Who knew?
posted by condour75 on Oct 31, 2002 - 39 comments