JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

The last in a series of testimonials from famous, semi-famous, and not-at-all-famous users of Vidal Sassoon products which, unlike the others, was printed all by its lone self. Guess the non-user had to be isolated to strengthen the punchline. Not that we mean any disrespect to Mr. Holder , whose half-century artistic career has encompassed acting, choreography and painting. He may be best known for two roles: James Bond villain Baron Samedi in Live and Let Die , and the white-suited 7UP pitchman who extolled the virtues of the non-cola during the 1970s and 1980s. Holder didn't see doing commercials for as a comedown. "I'm no snob," he noted in a 1975 interview with People magazine . "The commercial is an art form unto itself. After all, you are seducing people." View all of the ads we've found in this series . Source: a 1985 issue of Rolling Stone (forgot to note the date) - JB

Two more testimonials from famous, semi-famous, and not-at-all-famous users of Vidal Sassoon products. We wonder if the police officer was teased by his colleagues for his puffy do. More to come... Source: a 1985 issue of Rolling Stone (forgot to note the date) - JB

More testimonials from famous, semi-famous, and not-at-all-famous users of Vidal Sassoon products. Today's testifiers: a member of Woody Allen's stock company (who appears ready for a day at the country club) and a gold-medal Olympic gymnast. Source: a 1985 issue of Rolling Stone (forgot to note the date) - JB

One in a series of testimonials from famous, semi-famous, and not-at-all-famous users of Vidal Sassoon products. One presumes Warhol was amazed by the artful way the spray kept his wigs in place. As for Animotion , their lasting legacy is a tune that was used for years as the theme music for CITY-TV's Fashion Television . More of this campaign to come... Source: a 1985 issue of Rolling Stone (forgot to note the date) - JB

In light of the current kerfuffle over Bell's pursuit of usage based billing (UBB) for the internet, here's a story I stumbled upon while researching something else that shows protests in Toronto against Bell's practices aren't new. Source: The Globe and Mail , August 22, 1957 - JB

When watching late-night reruns of SCTV on Windsor’s CBC outlet during our teens, Amy and I expected that most of our laughs would come from the fake ads on the Canadian comedy classic, not the real ones during commercial breaks. One exception was Woody Pontiac, located across the border in Hamtramck (a suburb of Detroit surrounded on all but one side by the city of Detroit). Their pitchman was dealer Woodrow W. Woody (1908-2002), an elderly gentleman whose on-air demeanour came from an earlier era. Mr. Woody wasn’t a hard sell salesman, nor did he use gimmicks like flying around in a cape (hi Mel Farr!). No, Mr. Woody reached out to potential customers by stressing his long involvement in the car business as a genial, slightly doddering old man whose eyes were fixed on a teleprompter might do. We imitated his exit lines for years afterward. The cheerful reassurance we’d like his dealership. The quaintness of seeing any TV pitchman from the late 1980s/early 1990s say to viewers “s...

In the midst of winter cleaning at the Warehouse, we've uncovered a treasure trove of romance comics from the 1960s and 1970s. Here's one of the gems we found. After a near-death experience with a perfectly spherical boulder that charged at you on an idyllic cliffside beach, what pair of stiffly-drawn young lovers can't resist a touch of in-law humour? John and his unnamed lover soon returned to the picnic, where everyone had a good laugh as if it was the closing minute of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. When the lovebirds wandered off to change their clothes, the in-laws had a quiet conversation... MOTHER : I told you not to buy a boulder from the Acme catalogue! FATHER : But it was the only one I could afford! SMERSH's boulders cost too much! MOTHER : (sighs) I knew I should have brought the arsenic. None of the major comic book databases have a clue as to who the uncredited writer and artist of this one-page filler were. Source: Just Married #102 , October 19...

The golden gateway for several generations of snowbirds... *** I rarely use the Ambassador Bridge whenever I visit the Detroit area these days. The view is nice, and it makes more sense to use it to head to certain destinations, but I like to line the pockets of the Detroit International Bridge Company as little as possible (it was nice to see, if only briefly, the president of DIBC taken away in handcuffs for contempt of court after the company refused to comply with a court order to demolish various structures that never should have been built). Currently cars coming from the south on the American side have to follow a long, looping detour that seems designed to tempt you into buying gas from the DIBC before returning to Canada than serve as a practical detour around construction and the remains of a bait shop on 23rd Street. My most recent trip across the bridge was over Christmas, when I packed several family members into the car for a daytrip to Ann Arbor. The border guar...

Over thirty years later, Conn used many of the same selling points that Mr. Sousa stands by when they produced a short promotional film called Mr. B Natural . Forty years after that, Conn's efforts to promote the fruits of their quality craftsmanship provided the material for one of the funniest segments of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 . With a tagline like "cultivate your musical bump" this ad cries out for MST3K -style riffing and/or groan-inducing double entendres from hecklers at the back of the town square or orchestra hall. Ad source: Photoplay , November 1923 - JB

Montreal, November 14, 2010 - JB

Taken during a New Year's Day 2011 walk in the Annex (don't remember exactly which street). - JB

A man dragged a few blocks under a streetcar. A stoned mentally ill man in a police standoff for a couple of hours. A TTC fare hike that vanished as quickly as it was proposed. Two bomb scares by the local CSIS office caused by the same person (who left his keys in the ignition). A police officer killed by a stolen snow plow. All this (and a story or two we're probably forgetting) since yesterday morning in Toronto. No wonder this newsboy looks frazzled. But, as a man on the bus this morning (either Eglinton East or Lawrence East, don't remember which one I hopped on), proclaimed, "smile, it's Wednesday!" Illustration taken from the June 25, 1859 edition of the Toronto Weekly Message - JB

One of many recipes from corporate test kitchens discovered amid a slow sweep over the holidays through the Warehouse's collection of magazines that were never returned to the publisher. The item that sets this jello-marshmallow mold apart from all others? Chopped bits of angel food cake for a heavenly touch! Source: Canadian Living , May 1983 - JB

...or an excuse to revisit some of this year's scribblings. Historicist: Icy Discrimination (Torontoist, March 6) Bonus Features (Blog, March 18) The story of a discriminatory ice rink in North Toronto garnered a lot of positive feedback, including an email of thanks from the niece of one of those involved in the story. Roncesvalles Construction Sucks (Torontoist, January 25) Though the streetcar has returned, the bump-outs have debuted, and two-way traffic is back, Roncesvalles isn't out of the woods yet when it comes to construction chaos. More work to come in the spring. Historicist: Measures of War (Torontoist, June 27) Historicist: Kill Bill 99 (Torontoist, July 10) Your G20 Stories (Blog, October 19) Pieces written during, about, and inspired by G20 weekend. The Empire Strikes Back (Heritage Toronto, July 28) The first of a series of Toronto newspaper histories that should continue through 2011. - JB

Part of a series of spots from the mid-1970s, around the time Canada began its switch to metric measurement. Can't say that this message made an impression in the Windsor area during my childhood - apart from the local CBC television station, everyone continued to measure snow in inches and feet. Even now, I still convert to the old system in my mind whenever I listen to the weather.

It's cleaning time at the Warehouse. Among the scraps of paper we found were ads clipped out of college football yearbooks tossed out long ago. Most concerned "handicapping" services for die-hard sports gamblers. We figure Baystate knew their target audience. Much like Scoreline Man , the guy boring his lady friend in the tub with the latest spreads on the Bears-Packers game looks like a stereotypical example of a man who'd use a sports handicapping service. He's an average guy with a slight paunch, receding hairline and a taste for cheap wine and cigars. What average Joe wants to endure high-pressure tactics from phone bookies? If the advertised relaxed approach pays the promised high dividends, maybe you too can use those winnings to treat your wife/partner/girlfriend/hired companion to a weekend of relaxing in a hotel jacuzzi. Just don't bore her with two hours of conversations centred around point spreads, OK? Source: Street & Smith 1983 Colleg...

Rather than wrack my brain in an attempt to start this post off by waxing poetic about all things Montreal, I’m going to cut to the chase: Sarah and I recently spent a weekend there and made our stomachs very happy. Disclaimer: Two Montreal food staples we didn’t have or barely sampled on this trip: smoked meat (almost got into line at Schwartz’s, but decided to keep my rough pattern of indulging in their famous sandwiches on every other trip to the city…and I wasn’t really in a smoked meat mood this time around) and bagels (did have one as a morning snack on Saturday, was going to bring a bag home but determined we had enough stuff to lug onto the train). One related amusement: posters around the core for a musical about Schwartz’s . Hey readers: which Toronto culinary landmark deserves a song-and-dance ode?

  While searching though back issues of the Toronto News for holiday-related material for an upcoming Historicist column, I stumbled upon a cartoon that seemed to fall into the genre of strips/one-offs whose plot was built around getting one of the characters to say the title in the final panel. You be the judge as to whether this style of humour still cuts the mustard a century on.   The same page of the News found the gruff old Scot on the left passing judgement on the quality of pipes found at Toronto branches of United Cigar Stores. This stereotypical depiction appeared in the retailer's advertising of the period, with different captions under his satisifed visage to suit the ad copy.   News stories on the same page:   A bedroom fire at 69 DeGrassi Street destroyed a $20 feather mattress belonging to a Mrs. Dowling. Windsor dry goods merchant Joseph Appelbe won a partial appeal of a judicial dismissal of an injunction against the Erie Tobacco Compan...

...sometimes you have to relax and let the cares of the world melt away. Gingerbread man from Sittler's Home Baking, Conestogo, Ontario. Glass bowl from Libbey Factory Outlet, Toledo, Ohio. Milk from Tremblett's Valu-Mart, Toronto, Ontario, made foamy by a frother from IKEA. - JB

This may be the grossest depiction of cake frosting we have ever encountered in a family-friendly setting. That sweet talker Betty Crocker is going to have to prepare the greatest sales pitch of her life to convince us that the greyish goop isn't a secret storehouse of toxic chemicals erupting like lava from the cake, the remnants of someone's failed attempt to digest this dessert, or a leftover sample from a toy company's quest to create a new line of novelty fake doggie doo. Considering that the ad boasts that the cake doesn't require icing, perhaps Betty purposely instructed the photographer or paste-up artist to present a slice with frosting in an unflattering light. Source: Woman's Day , March 1950. - JB