Best of Sunset House '64 (Part Two)

Our last post featured highlights from the black and white pages of Sunset House's gift catalog from 1964, now with today's Part Two post we give you some gems from the color pages. You have to admire SH for even attempting to sell some of this stuff, for example: naming a pair of crummy rayon shoes "Harem Lounging Boots" to make them sound more "exotic", or screwing 6 lightbulbs into a black box and calling it "Mystery Blinking Lights" (and don't forget to add Tippy Hedren into the illustration too, you know, to cash in on Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds from the previous year?!! Even the description of this item is hilariously insulting.) And don't get me started on the cheaptastical "Rocky Roller!"

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Best of Sunset House '64 (Part One)

Here's a sampling of fun, oddball stuff you could order directly from the Sunset House mail order catalog in 1964. "Happy, unusual gifts for everyone!", sent directly to you from the sunniest house in Beverly Hills, California! Become a glamorous smoker! Brush your teeth with booze! Put a diaper on your parakeet! Listen to your favorite songs right out of the top of Frankenstein's freakish flat head-- or grow bean sprouts from the top of yours! I'll have more highlights from the color section of the catalog in our next post... in the meantime, you can order equally splendid items of whimsy from Archie McPhee by clicking HERE!

Satire Dept. Popcorn & Rick Racey

From the Dec - Jan 1959 / '60 issue of Dolls & Gags Vol. 5 #2 "The Offbeat Magazine" we spend April Fool's Day with a couple of deranged, jaw-droppingly mean spirited, (Johnny Ryan-esque) spoofs on two of my favorite comic strips, Peanuts and Dick Tracy. Enjoy!

Van

Is anyone familiar with a 1950's gag illustrator who signed his name simply as "Van?" The no-necks, the balloon-shaped bodies, the fun sense of no holds barred cartoony exaggeration-- LOVE IT! Any info concerning this unique artist would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

All gags above can be found in the Sept. '57 issue of TV Girls and Gags.