Dumpster Vinyl Volume 17: Miss EBS (Emergency Broadcast System) from “The Big Sound” Series PS-5R-1

I was planning on rolling out another set of Dumpster Vinyl posts this summer or fall, but this one’s just too good to sit on that long. Plus it involves me trying to sell you something, but we’ll get to that.

I wasn’t around for the original Cold War, and chances are you weren’t either.  Long story short, USA and Russia weren’t friends, there was a lot of posturing and pissing-contest kind of stuff going on with building up stockpiles of nuclear arms.  The good: all of this got man to the moon much sooner than it would have happened otherwise.  The bad: living in fear of nuclear weapons.  You probably are familiar with the 1951 cartoon “Duck and Cover” (or the South Park spoof of it).  I can’t really say if there was still lingering fear of nuclear war by 1963, but I’m sure the previous year’s Cuban Missile Crisis didn’t help things.

At any rate, President Kennedy was worried enough about it to want a better way to get the word to everyone quickly if bombs were about to drop.  So the CONELRAD system (which we’ve heard about before) was replaced by the Emergency Broadcast System, which I basically remember as being the least offensive thing that ever interrupted what I was watching on TV.

I can only imagine the tough task that these “Big Sound” writers had before them.  Not only did they have to convey to listeners that there was a new Emergency Broadcast System, but also that it replaced the old CONELRAD system and they would have to retrain their radio-dialing-fingers to stop tuning in to 640 or 1240. Not only that, but they’d need to somehow obscure the “emergency” part of the whole deal.  You don’t really want to make listeners face their own mortality between ads for used cars and “My Boyfriend’s Back”.  So what did they come up with? Sex!

That’s right! Let’s personify the new system as a silken-voiced vixen!  This is why I’m doing this series, folks: for hokey stuff like this that was once someone’s good idea.  This edition of Dumpster Vinyl is probably my favorite so far–it even tops Tony Bennett telling you the temperature.  Without further ado, I present to you… Miss EBS!

 

Oh, also, there’s also some celebrities saying their names. They probably didn’t even know it was being used for this.

And, regarding that YouTube video there: I did whip up some artwork of Miss EBS.

It looks awful here, because I’m using a free WordPress template that thinks nobody every wants to enlarge images. But it looks great, scout’s honor! If you want to buy a poster, you can buy a poster!  You can buy a poster at Society 6 by clicking on this link here.  Buy a poster.

(Do it now before Secret Service guys come tell me about copyright law in morse code, with their fists, on my torso. But honestly,

(Also, I’ve never sold a poster before, but I would recommend the smaller sizes to get nice, crisp art. Also, let me know if the prices are too high, or if you can recommend a different site to sell through. Also, buy a poster.)

 

Dumpster Vinyl Volume 15: Red Cross Public Service from “The Big Sound” series PS-3-R

Not much to say here, just a bunch of celebrities asking people to volunteer with the Red Cross.  I guess I could make a joke about how Boris Karloff’s trying to scare people into learning first aid, because horror movies, or something. Or a joke about how badly Johnny Cash fails at making volunteering sound fun.  But it’s sort of hard to work myself up to making jokes about the Red Cross.  So here you go, this is another disc.

 

Dumpster Vinyl Volume 6: “Civil Defense” Public Service from “The Big Sound” series

I’m basically just doing these in the order I’m taking them out of the boxes they’re in, so here’s another from the “Big Sound” series. I suppose we’ll eventually hear from Captain Happy again  This disc has some of the same artists as previous entries in this series, which makes sense.  I guess if you’ve already got Johnny Cash in the studio introducing his songs, you might as well get him to talk about civil defense. Here, we have got a bunch of celebrities telling people that “civil defense is common sense” and to look to a couple of radio frequencies for updates from CONELRAD.  Yes, that’s right, what more comforting word could there be than CONELRAD?

This is one of those times in my life where I finally encounter the source material that spawned endless variations, parodies, and subversions.  That’s not to say that this disc is what everyone heard, and that it was precisely what, say, Hawkwind were referencing in “Sonic Attack”.  Rather, let this disc stand for every bit of polished 1960s media kindly telling people to be scared of what the Russians were going to do to us, but the government is here to protect you. CONELRAD will tell you which foods are safe to eat.

P.S. Was Huckleberry Hound meant to sound like Pat Boone?

P.P.S. Doesn’t the music make you think of Dragnet?

Dumpster Vinyl Volume 4: Who’s in the Magic Circle Now? from “The Big Sound” series

Spinning, spinning, spinning the magic circle of all-time favorites! Who’s in the magic circle now?

Another disc (this one’s RAM-3-R, so I guess I’m doing them in order now), another mix of singers. Again, some I know, some I’ve never heard of.

The ones I knew, or have at least heard of: Henry Mancini (he refers to himself as “Hank”!), Debbie Reynolds, Johnny Cash, Bobby Rydell, Les Baxter.

No idea about these people: Mary Kaye Trio, Bob Crosby, Sue Raney (jeez, those three just sound like store-brand knock-offs, 50-odd years later), Billy Eckstine, Kay Starr, Bud & Travis, Stan Kenton.

Also, starting with this disc, they start introducing a little variation into the production tracks (the part with the announcer that precedes each of the artists). On some of them, instead of saying the standard “Who’s in the magic circle now?”, he lowers his voice and booms “Who’s there now?” It makes it sound like somebody real important’s about to show up; it works on the Johnny Cash track; less so for Stan Kenton.

Maybe I wasn’t paying attention before, but a few of these artists mention the “magic circle of all-time favorites” title on this disc.

Overall, it’s getting kind of weird listening to these in isolation from the music of these singers & artists. Some of the artists refer to the upcoming song as “one of [their] favorites”, but did they even know which songs would be introduced?

P.S. My favorite part is when one of the Mary Kaye Trio starts talking when he’s not supposed to.