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 9: Celebrity Degrees from “The Big Sound” series

Oh man.  This is the kind of treasure that I was hoping would be buried in all these boxes of LPs my uncle saved from the junkheap.  This is a disc full of 10-second spots of celebrities telling you what the temperature is, backed by the most early-60s swingin’ kinda big band music you’ve ever heard. Plus a lot of them relay the temperature in rhyme! And Spike Jones gets to use cartoon sound effects!

Unlike the public service messages, this is a good backdrop against which the celebrities can make some light-hearted jokes about how hot it’s gotten. I love this kooky stuff! If you ever wanted to hear Tony Curtis tell you it’s 88 degrees, your dream is now fulfilled and you can die happy. Please leave me in your will.

I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did!

P.S. Disc MF-7 R in “The Big Sound” series; all the celebrities participating are in the tags for this post.

P.P.S. They had a lot of Connies back then, didn’t they?

P.P.P.S. Fabian’s track sounded like he was in a bathroom stall until halfway through, when I assume someone adjusted his mic or some levels or whatever.  And one of Steve Allen’s deliveries is really weak. Makes me wonder how many takes some of these celebrities got.