I love this 1956 ad on the race to install adequate electrical infrastructure to accommodate the ballooning demand for gizmos and appliances. A little bit of word-substitution and you'd have an article from the past five years bemoaning the lack of high-speed wiring to the curb. The problem: The thirty-year electric appliance boom is running into a snag—warns the National Adequate Wiring Bureau. Most houses and apartments were built with relatively small electrical requirements in mind. Already, 50% of the people in some areas who want air conditioners can’t buy them because their wiring is inadequate, one expert estimates. The sale of freezers, ranges, water heaters and other appliances is being slowed. The solution: New homes built under the adequate wiring code of the National Association of Home Builders provide at least 100-ampere cable into the home—and adequate inside circuits. In older buildings— the answer is rewiring. Adequate wiring means business (Feb, 1956)...

This incredibly patronizing 1950 Colonial Film Board short film explains the intricacies of bus-riding to ignorant foreigners newly arrived in London, unravelling the mysteries with helpful advice like, "Be sure to board a bus headed to your destination," and explaining that drivers aren't allowed to run over school-children. Journey by a London Bus (1950)...

Here's a scanned and indexed copy of a 1736 guide to thieves' cant, for those times when you want to play stern thief-taker and naughty pickpocket. AUTEM-CACKLETUB AUTEM-CACKLETUB, a Conventicle, a Meeting-House for Dissenters. Canting Dictionary (Thanks, Gabe!)...

Sean O sez, "Slim Gaillard was a jazz musician/vocalist popular during the late-30s/early-50s. He popularized a 'Hipster's Argot' called 'Vout' which is present in lots of his recordings. These scans are from a promotional leaflet that compile the various words of Slim's dialect. So don't be a bringer-down and get mell-o-roonie, gate." That's strictly solid jack, let me lay a couple gas-meters on you. A babadiy be a babidy ba a babbidy boobie. If you haven't heard Slim Gaillard's music (as heard in Jack Kerouac's On the Road, no less), go get some and have your lid flipped Vout-O-Reenee Dictionary (Thanks, Sean O!)...

The LA Times's Joseph Menn has a great, well-researched feature article on the history of the copyright for the image of Mickey Mouse as portrayed in the earliest Disney cartoons -- and the theory that Disney made mistakes early on with its copyright registration, placing images of that specific Mickey (not the Mickey we know today) in the public domain. Prominent legal scholars like Peter Jaszi agree, but who will shell out the millions in legal fees to prove it? After all, the company's already threatened legal action against law-students who publish papers investigating the question! Brown went searching for flawed formalities -- and found one. It was on the title card at the beginning of a "Steamboat Willie" cartoon that had just been rereleased on a 1993 LaserDisc honoring Mickey's 65th birthday. It said in full: "Disney Cartoons Present A Mickey Mouse Sound Cartoon Steamboat Willie A Walt Disney Comic By Ub Iwerks Recorded by Cinephone Powers System Copyright MCMXXIX." [...] The authoritative legal treatise "Nimmer on Copyright" says that a copyright is void if multiple names create uncertainty, and courts have agreed. In 1961, a federal judge in Massachusetts cited the "accompanied by" rule in throwing out a copyright claim by newspaper cartoonist Art Moger. Moger's name was included in the title above his panels, but the name of another artist ran inside the boxes. Disney's rights to young Mickey Mouse may be wrong (Thanks, Xeni!)...

Plan59's 1950s space-art gallery has some real gems! Space Art (via Neatorama)...

Little Sammy Sneeze was the initial comic strip by surrealist comics pioneer Winsor McCay, best known for his masterwork "Little Nemo in Slumberland." McKay's strips were gigantic watercolors, taking up huge swathes of space in the newspapers of the 1900s and 1910s (Nemo ran full pages, while Sammy was a half-page). If you've seen these seminal comics reproduced in little comics histories, you haven't seen them at all -- it's not until you get a chance to browse them at their full size that you really understand what made these such classics of the field. That's just what you get with Sunday Press Books's Little Sammy Sneeze: Complete Color Sunday Comics 1904-1905, a gigantic (11"x16") book with a lay-flat binding that reproduces all the Sammy Sneeze strips at full size, interleaved with McCay's other experimental early works, like The Woozlebeasts (Dr Seuss-esque poetry captions for drawings of fantastical beasties) and Upside-Downs of Little Lady Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo (comics whose illustrations can be read upside-down or right side up, so that eight panels become sixteen). But the main attraction are the full color Sammy Sneezes, which all follow the same format: for the first six panels, supercilious grownups conduct a ridiculous or dull conversation or activity while Sammy, a little well-dressed boy, looks on, making pre-sneeze sound-effects ("Um, Eee, Aaa, Aah, Awww, Kah"). In the seventh panel, Sammy sneezes, blowing everything to hell and back. And in the concluding panel, someone kicks Sammy in the pants and shoves him out of the frame. The strips have the elegant formality of a sonnet, and within each one, there's a little morality play or lesson about the world, and an obsessively elaborated scene of sneezular carnage for comic relief. They're as addictive as popcorn and far more anarchic than Sammy's descendants from Dennis the Menace to Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes. Like the Little Nemo book, the Sammy Sneeze book is a work of art -- beautifully made, and with a little bonus in the form of a Sammy Sneeze kleenex-box cover for proud display. Little Sammy Sneeze See also: Gigantic Little Nemo book does justice to the loveliest comic ever...

Ah, just look at this fantastic artifact from the innocent era before the War on Fun kicked off -- a beautiful big bangy chemistry set, advertised in the September, 1955 Popular Mechanics. Are you looking for a WONDERFUL FUTURE that can start at home right now? The NATIONAL SCHOOL OF CHEMISTRY offers a fascinating: correspondence course in PRACTICAL CHEMISTRY which will give you a wonderful education that can be used almost immediately to increase your income and your position in life, with prospects of a GLORIOUS FUTURE! The course is very THOROUGH, yet specially prepared to be easy to all regardless of lack of previous training. Very little theory . . . this is a PRACTICAL course with HUNDREDS of fascinating EXPERIMENTS and valuable FORMULAS! Students learn, almost from the start, how to make chemicals and chemical products of commercial value, how to convert wastes into money, etc. THERE IS A GOLD MINE IN CHEMISTRY! Why not share in it? We will open your eyes to GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES you’ve never dreamt of; for this is a GOLDEN AGE for those who possess special KNOWLEDGE! CHEMISTRY - BIG LABORATORY GIVEN FREE! (Sep, 1955)...

Kevin Andrew Murphy sez, "I knew that Lady Puabi of Ur had d4s for the game boards found in her tomb, but it turns out the Romans had d20s and a nice green glass one is currently up for sale at Christie's. Only $17,925, for the gamer who has everything." Link (Thanks, Kevin!)...

David "Everything is Miscellaneous" Weinberger sez, "Here's a PDF of a 1944 'Simple Sabotage Field Manual' from the US Strategic Services, explaining how to train people to sabotage their workplace. Full of useful suggestions, from the practical to the, um, less so (e.g., bring a bag of mo[n]ths into a theater showing propaganda films). It also recommends doing things through channels, making speeches, and referring matters to committee as techniques of sabotage (cf. page 28). I got this link from a presentation by two CIA folks at the Enterprise 2.0 conference." (1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions. (2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of per­ sonal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments. (3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and considera­tion.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five. (4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. (5) Haggle over precise wordings of com­munications, minutes, resolutions. (6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision. (7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reason­able” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on. (8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the juris­ diction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon. PDF Link (Thanks, David!)...