On Location – with Sears!

REMEMBER that issue of “Good Housekeeping” that we were talking about last week?* Well, there was this pretty big advertising section in the front from Sears. Sure, Sears – where America shops for value. They bought like ten or twelve pages! Look, I don’t remember exactly how many; I’ve since thrown the damn thing out, which is what you do with a magazine when you’re done with it. (Great, I’ve probably made Nana Parsnips cry again*.)

*See previous post. —ed.

Okay, so ten to twelve pages is an enormous amount of advertising in a national magazine. And Sears! Back in the late 1970s, they were still pretty big. They were the only game in town, sure! This section was page after page after page of home furnishings – bedroom sets and like that. But here’s what I enjoyed, and therefore, you will too: You see, they took some of the photogra–  Look, why don’t I just show you?

Here’s what I, and now you, get a kick out of. They didn’t take these photographs in a studio and then superimpose them over an outdoor photo. They didn’t even dress an indoor set to make it look outdoors. No, folks, they actually took all this furniture, set it up, and then made the beds – outside!

Look at that rug out there – they actually laid it down on the ground! On the sandy, dusty ground! Someone propped up those windows there on the rocks! And the beds, well, I’d like to believe someone, like a Teamster maybe, set up the beds and then someone else, like a housekeeper, came along and made them. Regardless, they shot all this outside.

And you may not be able to see it as clearly in these photos as you can looking at the actual full-size pages, but I’m telling you, these were definitely shot outside.

Oh, we’re not done yet – there’s more!

Look at that! It looks like they shot this out at Vasquez Rocks! I was going to make “Vasquez Rocks” a link, but you’re either familiar with it or you’re not. In fact, it looks little like Vasquez Rocks, I just wanted to tie these pictures to a specific place to make this thing read even more interesting. Well, it looks like the desert, anyway. God only knows how many poisonous insects they brought home with them in all the bedding and mattresses when they packed up at the end of the day.

Let’s continue, hmm?

“Delightful” is right! They set up this stuff out in the middle of some stream! Some poor jackass had to tromp around, hopefully for him in hip waders, and carry that whole sink / window combo through the water, and then balance it out there in the swamp.One wrong step on a slippery, algae covered rock and your entire day is shot as your vanity with its ruffled valance and tiebacks go floating down the mighty Mississipp’ while you’re frantically pulling off leeches and toe biters!

Okay, I saved the best for last:

Look at that! So they set up the bed out in God-knows-where – I mean, it’s very pretty, of course, but it’s God-knows-where -and then they have a model get in it and pretend to be sleeping.

You know what I’d like to think (and feel free to want to think this, too) – I’d like to think that she really is sleeping because there was no Teamster, there was no housekeeper – she’s the one that had to lug all that furniture off the truck and out into the meadow, the marsh, and the desert. The poor woman’s exhausted! But my God, to be able to add this shot to her professional portfolio!

I wonder if she took off her hip waders before she got into bed? Me, I would have kept them on. Much less skin exposed to deer ticks. Take it from me: ten minutes after that bed was set up, the sheets were crawling with them. I mean, look, there’s grass right up against the dust ruffle. That’s where they wait for you (and deer). In the grass, not on dust ruffles. Don’t even get me started on the mosquitoes out there – I mean, it’s right by the water. And the horse flies, too, probably.  Big as your thumb they were, likely, and landing right on her hair and biting down right into her scalp. My head would have been under those covers, screw my portfolio!

Who the hell okayed this whole ad campaign? My God, I love it.

Posted by Ted on April 12, 2011, 2:07 AM.