One-third less caffein (is that a vintage spelling or just local-market incompetence?), perhaps, but clearly two-thirds more psychotropics.  Rather like the mood around here these days.

Remarkably, the inimitable Page Morton Black, Chock full o' Nuts' very own answer to Vera Hruba Ralston, is still with us.  As is the brand, which was also a surprise.  Their website actually has some fun Flash animation - and a lot of that damn jingle...

I'm sorry, and I hope you didn't have anything useful planned for today. You just have to stop everything and watch this. And then try to pick up the shattered remnants of your sanity.

It's what I've been waiting for: proof positive that Lawrence Welk was a far weirder man than ever we knew, and the Lennon Sisters victims of his sick and twisted mind...

By the early fifties, they started to look like they'd saved on embalming by starting early.

It's strange. I find these two weirdly interesting. Even though the more I learn about the hapless Prince Edward and his ... singular ... choice of One True Love, the more I despise the pair of them, nonetheless there is something about their aimless, vacuous, suffocating life that fascinates.

The long, strange road traveled by Bessiewallis Warfield Spencer Simpson Windsor is something that requires a Thackeray or a James to do her justice, although the more lurid details of her varied life (just what did she learn in those Chinese brothels? What was the attraction to her of the bizarrely effete Woolworth heir?) might better be covered by Mickey Spillane or Truman Capote.

The excuses used by their admirers - they were stylish, they were misunderstood, they were the victims of his rapacious family - ring increasingly hollow as they fade into history. What we're left with are images like this: a pair of dazed puppets, stiff and vaguely accusatory, oblivious to their luxe surroundings and even to the pugs at their feet. I wonder if she ever wished she'd stayed in China?

In 1940, I would have expected there to be some downscaling of nonessential industries as the country ramped up for what seemed like an unavoidable conflict. Across the Atlantic, bombs were already falling on London, and the mood must have been darkening.

Still, does that justify selling these terrifying creations to unsuspecting little girls, and from an outlet as august as FAO Schwarz?

Fabulous gown, I suppose, but would you want her staring down at you with those sightless eyes, night after night?

(Is is just me, or does the Duke look startlingly like Princess Margaret in her sad last years?)

This is apparently not a joke. I may have to call off all future Christmas observances, because nothing, I think, can top this. Except perhaps experiencing it live.

Perhaps it's just as well I live overseas. Two years have passed this since this item was released, perhaps somewhat diluting the sheer horror of it. Or perhaps not.

...and ready to party! Yes, it's the Brides of Dracula:

I've said it before, I'll say it again: what do you suppose they talked about?