Recent content by cadman

I think it was back in April that I started my weekly 16mm film series, and we’re still going strong. Of course, not every film can be a hit, but the preservation aspect is important since a great number of these gems are literally deteriorating due to vinegar syndrome, and not many copies...

I think that's a pretty popular opinion, but I've yet to be able to substantiate any claims of Sears' ownership in WP. Of course, they did have a long-standing contract for Kenmore and Coldspot appliances which all but guaranteed their success, and Sears did start divesting their WP stock later...

I'll just leave this here....

Here's a fun Jam Handy film from 1970, showing off all of the consumer-advocate changes WP was making in the late 60's (and not just their toll-free Cool Line). There's also references to the Care-A-Van production shared recently, and of course lots of interesting behind-the-scenes footage and...

With my schedule rearranged this week, I figured I'd bump Wednesday's release to this morning. By the mid-60's, management was struggling to get consumers to see Whirlpool for more than just washers and dryers, and the RCA-WP venture hadn't exactly hit the way they had hoped. America was...

You know what we could really use? A musical stage production about refrigerators...and stoves...and warranties! This clip to dealers gives a taste of what the 1968 Whirlpool Care-A-Van spectacular was all about.

I've wondered that, too and one day would like to put together a little history on it. Over the years WP updated or modified the original up to about 1970. This 1959 Miracle Kitchen was originally presented in the fall of 1958 and debuted in NY before traveling the country, but in its original...

Something a little more exciting this week, we check-in on how the Kitchen Debate is unfolding with a trip to Moscow and a visit to the RCA-Whirlpool pavilion to see their "Miracle Kitchen" of 1959. Integrated heating and cooling, adjustable lighting, ice at your fingertips, and...

This week we drop in on the Maytag laundry lab and learn about the basics of proper home laundering, from temp selection to Maytag's TBI. Or, as I like to call it, 5 minutes of vintage (new) Maytags.

Here's a real treat from 1959, a look behind the curtain on the production of Maytag's 12-millionth laundry appliance, a 641C dryer. There's also some great downtown footage of Newton, with the dryer being pulled around the town square by an Oliver tractor (built in Charles City). And attached...

This week we have some fun vintage Whirlpool TV spots covering everything from washers to window A/Cs. This dates from around 1972 and had a terrible magenta-shift; I did what I could to try and pull a little color out.

What an exceptional job...that was a TON of work and it absolutely paid-off. There were a couple of times in the video I completely forgot it was AI and lapsed into thinking it was a period announcer reading from a script.

LOL. Can you imagine being in the studio as they were swinging these things around? 1:40 cracks me up with the visible cables.

The big sin was eliminating the heated dry cycle and claiming it was for energy saving purposes (rather than offer the user a choice). Customer feedback was swift, and that feature was reinstated on the 20's. Personally, I rarely use the heater on my GE, but I could understand why someone...

We shift gears this week to see what the good folks at Hobart have been working on. Turns out, they've corrected the sins of the model 19 with the new 20-series lineup. And what better place to debut them, than the moon!