There was nothing terribly complicated about those appliance centers. Sunbeam had them also. They were created as a way to give added electrical capacity to kitchens for countertop appliances which were big deals in the 1950s and 60s. With the centers, older houses could have multiple high amperage 115 volt outlets with the installation of one 220 volt circuit instead of multiple cables and circuit breakers for additional outlets which would probably mean a heavy-up since there probably was not room in the old fuse box, cutting holes in the walls, etc. They were a smart upgrade for builders to offer in new home construction for the same cost-cutting reason plus, with the clock for timed operation, the coffee maker could be set to start before the alarms went off.
Leave it to O'K&M to put that tacky trim on a Tappan 400. Did you note how, in this professionally designed kitchen, the cutting board on the cooktop renders at least drawer inaccessible during cooking? Granted the cutting board can fold down, which would be a must if you were using a large skillet or Dutch oven to keep the flame spread from charing the wood, but this is a perfect illustration of how these ranges cut off access to the storage under them when the cooktops were pulled out and on either side if installed in anything but a straight line of cabinets. I will also mention that the heat from surface cooking made the oven and broiler door handles so hot that pot holders were needed to touch them. With the burners so close to the glass doors, having to tend to a task like stirring a sauce or gravy with the oven or broiler in operation was made uncomfortably hot by the radiant heat coming through the glass. That's why GE's Americana featured metal behind the glass front on their upper oven door. The area behind the cooktop and under the front part of the ovens got extremely hot when the ovens were on because there was little room for adequate insulation of the burner box so anything that splattered on those hot surfaces instantly cooked or burned on so you had chrome surfaces that people scoured and scratched. Conversely, if the ovens were not on, steam from surface cooking condensed on the doors.
That dishwasher looks strange for a late 60s kitchen. Tappan abandoned the reversing rotating drum wash action for the Reverse-a-Jet wash arm in a D&M machine. I was not aware that they kept that control panel from the original Tappan for so long. In the Reverse-a-Jet, the wash arm rotated in one direction from the water force, but wound up a spring at the same time that would periodically overcome the force of the water and spin the arm backwards. When GE and Tappan joined forces, Tappan dishwashers were made by GE.
Doris Day's son was Terry Melcher. When she was a young actress in New York, she married the trombonist Al Jorden, a horrible man who, when he found out that she was pregnant, demanded that she get an abortion. She refused so he beat her throughout her pregnancy. Once the baby was born, she placed him with her mother and went back on the road as a singer. She divorced the first husband and later married Marty Melcher. Although Terry never got along with his stepfather, he did allow him to adopt him. When Melcher died, it was discovered that he had cheated DD out of many millions of dollars. Terry was one of the people responsible for California surf rock music. He both played and produced and worked with the Beach Boys, Paul Revere & the Raiders, the Byrds and others. He produced a lot of his mother's work. He was a blonde beauty in his youth and died after a long battle with melanoma. He was targeted for death by the Manson gang and nearly lost both legs in a motorcycle accident. He was part owner with his mother and another partner of the Cypress Inn. In 1988, he received a Golden Golbe nomination for co-writing one of my favorite Beach Boys songs Kokomo.
And poor, sweet Doris Day's picture is courtesy of the American Gas Association. What an unfortunate union, oh dear another gas connection. This must have been one of the business deals she entered to recover financially after she discovered her money was gone. Still, it must have pained her to have people associate her with gas. If anyone's picture should have anything to do with gas, it should have been Marilyn Monroe's picture with her dress flying up in The Seven Year Itch. Wasn't that story all about cutting loose after 7 years of holding it in?
