http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g920JS_B_ug

Thanks for the link.I just watched a portion of it so far,but I love that clock radio.I didnt know you could use it as an outlet and timer.Id love to find one of those in mint condition.
Jimmy

Appliance outlets were pretty common on clock radios in the 50's and 60's. Just as with the ad in that collection on YouTube, the advertising for that feature often promoted the idea you could use it to automatically start the coffee maker in the morning. However, since the usual suggested location for a clock-radio was the bedroom (so it could wake you up), I wonder how many people actually decided to keep the coffee maker in the same room as their clock-radio just so they could actually have such automation in their home. :)

As for the rest of the ads in that collection, some of the more interesting to me were the RCA-Whirlpool appliance ads, since I don't generally see as much promo material for appliances. In particular, it seemed odd to see ads for RCA gas refrigerators-- not only because I figured Servel was about the only company still manufacutring gas refrigerators in the 1950's, but the fact that those RCA ads actually *touted* the fact that they were gas-operated instead of electric as if that was some sort of great new thing..! ...Though I guess with that automatic ice maker, those refrigerators would have still needed an electric outlet, which would negate one of the few possible real advantages of a gas refrigerator. [Gas refrigerators were pretty reliable since they don't have any moving parts (or at least don't *have* to have any), but as far as I know, they were usually much more expensive to run that a mechanical (electric) refrigerator (unless gas was *really* cheap where you lived), and weren't generally as effective in terms of cooling capacity.]

Here in Brazil in the 1950's gas refrigerators were manufactured in big numbers, because many areas of the country were still without electricity at that time .

I would like to find one of those, but oddly the electrical ones appear all the time, I have never seen a gas refrigerator "in person".

Is it possible that some of those gas refrigerators were converted to electricity?

it's good to see that one thing hasn't changed in 50 years -- yellow pages

A Stratoworld radio, as described in the ad, for sale now on ebay
http://cgi.ebay.com/RCA-Stratoworld-Shortwave-Radio-Works-Perfect-NR_W0QQitemZ230158370666QQihZ013QQcategoryZ15051QQ cmdZViewItem

Wonderful stuff. I love the one early on, where the host "pulls" the picture out of that old-fashioned 10-inch set (i.e., a 630TS like mine) and then pulls the picture out of the new big-screen 21-inch set next to it for comparison.

That would be a fun piece to have on DVD to show to guests -- on that TV.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Video has been removed due to a "terms of use violation"

Crap!

How awful. But I have some good news: I saved the WHOLE video, in case somebody is interested.