Urban Myth of the Day: Zoot Fenster - The Man On Page 602 (Antique, 1975)

I used to hear about this "thing" that happened, from time to time in my childhood, whispered here and there...usually, as I would come into the room, the conversation would stop, but I gathered that "something" had happened that I needed to know more about, and Sears was involved.

Flash forward to a few years ago, when I was reminded of this "event," the one that embarrassed and hushed chattering aunts and grandmothers...and I learned a few more of the details.  I will give you the quick version: a picture in a department store catalog caused a furor in the mid-70's.  This is hard to believe in our "modern" age....if you are trying to tell this story, odds are you will first have to explain that department stores used to send out regular catalogs a couple of times a year, and that as children, we would eagerly await the Christmas ones ("wish books") and begin tearing through them...but I digress.

I found out there was a (novelty) song about the incident, but promptly forgot about it.  Imagine my surprise when I found the single in a pile of otherwise dull records recently.

Since this subject is sort of outside the bounds of what we usually cover here at The Sphinx, and it's not one of THOSE sorts of taverns, I will direct you to the fine urban-myth-debunking folks at Snopes.com for the rundown, as well as the offending photo, so you can see and decide for yourselves.