Late Night Infomercials - Ultramatic Beds with Gordie Tapp - Early 2000s

 

Recorded off-air in the early morning hours sometime in the early 2000s

Gordie and these beds were literally everywhere on late-night TV in Canada

Tapp studied at the Lorne Greene Academy of Radio Arts. He was the host for Main Street Jamboree, a radio program broadcast from Hamilton during the 1950s. Tapp later emceed the CBC television show Country Hoedown as well as The Performers, a series of shows featuring "up and coming" young Canadian talent.

He became a performer and writer for the CBS comedy-variety television show Hee Haw. Here he became an American TV star, becoming familiar as half of the stone-faced singing duo (with Archie Campbell) performing dozens of variations on "Pfft! You Were Gone" ("Where, Oh Where Are You Tonight?"). Tapp also played various recurring characters: hayseed Cousin Clem, pompous senator Samuel B. Sternwheeler, storekeeper Mr. Gordon, and Lavern Nagger, the forever put-upon husband of Ida Lee Nagger (Roni Stoneman).

In his later life, Tapp was the commercial spokesperson for the Ultramatic adjustable bed.

Tapp died in Burlington, Ontario on December 18, 2016, at the age of 94.

Sears Canada 50th Anniversary Commercial - Long Version - 2002

 

Ad for Sears Canada in their 50th anniversary year in 2002

Sears Canada Inc. was a publicly traded Canadian company affiliated with the American-based Sears department store chain. In operation from 1952 until January 14, 2018, and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, the company began as Simpsons-Sears—a joint venture between the Canadian Simpsons department store chain and the American Sears chain—which operated a national mail-order business and co-branded Simpsons-Sears stores modelled after those of Sears in the U.S. After the Hudson's Bay Company purchased Simpsons in 1978, the joint venture was dismantled and Hudson's Bay sold its shares in the joint venture to Sears; with Sears now fully owning the company, it was renamed Sears Canada Inc. in 1984. In 1999, Sears Canada acquired the remaining assets and locations of the historic Canadian chain Eaton's. 

In 2016, Sears Canada had a network that included 140 corporate stores (including full-line, Sears Home, and Sears Outlet stores), 71 Hometown stores, over 900 catalogue, and online merchandise pick-up locations, 69 Sears Travel offices, and a nationwide repair and service network. The company also published a general merchandise catalogue until the last quarter of 2016 and offered shopping online at sears.ca until October 19, 2017.

After filing for creditor protection in June 2017, Sears Canada announced it would close 20 full-line locations, 15 Home stores, 10 Outlet stores, and 14 Sears Hometown stores. The closings resulted in 2,900 employee layoffs. These stores officially closed on Sunday, October 1, 2017.[10] In September 2017, Sears Canada announced the closing of 10 additional stores, in addition to the 59 store closings previously announced in June. On October 10, 2017, Sears Canada announced that it would seek court approval to shut down all of its remaining stores in Canada and lay off 11,240 remaining staff. Liquidation sales began on October 19, 2017. The remaining Sears stores closed on January 14, 2018. 

I'll be honest, I do miss Sears

"Come to Sears and see"

Welcome to Bargain Bin Cinema

Welcome to the Site!

The goal of the site is to capture and preserve some of those minor snippets of life from the recent past, as captured by what was shown on TV on VHS Tapes. 

The aim is to preserve a forgotten time from a dead media before they are lost forever.

Enjoy!