It Does A Body Good

I noticed yesterday, and mentioned on FB, that Jim Lange died yesterday.  And who was Jim Lange, you may ask?  He was the original and longtime host of the Dating Game, that wonderfully bad "game show" that was most popular in the late 60s through the 70s.  But this post isn't about that, really.

I was not a fan of the show.  A boy who was just hitting puberty just didn't get the appeal of asking strangers a handful of silly questions before choosing one to be your date for a "chaperoned, all-expenses paid trip" to wherever.  Still don't get it.  Probably the reason I don't get the whole online dating thing.  But I digress...

What I DID like was the music on the show.  Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass.  They used their music extensively as musical cues for different parts of the show.  Probably the most recognized, and iconic music was "Whipped Cream", used to introduce the bachelorette questioning the males.  Which is the topic of this post (you knew I'd get to it eventually, right?).

This is the cover from the album featuring "Whipped Cream".  Feel free to click it to big it.  Let's just look at that for a moment or two.  Lord knows I've spent a significant amount of time in my early years doing just that...

This album went to #1 on the Billboard charts back in the day, and most would agree that it had nothing to do with the music.  Released in 1965, it was certainly a daring photo for an album cover.  It consistently ranks at the top of "best album covers of all time" lists.  In posting a clip of "Whipped Cream" for my FB/RIP Jim Lange post, I got to thinking about the model in this photo.  And thanks to Google, I got a lot of answers!  The model's name is Dolores Erickson from Seattle.  At the time, she was 28 years old, and happened to be three months pregnant.  It took her years to realize how famous she really was as the "Whipped Cream Girl", and her place as a pop icon.

Further investigation lead to finding a couple of outtakes from the same photo session (again, click 'em to big 'em):

Without question, the photo that they used was, by far, the right choice...

And what does she look like today (49 years later)?  Here she is a couple of years ago, posing with an autographed LP at a used record store in Seattle.  Not bad for a 76 year old woman!

The moral of the story?  Whipped Cream...it does a body good!