Here is a recording of my family on Christmas 1981 at my home in Martinez, California. I can’t remember how this was recorded, but most likely I used my Superscope C-104 monaural cassette recorder. For this presentation, the cassette tape was played on my Sony TC-D5M stereo recorder, with Dolby noise reduction switched off, producing left and right monaural sound. The audio was captured into my computer with VSTHost. Normally, I will choose either left or right (not both channels) and create a mono .wav file, if I know the tape is monaural. This tape has quite good audio on both left and right with no audible phasing effects from the TC-D5M (maybe I have a tin ear) so I left the recording in stereo. If you prefer, you can fade down one side for true monaural sound. I did a little editing and level adjustment with Adobe Audition, and then created an Mp3 at 320 Kbps with RazorLame.
As I mentioned previously in the post “Guess What, I’m Still Here!” this recording has my mother trying out a new popcorn popper, specifically a Wear-Ever Popcorn Pumper. Pictured below is the same unit from 1981. It does still work quite well! If you’re lucky, I will try to make a video of the Popcorn Pumper in action.
Popcorn Pumper Off/On
Wear-Ever Popcorn Pumper
This is a video I made today on February 20th. 2018, showing the Wear-Ever Popcorn Pumper my mother used in 1981. It still works perfectly today. This post was originally from December 17, 2013.
8 users commented on " Christmas 1981 The Popcorn Pumper – Updated "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThis is possibly the greatest thing that “came out” of the 1980s, the whole decade was a cultural disaster with few redeeming moments. The recording has some treble trouble but as always manages to squeeze out a few good cackles, most notably from Grandma. Glad your’e still pumping, Weatherman.
We had that same popcorn pumper back in the 80’s. Including the hinged measuring cup at the top. We later got a model that replaced that hinged measuring top with a tray for melting butter.
Fun to hear some more context on some of the Willsaphone Stupid Show material.
The Popcorn Pumper is supposed to be a good model for roasting small batches of coffee beans as well.
As my ex-wife can atest to, any air popper is great for coffe roasting! Only a tiny fraction of the cost of a resl coffee roaster and you’re able to make huge batches without the big cooldown period inbetween we learned the hard way (we inadvertently fried our legitimate coffee roaster by using while still too warm from the last batch).
Thank you LordGek for commenting! I still have the Popcorn Pumper, and it still works like when it was new in 1980. Be sure to check my other posts, as I am updating the entire blog for easier access and downloading.
I bought one in ’81 and used it ’til it died. I had a different air popper for a couple years and hated it. I found a new old popcorn pumper and have been using it ever since – probably 30 years now! I am a big popcorn freak and use it quite a bit and still love it! It makes the best popcorn EVER!!!
I have my original Wearever Popcorn Pumper and i use the same Pyrex bowl For capturing the popped corn. Works better than any of the new stuff in the market. Lost my butter cup during a move; I suspect it’s around here someplace.
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