Dirk
The suave Laika cigarette-smoking chap from the ‘Sputnik’ movie is proving quite popular so I decided to give him a fan page of his own.
Though this TV commercial was presumably shot around 1957/8, I think he looks more like a refugee from Steve Strange’s ‘Club For Heroes’ circa 1981. Perhaps the overlooked Kemp brother, Dirk?
Feel free to post your own tribute below.
December 21st, 2007 at 6:29 am
Hee Hee 1st to comment at last!
From his expression the chap looks like he’s just smoked hair of the dog. (damp dog according to merujo) Yuk!
unlike the expensive brand that LJK Setright used to smoke
Sobranie I think they were.
December 21st, 2007 at 9:04 am
Kinda reminds me of you playing “Science” on The Tube.
December 21st, 2007 at 10:43 am
Dirk! I love it!
It’s that last image that slays me – completely cracks me up! I’ve never before seen such ecstasy on the face of anyone smoking the pungent mess of ditchweed crammed into a Soviet cig!
I once smoked a whole pack of Soviet cigarettes — they were actually labeled in Russian as “Virginia quality cigarettes made with fine Iraqi tobacco!” I don’t smoke, but I was locked out of my apartment overnight on a very cold Moscow winter night. I just puffed away on them to stay warm, like the Russian street cops outside my building. Twenty of those suckers, and I think I had the look of death the next morning. No joy to be found!
Taking that experience into consideration, this guy’s dreamy look (and tousled hair) has left me to wonder if his expression is instead a response to the now off-screen well-manicured hands we see in that first frame…
…unless those are his hands, and that opens a whole new avenue of discussion.
Early Soviet Goth, anyone?
December 21st, 2007 at 11:01 am
*snerk*!
Merujo culpa!!
Funny how something like that just jumps out at a person once
somebody else notices it. I just sorta thought the intent was to
show, “Smoke these canine-smelling things, and even as the
asbestos enters your lungs, you will achieve bliss.” [who the heck
could guess what was in those things anyway. Bits of old sofas...
beak particles...] “Dirk” actually reminds me of a guy I used to
know.
December 21st, 2007 at 11:26 am
That’ll teach me to dash off a reply in 15 seconds: asbestos is known
for NOT burning! So, please substitute the phrase “shreds of old
mitten wool” instead. Gad, but it can be hard to navigate that narrow
borderland between ‘funny’ and ‘not funny at all’…
Kara, trying to pry foot out of mouth…mmmmmphhhh!
December 21st, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Actually this reminds me of something my science teacher once told me about Australians. In this country, we fart around the lung cancer issue and make expensive government funded TV commercials that someone thinks is effective. The Australians on the other hand do it properly. They have a TV ad where it’s just one man standing in front of a white screen smoking, and then he says : “If you smoke…you’re a BLOODY IDIOT!”