We haven’t stopped giggling over the hilarious 1987 workout video for librarians that we told you about earlier this week. Seeing Betty Glover and her team of aerobicizing bookworms do the “horizontal drawer pull” and “Coke machine kick” to Van Halen and Paul Lekakis’ “Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back to My Room)” inspired us to seek out other vintage library clips. Find out what happens when pop culture and books join forces for literary raps, a Stevie Nicks reading, Captain Kirk confessions, and more.
“MC Poindexter and The Study Crew” delivered these sweet literary rhymes in a commercial that appeared during an episode of Sliders during the ’90s.
This ten-minute 1947 “vocational guidance” film about becoming a librarian explains everything the job entails, with plenty of card catalogue porn and a peek at an old school bookmobile. We tried not to sob when the announcer insisted that there is a need for “thousands of trained librarians.”
Pepsi wants us to know that the only thing more satisfying than guzzling their toxic beverage is shushing Teen Wolf-era Michael J. Fox in the library.
The Adventures of the Special Librarian is not a sleazy pulp tale. It’s a “rare glimpse into a day in the life of a corporate research librarian in 1964.” Is this guy a librarian, or one of the Men in Black? His bag seems suspicious, until it’s revealed (around 4:45) that the mysterious attaché actually contains a portable “photo copying device.” We’re still convinced he’s hiding a De-Atomizer.
Stevie Nicks reads her own poetry in the Osterley Park manor library while promoting her Other Side of the Mirror album in 1989. Klonopin wasn’t kind to the singer, but she looks fabulously witchy. You can watch the full film over here.
Pampers suggests that librarians during the 1960s checked out books and happily discussed your baby’s bodily functions.
Cookie Monster irks a thin-skinned librarian when he asks for books and cookies.
Curious George acts like a little jerk at the library.
We love you Weird Al. This comical “Conan the Librarian” cutaway scene is from the funnyman’s 1989 movie, UHF.
Get to know “the nation’s reading room” and the mother ship: the Library of Congress.
Is that Ron Burgundy in this 1989 library card commercial (around 14 seconds)?
When former professional baseball player Wade Boggs isn’t evading death by “willing himself invisible,” he’s reading books — at least he was in the 1980s, which may be where he left his mind.
We would have moved into the library permanently if Captain Kirk had switched careers. This clip comes from a 1974 episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series.
A classic library PSA that needs to make a comeback.