The Last Dream-o-Rama

If you've seen McCall's "Bulgemobile" advertisements from the 1970's vintage National Lampoon magazine, you already know he's a gifted artist with a droll sense of humor about automotive excesses. He has a talent for writing that comes close to real advertisements but just pushes it a little bit further such as "Fireblast! Twice the car you'll ever need - and that goes double for the new four-door FunTop!"

In this colorful book, after some pages spoofing dream car shows ("It's un-American to miss the Cavalcade of Chrome"), the bulk of the book has delightful full-page drawings of outrageous concept cars. Each has a half page history on the facing page.

One is the "Silver Sabre Patriomatic Funfighter, 1957" which looks only slightly more like a jet airplane than Pontiac's actual Firebird dream cars. Another is the "Armageddon Mk1, 1958" for the fallout shelter crowd. And there are many, many more with great variety. A few may be too silly for some tastes, but they are all wonderfully drawn.

The book wraps up with "Name Your Own Dream Car - the Detroit Way" and finally "Dream Cars Around the World" with yet more drawings and descriptions.

This book is a satisfying satirical, or perhaps all too true, look into the fifties and a great value even if you're only going to look at the drawings.


Not as zany as Zany.   January 27, 2002
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I always looked for Bruce McCall's brilliant work in the National Lampoon and loved the reprinted work in 'Zany Afternoons' (I bought two copies, just in case) and it confirmed that here was an unusual humorist, as good with a paint brush or typewriter.

This latest book though I found a bit disappointing. The material does not really stretch to 128 pages, lots of these (especially the text ones) have far too much white space and the illustrations I found lacking in detail. In 'Zany Afternoons' there are three hilarious parodies of Detroit car brochures, 1934, 1946 and 1958 Bulgemobiles, all have paintings of fantasy cars with backgrounds full of detail, it is this detail that I found missing in so many of the paintings in 'Dream-O-Rama'

Still, the text is very funny and if you are new to Mr McCall's work try and get 'Zany Afternoons' and 'Sit!', he wrote the wonderful words to accompany the dog paintings of Thierry Poncelet.


A fun ride through imagination   December 14, 2001
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I really liked this book. As someone who has always been critical of the schlock the automakers enjoy forcing upon the American people (can you really tell me the difference between a Camry and an Escort - come on), I enjoyed this artist's take on what would have happened if designers in the 50s had been allowed to have carte blanche at the drawing board, creating vehicles based on all the fads and crazes of the day. While not practical in the least, the cars all had an enjoyable retro-futuristic feel to them that made me think of a cross between the Jetsons and I Love Lucy. The illustrations are rich and wonderful, in that vibrant palette of hipster 50s pastels so commonly used in the Eisenhower era. The captions and comments from the author/artist are clever. My favorite cars are the Orbitronic Minus-Zero Saucersnatcher 1956 (p.47), which has room for a Roswell space alien friend in the back, and the Panavista FilmFlyte Visionaire 1955 (p.35), that brings the experience of a drive-in movie to a drive down the freeway. This would be a great conversation piece for the coffee table, or a nice addition to any library for car buffs or fans of the fabulous 1950s.