This is a gorgeous confection of a book..."As Seen on TV" manages to plug directly into the more mundane fads and fashions of popular culture., In this entertaining and informative book, Marling uses a variety of visual icons of the 1950s to depict the decade as an ocean of vibrant color, movement and style...[She] is one of this country's strongest advocates of the study of popular culture. She is also one of our most eloquent analysts of the meanings to be found in objects. Her book's multilayered, dizzying descriptions...plunge the reader into a culture drunk on color and form. They testify to the complex cultural significance with which Americans in the postwar years invested commonplace objects and images. They also blur the lines between aesthetics and sociology...Marling's full and convincing interpretations of the objects under discussion exhibit both humor and empathy.,

"As Seen on TV" offers fresh, imaginative readings of individual artifacts, particularly Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book and television commercials for automobiles. Moving Beyond text to context, chapters on the ongoing spectacle at Disneyland and the one-time-only "Kitchen Debate" between Nixon and Khruschev provide suggestive rereadings of familiar topics. [The book] becomes most interesting when imaginatively leaping from one set of cultural products or practices to another. It glides from Mamie Eisenhower's 'New Look' to the 'Chemise' or 'sack dress'..

"As Seen on TV" draws on an extensive, eclectic array of sources: presidential archives, museum collections, business publications, scholarly accounts, popular histories, and even the responses of listeners to Professor Marling's appearances on radio talk shows,

This book is an invitation to celebrate the dawning of the world as television...[She] lovingly guides us through this landscape, the world of what design critic Thomas Hine called the "populuxe," glitz and glitter for the postwar masses...The whole period has found a sympathetic chronicler in Marling and her account of the influence of television on 1950s America makes for fascinating reading.,

"As Seen on TV" combines high seriousness and just plain fun. It's a pleasure to read...Marling is as mercilessly convincing as she is witty and bright. Her stinging portrait of the 1950s easily extends beyond that much-satirized decade, enabling us to see its primitive reflection in today's popular culture and mass markets., Irresistible...Marling's enthusiasm is refreshing, entertaining and imaginative. Her energy is infectious...She manages to make the decade that time forgot come alive.