Not Shown: Tears

Utterly hilarious in heavy-handed guilt inducement this online ad from a bank urges you to avoid years of expensive therapy for your children and acrimonious divorce from a spouse by taking out a loan for fancy, expensive vacations and not suffer the shame of a mediocre family trip to lesser destinations.

Recursion by Monteil

Seeing this ad for Nostalgia perfume in my copy of the December 1962 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine made me wistful for the good old days and before I knew it I was stuck in a recursive nostalgia loop from which there was no escape.

The Picture of Dora Gray

All the evil the young model perpetrates in her life is reflected in the images of her on billboards. Her physical body and face untouched, eternally youthful on the exterior but rotting and festering within.

As easy as trying on a new hat

This gimmick still exists today but in software form where an uploaded image is virtually merged with different styles of hair and clothing.

From Cowboy Love #31 (August 1955).

Vinylite plastic protects sleeping baby

I don't know what was worse; the parents that would have bought this product or the company that sold it.

From People Today (9-26-51).

New and Improved

Wondered what the customers were giggling about (my first instinct was not to look up) until I looked at the cash register and saw that the product abbreviation for Creamy Supreme frosting had an unfortunate and comical result.

Real receipt with a false header because of humorless bosses.

Art is Food

My current dietary choices do not include chips and other snacks these days but I found this store branding of munchies clever and unique. The product is identified on the bag and draws attention by the cute doodles centered around a chip or cheese puff. As marketing goes it is a pretty nice effort and goes beyond what one usually sees for labeling for a generic store product.

There are several illustrations but my favorite is the potato chip mouse being threatened by a venomous snake.

Cruel Shoes

I guess the little girl on these boxes of footwear is supposed to show all the joy and happiness the recipient of shoes will experience but it just seems to convey some sort of horror at what the box might contain.

Health and Safety

Anthropomorphic mascot promotes better health through improved nutrition and sports but not, apparently, physical safety and common sense as J. Slice' shattered skull and exposed brain can attest.

From the National Watermelon Promotion Board's J. Slice saves the Planet from Professor Junkfood (2003). I remember 2003. It was all about our precious snowflakes wearing protective equipment and preventing traumatic injury. How did this get approved?

To find out, click here for the The Senses-Shattering Secret Origin of J. Slice!

Special S

This speech balloon on the back of some boxes of crackers is supposed to be a means of affirmation for women with low self-esteem to feel better about themselves. The idea is that the customer writes on the back of the box what they expect to receive for eating allegedly low-calorie or small-volume snacks. They then become less depressed or something.

In reality it is affording the staff of some grocery stores plenty of opportunities for pranks where they write or place a sticker on the back of the box and replace it on the shelf, causing paininthebuttery to ensue.

Then of course, the company making the crackers is just foolish in encouraging people to upload their own affirmations and also allowing them to create their own commercial using the uploaded photo.

Heh. When will they learn?

Pimps trying to catch a woman that's weak

Sylvester is a pimp, that much is clear. I understand Sylvester keeping a bevy of birds to lure in some johns, he's got to pay for all that stuff he orders from Acme somehow and honey-traps are as good a way as any. What I don't get is why didn't Sylvester just eat Prostitweety when he had the chance then go after Tweety once the smack in her body hit his system and amped him up into a raging killing machine? Maybe she was a robot.

Dark Shadows #34 (Nov 1975).

Drinking Companions

"Ideal for Beer, Highballs, Water and Every Beverage." I don't imagine that any of these glasses still exist anywhere but yeah, I want them all and the matching coasters, too.

Thrilling Comics #36 (July 1943).

Hopelessly Devoted to Cleanliness

Advertising keyword fail from YouTube.

Because nothing says teen-age rebellion like domestic chores done well.

And so what I was watching ONJ videos.

Do Not Tease the Golem

Top Secrets #2 (1949).

Ocean Liners in the Sky update

Spotted in San Diego, 10-8-10, 94E and Federal.

A part of Ocean Liners in the Sky.

GROG GROWS OWN TAIL

There's a great horror story to be found in this. And you can't beat those pre-graphic arts programs days of cutting, pasting and stenciling your own home-made ad copy.

From Teen-Age Hotrodders #4 (1963).

Dry those tears, Myra

My Own Romance #20 (Jan 1952).

Whipshot

From Learn To Play Dice Correctly (1976).

Sheena, Queen of the Prom

Found on the back of Planet Comics #43 (July 1946) is this house ad for Jumbo Comics featuring Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, a popular Fiction House jungle-themed heroine with origins going back to Britain in 1937. In the ad a letter from a school faculty sponsor addressed to the house pseudonym responsible for creating Sheena declares that the character has been chosen as the mascot for the 1947 Graduating Class of John Bartram High School in Philadelphia.

When I showed this ad to my Mom she asserted that her school would never have allowed such an icon to be used as a mascot since Sheena was such a provocative female figure. I can only speculate that the parents and faculty of the school of the 1940s didn't mind as they had friends and family that was used to glamorous pin-ups in the home, workplace and military barracks and a culture that was a little more rough and tumble from years of war and working the shipyards. I don't know what what the long ago class of that high school was like but I can't help thinking that Sheena would not go over as well today with the students as it may have done in 1947. The image of a Caucasian female dressed in leopard skin as the Queen of an African region would be as more unpopular (though for different reasons) than their current school mascot, what some have called a stereotypical Indian brave.

Swooshy Peplum

I'm loving every word as read through a pop-culture bobby-sox filter in this March 1949 ad copy from Miss America Magazine. Whooper-doo!