Advertising has always been an interesting way to look at history. But when you see these vintage advertisements, the past seems a lot weirder than you thought.
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"When you take your dog along for a ride, but prefer not having it inside the car, it can ride safely and comfortably in this sack, which is carried on the running board."
The inventor of this device neglected to provide a method of opening the driver-side front door without decapitating the dog.
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Alva's Brazilian Specific Cactus Blood Cure was a blood purifier said to have been discovered by Brazilian Indians. It hit the market in the 1890s and was sold in cactus-shaped bottles.
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"Shoot-the-chute thrills! Imagine how children will delight in taking "free rides" hour after hour!" That is until an injury results in a thrill ride to the Emergency Room in an ambulance.
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“Where will you be when your diarrhea comes back?” If you're this guy, you won't be sharing a hot tub with two attractive women. And it looks like they are more interested in each other anyway.
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So if your corsets are stained, you should dye them pink?
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"In the eyes of Communism, a child is simply something to be warped into one shape; godless, ignorant of moral responsibility, devoid of intellectual honesty . . . a creature of the State."
Apparently this is what sold airline seats at the time. So much for sexy stewardesses!
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"Course recommended by Show Business stars & executives. Prepares you quickly for high-pay career in world's most exciting profession."
The Radio-TV Training School, later called "RTS Electronics," was one of many companies offering correspondence courses in radio and TV. They were located in Los Angeles, and advertised in many hobbyist-oriented electronics magazines in the 40's through the 60's.
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American Apparel brags about its clothing being "ethically made" yet their advertising is raunchy, degrading, and often uncomfortable to look at.
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Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup was invented in 1845, and sold millions of bottles a year at 25 cents each. The two main ingredients were morphine and alcohol so it’s not surprising that it was so soothing. It caused many infant deaths from accidental overdoses and was finally banned in 1930.
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This kid looks like he's hallucinating in a sweat lodge.
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Forget it kid, you're drunk.
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This scary-looking kid looks like he's wired on Adderall, which may explain why he is eating hot dogs like they were bread sticks.
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The Peel P50 is a three-wheeled microcar originally manufactured from 1962 to 1965 by the Peel Engineering Company In Great Britain. It is listed in the Guinness World Records as the smallest production car ever made. The Peel P50 doesn't have a reverse gear, but a handle at the rear allows the 130 lb car to be lifted and repositioned when necessary.
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In 1854, Thomas Allcock invented a porous plaster for the relief of pain, and subsequently formed Allcock Manufacturing. The plasters were recommended for lumbago and various other disorders, such as diabetes, St Vitus’s Dance, epilepsy, dyspepsia, diarrhea, coughs and colds, asthma, pleurisy, whooping cough, consumption, ruptures, sciatica, paralysis, rheumatism, kidney problems, and quinsy (inflammation of the throat, especially an abscess in the region of the tonsils. You had to put a strip of plaster under your chin, stretching from ear to ear).
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With the introduction of electricity in the home throughout the latter half of the 19th century, many creative entrepreneurs designed devices touting the healing and medicinal powers of electricity and magnetism.
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"Get the most popular beanie of all -- the Cracker Jack JINGLE BEANIE. It's a swell, all felt beanie with a tall spring antenna in the top. The attached bell on tip of the antenna rings whenever you move your head. Get lots of attention from everyone."
Oh, you'll be the center of attention alright!
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"Let's have a prune party!"
"Win their hearts with prune tarts. Just yummy, Mummy!"
Are you shitting me? The girl on the right looks like she's already trying to pinch one off.
In what universe could “prune” and “party” ever go together?
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Dr & Mrs Chamlee were convicted of mail fraud in 1911, after their cure was analyzed and found to contain 99 per cent water and alcohol, with small quantities of iron and strychnine. Those who were duped by the Chamlees soon found out that their guarantee was worthless.
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The Jovial giant's footshape rug staggers the imagination! A thick-toe-tickling meadow of plushpile. Heel and sole above anything mortal.
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"This child's life may depend on the safety of Distaval"
That has to be one of the most ironic advertising phrases in the history of advertising.
Distaval was a brand name for Thalidomide; a heavily promoted ‘wonder drug’ in the early 1950s that could treat a range of conditions including headaches, insomnia and depression. It soon became apparent that pregnant women who took the drug during the first trimester were having deformed babies. The drug was withdrawn from the market in 1961 after it was determined that the drug led to the deaths of approximately 2,000 children and serious birth defects in more than 10,000 children.
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This 1936 ad for a Mickey Box Camera was published six years after the first appearance of Mickey Mouse in "Steamboat Willie." Apparently Walt Disney hadn't yet hired an army of lawyers to protect his most famous trademark.
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Virginia Slims were introduced in 1968, by Philip Morris and marketed as a woman's cigarette using marketing strategies to link smoking to women's freedom, emancipation, and empowerment.
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Before Kotex sanitary napkins were developed, most women relied on homemade cloth pads. Kimberly-Clark, an American paper products company formed in the 1870s, produced bandages from a material called Cellucotton for World War I, and nurses quickly found another use for it.
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Beer googles?
This ad for Nova Scotia's Oland's Export Ale appeared in The Atlantic Advocate in 1966.
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A bit edgy because you're drinking too much coffee? Beating your kid for no reason? Maybe it's the morning coffee -- or maybe it's the three martini lunch and the two highballs before dinner.
Developed in France and first marketed in the US in 1923, Sanka Instant Coffee was one of the pioneers of decaffeinated coffee.
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"When ambition deserts you and vitality sags down near zero; when you’re fagged out in brain and body and your nerves lack vim – the Kellogg’s Sanitone Wafers “ginger” you up to concert pitch, put the “punch” in your muscles, and make you tingle all over with health.”
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Can't afford the time it takes to shake an ash into an ashtray and put the cancer-stick back in your pie hole? This contraption is made for you.
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ALL of them? Watch yourselves, ladies! American soldiers are STD-riddled whores!
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Come Out of the Closet With Gay Bob
“He sits. He stands He gets into any position… And since he is anatomically correct, he can even play with himself without going blind. Gay Bob is a big 13 inches tall (wow) and made of plastic (or plastique, if you’re very elegant)… He comes dressed in mucho macho plaid shirt, blue jeans that open with a smart snap to reveal his private parts, boots and (naturally) one earring. He lives in a closet and has his own storybook / fashion catalogue. Barbie and Ken move over, GAY BOB IS HERE.”
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The inventor of this device neglected to provide a method of opening the driver-side front door without decapitating the dog.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
Alva's Brazilian Specific Cactus Blood Cure was a blood purifier said to have been discovered by Brazilian Indians. It hit the market in the 1890s and was sold in cactus-shaped bottles.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
"Shoot-the-chute thrills! Imagine how children will delight in taking "free rides" hour after hour!" That is until an injury results in a thrill ride to the Emergency Room in an ambulance.
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“Where will you be when your diarrhea comes back?” If you're this guy, you won't be sharing a hot tub with two attractive women. And it looks like they are more interested in each other anyway.
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So if your corsets are stained, you should dye them pink?
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"In the eyes of Communism, a child is simply something to be warped into one shape; godless, ignorant of moral responsibility, devoid of intellectual honesty . . . a creature of the State."
Apparently this is what sold airline seats at the time. So much for sexy stewardesses!
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
"Course recommended by Show Business stars & executives. Prepares you quickly for high-pay career in world's most exciting profession."
The Radio-TV Training School, later called "RTS Electronics," was one of many companies offering correspondence courses in radio and TV. They were located in Los Angeles, and advertised in many hobbyist-oriented electronics magazines in the 40's through the 60's.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
American Apparel brags about its clothing being "ethically made" yet their advertising is raunchy, degrading, and often uncomfortable to look at.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup was invented in 1845, and sold millions of bottles a year at 25 cents each. The two main ingredients were morphine and alcohol so it’s not surprising that it was so soothing. It caused many infant deaths from accidental overdoses and was finally banned in 1930.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
This kid looks like he's hallucinating in a sweat lodge.
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Forget it kid, you're drunk.
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This scary-looking kid looks like he's wired on Adderall, which may explain why he is eating hot dogs like they were bread sticks.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
The Peel P50 is a three-wheeled microcar originally manufactured from 1962 to 1965 by the Peel Engineering Company In Great Britain. It is listed in the Guinness World Records as the smallest production car ever made. The Peel P50 doesn't have a reverse gear, but a handle at the rear allows the 130 lb car to be lifted and repositioned when necessary.
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In 1854, Thomas Allcock invented a porous plaster for the relief of pain, and subsequently formed Allcock Manufacturing. The plasters were recommended for lumbago and various other disorders, such as diabetes, St Vitus’s Dance, epilepsy, dyspepsia, diarrhea, coughs and colds, asthma, pleurisy, whooping cough, consumption, ruptures, sciatica, paralysis, rheumatism, kidney problems, and quinsy (inflammation of the throat, especially an abscess in the region of the tonsils. You had to put a strip of plaster under your chin, stretching from ear to ear).
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With the introduction of electricity in the home throughout the latter half of the 19th century, many creative entrepreneurs designed devices touting the healing and medicinal powers of electricity and magnetism.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
"Get the most popular beanie of all -- the Cracker Jack JINGLE BEANIE. It's a swell, all felt beanie with a tall spring antenna in the top. The attached bell on tip of the antenna rings whenever you move your head. Get lots of attention from everyone."
Oh, you'll be the center of attention alright!
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
"Let's have a prune party!"
"Win their hearts with prune tarts. Just yummy, Mummy!"
Are you shitting me? The girl on the right looks like she's already trying to pinch one off.
In what universe could “prune” and “party” ever go together?
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
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The Jovial giant's footshape rug staggers the imagination! A thick-toe-tickling meadow of plushpile. Heel and sole above anything mortal.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
"This child's life may depend on the safety of Distaval"
That has to be one of the most ironic advertising phrases in the history of advertising.
Distaval was a brand name for Thalidomide; a heavily promoted ‘wonder drug’ in the early 1950s that could treat a range of conditions including headaches, insomnia and depression. It soon became apparent that pregnant women who took the drug during the first trimester were having deformed babies. The drug was withdrawn from the market in 1961 after it was determined that the drug led to the deaths of approximately 2,000 children and serious birth defects in more than 10,000 children.
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This 1936 ad for a Mickey Box Camera was published six years after the first appearance of Mickey Mouse in "Steamboat Willie." Apparently Walt Disney hadn't yet hired an army of lawyers to protect his most famous trademark.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
Virginia Slims were introduced in 1968, by Philip Morris and marketed as a woman's cigarette using marketing strategies to link smoking to women's freedom, emancipation, and empowerment.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
Before Kotex sanitary napkins were developed, most women relied on homemade cloth pads. Kimberly-Clark, an American paper products company formed in the 1870s, produced bandages from a material called Cellucotton for World War I, and nurses quickly found another use for it.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
This ad for Nova Scotia's Oland's Export Ale appeared in The Atlantic Advocate in 1966.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
A bit edgy because you're drinking too much coffee? Beating your kid for no reason? Maybe it's the morning coffee -- or maybe it's the three martini lunch and the two highballs before dinner.
Developed in France and first marketed in the US in 1923, Sanka Instant Coffee was one of the pioneers of decaffeinated coffee.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
"When ambition deserts you and vitality sags down near zero; when you’re fagged out in brain and body and your nerves lack vim – the Kellogg’s Sanitone Wafers “ginger” you up to concert pitch, put the “punch” in your muscles, and make you tingle all over with health.”
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Can't afford the time it takes to shake an ash into an ashtray and put the cancer-stick back in your pie hole? This contraption is made for you.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
ALL of them? Watch yourselves, ladies! American soldiers are STD-riddled whores!
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻
Come Out of the Closet With Gay Bob
“He sits. He stands He gets into any position… And since he is anatomically correct, he can even play with himself without going blind. Gay Bob is a big 13 inches tall (wow) and made of plastic (or plastique, if you’re very elegant)… He comes dressed in mucho macho plaid shirt, blue jeans that open with a smart snap to reveal his private parts, boots and (naturally) one earring. He lives in a closet and has his own storybook / fashion catalogue. Barbie and Ken move over, GAY BOB IS HERE.”
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The instructions say, "you'll see brilliant flashes of light in the inky darkness inside the atom chamber. These frenzied vivid flashes are caused by the released energy of atoms. PERFECTLY SAFE - We guarantee you can wear the KIX Atomic "Bomb" Ring with complete safety. The atomic materials inside the ring are harmless."When the red base (the "secret message compartment") was removed you could look through a small plastic lens at sparkles caused by polonium alpha particles striking a zinc sulfide screen.
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