Funny Vintage Ads (44)

 Advertising has always been an interesting way to look at history. But when you see these vintage advertisements, the past seems a lot stranger than you thought.

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"Stripped for Action" but wearing a six-gun in case you like it rough.

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"It's a Psychological Fact: Pleasure Helps Your Disposition"

Sure, you could smoke a cigarette, but if it's pleasure you're after, try sex.

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"...an instant hit with the ladies" but only if the "ladies" are no older than 7.

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Bovril is a thick and salty meat extract paste that was developed in the 1870s by John Lawson Johnston.

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"Now every night is TV night ... and you make easy money on every show!"
As long as your friends are just as gullible as you were when you bought this.

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Any kid who was capable of following these instructions would soon be bored with the results.

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"The "Koshi Obi" strengthens instead of weakening the wearer."
Not if your friends see you wearing that in the locker room at the health club.

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CEO: "What can we do with all these twisted paper clips?"
Marketing executive: "Let's find out just how gullible some people are."

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Levi's Gremlin was introduced by the now defunct American Motor Corporation in 1973. The interior trim was actually a denim-look nylon, since cotton in a car interior was a fire hazard.

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"Bituminous Coal - Powers the Wheels of Progress!"
Until we realized the negative effects that coal was having on the environment.

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Atomic Man was part of Hasbro's GI Joe series and was a lame attempt at cashing in on the popularity of the "Six Million Dollar Man" TV show.

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International Correspondence Schools was founded in 1889 in Scranton, Pennsylvania to teach miners about mine safety. In time, the ICS curriculum expanded to include instruction in a wide variety of industrial trades as well as architecture and foreign languages.

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Considered one of the most iconic and widely used of all novelty items in the world, Groucho glasses were first marketed in the early 1940s

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Advertised as "America's Laxative", Pluto Water used the slogan "When Nature Won't, PLUTO Will."

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 Fire grenades were popular from the 1870s through the early 1900s. The grenades were filled with salt water, carbon tetrachloride or a powder and then sealed with a cork and cement. The grenade was thrown at the base of a fire so that the glass would smash and release the contents – putting out the fire.

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They say you can put this electrical device that draws a lot of current into the middle of melting ice. What could go wrong?

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"Tells you when it's safe to leave shelter"
Yeah, that would be never...
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"The Italians' desire for speed is only matched by Italians' desire."
Subtle!

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From 1788 to 1868 Britain transported more than 160,000 convicts from its overcrowded prisons to the Australian colonies. Gold was discovered in the 1850s and that caused another wave of migration. By the early 1900s, Australia had to advertise for more immigrants.

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 Crispettes are made from popcorn and a binding agent like chocolate or molasses. You'd have to manufacture and then sell many thousands of crispettes to make $351 in one day. Using a manual press, the muscles on your pressing arm would soon be as big as your head.

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 The introduction of electric lighting for the home in the 1910s put gas lighting at a great disadvantage. Inventors found a way to make gas lights switchable, but they were still much more dangerous than electric lights.

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8-track tape, first introduced in the late 1960s, was the first tape format that was widely available. It was portable and easy to use, but it also had quite a few drawbacks and was soon replace by cassette tapes. 

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What later became known as "Molotov Cocktail" and associated with Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister, first appeared in the Spanish Civil War and was named by Finnish soldiers who used them against Soviet invaders during World War 2.

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Aunt Jemima pancake mix began in 1889 as the first ready-mix. In 2020, Quaker Oats announced that the Aunt Jemima brand would be retired "to make progress toward racial equality."

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Cigarette companies began selectively advertising to women in the late 1920s. The American Tobacco Company hired Edward Bernays, the father of public relations, who attacked the social taboo against women smoking in public by referring to cigarettes as "Torches of Freedom."

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In the early 1970s, a lot of kids wanted to modify their bikes to look like choppers. Modifications like this often fell victim to personal injury lawyers.

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Most likely from being around stinky men. A common theme of personal care advertising for women in the 1930s was the desire not to offend your man.

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 "With your own Moto-Scoot you can really live..." till you crash and land on your head with no helmet.

Moto-Scoot was a US motor scooter manufacturer in Chicago founded by Normal Siegel in 1937.

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From the 18th century onward, a conflict between surgeons and midwives arose, as doctors began to assert that their modern scientific techniques were better for mothers and infants than the folk medicine practiced by midwives. The "Perfection" Midwifery Case and others like it were developed to make midwives appear more like medical professionals.

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Prem is a brand of canned meat similar to Hormel's Spam that was first introduced in 1939 by Swift & Company in the United States. In 2008 Hormel, sued Swift for infringement because they began using a label that was very similar to Spam's.

 

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