Men Are Funny

Men are funny - you never know whether you're making the right move or not. Avoid disappointment, heartbreak!

Yeah, men are funny all right. So you'd think that telling them a few jokes might be enticing. You'd be wrong, though. It's way more complicated than that.

This guide to hunting them down is also funny:

It's Easy to Win Him...When You Know How!

In other words, this is sort of the equivalent of the electric bow tie, for girls - how to score with the opposite sex, for only 98 cents.

But what precisely are we going to be learning, and what is the goal? Is the goal here:

(a) To Win Him ("easy when you know how!") OR is it in fact

(b) To Get Along With Boys. As in plural boys. What precisely does getting along mean, huh? Resisting the impulse to scream at him for that sexist wisecrack he just made (men aren't that funny, sometimes) - or, ahem, what used to be called putting out? Probably something in-between the two.

In any case, you will also learn:

How to Get Him To Date You
How to Make Him Enjoy Your Company
How To Have Personality
How Not to Offend Him
How To Keep Men Guessing
How To "Make Up" With Him

Doesn't that sound like a constructive use of your time? Feminist consciousness will be lowered all over the place! Guaranteed. But at least there will be "No more clumsy mistakes for you." Nice to know the author has such a high opinion of her readership. She must be related to Madame Beatrice.*

Yes, this book was actually written by a woman. Her name was Henrietta Rosenberg; she used the pseudonym Walter S. Keating (I have a few ideas about what the 'S' stood for). Masquerading as the bon-vivant Keating, Ms. Rosenberg wrote some other spicy titles in the 1940s and 1950s. These include Marriage Mischief, How To Write Love Letters, The Omnibus Of Pleasure, Sex Studies From Freud To Kinsey, and perhaps (in this context) most disturbingly, How To Get A Job In New York.

Thanks, but I'll think I'll try the Acme Employment Agency first.

*Of course, if you use Madame B's Secret Voice, you won't need this book, will you? That list of How Tos is a precise description of what Secret Voice does. So maybe you should just get a few flasks of that instead.

******
Thank you to Comic Book Ads for this gem. You can click the link for a very nice full-size version of this ad, and read all the incredible things you will be taught.

Don't Open This Bottle

...because there's a whole miniature orchestra in there, and they're raring to play syrupy tunes. And a tiny Lawrence Welk is raising his toothpick baton and piping out, ah-one anna two!

As you probably know, The Lawrence Welk Show was an exceedingly corny musical variety show that ran from 1951 to 1971. Geritol was one of the main sponsors, which should tell you plenty. It was known for (among other things) a disturbing plethora of fake champagne bubbles cascading over the set, and the opening credits. Pretty much whenever there was a lull in the excitement (relatively speaking).This was supposed to evoke elegance. There was also a Champagne Lady. She was the glamor queen of the show, but looked more the fanciest hairdresser in Levittown. GoRetroGirl has a great post on this show, so why not go over and read that. Then please come back and look at this terrific tie-in novelty!

Yes, you can have your very own Champagne Bottle Radio!* It is two feet tall so it will definitely stand out in any room.

It won't be able to help you with homework, but it can sing and sing...and sing. Plus it has a "clever personalized label" which will read "Vintage of 1949 Bottled Expressly for Mary From Jane." Too bad if your name isn't Mary or Jane.

Lawrence was selling these himself, it looks like (check the bottom of the ad). For a whopping $24 each! The profits must have been wunnerful, wunnerful. You just know those people in the audience, in the clip below, each had at least three of these things back at home.

[From Billboard, March 26, 1949]



*There really is no special reason that I have three posts with bottles in them this week. This one was pure serendipity, it made me laugh when I was going through my bookmarks. So I said: OK, that one. As I am finishing up, I realize that: oh, another bottle. Next week will be bottle-free!

******
Many thanks to my new friend, Tracy (who really is wunnerful!) for the Weekly Blog Tiara. I always enjoy a good tiara, and will treasure this one! She is a retro ad collector, too - and writes the funniest things about them. Please go check out her blog over at The Crazy Suburban Mom, it's a treat to read.

Voice In A Bottle

This is Madame Week on my blogs, I guess: there sits Madame Morrow, the wily Victorian fortune teller, over at the Dime Museum. And today we have, as a guest star over here, the lovely and equally wily Madame Beatrice, straight out of 1960.

Madame Beatrice has something fabulous for you today. Today and every day! Are you shy, left out, pushed to one side by some high-fashion sweet-talking lollapalooza of a floozy? Is she bewitching your guy?

Madame Beatrice understands. She's been there, obviously: check out the brave smile, the Margaret Dumont iron matron vibe, the perky pearls. She's duked it out, so to speak, with a bimbo or two in her day. And won.

Because Madame has a secret weapon. And that's what she wants to sell to you. It is perfume that will actually speak for you. It is your "Secret Voice" and can say all the things you are too chicken to say. Can and will!

Hey, will you look at that loser flirting with all the girls? Is that him? That's our boyfriend? Hmmm, I don't know about this. Are you sure we want to get this one back? Because I'm not so sure.

Let's use my Secret Voice and round up somebody new. Psst! You there, the cute guy in the corner. Come over here and talk to us. Now. I said, NOW. C'mon, move it, buster!

Please note that you will need "complete directions" on how to use Secret Voice perfume. Madame Beatrice thinks we're not only shy and depressed, but really, really stupid. Don't you feel much better now?

[Many thanks to Modern Mechanix for this one.]

The Soda Jerk

It's back to school time (not quite yet for some of us, but soon enough) and here is a little retro homework tip for you all, from Ginger's older brother:

1. Make friends with a giant bottle of Seven-Up. Tell it you like it. You can sense that it also likes you! (Maybe there is some bizarre dating opportunity in here, but let's just leave that one alone for now).

2. Sit down together with your homework. Open up a few books and place them decoratively around the desk light. Try not to knock them over with your elbow.

3. Put your arm around the Seven-Up bottle and give it a smoldering look of desperation. Gosh, I thought you said you knew how to do long division (burp).

4. Realize that you have been transformed into an awkward line drawing with strangely proportioned arms and hands, and a tiny sunburned head. What in the world are they putting in Seven-Up these days?

5. Wait for the giant soda bottle to answer you. Read a few comic books while you are waiting.

6. Tell the teacher the next day that you couldn't do the math homework because some strange Seven-Up bottle wandered into your room and spilled soda all over the desk.

7. Next day: see if Pepsi is any good at American history.

Thank you Janet at Found In Mom's Basement, who found the ad at Community LiveJournal (link is on her page).

Dances With Hollywood Wolves

We've had some advertisements about this sort of thing before, a little item called the Wolf Whistle. You can go have a look at them here and here.

But this is the ultimate version; the top end of the line. This is the original Hollywood Wolf Whistle. It not only makes a "wolf call" but also "other weird noises." One can only imagine what that must be like.

How enchanting.

You too can look like a cartoon animal in a bowtie, chomping a cigar. Maybe you can pretend to be working on a few movie scripts, too (that is probably where ordering the Descriptive Literature would come in handy).

It works not only in cars but in trucks, on motorcycles, in motor boats and "outboard motors, too." So basically, you can harass women with your obnoxious and weird noises everywhere, on land and sea. How impressed they will be!

If they are not sufficiently thrilled (and I suspect that they may not be) - just tell them Cecil B. DeMille sent you. And that he has one of these on his limo, too. He gets the chauffeur to do the wolf whistling, though.

Ad from Popular Science, June 1948.

Hairku Off Face

Stubble and trouble:
My face was hairy, all right.
And life was lousy.

Beard, lady, circus:
Thoughts ran their vicious cycles.
I tried many things:

Even Brad, smirking,
Lent his electric razor,
And some Barbasol.

Then Annette Lanzette
Rhymed grandly into my life,
With something simple:


A Mystery Thing,
A method that is painless,
Yet not electric!

Tweezers and a sign
Stuck to the back of my head
Saying: Hair Off Face.

Brad laughs at Madame.
He has just made a bad joke,
About vain women.

I am smiling now;
As I turn quickly towards Brad.
Watch those sharp corners.

Tooth In Advertising

Ah yes, "the show must go on" (as the ad says, bizarrely enough) for this unhappy, untheatrical little head tied up in a spotted dishrag.

Naturally, quick and amazing relief is on the way, courtesy of Dent's. But of course. But I wish that Dent's would just own up and say something like this:

Well, we think it might help, but - it might not, we're not sure. It probably won't. But you might as well try it. They're gum drops for your teeth. They sound a little bit like candy. They are going to take the toothache away. That is, they might. But they are gummy. They will stick in your sore tooth.

And if that doesn't work, we also make tooth drops. Oh, and also ear drops. Take the drops and - you know, drop them. After all, "the show must go on." Break a leg, little head. Or perhaps, break a tooth.

This ad is from Billboard, November 25, 1944. You can see the actual container and some of the Tooth Gum over here on eBay - it was real gum like chewing gum, but you were not supposed to chew it; you stuffed it into the cavity.

And over here is a horrible candy from 2005 called Toothache Candy, shaped like little teeth. Do not click the link unless you are prepared (nay, expecting) to be grossed out. You have been warned!

The Ring Ding-A-Ling

Now it's possible to drink, smoke, point at the girl across the room wearing that hideous pink paisley lamé dress, and gobble deviled eggs - all at once. Sounds like fun? Just wear this ring which has, in place of a big sparkly gem, a beauteous holder for your cigarette.

After this gal has finished snacking, she'll have a hand free to grab people by the arm when they start looking around for someone else to talk to. She'll make them stay and listen to the saga of how she was discovered last April at Schrafft's and almost got offered a Hollywood screen test. She was having a cream soda. and the Big Movie Producer (who turned out to be a shoe salesman from Peoria) had just ordered a doughnut - a jelly doughnut. No, wait. It was plain with, you know that powdered sugar they have on doughnuts?...She'll need to grab an arm just about now.

So no Hollywood contract, but at least she has a Hollywood Finger-Cigarette-Ring.

From Billboard, November 27, 1954.

Three Heads Are Better Than One

Mothers! You there, you people who are solely responsible for cleaning things - floors, dishes, clothes - you need to trick those kiddies into washing their sticky, icky hands.

Well, Lifebuoy has got something really fun up its metaphorical sleeve, and I want to tell you all about it.

Gather round and I'll tell you my tale:

One day, a disembodied Head came to me and ordered me to write to Lifebuoy for some soap and some nifty Wash-Up Charts. I asked the Head how it got in the house but it wouldn't tell me. Personally, I think it came from the Lifebuoy Head Office.


Oh boy, Wash Up Charts! We were all mighty excited the day the package came from Lifebuoy. Jimmy and Sue could hardly wait to start washing their hands and checking things off on those charts. It was just like Christmas morning - only without the decorations, and the presents were cakes of soap instead of new socks and underwear. Settle down, kids! There's plenty for everyone.

Another Head hovered over us, urging us on. I was startled at first. How many of them were assigned to each household, I wondered. Then I sort of got used to her. Although she needs to stop crabbing about how she never likes what I make for dinner. And pointing out that the ceiling needs to be dusted.

(Sounds exciting? Well, you can send away for all this incredible fun, too. Look over there on the right! Well, you can if you are a mother. Otherwise you can just forget it. And if you have teenagers you can forget it too. The Wash-Up Charts lose their magic after the 13th birthday.)

A third Head came to live with us, too. She likes to hover over the sink, making sure that everyone washes their hands and checks off their charts - many, many times a day. If Jimmy and Sue get careless and forget, you ought to hear her yell. And the language she uses is - well, I won't repeat it, but I might need to wash her mouth out one of these days. You know what I'm going to use, don't you?

From the February 1939 Canadian Home Journal, via Duke University's Medicine and Madison Avenue.

*****

Many thanks to Karen Henry at Outlandish Observations for the Zombie Chicken award! She has a great blog about Diana Gabaldon's novels, well worth visiting.

And thanks also to Aldon Hynes at Orient Lodge for his kindness in setting me straight about what is going on in that bridge game in my recent post, "Innocent Until Proven Quilty." I hope he will not mind me quoting his comment, in which he explains everything beautifully:

I think you might be missing an important aspect of bridge. Yes, it does take four people to play, two teams of two people. After the cards are dealt, the players go around in a circle bidding on whose hand it will be. Then, the actual playing of the cards begins. The partner of the person who has won the bid sits out that hand and is called the 'dummy'. During the night, each player is likely to be the 'dummy' numerous times. A clever 'dummy' is someone that brings something to do while they are sitting out a hand. The idea of bringing quilting is a good idea, as is bringing other forms of sewing or needlework.

Thank you so much, Aldon! You will not be surprised to hear that friends at college tried (once) to teach me to play bridge - and failed to impress me with the faintest idea of what was going on. They gave up, relief plain in their faces, and we went on to other things - such as refreshing ourselves with free cheap white wine at campus poetry readings, and analyzing what that cute guy really meant when he asked to borrow last week's English notes. Sometimes we multitasked and did both at the same time.

Paper Towel President

Well, gentlemen, our next ad account is from the Scot Paper Company. No, I don't know where the other 't' in Scott went. We need a paper-towel ad concept and I think I have something really good. Something that will really sell those paper towels!

Imagine this: an ad starring that well-known boxing champion, Abraham Lincoln. Because he liked to clean up his own spills - he was a man of the people! When he was at his desk in the Oval Office, having a burger for lunch, he'd wipe up the mustard he got on the desk. With Scot Paper Towels, in fact. True story.

And here's the best part of having Lincoln sell paper towels: he'll be made out of wet, soggy paper towels.

And we'll call him Mr. Thirsty Fibre - that's a tough-sounding name. We'll spell 'fibre' the British way to really emphasize that this is just a good old American tough-yet-soft paper towel.

Oh, and when you make Mr. Abraham Thirsty Fibre? Make one of his coattails look like a horse's tail, will you? And be sure his pants are a little bit short. I believe the technical term for this is - wait for it - floodwater pants.

[This delightfully loopy 1940 ad is from Duke University's Medicine and Madison Avenue collection.]

Innocent Until Proven Quilty

Here we have a little bridge party going on. Well, the girls are really trying. Although I think you need four people to play bridge.

But Helen has decided that she isn't going to play. She wants to show off and fuss with her Big Quilt Project instead. Hey, look at me, girls! I've draped my quilt over this table like a tablecloth, how groovy is that?

Helen, really, if you are invited to a bridge game, you need to leave your little hobby at home. Otherwise you will be the object of rapier-like bridge-party wit, and be called a clever "dummy." So hilarious.

But the Barbara Taylor Quilting Book people know all about this sort of social interaction. I guess they shlep their quilting projects all over the place, too. Can't you see them at cocktail parties, trying to sew and have a few highballs at the same time? The edge of the quilt could come in handy as a cocktail napkin though. Those little pigs in blanket things are greasy.

The Quilting People explain it all:

They're talking about you - and with reason. You don't waste time. You're energetic, creative and resourceful. You are making your own Morning Glaze quilt...and enjoying yourself in the process.

Yes, they certainly are talking about you. That is because you are a nutbar. But such is the price of creative genius.

Speaking of nuts, the name Morning Glaze sounds - well, sticky and full of icing sugar. There's a thought. Helen, next time, bring a Morning Glaze coffee cake instead.

[Ad from one of my vacation secondhand-bookstore finds, a funny little magazine called The Workbasket, from 1968.]

Phenomenal Results!

What's phenomenal is that this is what my eyes are going to look like after I've been Sleep-Learning all night for a week. Lovely. That looks just like a large black spider trying to catch a nap in a pasta shell.

Knowledge before beauty though, I guess. So no more dreams about champagne-filled publication parties, and applause, and calorie-free dark chocolate. No, I will have to work hard. And my money will have to work hard too, because "$2 rushes fact-filled instruction book" - are they sure two small paper bills can lift a big package like that?

I guess they know a lot, though. After all, they are the Research Association. They research - I don't know, what do they research? Everything! And they are up day and night doing it. They ought to get a little sleep though. Especially that poor spider. He really looks exhausted.

From Popular Mechanics, October 1956.

Most Beautiful Dessert

Stand aside, elaborate layer cakes, and cupcakes, fancy eclairs and Japanese confections in gorgeous shapes. And just about anything not made of Jell-O with grapes suspended in it, staring at you balefully.

The Most Beautiful Dessert happens to be - Libby's Fruit Cocktail! In a Most Beautiful Can. And also in a nifty little glass dish with stumpy little glass legs (looking as if it was embarrassed by the hyperbole and wanted to run away).

According to the plate pretending to be a clock, it is twenty past pineapple (or almost peach-thirty, it is hard to tell) - so it must be time for canned fruit. Not for a cupcake with a cherry on top. Unfortunately.

And I suspect that there's a box of Jell-O lurking in the canned-salmon-pink foreground, just out of camera range, waiting to improve upon the perfection that is little chunks of soggy fruit dredged up from a can.

The Libby's ad is from a 1960 Better Homes and Gardens (not, you'll notice, Better Desserts and Fruits), via Graphic Design TJS Labs - thanks, TJS Labs!

And the truly lovely cupcake is from Party Perfect - though it originated with the Williams Sonoma site.

And over here at Cowizm there are some pictures of really beautiful Japanese cakes. I don't think the Libby's can would stand much of a chance, really.

The Reckless Face Washer

I'm just glad Marie Earle didn't come along with me last week, that's all. All she wants to do is talk of the dangers of "recklessly washing your face" after a sporty jazzy little summer's day of fun!

You're the life of the party, Marie.

Really, if there's a price I have to pay for washing my face after running around all day, I don't want to know it. Nor does the tennis-playing flapper. Marie had better watch what she says, because this lady has a thought bubble full of troubling shapes, which suggest pointed and disjointed thoughts. And she also has a big old tennis racket.

Anyway, last week was fun. Yeah, it was. I almost thought I was going to have internet access, and I imagined dropping in and answering all your comments and so on. I had composed a whole little witty thing in my head. And then the signal did not work. Or whatever you call it. Everyone else said, oh just as well, and really, it probably was.

I guess my laptop had a vacation in its little bag (you'd think it would work a little faster after all that R&R, but never mind).

So I read a lot of books, some of which I will review over at The Doubletake pretty soon in a feature I will probably call The Lazy Book Reviewer, because that's what I am. And I walked on the beach and did a load of crossword puzzles and, well, just had a lot more fun than the Tennis Flapper - who really does appear to be standing as if frozen, perhaps in fear of Marie Earle, on a large top hat.

The ad is from 1928, and from Ad Access.

Liver Bile Reveille

I think the admen are sailing a bit close to autobiography here. They seem so - I don't know - emotionally involved.

The world is sour and you feel punk and your whole system is full of poison! And nothing's working. And it's 1935, the Depression is on. You're punk and you're sunk. It's all terrible. I think Theodore Dreiser may have had a hand in writing this - or maybe Sinclair Lewis, whose Mr. Babbitt knew a thing or two about feeling punk.

Well, whoever wrote it needs something hearty and old-fashioned like - like Carter's Little Liver Pills!

Because they will make you feel like Gene Kelly singin' in the rain every morning. You'll be bouncing around town, dancing and giggling like Shirley Temple on a lollipop high.

That is, IF you insist on Carter's and stubbornly refuse anything else people might offer you, like Eno's Fruit Salts or a cup of camomile tea.

But you know what? I think I'd really prefer to just skip the pills and let my liver bile sleep in in the morning. Catch a few winks. Take life easy. Maybe teach it Transcendental Meditation. It couldn't hurt to try.

Dew What Now?

I can't quite decide what is the most thrilling thing about Dew deodorant:

Is it the way it is going to pep up your romantic life, perhaps? Or the incredible squeeze bottle that they're so proud of? Or could it be the grey clouds of chemical Dew that are wafting upwards, straight at the sappy couple making out up at the top of the ad.*

It's all very exciting.

Dew is full of promises - and of Retselane, which sounds like something you have to be careful of in chemistry class. You will be lucky in love. You will have uninjured skin (if it's "normal," that is). You will be "socially secure."

But wait, there's more! You will save a boatload of money since a year's supply costs only 98 cents.

In other words, for less money than you would spend on Hawaiian guitar lessons or a light-up bow tie, you can spritz chemicals on your skin that will keep you delightfully inoffensive and attract a dopey B-movie-reject love interest. (Where IS the cartoon lady aiming that bottle of Dew, anyway?)

And the best part? You will be the proud owner of a Magical Spray Bottle. Which looks like it will soon be blasting off into space. That should do wonders for your love life.

* BTW, why is the grey cloud speaking to us? Is the word Dew in quotation marks because the bottle is trying to tell us that it actually contains something else?

From Ad Access.

Hot Dan Redux

You remember Hot Dan, don't you? He is a little man who is obsessed with mustard.

Well, here is his little flavor trick. Her name is Marie, I believe. And she likes to add a spoonful of mustard to everything. This is how she copes with life's little blips and stresses. Just - throw some mustard in the mix.

For example, when guests turn up unexpectedly, demanding a meal, most people would either hide behind the furniture, pretending to be out. Or they would serve up a couple of sandwiches and maybe a cookie. Not Marie! She has been schooled in the Hot Dan Method, which demands that you (a) prepare a fancy meal that will make your guests feel guilty and (b) if they do NOT feel guilty, never mind, they'll be uncomfortable anyway.

And that is because you are going to throw big dollops of mustard into everything! Everything!

Soup? Toss in mustard.
Baked beans? Sure, mustard it is.
Salad? Why not!

Those guests are lying through their teeth about how delicious everything is, of course. They'll say anything to get Marie to go fill up the water glasses. Their taste buds have been destroyed and their mouths are hotter than a bonfire in the Gobi desert during a heat wave.

I wonder what they had for dessert, don't you? But you know what Marie put in it, though. Bye bye, uninvited guests! That'll teach you to phone first.

******

Thank you Heather for this most excellent ad!

The Cat in the Hat Shop

The sun did not shine
It was too wet to shop
So I ordered this hat
No one told me to stop
I picked up the phone
And I called up the store
Said, Please send me a hat
No one's seen here before!

And the voice on the phone
Was so buoyant and fun
That I ended up buying
The priciest one
Yes, the Cat in the Hat
After wrecking my house
Opened up a boutique
That inelegant louse.

So the hat came at once
In a big red wood box
It was hideous and full
Of bits of old clocks,
And feathers and junk
From the back stockroom floor
So I sent that hat back
And said: Not anymore!

I will not buy my fashions
From fast-talking Cats
I will not spend ten dollars
On trash-laden hats!
Beauty Counselors will tell me
What is trendy and new:

So I told off that Cat,
Told him just what I knew:
And he said with a laugh
That with hats he was through,
But his Beauty Counseling Service
Was shiny and new...

Would you try out his makeover - well, what would you do?

Advertisement (1950) from Ad Access.

Parachute Not Included

Here is another Very Bad Idea, based on the theory that dear little retro children ought to be really uncomfortable. And while they are being uncomfortable, let it be (in theory) For Their Own Good.

The Nickel Adjustments in particular sound unpleasant. As do the words "strong rubber posts" and "gripping." It looks as if a parachute ought to be attached to the back of this contraption. If it was, at least the girl could get away from the adults who thought this was a good idea.

I was about her age a decade after this 1958 ad, and so missed out on the Shoulder Supporters (fortunately). But I remember hating high socks, which never did stay high, but drooped bit by bit into one's sensible shoes as the day wore on. That was fun.

Not as fun as my horrible paper dance costume circa 1970, though.

Our grade school had a dance festival in a nearby park every year, called the June Fete. The year I was in second grade we had to do a pseudo-Roaring-Twenties line-dance interpretation of the Bunny Hop. I can't imagine what the thinking behind this was, but we had to do it.

The girls were made to wear crepe paper skirts over opaque tights, and headbands decorated with colored-Kleenex carnations. Like this horrible concoction of Nickel Adjustments and rubber posts, this was a Very Bad Look.

I could have used a parachute that day, too.

What did you hate wearing as a kid? Was it as bad as this?

They're Very Refreshing!

Fake chocolate and a little mint
No bigger than a nickel,
All nestled in a cardboard box
The size of a dill pickle.

They are quite sugary, that is true
But is there nothing sweeter?
I'm sure they sell a lot of chocolate
In the local movie theater,

And likewise at the soda shop
There's ice cream and hot fudge
At every turn, glucose looms -
A townful of sweet sludge!

So tone it down some, if you please
It's easy - well, as pie;
And tell your admen to come off
Their verbal sugar high.

[Advertisement (1953) thanks to TJS Labs.]

******

Junior Mints are also the focal point of a Seinfeld episode where Jerry and Kramer go to watch an operation in a hospital operating theater, and Kramer is munching Junior Mints as if he was at the movies. One flying Junior Mint actually lands in the patient and (in the end) saves him. Kramer doesn't understand why Jerry keeps turning the candy down: "It's chocolate - it's mint - it's delicious! It's very refreshing!"

Conversational Brazilian

This must be some record! Because they speak Portuguese in Brazil....not Brazilian. There's no such language as Brazilian.

So I really would like to hear how Cortina is planning to teach us how to speak it. And will they teach me other imaginary languages, if I send them enough money?

From Popular Science, March 1951.

Vacationing With Walde's Wonder Salve

Well, it's that time of the year around here. That time when people say enough is enough and drag other people away from the laptop that they've been glued to for eleven and three-quarter months and make them do things like - oh, like play games and inhale fresh air and maybe read a few a magazines.

Yeah, OK, OK, but...but I have many posts for you, all set up to run next week because at long last I have figured out how to schedule posts on Blogger. It wasn't that hard, actually (she said, not realizing that she'd set them all to run in 2012, or over last Christmas or something!)...So the blog is still going to be blogging.

But as for answering your fabulous comments, or e mail, or dropping Entrecards (and you know I love doing that, because I'm just that wild and crazy) - not so much. I plan to spend some time every day boring people by whining about that. Maybe only for just five minutes or so, though.

And maybe not at all if I can find me some of Walde's Wonder Salve, which is just what I need! Actually, it looks like it's perfect for those of us who blog a lot: sore eyes and ulcers? Check. Sprains? Depends on how much laundry I'm doing, and how late I was up the night before I did it. But - boils? Errr....no. And - felons? Whatever does Walde think is going on here?

Still, it is a Wonder Salve and it couldn't hurt to go get some. But since it was only made in the 1930s, this does seem unlikely.

Spanish Vig Tabs

Surely you've heard of these "Spanish pep tabs." Why, land sakes, they are famous! Famous all over the world for their magical powers.

Just send Eureka Laboratories (whose name hints that they are all taking Vig Tabs and shouting 'Eureka!') - send them two dollars for "double strength" Vig Tabs (in a plain wrapper, of course). That is, if you can manage to summon up the energy to stuff the money in an envelope.

And soon you'll look just like the fellow in this ad. Dressed like a bullfighter. Ready to tackle anything or anybody.

Too bad he looks like he needs a nap, a few jokes and maybe an ice cream cone. And a Genuine Bullfight Poster of himself, that might cheer him up. Oh - and a few Vig Tabs.

From Wikimedia, circa 1926.

The Wear-Ever Girl

It began harmlessly enough. A couple of saucepans, lined up on the kitchen table. She admired them while she was having a coffee mid-afternoon. Sometimes she did the Charleston for them in her flapper outfits. She was the Clara Bow of saucepans, and she was young, and it was - well, really quite fun.*

They were, after all, Wear-Ever. That's the bee's knees, Wear-Ever. Shiny. Durable. "Friendly to food," the ads said. It's nice to be friendly, isn't it? And - well, she just liked looking at them, OK? Was that so wrong?

It's not like she was hurting anyone. It's not like she was throwing them at Mr. America's head when he didn't eat up all his creamed onions or anything.

But as the years went on, things got a little - strange. She always asked for Wear-Ever for Christmas and birthday presents. "It's what I want, dear," she'd say, poised with the shiny coffee pot held menacingly high in one hand.

And now it's 1956 and things have come down to this. Coffee klatsches on the living room rug with dozens of her shiny little friends. See how they all cluster around Mrs. A., resplendent in her best pink ballgown.

Better get a few more coffee cups out, though. I imagine that the whistling kettle and the deep fryer get awfully upset when they feel left out. And the double boiler would like a sugar cookie, if you haven't eaten them all, instead of those creamed onions.

* I realize that the 1920s flapper would only be 30 years away from 1956, not 56 years. Hence, my favorite four words-for-writers: willing suspension of disbelief! Thank you and good night.

A thousand thanks to Lisanne at Flickr for this one, from a 1956 Good Housekeeping.

"I See Ogden, Utah, I See France..."

Dear Milt Williams, Novelty Guy:

Greetings!!!

I hardly know what to say about this. I do want to point out a few things though (cue the bullet post!):

-Whether or not these Novelty Pants were really a big seller in 1943, I hardly think that the image of them "going like wildfire" is an attractive one.

-Also, your Pants are not just wrong in an aesthetic sense, but a geographical one, for Pearl Harbor is not located in Ogden, Utah.

-And remembering Pearl Harbor through the medium of synthetic underwear is just seven thousand kinds of wrong. I mean, Milt, really - you know that, right?

-Describing rayon as "extra fine quality rayon" is an oxymoron.

-No one wants a lot of 100 of these. I hope.

-What sort of "camp or city" would want this sort of thing for its residents?

-Never mind, I don't really want to know. On second thought, maybe I do. Then I will be able to to stay far, far away.

From Billboard, October 13, 1943.

Old Leg Trouble Paint

Oh, lovely. Here's what to do if you have trouble with your legs (old trouble and old legs, pretty much) - paint them with white stuff! That should help. And the term "Viscose" is so appealing too. The Viscose Home Method of whitewashing your legs with the viscous stuff the make rayon with. You apply it, apparently, with a paintbrush.

If you mention your trouble to Dr. M.S. Clason, of the Dr. M.S. Clason Viscose Co. (eww), he will send you a FREE BOOK. Thanks, but no thanks! This fine CHICAGO! product is from 1936, from Argosy magazine.

Flashing Haiku

Tricky flashing eyes:
Used by many magicians
This ad alleges.

Stick red balls in eyes,
And feel lightning in your ears.
Also, some blue stars

Pop out of your head.
It just doesn't look easy.
It does not look fun.

No chemicals, but
Something alarmingly odd:
Bad mojo gone worse.

"Astonishing," yes.
"A beautiful effect," well,
Maybe for robots,

From the planet Spark
Where one greets friends with faces
Just like Joy Buzzers.

You can feel like this
Without the mystery props,
And it's easy, too:

Stay up for a week,
Stick finger in a socket,
Then smile and say, cheese.


This fabulous comic book ad (and many of its friends) can be found at GlyphJockey AKA Glyph Jockey, which is a terrific site.

Nature Abhors A Vacutex

Jim and Sis have a little problem. Their faces look like poppyseed muffins. And this is not a good thing, because they are not little cakes in a bakery, but hapless teens looking for love in all the wrong places.

Or at least for a date in all the wrong places. Perhaps a blind date would be best. A date with astigmatism, even.

But Jim and Sis don't seem to be able to - well, connect the dots - or the blackheads. They just don't know why they aren't popular. You'd think Sis, at least, would have a clue. Instead she says, mysteriously: "Ask your friend Tom."

Perhaps Tom and Sis used to be an item, before she broke out. Or maybe Tom is a dermatologist. Or a Vacutex salesman. Because he suggests that Jim and Sis invest in this revolting little "scientific" vacuum thingie - the Vacutex. Doesn't it look terrible?

But that's what you get when you have been "careless" and are guilty of "blackhead crime." You must be punished for this crime!

My favorite part of the ad is the final cartoon panel, where Jim and Sis have barged into a party and say aren't you all glad we used the Vacutex. The other guests can't bear to make direct eye contact with them, and wear silly frozen smiles of dismay. And the piano playing girl looks positively cheesed off.

Jim, I think you may have to dig a little deeper for the reasons you are unpopular. But I am not sure if the Vacutex has quite enough vacuum power for that.

This dramatic, yet scientific 1952 ad is from Wikimedia.