Good-morning and welcome to the latest edition of All Things Vintage, kittens and dawgs! I got more than my share of smiles while researching my #A2Z theme and so I decided to file these vintage ads under Laughs…
There’s something strangely disturbing about soda pop ad and cellaphane ad.
Oh, the things we’ve learned since this time. Another site, Need Designs (broken), spotlights more vintage ads that are too funny to be taken seriously. When I think of vintage comedy, I think of Jack Benny and the laughs his radio show (click the link to hear shows as early back as 1932) brought into homes in the 30s. That was many years before my time, but I faintly recall watching his show in the late 60s.
Jack Benny demonstrates the difference between a cheap and expensive violin…
He portrays a great horrible violin player, but he actually did play rather well. He began lessons at age 6 and while he loved the instrument, he hated to practice. Sounds familiar, you say? Well, I guess somethings never change. lol
It’s strange and funny how bad things were once thought of as good or acceptable. We have a lot of trial and error under our belts since those times. It makes me wonder what researchers tomorrow we find that we are doing today is wrong. One can only imagine! What’s the oddest or funnest ad you’ve seen?
Special thank you to the incredibly gifted A2Z Team who many are now my good friends.
Arlee Bird @ Tossing it Out
Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh
Heather M. Gardner
Jeremy @ Hollywood Nuts
AJ Lauer
Pam @ An Unconventional Librarian
Damyanti Biswas @ Daily Write
Zalka Csenge Virág @ The Multicolored Diary
Joy Campbell @ The Character Depot
John Holton @The Sound of One Hand Typing
Now, I invite you to hop with me in checking out some of the amazing A2Zers playing along this year and I hope you’ll come back tomorrow to for a 2-in-1 special with Moonglow – a vintage #BoTB showdown.
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The first ad is hilarious! But the cellophane one, as you mentioned, its disturbing!
Some vintage ads do give us a good laugh and this post really cracked me up.. 🙂
Wonderful post Cathy!
Cheers,
Srivi – AtoZChallenge
The Piscean Me | Twitter
Wow – imagine women feeling like they HAVE to gain weight to be attractive. My, how the times do change. Now it’s so unrealistic how thin we are expected to be. I am doing tough work outs every single day and on a special meal plan (not “diet” though) and I am still finding it hard to lose the weight!! Maybe all I needed was a time machine! LOL
Not too long ago, I saw an article about things from the 1920s that are now once again thought to be okay (but weren’t for a long time). Funny how that works.
That baby in the cellophane is really creepy Cathy! Yikes! Loved the first ad and the fact that they’re advertising women to gain weight! How times have changed.
And giving Cola to a baby: wow, that was back when there was cocaine in the pop too!! Good Lord!
GREAT ads. I love to see these old ads. They really show how far we’ve come. You also pointed out a very valid point: what will tomorrow’s generations think of our ads??
Great job with this theme!
Michele at Angels Bark
Just last summer when I was in Ohio (at camp), I saw something like this at the local Walmart. It’s a super small town in northwest Ohio. And Walmart was about the only place to get stuff on the weekends. Anyway, there was this display that said something like “Healthy and Wholesome” and it was filled with junk. Absolute junk. I think it has coke and chips and snack cakes in it. It was very funny (to me).
Makes you wonder which of our ads future generations will wince over. Some of these were truly cringe-worthy – especially the cellophane wrapped baby (shudder) and the cola for babies.
I can’t imagine ever thinking it is a good thing to plastic wrap a baby. How scary! Or to liberally give them cola. Of course, at this point I am totally addicted to Diet Coke, but I’ve not been a baby for a very long time. 🙂
Thanks for your great vintage posts!
Suzanne, I think if drink any soda for long enough we get addicted to the stuff. I think I could walk away from drinking carbonated drinks, but I don’t want to because I like my Diet Rite cola too much!
I want to give up this addiction to Diet Coke for a multitude of reasons, but I do like the taste. That makes it harder. If I were trying to break a Diet Pepsi or Tab habit, that wouldn’t be a problem at all. They are icky!
I was able to do it before. The summer that I almost died (2010), I was able to give up all sorts of things, soda, sugar, dairy, etc. But, after the surgery, I picked them all back up with a vengeance. It is going to be a harder time giving them up this time around.
It will happen eventually, though. 🙂
I personally haven’t had a coke since my brother showed me how to clean posts on a car battery. After I watched that fizz from the Coke I never drank it again. LOL Thanks for stopping by my friend. I wouldn’t miss these vintage ads for nothin’!!! Love them almost as much as my vintage movies. hahahaha~ Have a great day my friend!
Marie, I think all soda pop might do the same thing as the coke, but I can’t swear to it. lol It more or less has something to do with the carbonic acid. So, go ahead, have a coke and smile! 😉
That first ad with the skinny lady reminds me of the same ad boys had. The scrawny geek kid gets sand kicked in his face, but two weeks later he’s built like Schwarzenegger and kicking the bully’s bum. It’s shocking how many vintage ads were either sexist, racist or just full of bad ideas. The cellophane baby comes to mind, above.
Jeffrey, the no sex appeal ad cracks me up considering today they want stick models. Pleas,I like a woman to look like a woman with the curves in the right places.
The kid in the cellphone – yikes! I’m still laughing at the ironized yeast tablets. Lordy be…
Ericka, the cellophane ad is just plain scary given how we know how dangerous it is around small kids. Geez, I just don’t know how they didn’t know these things back in the day. Oh well, the yeast tablet ad is reason to laugh out loud. 😀
Hi, dear Cathy!
Those print ads are so utterly wrong that I had to laugh to keep from crying. In ad #1 it looks like ironized yeast allows a gal to gain weight in all the right places, know what I mean, Vern? 🙂 I remember ironized yeast and even begged my mother to buy it for me because I was too skinny and wanted to bulk up. I remember how awful it tasted. Years later I bought can after can of that powdered weight gainer product that you get at health food stores. You mix it with whole milk to build muscle mass. Today I’m fighting the battle of the bulge like most other people my age. 🙂
The text of the cola ad for babies is so shamefully wrong that it boggles the mind. “Laboratory tests over the last few years have proven that babies who start drinking soda during that early formative period have a much higher chance of gaining acceptance and “fitting in” during those awkward pre-teen and teen years.” Really? Seriously? Are cavities and obesity “in”? Wrapping a baby tightly in cellophane is a great idea – NOT! Good lord. Which ad agency creative director signed-off on that campaign?
Jack Benny was one of the most naturally funny comedians of my generation. I watched his program every week and loved his guest appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Johnny loved Jack and I remember him taking it hard when Benny died.
Thank you very much, dear friend Cathy!
Tom, Today, we know the key to building muscles require weight bearing exercises and high protein diet. I believe genetics play a part to, some people bulk up easier and faster than others. That is without the help of steroids or other muscle enhancing drugs. It’s funny how advertisers stretched the truth of a products ability with such silly sounding claims. We know better today, but did they really know then? Jack Benny was a jewel in the entertainment business. I loved his dry humor!
Those last 2 are rather icky. The first ad made me giggle because, now, they want the ultra anorexic thin. I love that they want the gal to gain weight but how sad that she is doing this to get the man the previously scorned her.
Birgit, People’s mindsets were different in those days regarding the ideal sex appeal image. I think a woman needs to be weight/height proportionate. Being too skinny, today’s standards, is not sexy at all. I’d rather see a woman with a little shape, instead of a twig. Unfortunately, it seems our society in general migrate toward opposite extremes when it comes to managing ones’ weight. So sad!