Son Of "Still More Unfortunate Print Ads"

When that topic for the day's post is truly elusive, more elusive than the Elusive Butterly Of Love sought by Bob Lind, about all that can be done is to say "I've got it - let's find cheesy print ads and post 'em!





Here's a post-flapper era Lucky Strike ad, featuring a couple that gets fully dressed post-whoopee faster than Joan Crawford and Clark Gable in Possessed. "Everybody's doing it!"



Here's a doozy promoting Crunchie candy bars: a "bright sunny day + beach + exciting biting of Crunchie = subsequent hours and hours of sex" advertisement which very likely sold lots and lots of chocolate bars to hopeful Brits. At long last this writer understands that joke in the Monty Python's Flying Circus episode The Cycling Tour in which Michael Palin, as the gloriously clueless "Mr. Pither," says "severely damaged my Crunchie."



In the "it sounded like a good idea at the time" department, here's a 1957 print ad for Kool-Aid, found in the DesignCrowd blog's 100 Year Evolution Of Print Advertising. While this golden color works for a lager beer from Munich or Canada, the implications for a tall frosty glass of Kool-Aid prove less than appetizing. Don't know what lasted longer, the Edsel or "Golden Nectar" Kool-Aid.



Then again, Rheingold Beer, with the aid of the accordion-wielding Miss Rheingold of 1956, maybe could have gotten away with calling the New York brew "golden nectar," as long as it was also dry. . . extra dry!



Admittedly, the following Lucky Strikes ad isn't cheesy by any stretch of the imagination, due to the presence of Marlene Dietrich.



There's some truth in advertising here as well. It is not a stretch to imagine Marlene chain-smoking backstage after delivering 27 consecutive songs for an adoring audience - and pondering the set list for the next performance. Maybe the boys in the back room will have cases of Rheingold Beer and Lucky Strikes.



What we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog would have really liked in a print ad would have been an even longer, ridiculously long cigarette holder, Tex Avery MGM cartoon long, followed by a sign saying "Long Darn Cigarette Holder, Isn't It?" The one Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in Breakfast At Tiffany's uses, which barely fits in the film frame, would be a start.



There must have been a favorite cigarette holder of Tallulah Bankhead exactly along those lines, but, alas, Tallu didn't do cigarette commercials. She did, however, do radio shows with Groucho Marx!



Even before he hosted You Bet Your Life, Groucho did his share of print ads. He was quite an avid reader, so this one for G.E. lightbulbs seems appropriate. One wonders if when Groucho did these ads, "Chico needed the money."



Acknowledgements:
23 Vintage Ads That Would Be Banned Today from Bored Panda.com

Collectors Weekly

The New York Historical Society, for their post, The Fashion Of Beer: Miss Rheingold Of 1956

And, last but not least, Gilbert Gottfried and Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast for the "Chico needed the money" line!