Delrich E-Z Color Margarine - This really happened.

Gather round, children, and hear a tale of baffling legislative stupidity that will anger up the blood! It seems that, in 1947, margarine was sold white, and had to be colored yellow by the end user. Why? Because the lawmakers at the time were dickheads, just like they are now. Dig it...

Nice-looking ad. Good painting. Primary colors. Blah blah blah. Why did consumers have to color their own margarine? Was it some chemistry thing, where the colorant shortened the shelf life of the vegetable ingredients in the margarine, and needed to be mixed immediately before use? Nothing nearly as sensible as that. It was the dairy lobby.

Note: Say what you want about Wikipedia, but the article there on margarine is clearly referenced. The external links and sources for the information are so thorough, all the facts look rock solid to me.

No sooner had margarine been invented (1869) than dairy farmers threw a tantrum. (Just in case you've spent the last 140 years with your head in a bucket of cement, margarine tastes a lot like butter with much less fat, making it more desirable than butter to lots of people).

In 1877, the United States began passing laws to make it hard for margarine to have a fair chance in the marketplace. Everything from extra taxes to expensive manufacturing licenses were dreamed up to prevent the low-fat butter substitute from gaining traction.

Margarine is pretty much vegetable oils, salt, and skim milk. In it's original state it's white. In order to resemble butter, yellow coloring must be added, and this was the deterrent generally settled upon by legislators in countries around the world, terrified of the destructive power of margarine. It became illegal to sell yellow margarine, thanks to the efforts of the dairy industry's lobbyists. In New Hampshire, lawmakers even tried to force margarine manufacturers to color it pink, hoping to make the stuff too gross to eat.(My country, tiiis of theee....). So, one of the workarounds devised by margarine makers was to sell the white margarine to consumers and have them color it themselves at home

This special package from Delrich had a little pimple of dye on the wall of the bag. Burst the pimple by pinching it and the dye was released into the bag. Squish it up for a while and you had a bag of safe legal, yellow margarine, and nobody would go to jail.

Here's a link to a USA Today article about obsolete unenforced margarine laws that were still on the books as recently as 2008.

These retarded laws remind me of the panic over CD ripping, and before that, VHS decks, and before that, cassette recordings of vinyl albums. In time, the lobbyists are proven to be panicky spazzes and the world completely fails to come to an end just because consumers are able to put their albums on cassette or are given an alternative to butter.

It seems that, if any new technology is met with fierce legal opposition, it's probably a good idea that will generally help people.

Collien Minifon - Relatively mini.

Joke #1 - Enormous tie conceals microphone of  recorder-sized recording device.

Joke #2 - Smaller than a television set, this mini recorder can be concealed inside an ordinary library-edition bible for secret recording anywhere in a certain portion of one floor of a library.

Joke #3 - Provided no foreign officers think to do even the most basic of body searches, and they don't open his strange little briefcase, your secret agent can make recordings 2 1/2 hours long.

Joke #4 - Tie conceals tiny microphone and thickest microphone cord in the world.

Joke #5 - Concealed under a tie, this super-sensitive miniature microphone can secretly record sounds made by the wearer, or his tie.

Joke #6 - Tie conceals tiny microphone of miniature recording device, which is hidden under a much larger tie inside a satchel, connected to the first tie by a completely un-suspicious cord, wrapped in a third tie, just to be sneaky.

Joke #7 - A British model is planned, compatible with ascots.

Joke #8 - Battery life is projected to be 2 hours, but can be extended by use of solar hat, which is easily disguised as ordinary radar hat.

Joke #9 - Not for use with Collien Super Noise Siren Tie or Collien Magnetic Shirt.

Joke #10 - Tiny microphone of miniature recording device concealed under tie, or inside secret agent's neck-shoe.

Joke #11 - World's smallest recording device is hidden inside lunchbox. World's yummiest lunch is concealed inside different case resembling secret miniature recorder.

[ Commenter jokes will be added to the post.  -Mgmt.]


Hah! Three good ones from Craig. Observe...

A. Tiny recording device conceals man with tie.

II: Tiny microphone concealed by world's largest tie tack.

3 - World's smallest recording device is powered by two deep cycle marine batteries weighing just 43 pounds each.

Wish I'd thought of those! Hat tip to Craig.    -Mgmt.

Evinrude Star Flite - The yacht of the boat engine world.

I know mostly jack about boats. My interest in ever owning a boat can be measured on the same scale. Boat ownership in my mind is just an inevitable very long swim in street clothes, postponed by various amounts of time. I do, however, give a damn about industrial design. So hey, look at that cool outboard motor!

Outboard motors today - and have for as long as I can remember - look like inflated rectangles or marshmallows. This ad for the Evinrude Star Flite is the first example I've seen of an outboard that looks as if it was handed off to a designer at some point.

Sure, all the styling added to the motor's case is fairly standard overdone 1950s fare. All crazy fins and pointless bric-a-brac. But on an outboard motor, I can live with silly festoonery. Boats are for weekends and holidays. You'll probably never have to park your boat at a funeral, where it's "I am an airplane!" styling would seem inappropriately out of place or juvenile. A vehicle should have wheels or wings, but not both (...apart from foldable landing gear, obviously. Shut up).

For the technically apathetic, here's the big deal with a V-anything engine. You already know that any engine gets more powerful when you add more pistons, right? The easiest way to do that is to just put the pistons in a line. But, eventually you wind up with a very long and skinny engine that doesn't fit nicely into any normal car shape. This is the same reason a carton of eggs is not arranged in a long row of twelve. The shape becomes awkward and doesn't fit anywhere. Just like the eggs, if you take the pistons and put them in two rows, you get a more compact engine. The "vee" part just means that the pistons are angled so that they can all turn a single drive shaft underneath, which goes round and round and makes your car go, or whatever. Evinrude made a four cylinder engine with two rows of two. More power in a small space is more better no matter what you want your engine to do.

Unless you're Steve Jobs, of course. If Steve made engines, every successive generation would have a little less power in a lot less space. "Enjoying your 120 horsepower Honda? Well, here's your new one with 90 Hp, but look how thin it is! Be careful not to slam the hood or the engine will break. The valve cover is made of glass. Also, the engine dies if you sit in it the wrong way, so just don't sit that way, idiot.You control the car with one large pedal, instead of two or three. This is simpler. Push the pedal once to go, and twice to stop. Push it three times to turn left and four times to turn right. This frees up your hands to dick around with your iPhone in traffic. Simple!"

Here's Ben Affleck and Katie Holmes posing with their Evinrude Star Flite. Ben is composing a song on his harmonica about boating. Katie is wearing those old kind of sunglasses that make you look cross-eyed. The sunglasses are also configured in a "vee", just like the Evinrude. This doesn't give them more power, but it does allow her to look directly at the Evinrudewhile simultaneously looking off into the sky at Xenu. She'll need the power of the Star Flite to stay away from him... and Tom Cruise.

1962 Chevy II - Car in funny blue land!

Gronk make second post now for hoo-man joke page. Phil hoo-man say "Me on vacation, Gronk. You make words for blorg". Gronk not know who Blorg is. Gronk make words about picture now! Other hoo-mans make picture go into com-puter for Gronk. So many buttons. Gronk thank Images and Scanning Them Squad.

Look at 1962 Chevy! Cars not look like that now! Car in picture must be from old! Car designed bad. No place to hook horses at front of car. Gronk have to poke hole in bumper with finger to tie horse pulling-rope.

Gronk think funny that Chevy call car a "coupe" just because it just has two doors. Gronk know coupe supposed to be small! Chevy think put two doors on mountain and call it coupe! Graaaah! Gronk make joke on Chevy! Steal Chevy's pride!

Poor hoo-mans in 1961, not have Photo-shop. Car get no drop shadow. Look like floating through blue painting. Gronk like funny blue painted world car drive through. Man say "excuse me, hoo-man lady. Can you tell me where find yellow part of town? Graah hah hah! Gronk steal man pride by making joke about him!

Little man find stranded lady in abstract blue city. Give her a ride. Why she standing there? Lady hoo-man do shopping in blue rectangle? BAH hah hah! "Did lady hoo-man buy many things in rectangle? All triangles on super sale in rectangle town because nobody want triangles in rectangle town?" man say. Maybe lady not shopping. Maybe lady standing around because she concubine? "You first man I find tonight. All other customers just blue or purple shapes. Pointy corners hurt my lady parts! Be gentle, little man!" Gaah hah hah hah! Gronk "zing" hoo-man lady twice! Gronk steal lady pride!

Something funny about lady face. Gronk look closer...

Aaaaaaahh! Lady not have eyes! Just black holes! Gronk not like dead face lady! Giant lips bite hole in Gronk's head! Gronk wish he hadn't stolen lady pride! Too little too late! Gronk go now!

United Film Club - Now it's cheap as free.

Once again. We're going to take a good, hard look at the state of amateur photography in the past., giving it a good expectant glare, waiting for it to explain itself. What with things being the way they are now, the film industry of 1968 will dig it's toe in the dirt and act all awkward, going "Well, I, uuh...". Check it out. The United Film Club.
Presumably, the club bought film in huge quantities and passed the savings onto their lucky members who, through the strength of their numbers, were able to take their snaps for a pittance, due to the cheap film stock. Look what passed for a "bargain" in 1968:

126-12 Kodacolor Instamatic cartridge film for $4.49. This should be a discount, due to the whole "buying in bulk" thing the club relied upon. Take $4.89 and drop it into our handy inflation calculator and it comes out to... duht dah daaaah...$29 in 2009 dollars! Holy shitballs! That's $2.48 per picture - assuming they all came out okay. Today I took my USB stick to Walgreen's and got some 4x6 prints for 29 cents each. That's like getting your twelve prints for sixty cents in 1968.

Never mind the fact that, with modern digital photography, you're choosing only the good shots, and of course you can see the results immediately and delete the bad shots without paying to have them developed. Back in Yore, you were hoping to get a couple of good shots out of your roll of twelve.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are spoilt. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Also, even consumer-level cameras today do look a little better than the cheap plastic boxes we see here in this ad.

Here's a little bonus for Exmas. It's a high res version of the Santa from the ad (Click through for hugeness). The Image Improvement Team contrasted the background to pure white, so if you use it as clip art or something, you shouldn't see a dirty yellow square behind him. If you're some kind of fancy-pants graphics pro, you should be able to vectorize him through Adobe Streamline, LiveTrace, or whatever, without too much trouble. You're welcome.

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Kooking Kornir 7 - Husband Chow

Nothing says "aloha" like London broil, or regular roast beef! You don't want your beef to be to marbled. To get a cut of beef with the proper "rind", ask your butcher for a cut from an especially lazy cow, or one with a diseased limb. This will ensure the animal was largely sedentary. Your roast will have a good layer of "flavor jelly" around it. You may want to combine the fat from two or three cuts of meat to get the proper thickness. Roast the roast at 600 degrees for eight seconds. this should bring out the juices in the rind without overcooking the meat at the center. Test the roast by pressing it with a fork. Look for a jet of arterial spray. Did you get wet? Your meal is ready to serve!

You can't spell gravy without "M" and "M" stands for "much", which is what this gravy soup is all about: much gravy! And that makes you say "Mmmmmm!" Create gravy and heat until hot. Serve in 16th century chamber pot for that French excitement that the French are so excited about this season! Parsley in a mortar and pestle adds a splash of color, for some reason.

Hooray for brownies! First, obtain brownies and dollop with high viscosity dolloping compound. Serve coffee in brass beverage lantern for old world flavor. Garnish with a map of 12th century London to remind your husband of the importance of proper sanitation, to avoid bowel discomfort and continental pandemic. Ole'!

Surprise your husband tonight with corned beef and cabbage! Locate beef and then corn it until it looks like ham. Separate beef segments with insulating layers of cabbage disks, to prevent beef from shorting out, resulting in de-cornification. Serve with two glasses of beer and a historic boot of French dressing, to conjure the charm of old Ireland. The table will be extra romantic when lit with electric safety candles.

Furnishing Guide 1967 - Guest Columnist

Much like Phil hoo-man, Gronk not like 70s. Gronk suspect reason he got job here because Gronk not "rock the boat" by liking 70s things. Hoo-mans make ugly houses that deserve smashing, burning, in 70s. Hoo-mans smoke plants in 70s. Pathetic, squishy hoo-mans.

That why Gronk surprised to find ad for "Home Furnishing Guide" that not look like captain's cabin on drug dealer's fancy boat. So nice! Gronk think modernism shows more restraint than Mediterranean clutter that came afterwards.
Gronk think that good to see "Danish Modern" still hanging on a little in late 60s. Ugly "Spanish Romantic" junk not invade hoo-mans villages all at once, like Gronk thought. Gronk like to live in cover shot of Faimly Circle 1967 Home Furnishings Guide! Gronk put feet up on coffee table and admire high ceiling with wood beams. Dream about having book club meetings in comfortable, sophisticated family room.

Gronk like stone wall made of rocks. make Gronk feel like close to Earth. Feel safe.

Gronk like colors: predominately warm tones with blue accents. Bright but controlled.

Gronk really like vertical window next to rock wall. Make high ceiling feel even higher. Room have enough space to dance, fight, do reenactments of great battles, or have candle party.

Gronk like juxtaposition of clean, straight lines and natural lines, like coffee table made of tree-piece. Tree-piece coffee table contrast with other furniture in form, but harmonize in color. Gronk think that clever. Make laugh. BAW haw haw! Clever little hoo-mans.

Soon after 1967, Interior design go down hill. Hoo-mans make things "groovy". Fill walls with macrame owls and orange daisy decals. If Gronk go back to 1967, Gronk go on TV and shout at hoo-mans to stop before too late. "Gronk come from future to warn foolish hoo-mans soon make mistake that take decades to fix! Hoo-mans not become 'groovy'! Graaaah!". Of course, hoo-mans not listen. Probably get scared when gronk do frustration-shout and call "security". Then Gronk grab "security" and squish heads, make good one-liner. "Who secure now?" Gronk shout.

1967 probably not like Gronk to visit.

Science-O-Scope

Joke #1 - Improving sunglasses from 99% UV protection to 100% UV protection is not just a matter of a new coating. You've got to really want that extra percent.

Joke #2 - Thanks to his telephoto contact lenses, Dr. Roymond was able to observe the lions from several feet away. It would have to be enough. His low-Earth orbit contacts were still on order from Walgreens.

Joke #3 - To observe the earth's magnetic field more accurately, scientists must mount their eyes on tripods.

Joke #4 - With his eyes securely screwed to the magnetometer, and his wee-wee catheterized, Dr. Roymond was ready for some serious sciencing.

Joke #5 - Still socially awkward, Dr. Roymond attended his high school reunion from a safe distance across the street, where he could measure and document the foolish enjoyment of the other alumni.

Joke #6 - They took some careful calibration and daily maintenance, but his new metal eyebrows paid dividends in the form of increased rigidity, and very low coefficient of thermal expansion. Let them laugh.

Joke #7 - Sure they were expecting a puppet show, but when the curtains parted today, the children were treated to a fanciful reenactment of the historic first surveying of the Earth's magnetic field.

Joke #8 courtesy Craig: Rare still photograph from "The Laser Eyes of Dr. Roymond," starring Frank Oz.

Olson Rug - Worn out and walked on.

Back during The War, stuff was scarce. The military demanded all the rugs it could get to defeat Jerry. American rug manufacturers shifted production away from civilian carpets to tactical assault rugs. The 9th Berber Squadron, based at the Glenview Naval Air Station, was instrumental in the Battle of Makin.

Chicago's Olson Rug company needed a way to recycle old material into rugs for the under-served civilian market. Initially, they experimented with recycling tires, but it was found that the resulting carpets had poor wet weather traction and tended to delaminate under hard cornering.

Next, Olson tried sourcing scrap glass from the Ball bottle company. Customers were unsatisfied with the overall pointyness and jaggedness of the glass-derived rugs. While stain-resistant and washable, customers were unsatisfied with the sheer number of stains the rugs were required to endure.
In the fall of 1943, the Olson Rug Co. hit upon the idea of making rugs out of rugs. Also clothing. Rugs produced from these materials were colorful and durable. A value-added feature was that they were also double-sided, allowing families to make use of the upper side while children slept underneath, for example.

The recycled rugs could be produced in eight colors, shown in the left side of the ad: Peach Polyp, Silver Cyst, Clover Clump, Red, Other Red, Blastosphere Blue, Benign Beige, and Overstock Ochre.

The models in the ad may seem to be lying on the product sample, but in actuality, their clothing has been recycled into the carpet. In order to get up, they'd need to disrobe.

Nice Disembodied Floating Head of W.E. Olson. Yes, that is his own hair. However, his eventual baldness would motivate him to choose a sculpted pile hairpiece in 1955.

[Hat tip to Dan for the ad contribution! -Mgmt.]

Ed. Note: The omission of any "carpet bombing" jokes in the early part of this post was intentional. We do not do puns.

The Science of Our Wonder - From The Inventors

LAWN CARE ENTERS ATOMIC AGE

By directing carefully metered doses of radiation lawnward, growth of grass is inhibited. Lack of growth can be heard in headphones as silence. Eliminates need for mowing and other grueling exercise. Lawn must be free of insects and other fauna due to side effect of random animal gigantism. May cause genital atrophy. Lead-lined "spy coat" sold separately. Also marketed as "Dr Proud's Genital Enlargement Health Ray".

Finger indicating difference between tall and short things.

BATHROOM SUIT OFFERS ESCAPE FROM ROOM DEODORIZERS

Unfortunate "bathroom events" no longer mean suffering through choking clouds of air freshener spray. Protective rubber suit and forced-air system allows free breathing despite ambient potpourri assault. Available range of additives offer choice of freshly scented private air supply. Available scents: Elfin Expulsion, Floral Aftermath, Spring Relief, Trout Parade, Odor #5.

Tide - Nothing like it?

Today's ad comes from McCall's magazine, in 1949. This was a time when there was still a thing called "wash day". Doing the laundry was an all-day chore. Also, it was apparently the exclusive responsibility of women. This is kind of disgusting. It's also disgusting that, also in '49, getting blown up by angry foreigners was the exclusive responsibility of men. Ah well.

"There's nothing like it!" Really? Tide seems a little like amphetamines, by the look in the lady's eyes. I can see her with a spoon, scooping it into the machine. "One for the underpants. One for Momma *gulp*. One for the socks. One for Momma *gulp*."

I dunno. The expression on her face could be due to something else. She's only shown from the waist up. We can't see what's going on "downstairs". That was juvenile. Gotta make a note to have an intern cut that joke out.

It's a beautiful painting, even when you understand that art like this is heavily photo-referenced. (You know... they take a photo of a model in the same pose and clothing, and just have an artist make a painting of the photo.) It still takes tons of skill with the brush, but it's just less amazing than the thought painting something like this from thin air. It especially makes sense when you think that this was done on a deadline and a budget and the artist has to eat.

I don't know if Tide still puts the "oceans of suds" slogan on the nine-gallon jug of laundry goo that you buy at Giant Warehouse Discount Chain, but I never even associate the name with the ocean. It's been a laundry soap for so long, I don't even think about the name. Only when I looked at this ad did it occur to me where the name came from. This is either a victory of branding technique or a total failure of same. Maybe I need to have a spoonful for myself and open my third eye.

Radiation Handling - Safety First

Joke #1 - Radiation expert uses the Bendy Mirror Thingy to avoid looking at scary radioactive particles directly, avoiding icky radiation.

Joke #2 - Radioactive particles have been known to travel distances of up to five feet. That's why soldiers use special tools to work safely from great distances.

Joke #3 - In this slide, a soldier uses a special net to capture a tactical butterfly for defense research purposes.

Joke #4 - Soldiers working under radioactive conditions wear sealed "rad suits" and adhere to strict safety restrictions to avoid casualties. Then there's Jeb.

Joke #5 - Unsafe working conditions in radioactive environments can lead to hideous mutations. This soldier, for example, has grown several inches in the last year. Just look at those pants.

Joke #6 - "My present's in this here box, right guys? All I gotta do's fish it on out, right guys? ...Guys?"

Joke #7 - The fearless "radfish" collector must take precautions when cleaning the tank.

[Commenter jokes will be added to the post  -Mgmt.]

Joke #8 - Courtesy Sue - "Radiation seems like less of a threat when you can just dip your bubble ring into it, then blow the biggest bubble that floats far, far away"

Saturday Evening Post - Atlanta GA, by John Falter

Time is a little short this morning, so here's an opportunity to post one of the good pictures that's too good for jokes. It's a Saturday Evening Post cover by John Falter. The cover made me buy this magazine. The price was right, so I didn't need to open it to look for good joke fodder. The cover was enough. It's a painting of downtown Atlanta by an artist I"d never heard of called John Falter. I instructed the Scanning, Mimeograph and Viewmaster Dept to present it in slightly higher than usual resolution A) because it's really nice and B) there's not much other content in today's post. Click through the image to get it. Don't click through to don't get it.

Paintings like this take a long time to do. I hope they paid Falter well for the effort it took to produce work of this detail. Nice work, John!

More jokes tomorrow!

Kentile Moda Moresa - The elegance of old pain.

Aha! So it's Spain we have to thank for that eye-searing Mediterranean swirlicue puke fest that took hold in the seventies! At least, that's who Kentile points the finger of blame at. Also, it's not actually Spain, but a ridiculous cartoon of Spanishness that America mocked with deep, heartfelt ignorance. This ad is from 1967, so at the time it was cutting edge interior design... the very tip of the regrettable iceberg.

You may recognize this "Spanish" style of decor as everything that you looked at for three seconds before muttering "That'll have to go." while shopping for a house any time between 1980 and the present. 35% of every American landfill is occupied by wiggly wrought iron chandeliers and dizzying vinyl tile like this "Moda Migrainea" from Kentile.
In '67, we can assume that trendy people were demolishing rec rooms previously done up in nice clean modernist style, only to splatter the place with stuff from the Cheech Marin collection. Can I get anyone a goblet of quaaludes?
They've done that thing where you stick your TV and turntable in the wall to protect it from becoming obsolete.This is wise, because if there's one thing we've learned, it's that technology never improves and electronics never get upgraded.

The white square on the floor around the "entertainment zone" marks the boundary beyond which images on the TV cannot be seen. Trying to make out anything on the screen from beyond the white stripe will result in squinting of Bruce Willis magnitude. It must have been very chic, standing to watch The Man from U.N.C.L.E.



The shelves are filled with priceless artifacts / relics / shit from Old Spain, which is the name of the resale shop next to the Revco in Berwyn. I once bought a velour coffee pot there.

If my Spanish folklore serves me, I recognize characters from such tales as "Drunkey Donkey", "The Tilted Chicken of Cordoba", "Los Menorahs de Madrid"  and "I Cannot Paint A Cat".

Timken Bearings - Roll your own... jokes.

Any medium shows you who it thinks it's audience is by the ads it runs. The Saturday Evening Post was a big deal in 1949. It was read by the wife as well as the husband. It had fluffy romance stories and ads for industrial products like Timken roller bearings.

Roller bearings (you know: with cylindrical rollers) can take much heavier loads than ordinary ball (spherical) bearings, due to the larger contact surface between the rollers and the races. The bearings in this ad are tapered rollers, which, when paired in mirror configurations (see the very bottom picture) improve on cylindrical rollers by offering longer life through reduced wear.
Before Timken's patent of the tapered roller bearing, railway cars were carried by wheels mounted on a broom handle stuck through beef hearts. The smell was awful and the beef hearts needed to be replaced every hundred yards.



The first illustration offers many ponderables. The customer in the hat looks like he's under duress, haggling for a price with one of Iowa's slick, devious farmers. "Three cents a bushel? I was really hoping to pay two cents. I'm a senator and I work hard for my money. You couldn't come down at all, could you?"

And who's the kid in the background with the green "X" on his shirt? Clearly, he's the Village Prurient, forever branded with the Viridian X for his unholy relationship with his own mother, who happens to be a cow. Incest! Sickening.

Lastly, there's the creepy little boy on the left, staring directly at us, as if he can see through time and knows what we're doing. "I can see you, snarky future people, and I know what you do with our pictures. I want my iPad, you son of a bitches!" Shudder.


The boy in the bottom picture seems really agitated at the sight of the train. Either he knows something about tapered roller bearings or he thinks the train is guilty of something. Since he's a corn-fed hayseed, we'll assume it's the latter.

Joke # - "Paw! That's the dragon that done ate our chickens! He's gittin' away! Throw some 'maters at 'im, quick!" "No, son. Dragons breathe fire. Stay back!"

Joke #2 - "Father, the horse with a thousand legs runs free. Why do we live imprisoned behind this impenetrable fence? I long to run free with my thousand legs, also."

Joke #3 - "Look, son! The Great Yellow Sun Serpent has come again. It must be pleased with our offering of a maiden tied to it's metal road. We have truly earned this harvest's bounty of 'maters."

[Commenter jokes will be added to the post.  -mgmt.]

Jokes ahoy! From Craig...

Joke A: Lookee, Paw, that hobo is equipped with Timken's latest roller-bearing-equipped stink-producing device!

Joke II: 1949: A young Karl Rove invents the "Pull my finger" gag.

Prudential Christmas - No coverage for head melting.

This non-Norman-Rockwell-painted-but-very-Rockwellian Christmas ad comes to you from the Prudential Insurance company, circa 1950.

It shows us the Typical American Christmas Preparation Ritual. Christmas tree hogited in the corner to prevent one of it's daring escapes. Daughter performing the Native American "hey-a-ho-a"  star-shaped cookie dance. Son removing his foot to throw at his sister for making a mockery of his heritage. And the father, Arnold Ernst Toht (of Raiders of the Lost Ark fame) has just nailed his finger to the wall to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus.

Just look at his grimace of Holy Agony. Or, that could be Daddy Toht's best attempt at a loving smile. After all, he's looking forward to the best Christmas gift a Nazi could hope for: yet another ark of the covenant. This year Dinka got him an ark with appropriate History Club stripes and matching tie, so he can wear it to the annual alumni dinner without getting stared at. Doctor Jones won't have to tell Marion to keep her eyes shut this year. Toht will look ark-sharp!

"Oh tanenbaum, Oh tanenBAAAAAAAAAGGH!"

But Toht's got  to be careful what he does with his various arks, because prudential doesn't cover you for "acts of God". Talk about "Do not open until Xmas"! Keep the lid on those arks until you find a company that covers head melting, Toht! That's just being a smart consumer.