The Hall of Heads, Pt.1

Back in the 50's, there were a lot of magazines about building, tinkering, and getting a new job building and possibly tinkering with the baffling new technology of "tele-vision!!!". These magazines were weirdly similar. In fact, I'd say that, without flipping over to the cover, I'd be hard pressed to tell if I'm looking at a copy of Mechanix Illustrated (apparently not "spelling illustrated"), Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Science Mechanics, or Popular Illustrated.

All these magazines understood the unbeatable selling power of the Disembodied Floating Head (DFH). Run an ad with text or illustration of a product and you may get some eyeball focus, but drop in a Floating Head and every reader will immediately tear his wallet free of his Sansabelt Loungers and throw bills at the magazine.

In this ad, the LaSalle Extension University has wisely used a DFH to make you understand how angry you should be about your current job, regardless of what your job is or how much you make. Nomatter what you're doing now, you will make more as an accountant, possibly as an accountant that resembles Nicholas Cage.

Here we see another ad, selling a machine that makes something. Mr. Warner doesn't need to tell you what the product is or how to sell the product his product makes. He doesn't need to, because he's cleverly inserted his own (presumably) Floating Head to prove to you that you need his machine that does something. To remove all doubt, he's also cropped off his own chin. Note that he carefully managed to squeeze in all of his hair. Diabolical! You win this time, Warner! Here's my money! What's the machine? Don't know, but there's bound to be a few still kicking around in basements across the country, now disused because the owners have earned all the money they could possibly need in the last fifty years. I'll just search Ebay for "machine" and buy whatever comes top of the list.