Sealtest Triple Treat - Perfection.

I think this ad may be absolutely perfect. Gorgeous product shot. Bizarre and whimsical character. Great colors. Not too may words. I flipped the page and I wanted some ice cream. Also, I wanted it served to me by a mysterious paper bunny with eyes like pitiless chasms of malice.

Cut paper art always head-snaps me back to my early days in grammar school... like maybe first or second grade. Our text books often had illustrations done in colored paper, or better yet, crepe or tissue paper and backlit. The result was a slightly eerie stained glass effect, and since it had to be done with scissors, the shapes were simple and kind of abstract. Looking at the rabbit's arm, you can see that whatever they used isn't quite paper. It's got a thickness to it that makes me think of craft foam, but I don't think they had that in the fifties, did they?

This pink bunny pushes that button in my brain. His huge black eyes only contribute to the scary-compelling eerie-fun aspect. Since this ad is from 1955, you can be sure the rabbit was made with actual paper and not faked up in a computer. You can see the drop shadows under the paper, and they're real drop shadows, not a Photoshop layer style.

And look at the ice cream. Who wouldn't want some? Pink orange and white. Those are the best fruit flavors: some kind of berry, orange, and sugar!

 Incidentally, I did a search to see if this ice cream could be found anywhere. The results are depressing.

"In 1993, Unilever bought Breyers® and Sealtest® ice creams from Kraft and made them part of the Gold Bond-Good Humor Ice Cream Company in Green Bay, Wisconsin, renaming the company the Good Humor-Breyers Ice Cream Company."

Wow. Thanks Unilever, for acquiring everything and making me think of athlete's foot and bar graphs instead of summertime fun, you assholes. I found no evidence of the Triple Treat flavor of ice cream, but I did find other people complaining that it's gone. I also found someone trying to sell this full page ad (April 4, 1955) for $8.25. I think I bought the whole magazine for $4. Assholes abound.

It's supposed to be nice in Chicago today. Sunny and 80. have some ice cream. Just make sure it's not a Unilever brand.

P.S. I scanned this ad at extra high resolution because it's so great. 2217 x 3000. Right click and save. I was careful to leave the slightly yellowish paper grain in, but you can pretty easily P-Shop it out to pure white if you want it clean. As always, my watermark is unobtrusive and easily wiped away, too.