Jergens Lotion - Her hands were a religion.

Advertising has always been mostly lies and insult. But it's generally more subtle now, dare I say? (I just know someone will confront me with a hideous example proving I'm full of stupid). In 1938, maybe audiences were less cynical? Maybe they were more suggestible?

"A man worships soft young hands." We do? I mean, I'm turned off by a woman whose hands are horny and calloused like a steel worker's, but anything beyond a basic level of smoothness and being-smaller-than-mine-ness, I don't care what her hands are like.

We can't be too annoyed at the Jergens of 1938. Of course they had to build up the importance of routinely dipping your hands in a tub of lard to keep them from turning into lobster claws. But to say a man worships soft hands is, well, a fabrication. It's more true that women worship soft hands on other women. Likewise, many men dote upon their cars under the false pretense that it matters to women whether or not your tires are shiny enough. Beyond a basic level of not being rusty and not having a sea of hamburger wrappers in the back seat, many women won't be bothered much by the level of polish you put on your car. You may, however,  attract just the right guy if you Armor-All the door seals.

The picture is fantastic. She's not even looking at him. She can't be bothered. She's staring languidly across the room at a congealing pan of beef tallow, thinking that her skin could be a liiiiitle more moist, and wondering how it would feel to sweep her hands through it. Meanwhile, Ricky Ricardo (or at least the disembodied head of Ricky) is enraptured with her sumptuous finger pads, her succulent phalanges, her gorgeous knuckles and her savory cuticles. What? No tongue? Missed opportunity. I like that the woman with the twin torpedo tubes on her head could be flapping his lips with her fingers, making the "a-bubbudah-bubbaduh-blubbida" noise. She might as well. Nothing could stop Ricky from making some Jergens of his own with dreamy hands like hers to breathe on.

In the picture at the top, we see a sad little vignette. The two men are talking to the lady with (presumably) orgasmically moistened hands, while the troll with ordinary hands goes unnoticed.

Assuming that both women have identical personalities and appearances, I don't think it's the hands that forced the men's decision. Miss Leftlooks like she's wearing a satin smock, while Miss Right looks like she's ready to party.

Gronk Make Poem

Now Gronk make poem! Hoo-mans shut up and hear poem! Shut up for art! Two poems today!

POEM NUMBER ONE!

Soft and squishy sissy man
get scare from rabbit.
Make him climb tree.
Also jump over fence too,
to get to tree.
So sissy. So jumping.
Small rabbit.

Then see bird in sky.
Orange bird.
Where bird need to fly to?
Bird fly to tell friends sissy man in tree. Fly, bird. Go tell!
Bring bird friends to peck man face.

Man say to self: "Oh streuth I am so very high
from ground, up in a tree.
Nary can I tell or guess
how jumped I, in my distress
a height four feet and three.
And nary may I leap me down
for fear I scuff my bum.
So do I sit,
all scared of it,
this mundane conondrum.

Sissy man sit in tree for two days.
Bird come back with many birds.
Birds come to help? Maybe help?
No.
Birds peck man face.
So bleedy.
Man die. Fall from tree.
Stupid hoo-mans.

POEM OVER!

POEM NUMBER TWO!

Horbut Hambridge make his home in Friffton-Upon-Trent.
He make candy,
give to kids.
From kids to him,
love went.

When he go to see a phisyc
to mend a rheumy eye
a bandage wore he for a month.
To let eye heal, is why!

No candy made he for that month.
And children became angry.
Though he promised to resume when wrappings came off, dangly.

Children cannot wait for things.
They want, and want so hard.
They led him blindly to a well
in Bishop Brimley's yard.
Tipped they him, into that hole
and wailing, did he plummet.
A splash and then some silence.
He couldn't believe they done it.

POEM OVER!

Zenith Portable Radios - The speaker's not clipping. That's the art.

Today's post is another Zenith ad (jeez, they made a lot of stuff). Is it unfair to poke fun at the hugeness of obsolete "portable electronics"? Absolutely. Is it fun? You're damn right it is.

Compare these to an iPod and, well, there is hardly any comparison at all. This Zenith is exactly as portable as a pot roast. But to be fair, an iPod doesn't concern itself with a speaker system of any real consequence. We still don't have the technology to make a weensy little speaker that fills your room with sound. So, look at your favorite iPod dock and there's your modern equivalent, even if the old radio "just" did radio and nothing else.

Also, a radio was more useful back then because, as we keep pointing out around here, there was just a lot more interesting stuff to come out of your radio a few decades ago. Even if you don't go for any of the stuff to be found on old time radio websites, it still shows you how people were dependent on radio at the time. It was a major source of information and entertainment.

Commercial radio is dying, friends, just like newspapers. Commercial radio comes in two flavors now. Flavor number one is Delusional Paranoid Fantasy Politics. Flavor number two is Three-Song Pop Rotation Interrupted by Traffic, Time, and Weather Every Nine Seconds. This is fine, because after nine seconds of your average pop song, you've heard everything the artist had to say anyway. Podcasts have taken the place of talk radio, eliminating the 50/50 ratio of program material to commercials-and-traffic breakdown that ruined it. A podcast can be an hour long interview or lecture on almost any topic that rewards an attention span that now goes ignored by commercial rad- hey look! A bird!

Here in the future, information and entertainment, being just digital data, are cheap, easy to get, and to carry around. Radio is struggling to remain relevant. It's ironic, pathetic, and funny that in most radio markets, there's at least one station trying to emulate "'Your MP3 Player on Shuffle' FM! - You never know what you'll hear next!" Two albums by 100 artists of the last twenty years does not equal "unpredictability". Nobody on "Crazy Surprising Shuffle Play FM" ever explains why anyone would listen to their station when anyone above the age of two owns a phone or music player filled with a range of music that is as eclectic or limited as the owner wants it to be.

The only real sadness of Radio Death is the loss of all the cool designs like these old Zeniths. Somebody could make a nice living reconditioning old radios like this and fitting them with 1/8 inch phone jack auxiliary inputs.

Anyway, there's some decent clip art in here. Here they come. Scanned at unreasonable resolution and presented to you on transparency, big and small, left and right. Rude finger graphic gift, coming up!

Brass Monkey

Joke #1 - "Saaaaay, what is this? That monkey's not playing music at all! The sound is coming from an ordinary musical bench!"

Joke #2 - "Ladies and gentlemen. Koko, the trombone-playing chimp. And accompanying her: Andy, the bench-playing human!"

Joke #3 - "Saaaay, what is this? That man's not playing the trumpet at all. The bench is playing the music FOR him! Booooooo! ...And that 'hovering trombone' is being held up by a monkey! BOOOOO!"

Joke #4 - In late 2012, after Justin Bieber chose to abandon his music in order to devote himself to a career in 'alternative gentleman's entertainment' full time, a stunned and disappointed world struggled to find a replacement."

Joke #5 - "We've replaced this restaurant's coffee with Folger's crystals, which we then replaced with a bench full of horns, which we replaced with a monkey and a trombone. Let's see what happens..."

Joke #6 comes from fan favorite Cragf! Thanks Craigf!: "Amateur engineer Hans Inyerhol demonstrates gag bench, designed to produce heart attacks in the dowagers unlucky enough to sit on it.

Also, a monkey with a trombone."

Yes, Craigf. Absolutely a monkey with a trombone!


Joke #7 was thoughtfully donated by first-time donor, long time (possibly) listener Tim B! Thanks Tim! -  See, Mr. Jingles? Poop in the flugelhorn. And I suppose it just jumped up and stuck there by itself, right? Look at me when I'm talking to you.

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

Paradise restaurant, Elmhurst, Illinois - Call me "sugar", toots.

Today we have a post card from - uuh (Let's see... sort of Mediterranean design which is from 1968 or so, and sort of fifties looking... umm) 1968 or something!. It's a kind of diner that wants to be called a lounge, and I'd go there all the time if it were still there and looked like this. Behold, the Paradise Restaurant and Lounge!

Of course my patronage would also be conditional, depending on the savor and price of the food, but you know. It's got the diner-y counters, cleverly U-shaped, presumably with a waitress in the middle of each U. It's got the cool stainless menu clippy holder things and the standard napkin dispensers and shakers. It's got the checkerboard tile and the multicolored vinyl seating.

Waitresses at diners call you any one of the following without getting funny looks from customers: "sugar, toots, honey, darlin'". This level of familiar discourse is unique among the spectrum of American consumer establishments. For example, a dry cleaner or mechanic (a female one) who addressed me as "sugar" would make me wonder if he/she were hitting on me, and depending on my level of attraction to her, I would just enjoy the attention or take my business elsewhere. A male mechanic / dry cleaner / brain surgeon, etc. would have to be incredibly competent or amazing prices to retain my patronage after calling me "sugar", "toots", or "honey". This probably means I'm a terrible person or something.

Back in a past life, I ate at a diner called Tom's Family Restaurant kind of often. It's still there, in Homewood, IL, see?

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Tom's Diner (as it was not officially called, but everyone called it that), has all the diner earmarks listed above, and the waitresses are all matronly, and address you as they would their own child (honey, darlin', etc. Not sure about "toots", though).

Anyway, this Paradise Restaurant and Lounge looks kind of the same. What makes a "lounge"? What kind of accommodations does a restaurant have to offer to make the leap from "restaurant" to "restaurant and lounge"? A side room with a bar in it? Well, BAM! The Paradise has you covered!

Chekkity check the padded leather bar. Swank, baby! And the paneling is frikkin wood-like! I can hear the Sergio Mendes right now...



So what's there now? Well, it's still a restaurant, and it's still across from a bank, but the bank is a branch of the 2009 Grand Prize winner in the Stupidest Name for Anything Competition: 5/3.

The restaurant is now called 100 South Chop House. Turns out I've actually eaten there! It looks totally different inside now, though. Lots of trendy dark wood and pictures of Hollywood people. They're going for that "Bogart ate here" kind of thing. Meh. If they really want a good tip, they'll call you "honey"


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Tareyton Cigarettes - Discriminating dolls.

Cigarette ads are easy to poke fun at. There's no really good reason anyone would need the product. They're lethal and foul-smelling, etc etc. Instead of going after the low-hanging fruit, we're going to take the high road. We're making fun of the woman's face, or, rather, what the artist did to it.

She may have once been a "people". But this is the fifties, and as everyone in the fifties knows, everyone in the fifties is a blue-eyed honky. So, the art director says "Fix those eyes. Make 'em big and blue!" Then , satisfied that he had justified his salary for another eight hours, he spent the rest of his day finishing his cigar... and his brandy... and sexually harassing his various subordinates... and possibly himself later on.

Anyway, here's a nice closeup of her new face with two giant blue dots of paint. Ready?

Yikes almighty! She's not a woman any more. She's a Stepford wife. She's not looking at us. She's not looking at the art. She's looking at a particularly beloved molecule of air. Dogs and rabbits tend to have vacant stares, but the Tareyton lady makes them look like Nobel laureates.

Anyway, discriminating people prefer Tareyton. Just look at that art she's discriminating about. Let's explore the gallery...

Sunrise over Olympus Mons Pubis - Vernkeek DeWeefe. Oil on canvas, 1945. Sold at Christie's in 1948 for 1.2 hundred dollars.

The Tareytons smoke ME - Trilma Guimpe. Exhaled smoke, charcoal, tar, and phlegm on masonite (mixed media).Unsold. Very much for sale.

The Uvula'd Window - Thome Wilson. Oil and sadness on canvas. Sold at Sotheby's, in 1951 for $200,000 and a bucket of children's tears.

Le T'erde #4 - Margaret Thatcher. Wood. Private collection of Mr. Thatcher's dustbin.

Un Puf Fumee' - Wups! That's not art. That's Mr. Tareyton. Sorry, Mister T!

Firestone Toyland - How many Photoshopping days 'till Exmas?

The midwest is still neck-deep in a puddle of crotch sweat today, so let's get ready for Christmas everybody! There's only 157 shopping days left till Exmas, so get out your peppermint striped pencil with a little elf head in place of an eraser and make out your list. First stop, the Firestone dealer!!!

Actually, it's been 21,432 shopping days since this ad came out, so if you were really interested in all of these toys, you could have bought all of them several times over even if you flipped burgers for a living... not that anyone could endure the physical demands of a fast food job for 59 years.

I didn't know that Firestone ever made an effort at being a toy mecca, but here's our proof. Putting up a toy train display is, in my mind, the pinnacle of Christmas shopping commitment.

Santa looks like he's seen better days. He must have been up really late the night before the photo shoot. Even if the artist was on a tight deadline for the ad, he/she has made a few horrible mistakes that give us this stoney / hungover Santa. Click through the picture to see what I mean in the large version. This is not a matter of technology. It's just basic drawing, and it takes the same amount of time to get it right as to get it wrong. The problem starts and ends with Santa's eyes.

Here's a standard "neutral expression" eye. The iris (colored part of your eye) touches the bottom eyelid, but tuck under the top eyelid. The pupil (black dot) should just touch the edge of the upper eyelid, with a little space between itself and the lower eyelid.

Happy eyes can be tricky. It's really easy to screw these up, making your person look insane. For a happy eye, the top eyelid can move up a tiny bit or stay in the same place as normal. The real key is the bottom eyelid. People squint when they smile.. a REAL smile at least. Fake smiles use the mouth only and the eyes remain "dead". Welcome to Hollywood!

Push the upper eyelid up too high and you get criminal insanity. Shrink the pupil for that sympathetic nervous reaction "I'm going to stab your brain with this freeze dried earthworm I made" look. I've seen some scary pictures of celebrities looking this way on the red carpet. Blame their plastic surgeons.

Anyway, let's use our newfound understanding to sober up Santa Claus. On the left is "sweaty drinky uncle Santa". On the right is the same guy after some down and dirty Photoshopping. Top lid went up. Bottom lid went WAY up. eyebrow tilted from angry to jolly. I'd buy a train set from that guy any day.

All the wisdom and alchemy of facial expressions I learned from one Jon McClenahan in my former life at a place called StarToons. There's more than I related here, of course. Jon had a chart listing all the expressions of the eyes in combination with the expressions of the mouth, and the resulting attitudes they conveyed. My copy of that must be somewhere in the bottom of a drawer. Basically Jon taught us that the eyes show what your brain is thinking and your mouth shows what your belly is thinking. Various combinations of happy, sad, etc,  gave you a chart that could give you enough expression ideas to get you through a career in animation... if only there were enough people around who still wanted to pay you to make them.

Hey! There's the Melton movie viewer!

In this ad, it's being sold to kids, along with a Howdy Doody and a Hopalong Cassidy reel. As you may remember from a previous episode, we saw it being sold in the pages of Popular Mechanics to view material of a "tittier" nature. It's good to know that a family only needs one viewer. Just remember to take your reel out when you're done "using" it, dad.

Here's your Christmas present. It's the DFH of the engineer boy from the train section of today's ad. He'd be funny next to almost anything. He's been scanned at 1200 dpi, pen tooled out of the background, resized and flipped for your sanitation. Left and right. Big and small. You're welcome! Rude finger right click in three, two, one....

Science marches Advancingly - The folly of tomorrow... today!

New "Multiplug" allows the use of one ungrounded outlet by up to six refrigerators or arc welders at once. Keeps cords high off the floor for easy tripping. Cord reel allows placement in center of large rooms. General ugliness allows ugliness in general. Production setbacks at factory will delay product release, due to mysterious fire.

New "Giant Miniature Train" finally brings employment to tens of really small train engineers. Enhances virginity of millions of normal-sized men. Secretly - SECRETLY - dreamed of by millions of non-virgins.

New "inverted pliers" jar opener basically opens rare un-threaded jars in same amount of time as a butter knife. Scientific community criticizes inventor for "totally missing the point of inventing things", savagely beats inventor for several minutes before pausing for breath, then resuming beating for additional several minutes. Victim was rumpled, but unhurt. Police report was filed. Reporting officer pretended to be taking notes on incident while actually doodling naked lady, wandered off while witnesses were still talking.

Inventor of new "cutlery tray" holds embarrassed press conference. "Cutlery tray" successfully holds cutlery. Inventor openly admits tray "not very invent-y", apologizes to bemused crowd.

New, surprisingly complex tool cleans blinds in just twice the time as feather duster. Inventor defends device as "having wingnuts".