Plastic Wood - Let us repair.

I don't know how much time or attention was devoted to the artwork in this ad for Plastic Wood, but it kind of looks like clip art, or some other "disposable medium". Quite often, the stuff that gets the least scrutiny is the most enjoyable.

Did they even have clip art collections in 1958? More likely, these little cartoons were cranked out rapidly for not much money. Plastic Wood doesn't seem like a high-profile advertiser with a big reputation to worry about, so maybe they were done as offhandedly as they look. They don't embody any particular style of the era. They're just cartoons. But they become funny once you wipe out the words. Yes, some things get funnier WITHOUT captions! Crazy. I know. Inform the press.

While coming home from a hard day at the Office for Nuclear Mutants, Lucinda ripped the door off her lair. Despite her enormous exposed brain, she somehow found a way to not know her own strength.What a cruel twist of mutant fate.

She cries not so much for the damaged roof of her doll's A-frame alpine chalet, but because her other dolls will have to find somewhere else to stay this ski season. Her brother's dishwasher box fort is a likely place, despite its inconvenient location relative to the slopes and apres-ski cafes. Oh, the humanity.

There's a reason Henry the 8th's chair was so surprisingly cheap at the antique store. Originally rated for 800 lbs or 1.2 kings, Tudor era ham-based construction glues degraded over time and by 1958 could barely support the weight of one standard Aunt. The pages of eBay Europe are filled with offers of "One antique chair. Questionable leg. Could possibly be repaired by handyman with pork."

This same piece of art was used by a different manufacturer to market "Cookie Knobs". Oddly, that company had learned nothing from their previous bout of lawsuits following the "Lunch-a-Blades" fiasco, and the firm folded under economic stress of the many settlements. Their advertising assets were eventually sold off to recover some losses, and this piece of art went on to much better use at the Plastic Wood company.