The Guys Preferred Profile Pants

Fashion shoot. A model pretending to be a cartoon hobo.

In 1970, The Guys made pants, it seems. Stripey ones. Someone else made belts with giant holes in them, just to make sure they stretched quickly and looked stupid immediately.

Sorry, English readers, you must be confused. See, in America, "pants" is interchangeable with "trousers". Only in The Empire does "pants" mean "underpants".

Also sorry, readers here in The Future, you must be confused. See, in 1970, "a haircut" meant one poof over each ear and a third poof on top of your head. Only in The Seventies was this "groovy".

So, how to sell your pants as travel companions? Prop up your model against a tree in front of the art director's house as if he's clearly not resting from a long week riding in a box car. Then, hand him a bindle (that polka-dot bag on a stick that all cartoon hobos carry) and that lesser-known hobo prop, a cigar butt on a toothpick. Presumably, the idea is that a penniless tramp could smoke the cigar all the way down to nothing if he didn't have to hold it in his fingers.

The Bindle, from a design standpoint, is a flawed bit of engineering. Is there anything you can carry in a tied-up hanky that is more easily carried when suspended from a stick? It still takes one hand to lug around that way. Does it somehow require less effort to hang on to one end of a cantilevered stick over your shoulder, as opposed to just hooking two fingers through the hanky-sack and just letting it hang at the end of your arm? Sheesh. You've really let me down, The Tramp Community. I've come to expect better design solutions from unemployable drifters. This must be why so few engineering firms employ hobos.

Anyway, if, for some reason, you're a user of some kind of social networking service and you're tired of using the Windows 95 logo as your profile picture, we've got you covered. It's the poofy-headed groovy hobo from this ad. He's 1000 x 1000 pixels, so he's ready to represent your face when your real face just won't do. If that's what you're into. You're welcome, I guess.

Click for 1000px avatar thingy version.