Icky Tales

Lucky Strike Half & Half Tobacco - Your bastard avatar is here.

In a slight breach of procedure, we posted the Old Bastard Whiskey ad from yesterday without also offering a nice thousand-pixel avatar of Old Bastard himself. He'd look pretty good as your profile picture or whatever on your forum, chat service, or social media thing or whatever, right?

He came from this Lucky Strike ad from a 1936 issue of Popular Science. He's way bigger than when we shrunk him down to be the figurehead of Old Bastard Whiskey - plenty of resolution to get a good image. That was nice of him. What a nice bastard he is!

The ad copy reads like they just invented language. No idioms at all. "Cool as the summons 'The boss wants to see you.'" "Your password to pleasure!" It sounds awkward on the one hand, but on the other hand, why embrace cliche and worn-out phraseology? "People who love to say "think outside the box", I'm looking at YOU.

Check out the cool telescoping tin that the tobacco came in! Apparently, it was a chore reaching deep into an emptying tin to get out the last of the tobacco, so they made a can that shrinks as you go. Weird. It looks like it had rolled edges. What's with the "no bite" thing? Ah well. Who knows.

A neat custom can like that would be judged "cost prohibitive" by today's don't-give-a-crap-but-pretend-we-give-a-crap standards. A little common sense would be a great thing to see in package design today.

For example, "easy tear" lunch meat packages whose rip cord completely fails to actually open the bag.

For another example, they should abandon the design of any mayonnaise -type jar that's just tall enough to totally smear the handle of a butter knife as you try to retrieve the last of the mayo from the bottom. That plinkety-plinkety sound is the harbinger of messy fingers.

Anyway, you want your bastard avatar. Hold your horses. Here he is. Thousand by a thousand. Nobody's account settings should find an excuse to choke on a 1k x1k jpeg like this. He sure looks like he's just foreclosed on an orphanage, doesn't he? What a great bastard. You're welcome!

Click for 1000 px.

Brain examination.

Dear readers,


We have concocted a brief list of quips that the figures in the below-presented Illustration may be saying, or may even be said about them. We think you and your family will find our japes witty and hilarious!

In addition, Our dear readers are encouraged to concoct their own witticisms and jests, which will be added to the picto-post! What a splendidly witty bunch we are! 

[-Mgmt.]

Jape #1 - "Well, Madam, your Phrenological cranial protuberances haven't changed. Are you sure you're a Democrat?"

Jape #2 - Three bright students trying to tell which one of them she likes the best. That's the wrong way to tell, gentlemen! You've much to learn! Ho ho ho!

Jape #3 - Using "virtual reality" apparatus such as pictured, subjects can attain the sense that a mild electrical current is making their scalp tingle... on another world!

Jape #4 - "I'm getting a reading. It says 'stupid dorks'. Hmm. It must be malfunctioning."

Jape #5 - "Still no additional sexual arousal readings. Recite Kipling even more loudly!"

Jape #6 - "You won't go to the Fall Formal with me? How about if I press on your brain right here? How about now?"

Jape #7 - H.G. Wells assures his virginity for yet another semester.

Jape #8 - "We're still just picking up local stations. Can you try using a more conductive shampoo next time?"

Jape #9 - "Wait. I'm getting a reading. It's ...'duck off'?. Maybe 'buck off'? Turn up the high pass filter. No, not 'buck off'. Definitely 'something off', though..."

Jape #10 - "You still won't go to the Formal with me? Try turning up the beta wave amplifier, Doug. That's strange. This worked fine on the horse."

We have received an additional jape from a cheeky reader by the name of Mr. FancyJapingJodhpurs_2 Thank-you very much for the clever witticism, Mr. FJJ2, and good luck while you're off in The Wars! - "I don't know if the 'Follicu-colorator' is working correctly, Doug. Her hair should be bright orange by now - wait a minute, did you plug the wrong end into the wall??"

Fleischmann's Yeast - A modest promposal.

Well, it's another dramatized comic strip of shame and chastity, courtesy of Fleischmann's yeast again. This time, the victim of teenage brutality is "Harry", who can't seem to get any 1936 play.

Fleischmann's is also there to help us translate the "crazy jargon" of the time by "putting" "Quotation marks" around "strange" "new" "words" like the word "dates". You see, a "date" indicates an appointment at which time an event is anticipated to occur. When one is "courting the birds", a common method of "getting it on" is to meet somewhere in the physical universe at a previously agreed-upon time and place, with a varying margin of possibility of "performing lewd acts" upon one another. This custom, by 1936, had been ascribed the slang term of "dating", in which the participants were said to "have a date", as opposed to the more archaic and time-consuming term "have a prearranged appointment with potential for awkward adolescent groping and mouthing of body parts".

Thanks for helping us understand this with your judicious application of quotation marks, Fleischmann's!

Anyway, does eating brewer's yeast cure acne? Probably not. It is mentioned on "WebMD" as having been used to treat acne, but many things have historically been used to treat all sorts of things, and simply noting this fact does not constitute a ringing endorsement. Here in The Future, the most common acne treatments involve benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid, sulfur, or topically applied vitamin A. All of these treatments score over the older yeasty remedy in that they A) have modern science in their corner, and B) aren't administered orally. By all accounts, brewer's yeast apparently tastes like hell.

But, humans sure do love beer, and yeast is a byproduct of the beer manufacturing process. So, you can't blame them for trying to find something to do with the stuff.

Aah, The Thirties. It was a simpler time when you could skulk around the house in an ordinary shirt and tie, instead of getting all dressed up in your sweatpants and pit-stained undershirt, like us poor bastards here in The Future. If we chart the arrow of this trend, one could imagine a day when not only the passengers on most airlines will be gussied up in flip flops and track shorts, but also the pilot.

"Sis" has gotten ready for her "potential groping and mouthing event" by getting dressed up as Chic Young's "Blondie", presumably to have dinner with Dick Tracy and perhaps some light criminal sexual assault.

Big Brother seems to pull plenty of tail by simply living his reality as Liza Minelli. It's a big world out there, bro. A pot for every lid.











A billboard I drove past the other day reminded me it's prom season, and that boys are expected to make a major municipal production out of asking a girl to go to prom with him. Prom season is a practice run for spending insane amounts of money on a single evening's amusement, crippling rejection, and the ritual of marriage. That means you need some clip art to help you get in the saddle on prom night. We've got you covered, buckaroo! Right click these Graphic Gifts onto your hard disk for sure-fire prom groping, while simultaneously rejecting the unreasonable, acne-free standards of beauty imposed upon us by The Big Mean Media. If you think a zit-covered face can't be beautiful, you're a monster, and should be beaten with a mop handle. You're welcome!

But first, a serving suggestion, just to help you get the idea how persuasive your "promposal" could be, writ large...

Why would Jean go mouthing and groping with anyone else?

Click for big.

Click for big.

Italian Line Cruise Ships - No brawling.

The offices of GO! Tower have been mighty quiet lately, with all the staffers off for the holidays. It warms my heart to know that in less than a day our carpet will be another year out of style. I am pleased. Today is Arbitrary Slightly Bigger Year Number Day Eve, or as you probably call it, New Year's Eve. You probably have some kind of plan to hoist a glass or bucket with one or more friends. I wonder what percentage of the world population starts each year with a blood alcohol level of zero? Anyway, I won't. That's for sure. I'm not going into the city to stand in a packed crowd of drunk people that can only move vertically, then to drive home in a 20-mile four wheel power slide and wake up behind the wheel in my own living room, assuming I didn't get into a drunken fight with a stranger and ride home in a cab, ankle deep in several inches of shared vomit. That's for extra sure.

What I will be doing is having a couple of local friends over to drink in my basement bar, The Vista Del Mar lounge. After, I'll wobble upstairs and fall into bed. My guests will have less than a mile to drive home. In all likelihood, I'll face six inches of snow to clear tomorrow morning with a bit of a headache. Ah well.

You know what would interest me, as far as public parties go? A civilized new year's eve event on an Italian Line cruise ship in 1936. See? Civilized!

Apparently, there was a time when going to a party meant wearing a tux and having room to stretch your legs, and being all grand and stuff. Of course, this is an ad, and as such, is a view into a pretend world of fiction and lies.

Still, if you went to a New Year's Eve party on an Italian Line cruise ship way back then, you probably stand almost no chance of being punched, or being called "bro" by a guy with droopy eyelids and spittle at the corner of his mouth... unless you'd broken into the Dowager Empresses state room and stolen her crown jewels. Then there's all those icebergs to dodge, or else face becoming a romantic historical disaster.That's just not cricket.

Click for big.

Pabst TAPaCan - Technology at work.

This ad for Babst beer makes a big deal of the packaging. Why's that? Turns out, in 1936, getting beer into a can without turning into skunkwater was a big deal.

For the full story, you can read this website, whose credentials we can't be bothered to verify. The simple enthusiasm of beer fans is enough for me to buy into the timeline presented at keglined.com.

The long at the short of it is that beer goes bad in a hurry when in contact with metal, and it wasn't until 1935 or so that the American Can Company worked out the vinyl-based coating (with the help of Union Carbide) on the inside of beer cans that keeps the beer from turning into whiz. "Keglined" became a trademark of ACCO in 1934, during the development process. As of '35, you could buy decent beer in cans, which was exciting more for the retailer than the customer. Bottles seal just as well as cans (for good flavor), but as the ad states, cans allow greater density on shelves, due to their stackability. Fair enough, but that's big news for the guy selling the beer, rather than the guy buying it, as the illustration suggests.

Click for big.

There's some nice 1935 deco in this ad. There's something interesting going on here. Rule #1 of advertising art is "don't bury the product shot". You'd think that airbrushing the characters and the skyline would make them the focal point of the composition. leaving the comparatively flat beer can in the man's arms to take a back seat. However, by leaving the can free of shading, the artist has retained maximum contrast and clarity so that it pops out at you, despite being so small. Clever.

Click for big.

Westinghouse - Tribune Tower

From the publication of Rich Uncle Pennybags, the Monopoly guy, comes this ad for Westinghouse, which was apparently still pretty cranked in 1936 about their air conditioning system for the Tribune Tower, completed ten years before. Must have been quite a job if it was still at the top of their resume after ten years.

Yep. Westinghouse still had their chest puffed out all big about their HVAC kung fu on display at the Tribune. They even call the air "pasteurized", but they had the good sense to put the term in quotes to deny any literal implication.

This painting looks to be a watercolor by Somebody Hughes. I'm afraid that's not enough for the Research and Googling team to do an artist search. Sorry. However, we do have a match for the font used in the headline. If you want to duplicate this exact text, you'll be looking for Stymie Black. If you're not, then don't. Suit yourself.

So what's there now?



Hey! Tribune Tower! All right! I have a feeling that the building will be there long after the actual newspaper has met it's end. Either that, or the Trib will have to think of a way to make money without actually selling newspapers, poor thing, because more and more people are getting their news for free on the web. Think fast, guys!

It wasn't easy to match the angle this closely. I think the painting in the ad was "shot" from the stairs leading down to the water, and Google Street View doesn't let you drop the little yellow man down there. You can see what I mean more clearly in this night shot from Wikipedia:

I wonder if the designers of the building (John Mead Howells and Ray Hood) would approve of us bedazzling their Neo-Gothic masterpiece with disco lights.

Click for big.

The Austin Company - ACTION!

Today, Phil Are GO! is proud to bring you yet another decogasm from the 1930s in the form of this ad for The Austin Company, builders of commercial properties in the golden era of  Rich Uncle Pennybags, the Monopoly guy. We found the picture in Fortune Magazine. Pity that Austin was a little premature with their optimism about the economy at the time. The Great Depression would still be depressing us till nineteen forty-something.

Pow. Get an eyefull of that uber-deco building. My dear picture, art thou deco? Let me count the ways. Airbrush? Check. Melodramatic, harsh light source? Check. Clean, geometric lines? Check. Radiused corners? Check. Giant, bold text? Oh, you better believe that's a big check! If you want to duplicate the text in header of this ad, just grab yourself some Stymie Black and start typing.

Well doesn't that beat all? The Austin Company are still around, although I have to say their design team is a little mediocre these days. Their site looks about as ordinary as you can get. Come on guys. You're supposed to be a design company for buildings. You might consider letting your web site reflect a tiny shred of the panache you had back in '36. Just a thought.

In the rendering in today's ad, you can tell that it started with a photograph of a sky, which was then sprayed over with a darker gray to make the white building pop. It's the decoist's love of stark contrast that often leads to the use of dark skies with bright foreground elements. Stormy weatherrrr...

Anyway, your rude finger thinks you should right click this little beauty into your hard drive's private real estate holdings. It's right. Get ready to right click in three, two, one.... You're welcome.

Click for big.

1936 Lincoln Le Baron - This isn't your father's Oldsmobuick, unless it is.

The Chicago Auto Show / Chicago Disappointment Parade has concluded it's first weekend. The masses came shuffling in, goggled in wonderment at the concept cars that demonstrate what the manufacturers are capable of when not enslaved by focus groups and budgetary constraints. Then, after asking when they can buy one, they were directed to a "new" production model that looks exactly like the car they drove to the show.

An alternate title for this post was "This isn't your father's Flintstonemobile", but after a slightly furious round of debate around the office, we went with the Oldsmobuick one. The term "Oldsmobuick" came from the Fletch books. he described his divorce lawyer's car that way. It also applies because the car in this ad is so old, I can't guess by looking at it what make it is, or even what country it came from.

Dad used to complain that all cars look alike nowadays. I was incapable of making understand that it's relative. By contrast, I would patiently explain, that any car minted before 1950-something looks generic to me. Humps and tubes, man. They all look like a carton of eggs. I have no idea what I'm looking at. Dad proved my point while thinking he was proving his, by insisting that he could tell a Buick from a Ford from a Chevy, so long that they were old enough to be fossilized.

This ad kind of backs me up (but not really) by being a Le Baron, which is a model name that I have always known as a Chrysler. Then there's the nutty kitty cat hood ornament. Doesn't England get mad when you put a Jag hood ornament on a yankmobile?

Aaaaah, it's a doggie. It just happens to be in the exact same pose as the Jag ornament. If I were England, I'd still be mad. I'd then have my revenge by pointing out that almost any Jag could run rings around this Oldsmobuick.

This Lincoln Le Baron comes to us from the pages of Fortune magazine, the favored periodical of the horsey set. Here we find Thurston Rufftondale having a pic-a-nic with the St. John-Smythes at the club. Oh gawwwd!

Maybe the St. John-Smythes do have a special touch with the horses? They've trained their new colt for the season, "Aunt Fanny's Nanny" to carry his own lunch to school. Off he goes! Insert your own joke about equine education and "horse sense" here. I'm too clever to go for the low-hanging fruit.

Click for Big

Flight stick.

Joke #1 - In the event of an uncontrolled spin, the pilot could pull the Emergency Stabilization Lever, located just on the front of the control column. However, there were whispers in the air corps that, should you pull the ESL too often, it could result in a total loss of all forward visibility, rendering the pilot effectively blind.

Joke #2 - No need to ask if he's enjoying the flight.

Joke #3 - A rare candid view of Chuck's Yeager.

Joke #4 was airlifted to us from Fil. Thanks, Fil! - The 2nd annual Pasadena Steam Punk Parade was a star-studded gala. TV's Patrick Stewart is seen here commandeering the airship Enterprise down Rose Avenue. Steam me up, Scotty!

Joke #5 flat-apiraled in from Misterfancyhotballs_2. Thanks, MFHB2! - Yeah, here's an old one: "This wheel is drivin' me nuts". It was right there, I couldn't not do it.

Also joke #6 from Misterfancyhotballs_2. That's two-fisted flight stick fun! -Floyd always took things literally, when he heard the term "shaft drive" - he just had to see what it was all about. Eventually things took a turn for the worst.

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

Click for big.

American Radiator Conditioning Systems - "Hot" cha cha!

This 1937 ad from American Radiator Conditioning System shows us a brilliant property of radiant heat principles. If there is enough warmth, a girl can pose comfortably in the dead of winter in a... WHOA!

Holy crap! Look at that! I guess she's definitely not getting cold armpits! Wow. I mean, wow! Man, Patty Smith has nothing on this girl! She's got like fifty o'clock shadow under each arm.

Well, I don't think I can be expected to finish talking about radiant heat versus convection or whatever. Man that's a lot of growth. Hmm. I think this deserves a nice winter-in-Chicago postcard. Please enjoy all the awkwardness it brings to all your family relationships, should you send it out. You're welcome.

Click for big.

Click for big,
if that's what you're into.