Your Automobile and You - Road accident causes.

We Registered at the Murder Store

Your Automobile and You - Beware fences.

The Laboratory - Dr. Thrope and Miss VanDerVyne

Joke #1 - Patrick Stewart in the lab, hard at work on his career-defining treatment for not-having-baldness.

Joke #2 - Doctor Thrope had to admit that Miss VandDerVyne looked a bit mannish, but she microscoped like she was all woman.

Joke #3 - "For heaven's sake, Mis VanderVyne. You call that squinting? I'll show you squinting. Give me that!"

Joke #4 - "So what shall we call our new gum? I like 'Endoplasmic Reticulyummy'? Ooh! How about 'Dr. Thrope's Lab Wad?' "

Joke #5 - "What is it? What's the last letter? 'dontforgettodrinkyourovaltin-' WHAT IS IT?"

Joke #6 - "Wait, wait. Was that 'G T T C A C A A G A C G A C G G G A T C C T A T C A T C G A T C G C G T C A T C G A T T G T  C T A A T G' or was it 'G T T C A C A A G A C G A C G G G A T C C T A T C A T C G A T C G C G T C A T C G A T T G T  C T A A T C'? You know what? I'm just gonna write 'CAT'. Let's order lunch.

Joke #7 was secretly suggested by anonymous. Thanks, whoever you are! - Dr. Ron Paul watches full of anticipation as his assistant attempts to audit the Federal Reserve's financial statements.


Joke #8 comes to us from Misterfancyhotballs2. Thanks, MFHB2! - "Well Miss Gulch, that may be how they observe things in Kansas, but I still say you can never be too safe with gamma irradiation...."


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

Click for big.

Married Love - The smutty secrets of sexy happiness.

In 1938, there were few places that a young bride could turn to for advice about the dirty parts of marriage. Women were still expected to be virgins at the time of matrimony, leaving them with little in the way of practical experience when the time came to get it on. Dr. Marie Stopes to the rescue!

Married Love, it turns out, was the real deal, and is still available from Amazon. Interestingly, Amazon describes the book as advocating "equality in marriage", despite the ad copy which implies that women are to blame when their husbands are "driven" to prostitutes.

There's some excellent "delicate language" in here. "Union" is a favorite when the ad seems to be reluctant to say "sex" again. The S word only appears twice in the whole ad, one of which is right in the title bar. Was there a limit on the number of times they could print "sex" in one ad?

The pen and ink drawing of Federal Judge John M. Woolsey is pretty funny. His hands are tiny! He looks like that hand puppet of the boxing nun.



Judge Woolsey was a real guy, and the controversy over Married Love is mentioned in his Wikipedia page! He died in 1945, so this ad ran seven years before his time was up. That's strange - in the drawing, he seems to have a baby's face... with the scalp and hair of Alan Hale.

The photo of the bride and inattentive groom (possibly thinking about being driven to prostitutes) is pretty great. Have a look at the groom's chin. That's some cleft! His chin looks like a butt. The bride can't take her eyes off of it. Kind of makes you winder what they'll get up to when it's time for "union". Maybe that's why she married him? What woman wouldn't want a man with two asses? For that matter, what woman WOULD want that? I have no idea. I just work here. How about I crop the picture for you and post it for your rude finger to save on your HDD of choice? You decide about the groom's butts for yourself. You're welcome.

Click for big.

Family Hour

Joke #1 - "Honey, there was some stuff that happened at the office today, and, umm... well, you always liked Mexico, right?"

Joke #2 - "Let me know when you're done crocheting the crossword. Oh, hey... could you put in fewer questions about the middle East tonight?"

Joke #3 - "Oh, Judy, I'll be ever so glad when your other father comes back from the shop. This loaner model squeaks when we... uh... 'hug'".

Joke #4 - "Mom, Dad... I've decided to give myself up for adoption. Don't worry. It's nothing you did."

Joke #5 - "Honey, guess what? I got a raise today and I think we can afford it. So, I've decided to grow a second moustache!"

Joke #6 - "Thanks for being so good about my shadow coming to dinner on such short notice, dear. He says our souls were delicious..."

Joke #7 - They all went silent. Judy was still laughing at mother's story about the funny dog she saw, but she knew it was time to be quiet. The clock ticked. Margaret held her breath. Where had she written down the priest's number? She knew by the look on David's face that he was about to have an emotion.

Joke #8 - "My knitting's almost done! Judy, be a dear and step into the other room while your father tries on his new thong."

Joke #9 - "Mom, Dad... We're doing okay, right? ...because Dad got a raise today, right? Well, I've been thinking of having a second dolly. There's an awfully nice boy at school who wants to be the father."

Joke #10 - Margaret put down her crochet and sighed. He "didn't give a damn" about the roast beef. He "didn't give a damn" about the neighbor's dog, or hosting bridge night. It was still within the thirty day trial period. Maybe she'd send back her Clark Gabletron and exchange him for the Buster Keatontron? The sex would surely be better, for one thing.

Joke #11 Submitted by Fil, who is not to be confused with our founder, although he may very well be GO! - Mother and little Katie were still able to put on a fake smile whenever the late Alan Hale Jr's shadow would, once again, begin to ramble on about "little buddy" this and "dooop!" that. Father's feigned interest was getting less believable every time.

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

Lux Soap - Workin' for the man.

In Advertising Land, everyone is a jerk or an idiot - hopefully both. This lady's husband (who kind of looks like Jimmy Fallon) is yelling at her because a run in her stocking is ruining his career. Jerk or idiot? Don't make me choose!

Apparently, John's boss is a big enough prick that he'd make career-effecting decisions based on his wife's stockings. Naturally, John is a big enough prick that he can forsee this and is wise enough to bitch out his wife for making her stocking tear. "You WOULD spring a run!" he says. Why? Does she have a history of jeopardizing his career with scandalous stocking mishaps? His choice of words implies that this is not the first time she has humiliated him in this way. More to the point, this is not the first time he's humiliated her like this in front of other people.

According to the narrative of the ad, Unnamed Wife naturally wants to make a good impression on the CEO of Prick Incorporated, just as her prick husband does. Totally overlooked is the idea that anybody needs to make a good impression on Unnamed Wife. That would just be crazy. After all, this is 1937 and she's just a menial servant. The farthest thing from John Gordon's mind is that he may be making a bad impression on his prick boss by treating his wife like a prick.

How humiliating would it be if Wife took the opportunity to tell John she was divorcing him and grabbed a cab home, locking him out of the house? He can sleep at the office, or maybe he can sleep with his prick boss, if he really wants to get ahead. Then, John could look forward to being served with papers right at his desk the next day while he's looking for a room to rent "while this blows over".

Pazo - Exquisite suffering.

This ad is a little weird in that the name of the product is buried in the copy. To be honest, when you wanted Pazo, you didn't care about the name. The product is all about the problem.

To look at the picture, you'd think that men and women suffer from orgasm. But nope, it's piles. That's an old-fashioned way to say "hemorrhoids". As with our previous Pazo reports, you can look up the details about hemorrhoids yourself. And, if you do, celebrate your ignorance.

Nice Betty Boop haircut on the suffering lady. This was 1938, so WWII was about to happen and nobody had a TV, and hair was varnished and shiny.

I'll post a crop of the shiny-haired suffering model, so you can use her however you want. People will wonder what she's suffering. Tell them they don't want to know. They'll still want to know.

We're still officially on holiday break, here at GO! Tower. Proper regular posts resume tomorrow, Jan 3rd. Huh huh. "Regular". Huh.

A Couple of Captions - Relationshippy.

Pictorial Review was an American women's magazine that ran from 1899 to 1937. Mostly, it was filled with beauty ads and romance novellas, which were illustrated by skilled painters whose work was limited to spot color upon publication. The art was reduced to two colors: black and something else. In this case, red or blue. Shockingly, these novellas were full of melodrama, like soap operas, and were very relationshippy. You don't need to read the stories. The pictures tell the whole story.

Editor's note - Unless I'm confusing my various gods, the man in the white suit has a Buddha on his safe. Or a peacock. It's hard to tell.

Joke #1 - "They say they're out of kung pao. Will curry chicken be okay? I said, will curry chicken be... oh, come on now."

Joke #2 - "I'm sorry. I lost the call. Either your son's division was annihilated, or it's just a Verizon outage. Cheer up. We'll find out in a few months either way, right?"

Joke #3 - "Yeah, she's shut down again. I think it's her power supply. What? Cycle power? Hang on. Where's the power button on this model? The right elbow? Okay, one sec."

Joke #4 - "Aw jeez. We were too late. They're out of iPhone 4s's. Will a Nokia do? Hey, come on, those support Flash..."

Joke #5 - "I'm sorry, Mrs. Pearson. He says the photos are already posted to the internet. There's no telling how many times they've been downloaded already. Well, that's what comes of intemperance, am I right? Silver lining time: He did ask if you've been working out more."

Click for hugeness.

Joke #1 - "Sooo, I leave town on business for a few days and you're in bed with crummy old George from across the street, eh? A fine wife you turned out to be. Nuts to you! How was he, by the way? Did you get him prag-nuts or whatever? No, wait I don't wanna know! I just hope you gave each other cooties!"

Joke #2 - "Aw gee, Suzy, ya don't have to blubber about it. If you won't marry me, then maybe I'll just marry George or somebody. I just gotta get my green card is all."

Joke #3 - "I'm sorry, Fergus. While you were away at camp, I.. I... borrowed your baseball glove, just for a second. I put it right back, but I just got.... I got 'girl' all over it. I'm ever so sorry!"

Joke #4 - "Fergus McGee, you forgot our anniversary, you rat! That's the fifth time this summer! This relationship is smothering me! You go tell the ice cream man to divorce us. I'm going home. Get me a grape popsicle."

Joke #5 - "Oh, I don't know, Fergus. It just feels like we're living in some ridiculous Normal Rockwell imitation world. Everyone has that stupid rigid posture and they make those inane faces. Everything is so exagger -oh,  for Christ sake,  you're doing it RIGHT NOW!"

Joke #6 comes from Comatoast. Thanks Coma! - "I'm sorry the other ladies threw you out of the book club. I for one would have loved to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Look why don't we crank call the Eldridges down the street? That always makes you feel better right? You want to ask them if the fridge is running or should I?"

Joke #7 springs from the mind of Anonymous. Thanks you, secret joke maker! - Listen Dan, I told you if you come to work dressed like that again, I'm gonna have to call security. That's NOT what they meant by "Casual Friday!"

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

Ivory Soap - Little bubblyyyyy!

Today the IT and Swearing Team installed our new Pitney-Bowes ScanTron color image scanner. So, there will be no more - shall we say - "racing stripes" in our images. In the Images and Scanning Them department, there was a mighty throwing of hats into the air and many shouts of "Huzzah!" For the curious, the Okidata Adequate Scan620 will now be retired to the museum wing of GO! Tower. It will be on display during business hours from now on, or until somebody walks off with it under their arm. For the Pitney-Boweses (sp?) maiden voyage, we bring you this tender domestic vignette from a 1938 ad for Ivory soap.

Ah, yes. I have only dim memories of my mother teaching me to blow spit bubbles, but I'm pretty sure there was a crease running vertically through that day in my life, too

Babies don't come out of the packaging knowing how to make bubbles with spit. Like everything else, they need to be taught by their mother. Here we see a pretty mother wearing a pair of pink curtains, showing a larval Alan Hale to blow spit bubbles with her clay leprechaun pipe. It couldn't have been easy for her to pull off a bubble of this diameter. See, babies' saliva nearly always has the viscosity needed for spit bubbles because they are in a near constant state of just-having-eaten-ness. Their mouths usually have a thick coating of creamed peas, creamed carrots, or creamed perch mixed in a 50/50 ratio with spit.

Adults, on the other hand, brush their teeth and drink acidic or astringent things like soda pop and coffee, which tend to make for very thin spit. Maybe the woman in this ad is just getting over a cold? When I'm sick, I can drink lacquer thinner and my mouth will still feel filmy. Sick person spit is nearly always a viscous blend of Nyquil, chicken broth and sinus drainage that could be used to hang wallpaper. Blowing a bubble big enough to encapsulate a baby would be a snap. Hell, you could probably do it just by accident if you doze off watching How It's Made on your next sick day (my favorite flu delirium sick day show). You'd wake up and wonder who draped you in a polyethylene drop cloth. Then you'd sheepishly realize it was just an ordinary flu-virus-sponsored spit bubble.

If you ask me, this lady is cheating by using the leprechaun pipe to assist. See the baby's hand about to make a grab for the bubble? Don't do it, little buddy. The viral cocktail in that bubble will make a "pox party" seem like child's play, and there's no mixture of coconut milk the Professor can make to defeat it.

Horse Ride - Fufner and Dorette

Please forgive yesterday's lack-of-postiness. Go! Tower had to be vacated due to a fourth-floor toilet issue, and subsequent what-the hell-is-that-dripping-from-the-ceiling issues on the first through third floors. Those responsible have been referred to one of several volunteer recovery organizations and also a gift basket of Metamucil products.

Joke #1 - "Honey, you can't keep yanking on the reins like that, he's not a puppy, you know."

Joke #2 - Dorette, please stop yanking on the brakes so hard. I just had a new jaw put on this thing, and it cost a fortune."

Joke #3 - "Well, Fufnir, if you're going to keep spouting nonsense about how all numbers greater than five are the sum of two odd primes, I'll just turn this horse around and go home. Do you think I've never heard of Goldbach's Conjecture?"

Joke #4 - "No, darling. Pulling on the reins is how you make him stop. It's not how you do a wheelie. You're thinking of a bicycle."

Joke #5 - "Dorette, the sky is all mauve. When we left, it was pink. We'd better get back before the carmine comes."

Joke #6 - "Easy on the throttle, dear. You're going to stall him! His battery is low, and you don't want to know what it takes to jump start one of these things."

Joke #7 - "(Knock knock knock) Excuse me, miss? Do you know how fast you were going? License and fecal sample, please."

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

Domestic Drama - Two vignettes.

Joke #1 - "Oh Iris, you're ever so lovely tonight. The opera is going to be positively grand. How could I stay mad about your little accident on the floor?"

Joke #2 - Grant swept Iris into his arms, and the moonlight sparkled in her eyes. It would be so easy to simply kiss her. But no. They must wait until marriage. He shuddered, and regained his composure. That had been close. The milk had, as always, gone straight to his head.

Joke #3 - The light was just right. Grant's eyes were luminous beacons of desire. Iris' hair shone like liquid silk. Passion would rule them this evening. It was lucky they had gotten ready for bed early.

Joke #4 - Iris stared into grant's eyes. She saw her wishes mirrored there. The swell of his breathing was an insistent drumbeat against her chest. They were swept away in a tide of passion that drew their hearts together. Grant was lactose intolerant, so they had about ten minutes before the milk took effect. Tonight, it would be enough. It had to.

Joke #1 - "I know it'd hard dear, but you knew it would be when you married me. We can push the beds together after we've been married for a year. You don't want to make a mockery of my faith, do you?"

Joke #2 - "Patricia, won't you please lie down to sleep? We both saw Paranormal Activity. You're starting to creep me out."

Joke #3 - "I'm sorry, dear. I do like your new tramp stamp. It's just that I've never found Family Circus very funny."

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

Ironized yeast Tablets - So there used to be a "too skinny" problem?

In 1938, the Great depression was still stinking up the joint, financially speaking, and lots of people didn't have enough to eat. Enter Ironized yeast Tablets to help plump up our women!

When people are undernourished, they are prone to Anemia, due to vitamin deficiency, like iron, and vitamin B-12. Symptoms include fatigue, and moanings of "Ow! Such anemia I have! Harken to my plea! My kingdom for iron!" People talked like that in the thirties, right?

So, yeast helps you gain weight and Vitamin B increases appetite. Got it. Why don't we see many ads like this now? Well, number one, though times are tough, it ain't the Great Depression. Number two, with the advent of fast food in the fifties, cheap, calorie-rich foods can be found within a few feet of every television set (fact exaggerated for your enjoyment), so most people can fill their belly, but with shitty food prepared by people who hate their jobs. So, fatness is a problem now.

Also, vitamin deficiencies are much less common than they were in 1938, due to the fortification of many foods. This means that manufacturers try to sneak a few extra nutrients into stuff we eat every day, like flour and rice, which is handy. Odds are, you get plenty of every vitamin from the food you eat. Here is an excellent article from Colorado State University explaining popular myths about vitamins such as "you should take them". There is no evidence that taking vitamins has any effect on health at all, unless your suffering from a few specific conditions. More and more, it is looking as though vitamins are much more effective when they are eaten in food and not when they are crammed into a pill.

Also, dosing yourself with vitamins can cause loads of health problems if you take too much.

The "dietary supplement" industry is not regulated the same as actual food and medicine. The rules are much more lax. Here's a good bit from the link (from the FDA) in the previous sentence:

"Generally, manufacturers do not need to register their products with FDA nor get FDA approval before producing or selling dietary supplements"

As it stands right now, you can practically sell bullets with leprosy sprinkles, and so long as you label it as a "dietary supplement", you have no obligation to prove it actually does anything - just so long as it's safe when used as directed. In the case of the leprosy bullets, you'd be within the limits of the dietary supplement laws as long as the directions on your package clearly state that you are to bury them in a cube of concrete several hundred feet underground and not to eat them or remove them from the package. (Hazmat suit sold separately).

Anyway, both of the women in this picture look okay to me. Sure, the one on the left looks grumpy and has bad posture, but that's just how marketing works. The woman on the right could be a right arm amputee, but so long as she's smiling and arching her back, emphasizing her hourglass figure, she'd be the obvious "you want to look like her" picture. The girl on the left would look great too if she were posed flatteringly and didn't look like she's doing her taxes in her head.

This ad has a nice Disembodied Floating Head. He's supposed to be convincing and trustworthy... you know, like a doctor, but they don't even give him a name or say who he's supposed to be. He's just a head, staring at us, telling us we're too skinny. He looks kind of lascivious, like he's the creepy old perv whose job it is to ogle the women at Ionized Yeast HQ and tell them whether they look good or not. I bet he thinks they're all positively yummy.

Apparently, Ionized yeast assumes we're eating plenty of carrots and our eyesight is great. The type size drops down a size halfway through the ad, like they paid for a 1/4 page strip ad but really wanted to squeeze in the part about gaining "normally attractive pounds". He's watching your attractive pounds right now. Better fatten up, twiggy.

Country Quarrel - Madge and Thurb.

Joke #1 - "...and what's that you've got there? A piece of paper? Well tomorrow it's going back to the store!"

Joke #2 - "You'd better stop looking pensive right now. I won't have any wife of mine going around THINKING about stuff!"

Joke #3 - "Madge, wake up! Why are you standing around holding paper when you've got the rest of our carpet to finish coloring in?"

Joke #4 - "...and what's that you've got there? Is that a sonnet from that man you've been seeing behind my back? Well, hand it over. You know I love poetry!"

Joke #5 - "Madge, stop fretting over my alternate ending to Thick as a Brick. I know it looks rough now, but I swear by great granddad Ian Anderson it'll be ready for the county fair. You just worry about your flute solo."

Joke #6 - "Madge, can you come over here and help me wrap the dog?"

Joke #7 - Madge wondered. The article "How to kill your husband and make it look like an accident" said she'd need a combine harvester. Was that anything like a thresher? They had one of those in the barn...

Joke #8 - While Thurb shouted, Madge barely moved her finger, keying her throat mic', sub-vocalizing to her contact out near the shed. "Yes, he's near the window. I'm across the room. You have a clear shot."

Joke #9 - "... and what's that you've got there? Is that a sonnet from that man you've been seeing behind my back? Well give it here. I'm starving."

Joke #10 - "Why'd you wear that dress? You know I like your other gray one with the red dots... or was it gray with red checks?" (A typical evening at home with Mr. and Mrs. Spotcolor.)

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

Kitchen Scenes - What the spoon saw.

Joke #1 - Clark was a like a little boy in some ways. It was part of his charm, and the reason Vivyan loved him so. "Of course I' love you too, dear. Have a good day." Then, she gently blew the chicken off his face, straightened his tie, and sent him off to work.

Joke #2 - "Oh, Clark, this evening has been just perfect. I do enjoy our time together ever so much. There's something I've been wanting to tell you, but I'm having trouble putting my feelings into words. Here. Let me whistle it for you..."

Joke #3 - "Clark, I've been wanting to try a different brand of raisin bran. I know you don't like change, but Kellogg's has two scoops of raisins in every box. Twooooooo scooooooops!"

Joke #4 - Clark and Vivyan had always had a vibrant love life. That was the key to a lasting relationship. First, they had dinner in separate rooms, the sounds of their gustation as thrilling as an erotic touch. Then, they came together in the kitchen for a quick game of "guess what I ate", then off to the bedchamber.


Joke #1 - "I left a pickle and half a hoagie in there after dinner last night. It was too big. I couldn't finish it. You're a vegetarian, Martha. Where is it now? WHERE'S THE HOAGIE???"

Joke #2 - Martha was demure, her face beautiful in the half-shadow of the 40-watt rough-service bulb, filtered through the sunny stained glass of lemon jello. The thermostat clicked on, sensing the rise in temperature inside the refrigerator, with the door ajar. But Walter also felt the fire in his heart, which the solid-state thermo-controls could not diminish. he had to have her, right now... and that New York strip from Tuesday. God, he loved leftover night.

Joke #3 - "You left the refrigerator door open all afternoon? Are you mad, woman? Our guests will be here any minute! I have to replace the milk, dammit! Get me my horse!"

Oreo Cookies - Perfect for you cartoon family.

I'm a little scandalized that the Oreo package used to be yellow instead of what I have always assumed was its perpetual blueness. One thing remains the same: Oreos are a staple of daily life with your excitable weirdo family.

It's hard to choose the right snack for your family when you're a young mother recovering from cult indoctrination. Oreos are a real no-brainer, though. Good thing, too!

Know what makes a good businessman? Thinking young. Being able to get really cranked about a plate of cookies helps keep you in touch with the youth culture. So does purchasing your much-younger wife from a quasi-utopian commune. Just know the laws in your state of residence.

"Junior" can't see the top of the plate from his angle, but he knows what's for dinner! It's all his Perfect Mother ever serves. Oreos! "He" likes to get dressed up for these special Oreo dinners every night of the week. From his polka-dot hat to his rouge, eyeliner and carefully drawn eyebrows, Tad is ready for another yummy Oreo dinner. Can you tell this isn't his first all-cookie meal?

Daffy Daughter takes time from her busy day of acting out her favorite cartoons for an Oreo dinner break. The trick of letting her tongue flop out when she sees something good? She learned that from Tom & Jerry.

Nabisco cookies are enjoyed throughout the land, and they're not just for kids! Vanilla wafers are a big hit with the faculty at Hogwarts. Here, Professors Fizzlebottom, Wizzlefoss, and Bottomwoozle dish the dirt about what that naughty Malface boy did in Necromancy class. Somebody ought to woozle HIS bottom! Well, I never!

Fig Newtons are dad's secret midnight snack, but not for long. He's going to wake the whole house singing the aria from his one-man Fig Newton opera! Scotty is helping his master belt out the notes. Just look at the noise lines coming out of his head!