Uh, Can You Just Bring My Car Around, Please - Jibby Manchurch

 

International Harvester... refrigerators? Femineered!

Whether or not you view the past as "the good old days" or "the dark ages" has everything to do with who you are. If you're a seventy-something year old white guy, 1950 might look pretty rosy when viewed through your particular shade of colored glasses. Let us recall that, in 1950, you could market a refrigerator (which International Harvester apparently did, I guess???) with an ad campaign like "femineered".

If you read the list of features in the copy - things like spaciousness, efficiency, and convenience - you'll be reading a list of things that men absolutely hate in a fridge. We are only left to assume that International Harvester's line of "mangeneered" fridges leaked air like it was made from colanders, had shelves designed to hold everything poorly, fell apart in a week, and consumed as much electricity as everything else in your house combined. Thankfully, International Harvester was there to deduce that only women want a smartly designed product.

Or, it was just a refrigerator, a thing that goes in a kitchen, which made it the sole purview of a woman?

Well, that was a long time ago. We've learned so much since then. Of course, no company now would be dumb enough to patronize fifty percent of the popula- Oh jeez...

https://jalopnik.com/this-car-for-women-designed-by-cosmopolitan-is-about-a-1786899869

What do you get when a women’s magazine like Cosmopolitan wants to create a car for women and teams up with Spanish automaker Seat? You get the Seat Mii by Cosmopolitan, and these are the features that the magazine and Seat decided were necessary: purple or white exterior paint, champagne colored wing mirrors, headlights with an “eyeliner shape,” jeweled wheels and ease of parking.

Spot the Joke - "Men's interest" magazines.

Today, we present a challenge to the Phil Are GO! Joke-Getting Assault Squad (JGAS), our hand-picked group of the most charitable and sympathetic staffers. Their task? To figure out why these are comics. It sounds easy, but man, nothing could be harder or less funny. Do you think you understand why these comics are comical? See if you can Spot The Joke! The JGAS's analysis is posted after each "comic".

Today's joke challenges come to us from the May, 1962 issue of Inside Story magazine, and the April, 1961 issue of Man's World magazine, respectively. It's time to spot the joke!

Challenge #1 - The Castaways:

Theory #1 - Castaway A's need for a continuing stream of available new shoes stems from his companion's mysterious habit of regurgitating nails all over the tiny island, which are painful. This is funny.

Theory #2 - The land mass they're trapped on was once much larger, and supported by a huge pile of men's shoes. Over the years, the two men have eaten all the shoes, which is a harsh reminder for us all to be better custodians of our precious resources. This is funny.

Theory #3 - Many special-purpose shoes (competitive cycling shoes, electrical linemen's boots) have a resilient stiffening component in the sole, called a "last". To say "that's the last of the shoes" implies that the men have eaten the lasts in the shoes, which are made of nylon, and as a result, are actually inedible. This is funny.

Challenge #2 - The Applicant:

Theory #1 - The would-be employee claims to run slowly. Therefore, she must be a far better pitcher
than hitter. As a result, the man is eager to have her as the new pitcher on the company softball team. This is funny.

Theory #2 - The applicant's slowness means that she won't be taking long stretches of time off of work to train for the Olympics, which is good news to her prospective boss. This is funny.

Theory #3 - The applicant's alleged slowness means that absenteeism due to workplace injuries will be kept to a minimum. This is funny.

Theory #4 - The man has clearly suffered a long career of sexual harassment at the hands of his secretaries. Therefore, he is reassured by her claimed slow-footedness that he could escape her unwanted advances if he needed to. This is funny.

Carsuals - Aah, The Seventies, you do not disappoint.

If you're wearing high-waisted jeans right now, it's probably because A) You're a grandma who last bought jeans in 1992, or B) You're eighteen and you think they were just invented a year ago. Keep waiting for that old wheel in the sky to turn, turn, turn, and before you know it, college freshmen will be wearing striped flares, mock turtlenecks and shiny leather shoes with huge, pilgrim-sized buckles on them, thinking themselves to be very fashion-forward.

Esquire Magazine, 1970. The periodical of the upwardly-mobile douchewad. How do you sell "dress jean flares" to that breed of groovy prick? Easy-peasy. Have two guys looking arrogant next to some kind of European kit car, mostly ignoring a woman with apparent self-esteem problems draping herself over the windscreen, dreaming of getting a little attention from wanker A or B: exactly the kind of man most of your readership want to be. Then, describe the car and the woman in the same kind of statistical detail, just to make it clear that they're both just accessories.

Thanks, The Seventies. You never disappoint at disappointing us.

Sho-Bar, Nineteen Sixty-Something - Bring granny!

When you're in New Orleans this holiday season, some time in the early 1960s, who would you like to be at your side when you stride purposefully into a strip club? Correct! Your wife, who is probably someone's grandma!

Over the years, Sho-Bar has moved a few times, but we'll (well, someone will) always have a soft spot in our hearts (probably) for the original location at 228 Bourbon Street, which opened in 1948. This post card has no date on it anywhere, but it looks like the photo could have been taken some time in the late fifties or early sixties.

But it hardly matters, because there's one thing that never goes out of style, and that's forcing your wife - who's probably a grandma - to sit next to you as you ogle Brigette Boudreaux. Just look at all those happy faces!

One thing's for sure: The night this picture was taken, absolutely none of these men were in any trouble at all when they got back to the hotel.

Westinghouse Xmas "gifts", plus ornamentation.

It's not even National Fictionalized Display of Gluttony Day yet, and all the Pointy Tree Day hoo-haa is up in the stores, of course. All is normal in America. So why are we jumping on that greedy bandwagon? Well, two things: A) we make not a dime from this damn blorg, and B) we have a Graphic Gift that may be useful for making your own Pointy Tree Day card... if you're into that sort of thing.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

"Merry Pointy Tree Day, honey! Here's some gifts to help with the housework, which I, as a man of 1957, don't do shit to help out with."

Aah, The Fifties. It's the nostalgic "great" version of America that apparently we all chose to make it be again. It was a time when you could give your wife a steam iron for Christmas to help her take care of you (because you married her as a replacement mom), and instead of bashing your teeth out with it, she'd be all giddy and grateful. If she was really good, you might even allow her to leave the house long enough to show the steam iron off to the neighbors. But she'd better hurry back inside to get that turkey going, because you'll be super hungry after all that generosity and stuff you did for her.

It's going to be an interesting four years.

Anyway, Pointy Tree Day is just about a month away, and you might be one of those kinds of person who designs your own Pointy Tree Day card to send out. If you're getting them printed professionally, you'd better get on that. Those decorations at the bottom of the ad are kind of nice. If some hero would only mitigate the problem of the magazine's groin running straight through the middle of it, those decorations could be useful to set aside for Photoshopping up an Exmess card.

Ornaments are reflective, and photographers have to think about this when setting up for a shoot. Let's go in for a closer look at the big red one...

We can see a white studio with two bounce lights pointed at the ceiling. Neat, huh? There's some stuff off to the right that we can't make out, and in the middle, there's a mysterious black rectangle. That's where the camera is. It's also probably where the photographer is. I think that's a black curtain with the lens poking through it. You wouldn't want to see a person in the ornament's reflection, as that would be a little weird. See the white spot in the black rectangle? That's a glint on the camera's lens.

Ornaments like these basic class bulbs and pointy icicle neutron stars are very much of the time. Pointy Tree ornaments have gotten pretty elaborate here in The Future, and simple ones like this remind me of a time, one hundred billion years ago when I was a kid, when Pointy Tree Day was one hundred percent fun and not at all a stressful, expensive P.I.T.A.

Why not pull these ornaments out of the ad and maybe use them for something? This one's going to really give the old pen tool a workout. Phil Are GO! Graphic Blandishment and Photoshoppery Brigade, ASSEMBLE! Pkshowww!

Pen Tool... DEPLOY!
Pen Tool... CREATE BEZIER PATH!
Pen Tool... ADJUST PATH!
Pen Tool... CONTINUE CREATING PATH!
Pen Tool... MORE PATH!
Pen Tool... AGAIN WITH THE PATH CREATING!
Pen Tool... CREATE SELECTION!
Pen Tool... FEATHER SELECTION ONE PIXEL!
Hotkey... CTRL+J TO CREATE LAYER FROM SELECTION!
Pen Tool... MORE OF THAT, BUT ON THE OTHER PART ON THE LEFT!
Move Tool... SCOOTCH LAYERS TOGETHER!
Layers Palette... MERGE LAYERS!
File... SAVE AS!

Wow, nice work, PAGGBPB! Hit the showers!

Basically, we took the bunch of decorations on the right and left, that weren't obscured by the binding, and scootched them together.

They're miscellaneous Pointy Tree Day decorations! They're retro! They're the maximum width allowable by Blogger! They've got a transparent background! They're coming to your town! You're welcome!

Click for 1600 px as printed, without color enhancement.

Click for 1600 px, with color enhancement.

Bertriff Glavin Revues

Click for 1600 px PNG.

Bauer movie cameras - Yep. Good, clean fun.

Going to the beach this Halloween? Why not pick up a cheap-as-chips Bauer movie camera to preserve all the not-at-all questionable shenanigans and fun stuff you do to a girl there?

So, you're planning a beach trip with four of your buddies and one girl, just like always. Ho hum. This time, buy a Bauer 8 millimeter movie camera!

Click for 1000 px avatar.

That way, you can relive wonderful moments, like when you all bounced her on that blanket, and she went so high you couldn't quite tell if she was afraid you were going to break her back or not. HA ha ha ha ha! Wasn't that fun? She was kind of laughing, right? Yeaaah! Totally laughing!

Or that thing you all did when she dozed off on that towel, after she calmed down from the towel-trampoline thing, that is. That sure was a mess to clean up, huh? Ha ha ha ha ha!

Or how about you grilled hot dogs at lunch time, and you all made her do that one thing she didn't want to do with one? What a hoot!

Now that you've got it all on film, you can get an extra copy developed and give it to her, so she can enjoy the memories over and over again, right?

Only, she hasn't been around in a while. Where did she go? She doesn't answer her phone any more. That's funny. You though you were all friends... your four guy buddies and her. Ah well. You're sure she's just busy or something.

Hey! Cool! Good thing you got an extra copy of the movie made! The cops are at the door and they want to see the film! They probably just want to see what a great time you all had, because you're all such great friends! This is going to be great! Wait! Before you answer the door, get your Bauer movie camera, so you can capture the moment!

Man, 1970 is going to be the best year ever!

Ladies Home Drudgery - May, 1950.

Squire Slacks - Ignoring is bliss.

Aaah, 1969. A magical year between the Swinging Sixties and the Mouth-Breathing High School Dropout Seventies. In this ad, we find a Freddie Mercury-Christopher Reeves lovechild trying to decide which of his artfully draped child brides he wants to ignore the most. What a time it must have been to be alive... and a conscious participant in society.

The ladies in this photo don't seem to mind sharing their groovy dude. One wife gets his shoulder, one gets his knee, and one wife is sort of cupping his butt cheek, but seems to be looking up at his elbow, wondering if she can possibly trade up. She's got ambition. I like her spirit.

You'd think Floor Wife would mind being stepped on by Shoulder Wife, but she doesn't seem to mind or even notice. She's only got eyes for the camera. Oooo. Who's Camera Wife? We'll have to wait till the April '69 issue of Esquire to possibly find out.

If you talk to other humans for work (probably) or pleasure (may god forgive you), you probably do it with a computer. If you talk to other humans on a computer, your chitchat service may let you choose a little self-portrait, so your chitchat combatants can see the face whom god may need to forgive. If you can choose a little self-portrait, you may want to add the faces from today's ad to your growing collection of avatars on your storage doohickey of choice. They're all RGB 1000 px square JPEGS, so there's probably not a system on the planet that could object to them... on technical grounds, at least. You're welcome!

Click each to big each.

Freddy Mercury-Reeves, wondering where his mustache might have fallen off.

Shoulder Wife, just happy with the scapula.

Floor Wife, looking like she's wondering about being Camera Wife.

Colorgroom - Vanity unfair.

This ad for something called "Colorgroom" all but uses the phrase "like a woman" as a pejorative. Well, the joke's on us, because obviously Colorgroom had the last laugh, enjoying worldwide success by becoming a must-have product found in every man's dresser drawer. Right?

"Don't dye your hair like a woman's!" God help us! Are you insane? Don't be an idiot, stupid! It gets better, too...

As, apparently, anyone could tell you, streaky hair is symptomatic of being a woman. Is your hair streaked? You may be a woman! However, being both insecure and vain are seemingly not nearly as shameful as being a lady, and they are A-okay for men. Otherwise, there's be no need for Colorgroom, right?

Do you use some kind of chit chat program at work or maybe not quite at work, or maybe at work, but not really for work? Your friends need to know that you are always thoroughly groomed, or that you are not quite as happy as you'd be with dark hair. That's why you need these avatars. They're both 1000 px square, so whatever thing you use to avoid working at work, it shouldn't have a problem accepting one of these images as your new head. You're welcome!

Click for 1000 px.

Click for 1000 px.

Click for big.

Some light child abuse and sexism.

From Better Homes and Gardens, 1968...

For just $1.50, you can have this humorous melee weapon mounted on the wall in your child's bedroom, to remind them that you're a great parent for beating them where it doesn't leave a mark that the police might otherwise notice.

According to this ad, no man ever prepared his own meal until well after 1968. As you may recall from the many investigative journalism pieces over the years, gender stereotypes were common at the time, all the way to government's top level: the Raisin Advisory Board.

Fox Trots Pants - WTFoxtrots?

More from The Seventies, today, when everyone was being 'scused while they kissed the sky. This ad for Fox Trots pants poses us with a mystery at every turn. Spoiler alert! It's a very clumsy sexual innuendo.

First, the horrible drawing baffles us with its too-scratchy hatching that only makes the already-confusing mishmash of imagery way too hard to decipher. So, the shirt has a face. Is it a human face? Or is it supposed to be a fox's face somehow? What's that bizarre flap under the nose/tie? Is that the mouth, because it's talking?

But the shitty drawing is just bonus weirdness. What is the caption supposed to mean? Was Planned Parenthood big news in 1970? Were Fox Trots just trying to be topical? Nope. It was founded in 1916.

In 1970, the sexual revolution was just hitting its stride. Maybe the joke is that the shirt can be "paired" with a different pair of pants every night, because of birth control? We did find this ad in Esquire magazine, the go-to periodical of ascendant douchebags of the time. They would have been wearing lots of "Acrilan" (polyester) pants, and slipping out of them for various women as often as possible. Could that be it?

Not satisfied with just the one reference to Planned Parenthood, Charles Meyers & Co. / Monsanto make a second run at it, just to be sure their implication of wanton promiscuity makes it through your hair helmet to your purple-hazy brain.

The P.A.G. Joke-Getting Research Panel had to puzzle over this weirdo ad for like half an hour to finally puzzle out the innuendo they were so desperately trying to communicate. Would an Esquire reader of 1970 have gotten it at a glance? Maybe if we were stoned on some basement-grown mary jane we would have caught on quicker? Oh yeah? How do you know were not? Foxy The Fox, give the people a knowing wink for us. There's a good boy.

Vivitar - The sound of gettin' it on.

Most decades take two to three years to really form their identity. For example, The Eighties looked a lot like The Seventies until about 1983 or so. The Nineties looked a lot like The Eighties until about 1993. So how long did The Seventies - everybody's favorite decade that always seemed to have a rash that just wouldn't go away - take to assert its The Seventies-ness? Less than one year. Yes, this 1970 Vivitar ad is real. File under WTF?

 How do you sell stereos? Show people shower-fucking, stupid! (or in the preliminary stages of shower-fucking, anyway). But Vivitar weren't total skeezebags. On the opposite page, they did have the decency to show the recently-moistened couple cuddling... naked.

Thank you, The Seventies, for never disappointing! Surely there must be more ways you can show us how appropriate you were at every opportunity? Here, let me get that for you. Phil Are Go Graphic Blandishment and Photoshoppery Brigade! Assemble! Pksshoww!

Click it to big it. You know you want to.

Good work, team! It looks just like it jumped right off the news stand and onto a filmy, smeary glass coffee table. You earned a break, PAGBGPB, go take several Silkwood showers and report to the Phil Are GO! PTSD Recovery Office.

Clicking it will only make it bigger, you know.