Gyro-Scopic Stabilizers - What the fraud?

This ad for "Gyro-Scopic Stabilizers" was found in the May 1963 issue of "On the Q.T." magazine. In case you're somehow unaware of the enduring sociological legacy of On the Q.T. magazine, here's a couple of sample covers from the same year:

So, hard-hitting investigative journalism, of course. On the Q.T. may have been completely justified in calling itself "The CLASS Magazine In Its Field" in the same way one might be able to honestly say "This here is the handsomest maggot in this dead varmint carcass." The qualifier "in its field" isn't flattering.

Within it's pages, as you may expect, fascinating writing abounds, but our attention was particularly drawn to a full-page ad for "Gyro-Scopic Stabilizers". Here's an advertising pro tip. Hyphenate words that your readers may be too ignorant to pronounce all in one breath. They'll appreciate you simplifying all that fancy tech talk regarding second-grade scien-tific prin-ci-ples. Anyway, here's the ad:

Click it to big it, baby.

The biggest text in the ad. "LIKE GETTING FREE TIRES" grabs the attention of your ideal consumer - those who feel cheated when they need to spend money on normal automotive wear items. "There's got to be a better way!"

There is! If you mount two eight-inch "gyroscopes" on your front wheels of your mushy boat car, you will enjoy the following benefits:

-Your car will ride more safely and smoothly by preventing the front wheels from deflecting to one side or the other on bumps. (Vaguely possible, but not with these things.)
-The front wheels will resist bumps. (Not possible.)
-Parts on the steering rack will not wear out. (Sort of, but not really.)
-The tires will last much longer. (Sort of plausible, if the previous claim is true, which it probably isn't.)

So what are these things? They look like rings with two crescent-shaped weights in them, and what look to be three adjustable bolt cups that can slide around the rings a little bit, allowing for different lug spacings. They look they're about eight inches in diameter, and can't weigh more than a couple of pounds each.

There is even a picture of a lucky motorist bolting some Gyro-Scopic Stabilizers to his wheel. You remove a few lug nuts, put the stabilizers on, and reinstall the lug nuts.









The ad relies upon you having no experience playing with a gyroscope gyro-scope. If you have, you'll recall that the gyroscopic effect pretty much resists rotation only against the plane of the spinning rotor. The gyroscope doesn't care about sliding up and down, or left and right.

The claims about smoothing out bumps can't be true. The gyroscopic effect of the rings will resist sudden steering inputs only, and will freely move up and down with the actuation of the suspension. Granted, in the case of pretty much every domestic car in 1963, steering and handling was vague at best, and could be accurately described as "swimmy". Sudden bumps could easily yank the steering wheel around.

Not to mention the fact that, the less a gyroscope's rotor weighs, the faster it has to spin in order for it's gyroscopic effect to be felt. You'd probably need to exceed the maximum possible speed of the vehicle before Gyro-Scopic Stabilizers could begin to work their magic, and by then the tires would probably have flown apart from the centrifugal force of their rotation.

If the Gyro-Scopic Stabilizers did impart any gyroscopic effect to the front wheels, they might keep the steering rack from changing direction suddenly over stutter-bumps. If that were the case, it might extend the life of the components of the steering rack, like the tie rod ends and various bushings.

However, none of this stuff matters, because the Gyro-Scopic Stabilizers are tiny compared to the diameter of the wheel. Also, their mass (and subsequent gyroscopic influence) is nothing compared to the combined mass of the wheel and tire (about seventy pounds) which have their own natural gyroscopic effect due to their rotation as the vehicle travels. Any gyroscopic benefit of the product, if it were to spin fast enough - which it can't - would be vanishngly small, relative to the wheel's own gyroscopic effect. In order to do anything, the Gyro-Scopic Stabilizers' size and weight would have to be greater than that of the car's wheel, and that would introduce problems like being unable to steer the car, and the car's suspension and steering components being subjected to stresses several times greater than their designed capacity.

So, the Gyro-Scopic Stabilizers can't possibly have the intended effect. If anything, they might interfere with the lug nuts holding the wheel on. So, at the very least, if you were to buy some Gyro-Scopic Stabilizers, you might get to enjoy a scientific demonstration of your wheel's natural gyroscopic effect as it rolls happily away from you while you're driving, having been freed of your vehicle's tyranny by your new Gyro-Scopic Stabiliers. It would have been easier to just pay attention in grammar school science class.

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.

Men's Fantasy Stories

Icky Tales 2

Rose's Fruit Squashes - Translating British.

Technically, Americans and The British speak the same language, but the dialects are miles apart. This is made plain by this 1952 ad for Rose's Fruit Squashes, which appeared in Picture Post (like LIFE magazine, but English). There's a lot to unpack in here, so let's translate some British to American.

Fruit Squashes - For one thing, there's the description of the product. Presumably, fruit "squash" is juice, right?

Good wicket - "Wicket" is a word that comprises about 75% of Cricket terminology (Cricket being the national sport of England, and massively popular throughout India, thanks to the propagation of the East India Company in the Nineteenth century.

Primarily, the "wicket" is the little assembly of wooden sticks that stand just behind the batsman. In effect, it serves as the strike zone in American baseball. The "bowler" has to knock down the wicket with the ball, while the batsman tries to hit the ball. The parts of the wicket are the three vertical "stumps" and the smaller "bails" that bridge across the tops of the stumps. It looks a little stonehengey.

Also, the pitch (field) upon which Cricket is played is called "the wicket".

Also also, "losing a wicket" refers to a batsman being dismissed by the bowler.

Shew! So, the ad having the title "Good wicket" might be interpreted as "nice play" or "nice hit".

"Bags I don't fetch the ball" - https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/bags

bags: children's slang , British and Australian
an indication of the desire to do, be, or have something

So, obliquely, the boy really doesn't want to go next door and get the ball... I think, since "Bags I don't fetch the ball" seems to imply he really wants to not get the ball. Something scary is next door.

"That man next door's got a long red beard and a black hat. Looks like an ogre." "No, idiot, he's a famaous artist. He draws pictures of ladies with one eye and three legs." -  From the description of the artist's work, they should be describing Picasso. He did stay at a farmhouse in Sussex in 1950, which at the time was the home of his painter friend Roland Penrose.

Self-Portrait with Uncombed Hair, by Pablo Picasso.

However, the part about the red beard and black hat sounds exactly like Vincent Van Gogh (which, for some reason, is pronounced "Van Goth" by every British person). A quick Google search shows that Picasso had brown-to-black hair. He wasn't a ginger.

Van Gogh. Red beard. Check. Long? Meh, not really. Black hat? I'm sure he had a black hat somewhere. Most people do.

However, the description of the painting style ("ladies with one eye and three legs"), sounds like Picasso. Van Gogh's style was a little more traditional than Picasso's.

Portraits by Van Gogh.

Portrait of Woman, by Pablo Picasso.

So, the question of which artist is the scary dude next door is a bit confused. Safe to say that traditional English society wasn't sure what to make of "the new painting style", which, at the time, had only been around for about a hundred years. They could be forgiven for confusing one scary painter for the other.

"Soppy, I call it." - http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/soppy  Being overly emotional or sentimental. No surprise that a couple of kids would see any painting of a lady as "soppy".

"It's a cert." - http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/cert UK, informal. "Certain" or "certainly". Duh.

"But if he shows you his pictures, just say 'very interesting', like father does". - Oh, hah hah hah hah. Conservative English culture was freaked out by modernist painters. If only they had something more important to think about at the time, like finishing the rebuilding of London.

New Idea Parade #9

Science and Mechanics - A single page. So much joy.

The small ads at the back of  old "men's interest" magazines are where the publishers accidentally tell you who they think you are. This is, of course, the way it is with all advertising. By trying to sell you something, advertisers are inadvertently telling you what they think you're like. Their sales pitch is, ostensibly, an attempt to relate to you. But at the same time, the ad reveals their estimation of your motivations and vulnerabilities. Most often, the message is something like "you are frightened, insecure, paranoid, ignorant, gullible, and mostly dumb".

This single page of ads from the June, 1955 issue of Science and Mechanics is a treasure trove of amazing ads made by, umm, "unskilled" advertisers who weren't so good at concealing their judgment of the reader.

You believe that pirates raided the oceans of the world in search of the most treasured stamps.

You see yourself as a perpetually downtrodden victim, and fantasize in graphic detail about crippling your perceived enemies. 

You dream of being Richard Kiel. Or, you wish to eat any creature, so long as it wears dentures.

You dream of being a world explorer, and desire "helps" on "every subject", including "personality aids". I think my old boss suffered from Personality Aids.

Your ambitions of adventure, violence, and excitement are hampered by your continuing hernia problem.

Your ambitions of violent adventure are hampered by your continuing hernia problem, and you have difficulty getting into your truss due to your continuing arthritis problem.

You not only believe in magical powers, but wish to use them to subjugate others to your demented little will, and mustn't, under any circumstances, be allowed to have any authority over anyone.