[NOTE: this is actually two image files, upper and lower, and you need to click on each one for enlargement. From The Saturday Evening Post for October 23, 1965.]
Sorry I didn't get this one up in time for Fourth of July--but then again, WU hadn't debuted then!
In any case, this ad is very confused. It seems to be appealing to the mystical vibe of the ever-iconic American War of Independence, what with the flintlock pistol and all. But then again, Sexy Car-crawling Girl is patently an attempt to attract the Pepsi Generation, those wild 'n' wacky "rebellious" kids, with their surfboards and long hair and love beads.
So who's supposed to want to buy a Polara? Mom and Pop Daughters-of-the-American-Revolution? Or little Janie Peace-Sign?
I love the singing and musicianship and general personal integrity of Nat King Cole. Hearing him immediately brings me back to my childhood in the late 1950's, the height of Cole's popularity.
Of course, like many popstars of the 1950's, Cole's star was eclipsed with the rise of rock 'n' roll, and the hippies, in the 1960's.
But curiously enough, Cole played a tiny self-defeating part in that very movement, with his song "Nature Boy."
The tale behind that song involves one of the first proto-hippies--a beatnik, I suppose--named eden ahbez.
Ahbez is one of the twentieth century's bonafide wonderful weirdos, but pretty much forgotten these days.
Why not listen to "Nature Boy" to commemorate ahbez and King?
You might even want to pick up one of ahbez's CD's!
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.