Business
When Barbie Met Ken
Who ever knew it happened at a dance?
Posted By: Paul - Wed Jul 02, 2014 -
Comments (11)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Toys, Teenagers, 1960s
RIP Washboard
The company Washboard launched just recently. The concept was that it was a subscription service for quarters. If you paid them $15 every month, they'd send you $10 in quarters in return. Most people, they assumed, would use the quarters at laundromats.The company lasted less than two weeks before calling it quits. They ran into problems with their payment processor. Also, by their own admission, reactions to the concept were "mostly bad".
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jul 01, 2014 -
Comments (15)
Category: Business
5-Day Deodorant Pads
Do you have to abstain from washing your pits for five days to make this work and get your money's worth? I note this item still exists. Any experience with it among WUvies?
Posted By: Paul - Mon Jun 30, 2014 -
Comments (14)
Category: Body, Business, Advertising, Products, Hygiene, 1950s
The Nicotine Fairies
Unless he was smoking something else.....
Posted By: Paul - Sun Jun 29, 2014 -
Comments (4)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Delusions, Fantasies and Other Tricks of the Imagination, Tobacco and Smoking, Cartoons, 1930s, Europe
Follies of the Madmen #222
Posted By: Paul - Sun Jun 22, 2014 -
Comments (4)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Cats
Follies of the Madmen #221
Family lives in eerie black hole environment, stores floating possessions at many levels but without formal order.
Original ad here.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Jun 15, 2014 -
Comments (5)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Domestic, Appliances, Family, 1950s
Goodbye to Garbage
The ominous opening music implies a problem at least equivalent to a serial killer loose in the neighborhood. But it's only some spilled coffee grounds.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jun 05, 2014 -
Comments (3)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Garbage, Trash, Waste and Other Detritus, Appliances, 1950s, 1960s
Follies of the Madmen #220
What product can this staged photo from 1969 possibly be advertising?
For the answer visit the original ad here.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Jun 04, 2014 -
Comments (5)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Police and Other Law Enforcement, Bohemians, Beatniks, Hippies and Slackers, 1960s
Peter Penny and his Magic Dollar
Back in the 1940s, it became popular for business groups to put out "publicity comics" whose purpose was to instill in youth business-friendly feelings. One example was "Peter Penny and his Magic Dollar" put out by the American Bankers Association. The plot of the comic was that Bob, a schoolboy, wants to know about banks, so his mentor, Peter Penny, takes him around on a magic dollar to teach him about all the wonderful things that banks and bankers do.I can't find a complete copy of this comic online, but a few pages of it can be read over at lostsoti.org.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Jun 02, 2014 -
Comments (15)
Category: Business, Advertising, Comics, 1940s
Fresh-Up Freddie
Disney characters have touted much merch. But rarely has the studio designed a character expressly as a corporate spokesman. The exception is Fresh-Up Freddie for 7-Up.But what a godawful mess he was, all over the stereotype map.
In this non-embeddable commercial Freddie is manic like Woody Woodpecker or Daffy Duck. Then he does a Maurice Chevalier imitation. There are real humans and teenybopper birds.
Still manic, but now he's also a "teenager" Fred Astaire.
Some kind of socialite William Powell/Richie Rich.
Texas oil baron.
Now he talks like Speedy Gonzalez, as a bullfighter.
Cowboy.
And last but not least, Freddie has a sex change.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Apr 25, 2014 -
Comments (5)
Category: Anthropomorphism, Business, Advertising, Products, Stereotypes and Cliches, Soda, Pop, Soft Drinks and other Non-Alcoholic Beverages, Cartoons
| Who We Are |
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. 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. Contact Us |