Archive for the ‘comic book advertising’ Category

Great Moments in Comic Book Advertising #19

Evel Knievel Adventures

This is somewhat of a follow up to last weeks Evel Kneivel IOTW. Here are a handful of the action figure vehicles Ideal made. I didn’t know anybody that didn’t at least have the stunt cycle. And as anyone who owned one can attest to, the thing worked pretty damn well. It took off fast, handled pretty much any terrain, would do huge jumps, and still keep racing along regardless of what you threw in it’s path. The down side… Evel would not stay on the thing short of supergluing him to the damn bike. The bike would take off and get about 6 inches from the launcher before he just rolled off. We tried everything. And I was not the only one. Over the years I have heard all sorts of stories of taping him, gluing him, anything to keep him on the stupid cycle.

Masto.

 

Great Moments in Comic Book Advertising #18

Silly Putty

Let’s face it. This is the only thing Silly Putty was good for, and it was a great trick. Unfortunately The printing now a days is too damn good. I tried this a few years back with my own kids Silly Putty and it was an absolute failure. So unless your kids get a kick out of lifting the images from the personals section of the New Times, or pics from the Auto Trader this toy is dead. That’s just not as fun as lifting an image from Peanuts. Of course it was only good for about 2 dozen impressions before your putty was a charcoal gray mass. Goodbye Silly Putty you will be missed.

Masto.

Great Moments in Comic Book Advertising #17

Revell slot cars

I want this now. I think in this day and age you could get a bunch of 45 year old guys together to do this more than you could a bunch of 16 year old kids. Of course I would have to buy a bigger house, but hey it would totally be worth it. Can’t you see a bunch of middle age men sitting around the floor on a Saturday afternoon, beer in one hand controller in the other, laughing their asses off, going round after round of head to head slot car racing. Of course our wives would all roll their eyes and bitch about what a bunch of dorks we were being. But hell, that would be half the fun.

Masto.

Great Moments in Comic Book Advertising #16

Sea Monkeys

Can you think of a better way to start a 3 day weekend than with Sea Monkeys? I didn’t think so. I could have posted at least 15 different variation of this ad dating back to about 1960. This is capitalism American style, the way God intended. Find something as ridiculous as brine shrimp, In this case ridiculous because they are dehydrated (and can be for decades) and with the re-introduction of water pop back to life, and find a way to sell them by the tons to unsuspecting children with the lure of fabulous sea life beyond compare for the pittance of a buck and change. Stand back and watch the money flow in. Brilliant! Come now, don’t tell me as a kid you didn’t see that ad with the Sea Monkey family and want to have an aquarium full of them. Of course what you actually got and the illustration differed slightly. But we all fell for it regardless. Boys, girls, didn’t matter everyone at onetime wanted some Sea Monkeys. The mastermind behind this American institution? The same gentleman who brought us x-ray specs. No lie.

Masto.

Great Moments in Comic Book Advertising #15

jet rocket space ship

How nice of them to give us all those things on the instrument panel considering they only had to print it on there. Makes you wonder out of all the stuff they have listed in this ad how much of it was just silk-screened right on this thing. “Control levers that work!” yes. Like pop up books have control levers that work. “Made of high strength 3 ply fibreboard.” That’s corrugated cardboard to the layman. This is like the Rosetta Stone of misleading copy. I also like “You are pilot, captain, and gunner – your friend can be observer and navigator.” If that isn’t a recipe for disaster I don’t know what is. I bet this 7ft long cardboard monstrosity lasted about a day. Or until your older brother found you and drug you around the block with it tied to his Schwinn.

Masto.

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