Stark terror of stale batteries, 1936

They musta scared easy in 1936, judging from this ad for Eveready batteries headed "Stark Terror Was Squeezing at My Heart."

Stark Terror Was Squeezing at My Heart

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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aldasin

My goodness, I’ve soiled myself.
- Naberius
  
  Aldasin, I want you to listen very carefully. Do not panic. Don’t move at all. Lie very still while I get my Eveready flashlight.
  
  Now I’m going to use the flashlight to hypnotize the feces. Remain very still. At the proper moment, I shall spring into action and fling you across the tent to safety.
- Anonymous
  
  “Go change your armor then!”
Anonymous

Did he faint from the violent slam against the tent wall? From the grisly sight of snake slaying? From the overwhelming relief that he didn’t end up with a snake bite on his wang?
3lbFlax

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the very same George F. Jackson who in later advertisements would be saved from a monkey in his bed, a pig in his bed and a bald eagle in his bed. George is an inquisitive pioneer. I don’t doubt that stark terror was his immediate reaction when the flashlight came on.
technogeek

Everready, and other battery manufacturers, used to sponsor cave explorers and the like in order to manufacture these endorsements. Secret Caverns, a huge system in NY state’s karst formations, was discovered when a couple of youngsters went down a rope into a sinkhole as part of just such a publicity stunt.

Given that sort of outcome, I’m willing to forgive them a bit of hype.
Faustus

@3lbFlax

I think George’s friends should ask himself what the connecting factor is in all those animal “attacks”. Who knows how many bestial rapes George got away with when they’d previously bought other brands of batteries.
bjacques

The National Carbon Co.!?? Slowly I turn…inch by inch…step by step…
Anonymous

And now we are on the verge of a battery that will last for just about forever and also store information – just like a computer storage device. For us folks that remember when no had a phone and TV’s didn’t exist and ads such as this were fairly commonplace the advances are just about unbelievable – except they are actually happening.

Skip
wgmleslie

The “deadly copperhead” is not very deadly at all. Unless you happen to have an anaphylactic reaction or are bitten by multiple snakes, it’s going to be painful but not deadly.
- Bekah
  
  unless they mean this copperhead
  http://www.tigerhomes.org/animal/australian-copperhead.cfm
  not totally convinced by the torch solution myself.
k1p

I remember on “The Rifleman” when this happened, they used a cigar to smoke the snake out of Chuck’s sleeping bag. It was a giant Rattler, not a wimpy little copperhead.
k1p

gATO-haha…Doctor says you gonna die.
Antinous / Moderator

Hmm. I usually need batteries because there isn’t a snake in my bed.
- Cunning
  
  Well played Antinous. I was working on some clumsy “pulled the covers back to reveal my giant python” comment, but working the snake and the batteries into that lyrical, little zinger makes me feel ashamed.
  - gATO
    
    What about this little gem?
    
    “… to reveal a big, deadly copperhead, coiled to strike where no first-aid could have saved me”
    
    Hmm… I’m guessing that must be where any serious, self-respecting 1936 American male wouldn’t have dared to put his mouth on and suck the venom out
    - valdis
      
      “Hmm… I’m guessing that must be where any serious, self-respecting 1936 American male wouldn’t have dared to put his mouth on and suck the venom out”
      
      In fact, sucking the venom out works very poorly, if at all, because the venom is injected fairly deep under pressure. Unlike a puncture wound (step on a nail, etc) where a bit of bleeding is actually helpful to cleanse the wound, it doesn’t help any for a bite, because the venom is already spread out into the surrounding tissue. And cutting little X’s just makes the injury worse.
      
      The current thinking is to minimize the spread of venom as much as possible by keeping the limb in question lowered, keep the victim’s pulse rate down (which is the biggest challenge), and get them to a hospital. Anti-venom may or may not enter into it – in many cases, the anti-venom isn’t already at the hospital (due to short shelf life, etc), and by the time it is obtained, it’s too late to do much good.
      
      So as a practical matter, if you get bit when you’re 12 or 15 hours hike away from the trailhead, you’re looking at a *really* crappy 12-15 hours (or more) of symptomatic treatment using whatever is in the first aid kit – and most of the *useful* stuff at that point is prescription-only and not available to most hikers.
      
      And incidentally, most people *vastly* underestimate the effort needed to bring somebody down off a trail. There’s a popular destination on the Appalachian Trail near here called Dragon’s Tooth, only 3 1/2 miles from the nearest trailhead. They had an incident a few years ago somebody did a stupid and ended up in a Stokes basket. Took 60 people to get him off the mountain.
      
      Yes, 60. Not a typo. You get tired *fast* under those conditions, each team of carriers had to swap out after only a few hundred yards.
      
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Litter_rescue_basket.jpg
- Anonymous
  
  Thank you for that, I had a good laugh. :D
apoxia

Well, marketing sure has changed.
Anonymous

@Olga & SamSam:
I think Zikman was trying to make a pun there. You know, on how George does not appear to hesitate on dispensing a few untruths.
zikman

shouldn’t it be “I lie motionless…”
- SamSam
  
  I’m confused by why one would think that it should be “‘lie’ motionless.” Olga says that “lay” is falling out of use, but surely most people would know that “lie” is in the present tense, and the story is written in the past tense?
  
  Anyway, I’m interested in knowing whether this is actually a valid defense against snakes. Do they actually follow bright lights? It seems unlikely to me, but I know little about snakes.
  - zikman
    
    maybe because I like to nitpick just for the sake of it sometimes :P
    I didn’t really think about it too much
jere7my

Note how they were already laying a foundation of negative advertising, decades before the Duracell brand would even be introduced, by making the snake a “copperhead”. That’s forethought.
mr_josh

Marketing has changed, indeed! If you were thinking up a company name in these days of green marketing, “National Carbon Co.” would be about the last thing you’d put on the list.
olga barshinskey

This is simply bizarre.

@zikman since the story is in past tense, ‘lay’ is more correct, although it seems to be falling out of use these days (heavy sigh for the devolution of language).
Marchhare

Well-played indeed, Antinous.
Anonymous

And then he fainted? While the others saved him? Wow, if it was a woman who fainted we would be complaining about how ridiculous this was. Things sure have changed.
dculberson

So contrived and breathless… some of the changes in marketing are for the better. (Not all!)