Features Podcasts Family Video Comics Music Tech Science Books Film & TV Games ✚

Jill

Vintage gag ads

Cory Doctorow at 11:12 am Wed, Sep 21, 2011

— FEATURED —

Book Review

The Man Who Laughs: grotesque Victor Hugo potboiler was the basis for The Joker

Feature

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

Book Review

The Twelve-Fingered Boy - mesmerizing YA horror novel

— FOLLOW US —

Boing Boing is on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our RSS feed or daily email.

 

— POLICIES —

Except where indicated, Boing Boing is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution

 

— FONTS —

Tweet
Kindle

There's a proper treasure-trove of great old gag ads linked off this Vintage Ads group post, but get a load of that bow-tie (and get a load of that awesome type design and color scheme!)

A LAFF RIOT

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.

MORE:  ad • design • Funny • Happy Mutants • illustration • Old school • prank

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

  • Rebecca DeLaTorre

    A light up bow tie really turns me on.

  • samovar100

    ‘Dem dames are suckers for a lite up bow tie.

  • bruckelsprout

    Is that a magic lever in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

  • Snig

    Eel man’s secret revealed.

  • xzzy

    The important question: are there any surviving examples of the tie being sold in this ad? I’m curious how miserable the product was compared to its description.

    I have this image of a couple car blinker bulbs being embedded in a tie, wired up with some old cloth insulated wire and one of those 6V lantern batteries on his belt to power it all. 

  • Phikus

    What I’ve been waiting for.  At last, women will like me because of my light-up tie (since I have no other redeeming qualities) and I’ll finally be able to get one up on that bully who always kicks sand on me at the beach!  Lookout ladies!

    • Brainspore

      Wait, are you that 98-pound weakling I accidentally kicked sand on? I’m sorry about that, dude- I was wearing x-ray specs at the time and didn’t see where I was going.

      • Phikus

        Yeah, it’s ok.  When I claim all those prizes from selling some shitty magazines, I’ll put studs all over my jean jacket with my Ronco Rhinestone & Stud Center™ and get my Mr. Microphone® plugged into my dune buggy and come back to pick the girls up later, THEN we’ll see who’s boss of the beach!

        • Lobster

          Yeah!  Poseidon! :D

          • Phikus

            Yeah, but other than him, we’ll see who’s boss of the beach!

            “That guy over there with Boss of the Beach on the front of his T-shirt?”

            Right, but other than Poseidon and that guy over there with Boss of the Beach on the front of his T-shirt, we’ll see who’s boss of the beach…

            “The lifeguards…?”

            OK, but other than Poseidon, that guy over there with Boss of the Beach on the front of his T-shirt, and the lifeguards, we’ll see who’s boss of the beach…

  • jimkirk

    There’s not enough swank these days.

  • Lobster

    Lights are funny.  Whenever I have someone over I have to keep the lights off or they never stop laughing.

  • Antinous / Moderator

    So….this tie generates an entropy curse that causes women’s hearts to come flying out of them?

  • morreski

    Check out my recent painting inspired by a ‘Treasure Chest
    of Fun’ gags ad page from a 1965 Superman comic. You can see the painting at my
    website andrewhorne.ca

    I always desperately converted the “Full size Frankenstein
    Monster” but the astronomical amount of $1 US seemed so out of my reach to an
    Australian kid in the early 1970’s.

  • HenryPootel

    I think that Think Geek sells something like this, but with an LED.  

  • pjcamp

    Instant hit with the *old* ladies.