🌹BRIDAL TRANSFORMATIONS: The Magic of Camay!🌹

There's something magical about Camay soap! It instantly transforms you into a Camay Bride. This sounds alarmingly like some polygamous group. I also think that guy at the end looks just a little TOO pleased. 

Just listen!

There is something perfectly intoxicating about these early Maxwell House coffee ads. Whoever came up with that coconut-clopping or block-striking or whatever-it-was-that-made-that-perc-ing-sound was a genius, for it's forever associated with coffee that TASTES AS GOOD AS IT SMELLS. Which is funny, because as I recall, "perked" coffee smelled terrible, gaseous and burnt, like the stuff that collects under the burners of an old stove. What it tasted like, I'll never know, because I wasn't drinking coffee then. I wasn't even drinking amniotic fluid then, folks, because I wasn't conceived yet.

What a concept.

This was one of the more magical illusions of my youth. Really, it still is pretty impressive. I made a YouTube video out of this, and millennials gasped over it because they'd never seen it before. How did they do that?? It was nearly as magical as the Hertz Rent-a-Car ad which showed a couple being lowered down into a moving convertible. ("Let Hertz put YOU in the driver's seat. . . TODAY!")

It does seem ironic to me that, though I remember coffee smelling gaseous and burnt, Maxwell House was sold mainly on "aroma", with consumers whiffing it up as if it was some sort of intoxicant. People even smelled the steaming beans, as if they'd ever have the opportunity to whiff massive mounds of coffee beans. Back in my youth, there was a fad of eating the roasted beans (and you can still get them, chocolate-covered for sissies). Though you'd think they would send you into orbit, it seems to me that the brewing process was what brought out the caffeine. But it was a quick pick-me-up if you didn't have time to brew it.

I have no idea of the provenance of this eagle emblem. At first I had an awful feeling it might be Nazi, but I don't think so. Are those stars and stripes on the emblem? It looks a bit like a cheese grater, or one of those old Afro combs. Are those arrows in its talons? Who knows. Handsome cup, but I am not sure what it means.

Special Bonus Gif! Looking at this old ad again, I'm impressed by how good it looks. Apparently they  reversed a shot of the couple being pulled out of the car - but how exactly did they do that? How to attain the precise angle needed, how to keep the background steady while the car moved? There's a magic here, magic that has been lost in this era of CGI and computerized, photoshopped trickery. 

Dream of Betty Crocker

I dream of Betty Crocker (an animation from an old ad).

No sink smog with Bab-o! (animated riffs on an old commercial)

That's why

You oughta try Bab-o

That's why

You oughta buy Bab-o

That's why

So many-many-many use

Brighter, whiter Bab-o!

NO SINK SMOG WITH  BAB-O!

A real he-man salad

Mary discovers that even a salad can be laden with testosterone.

Over-smoked: the miracle of Marlboro

                                                                                   

The "miracle", of course, is that these ads were allowed to run at all. They have a bizarre beauty to them, a sort of otherworldliness which I HOPE reflects how much attitudes have changed.

Or not?

CAN attitudes change on a sort of mass level? If they don't, where are we headed? Will this be a slow process, or will we all too quickly plunge headlong into the abyss ?

I grew up in the '60s, when anything seemed possible. Civil rights, women's lib, enlightenment towards the disabled and mentally ill, hope for the poor and marginalized.

What has happened to all that passion and progress?

I feel a great sucking force dragging us backwards. It's not a simple matter of  being "over-smoked". The news is becoming more intolerable by the day. When I was a kid, shows like The Twilight Zone were already trying to tell us how intolerable it would be to live in a world run by technology.

There was also this recurring theme of political oppression, a leftover from the Second World War when Fascism came terrifyingly close to achieving world domination. 

Is political oppression winning now? Don't ask me, I'm not political, but I do care. I suppose it's too late for me, but I care about the sort of world my grandchildren will inherit.

So the point of all this rambling is: should I have hope? In a few short decades, these cute ads showing babies selling cigarettes became distasteful, then shocking, then completely unacceptable. Having been normalized and even considered a social necessity, cigarettes became heavily stigmatized and thrust outside the bounds of acceptability. Compared to the usual rate of social change, all this happened at light speed.

Can this happen with other things? I mean, right now? WILL it happen, and what will be our fate if it doesn't? The ruthless unravelling of all the passionate progress I've ever seen is  breaking my heart. Our chains are being buckled back on, and it looks like there's nothing we can do about it. It's over, that great experiment in social enlightenment which (supposedly) changed everything. 

Isn't it? Tell me it isn't - I will take any good news I can get.

Loving Pink: the little angels of Camay

Put a smile in your smoking!

Dancing cellphones from 1953

                            Note. They looked different then. But they danced.

Busy day: surrealism in advertising

Do you sweat when you're horny?

Can you imagine, when you're going at it hot and heavy, suddenly whipping out your Arrid with Perstop to deodorize your "sex perspiration"? This product supposedly nukes the "most offensive odor" (sex sweat), not unlike the Lysol douche which disinfects away all signs that you've had sex.  All these ads talk about how doctors recommend the product, though they don't say WHICH doctors and how they managed to solicit their medical opinions. 

This is yet another of the ubiquitous ads of the era (1950s) which convey the message that women stink, but here they are saying women particularly stink when they are sexually excited, an odor so foul and offensive that it must be stamped out at once or it will knock your partner on his ass.  The only good thing about it is the acknowledgement that women feel sexual "excitement" at all, though of course, if and when they do,  all signs of it must be immediately eradicated.

  Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

That's why she can't get a man!

"That's why we can't get a man for Edith!"

(word-for-word transcript)

CRUEL WORDS – yet it was lucky she heard them

“How dreadful! They said I was careless about perspiration odor in underthings. 

Oh dear, I don’t realize I was offending that way”

(Due to the vicious comments of her friends, Edith sees the light)

“Girls, may I join the Lux party tonight?”

“You bet, Edith – it takes only a jiffy”

“Lux is swell – it takes away odor, yet saves colors”

“My, that was easy! I’ll do it every night – then I’ll be sure I’m not offending anyone ever”

PARTIES ALL THE TIME NOW

“Edith is having a grand time”

“Yes, all the men rave about her now – she’s always dainty, thanks to Lux”

AVOID OFFENDING

Underthings absorb perspiration odor. Protect daintiness this easy way. . .

Wearing underthings a second day is a careless habit no girl can risk. We all perspire, and the odor clings. It becomes noticeable to others even before we’re aware of it ourselves.

But it’s easy to be sure of never offending. Just swish underthings through Lux each night – perspiration odor vanishes.

Of course, Lux has none of the harmful alkali ordinary soaps often have, and with Lux there’s no injurious cake-soak rubbing. These things weaken fabrics, fade colors. Anything safe in water alone is safe in Lux.

Oh. . . KAY. Now that I've had a chance to absorb all that, if absorb is the right word, I wonder if it belongs in the same category as those awful "can this marriage be saved?" Lysol douche ads.

But when I really look at it, as Lucy would say, "Euuuwwwwwww."

Standards of hygiene really were different then. People bathed once a week, in many cases, and washed their hair once a month (in the sink, then wrapped their head in a towel like a turban). Washers were inefficient, and clothes were dried on a line in the back yard.

Deodorants weren't common, and unheard-of in men.

So I don't know about this ad. Unless Edith's potential "man" was down on his hands and knees sniffing her crotch, I'm not sure it would be such an obstacle (in fact, I have heard that certain men enjoy such things).

But the ad pretty much states that poor Edith is wearing the same pair of panties (and note how they avoid that word - too sexual?) over and over again. Double-euuuwwwwwwwww.

It's worse than the guy who turns them inside-out and wears them again.

Yuck.

But wait, they do say "underthings", don't they? In the cartoon, she's holding up a slip. I wonder how stinky a slip could be after two days?

The Lysol douche ads were secret code for "birth control douche", which could not be mentioned by law. So  I have a theory this wasn't about slips at all. It's just that they couldn't mention panties. Panties, to my mind anyway, are the only item of apparel that could get really stinky after a day.

So she's swishing her gitch, or gotch, or ginch, or gonch, or gitchies, or gotchies around in warm water and Lux. (To do this, you join with your friends at a "Lux party", which by today's standards is hard to imagine.) The weird thing is that the ad implies you should do this "every night", as if you have only one of everything. So how would it dry? By blowing on it?

Hey, Edith - now that you're so popular because you smell like Lux soap - get one of those boyfriends to come over and help you out.

Mother's Little Helpers (or: "doctor please, some more of these")

The text reads:

ANOTHER STRIKING TRIBUTE TO PHOSFERINE TONIC WINE

"I take Phosferine Tonic Wine at 11 a.m. and at 3 p.m., also as a nightcap, and believe me, I derive from it wonderful nights of sleep. I get up very fresh in the morning, having lost that tired feeling and after taking a couple of bottles I am now a different woman. Phosferine Tonic Wine stimulates, energizes and tones the whole system, and is a wonderful nightcap."

(Signed) Mrs. D. Islwyn Lewis

(I note in the fine print that this woman hails from Swansea,Wales, Dylan Thomas' home town. That explains a lot.)

And how about this. . .

Yes, for superior vacuuming skills, it's DEXIES!


"BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!"

Text reads: 35, single and psychoneurotic. The purser on her cruise ship took the last snapshot of Jan. You probably see many such Jans in your practice. The unmarrieds with low self-esteem. Jan never found a man to measure up to her father. Now she realizes she's in a losing pattern - and that she may never marry.

Valium (diazepam) can be a useful adjunct in the therapy of the tense, over-anxious patient who has a neurotic sense of failure, guilt or loss. Over the years, Valium has proven its value in the relief of psychoneurotic states - anxiety, apprehension, agitation, alone or with depressive symptoms.

Valium 10 mg. tablets help relieve the emotional "storms" of psychoneurotic tension and the depressive symptoms that can go hand-in-hand with it. Valium 2-mg. or 5-mg. tablets are usually sufficient for milder tension and anxiety states. An h. s. dose added to the t. i. d. dose often facilitates a good night's rest.

Oh how I wish I could see those photos more clearly, as I think they demonstrate the sad downward spiral of Jan's life as she dates men who are lower and lower on the social totem pole. At the end, she's taking handfuls of Valium with some drunken and probably gay purser. But hey, if it helps her sleep. . .

Yes, I can just make out some of the captions: Jan and Dad, 1955. Tom, Jan, Ruth and Steve, 1957. Joey, 1959. Jan and Ted, 1961. Jan and Dad, 1962. Jan and Charlie, 19(?). Jan and Danny/Benny, 1966. Jan and Dad, 1969. Jan, 1970.

Whoawww now! This is saying even more than I thought it was! This is a little girl who is hung up on her Daddy. So obviously she needs to be chock full 'o Valium in order to cope, if not survive. Yes, there was a time when her life looked hopeful, when she had lots of friends and even boy friends, but say, didn't she seem to go through an awful LOT of boy friends? Did this mean she was a raving slut, or a pussy-zippered prude? The ad implies that none of these nice young fellers was quite good enough for her - shame on her for being so picky, or could it be - could it be there is actually "something wrong" with Jan, something so awful we dare not speak its name?

I'm just thinking, TEN milligrams? I've been told that drugs that end in "pam" are all in the same family and do more-or-less the same thing. If you were swallowing tens regularly, it wouldn't be long until you were an emotional zombie. I have to take clonazepam for leg cramps at night, and the prescription is HALF A MILLIGRAM. That's right. I have never taken more than that because it wouldn't do me any earthly good, and because I don't want to feel groggy and out-of-it in the morning. I WANT my emotional storms, thank you very much.

But just think of all the women who were addicted, who were lost. It hasn't changed enough to suit me. Women in the psychiatric system are still patronized and treated with more disdain and disrespectfulness than men with similar disorders. They're wrongly or over-medicated, with a cookie cutter approach: just throw this at her, or that. Seroquel seems popular now, but you wait, it'll be another flavor in a year or so.

And nowhere does it mention the possibility that real relief of her "symptoms" will only come by breaking through to a more courageous, more authentic life. Which generally means telling the doctors to go piss up a rope. Because they don't know anything about us anyway, do they?

For more absolutely insane ads that patronize women and paint them as screamimg meemies with no legitimate cause to complain, just click on the magic link, below!

http://www.bonkersinstitute.org/medshow/fem.html

(And sorry about that Mornidine. It's another name for Thalidomide.)

The real mushroom!

                               
                                                       

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm