"What could possibly go wrong?": Inventions from the nasty past

Call these "un-ventions". Things the inventor should have thought twice about. Things that might even be hazardous to your health and wellness (and wellbeing and stuff).

How many of these all-purpose-douche-and-enema machines did they sell, anyway? And you could wash the dog with it, too. Come to think of it, that's not such a bad deal. But boy would you ever need to clean the contraption between uses.

Hmmmmmm. That "word of warning" tells the whole story here, as does the "dual purpose" bit. I think these things are designed for ease of access, and I don't mean for taking a tinkle. And do you know what, I would NOT want to get caught in my zipper while wearing one of these.

This thing, this evil metal nose clamp, is supposed to prevent pain from hay fever, "catarrh", etc.? What the fuck IS catarrh? Is this something the human race used to get, but just doesn't get any more, or does it just no longer exist? Perhaps, like quinsy, lumbago and grippe, it simply went out of style. But hey. . . maybe that means that this contraption actually worked!

I'll try not to comment on the name of the inventor.

This is another evil thing you stuck on your face. I don't think this cured catarrh, or cat-gut-guitar or whatever, just "analyzed facial flaws" - and if the contraption is any indication, this poor woman is ALL flaws. The guy is obviously a sadist: this thing has 325 screws in it that can be tightened any way he wants.

A related issue is the Toilet Mask or (even more sinister-sounding) "face glove". I can't help but be reminded of This Is Spinal Tap's album, Smell the Glove. They still sell things that look sort of like this, things that strap on to a woman's face and make her look like Hannibal Lecter.

Hey, it's a new kind of hat, all right. A fake hat. A charlatan hat. A faux hat. A phony hat. A hat-that-doesn't-really-grow-hair. But if it didn't work, you could get a job as a chef in a robot factory.

I looked at this ad with great puzzlement, trying to figure out just what they meant by diseases of the head: mental illness, perhaps? Or was the inventor of the device perhaps thus afflicted? Then I read the description, and there it is. . . CATARRH! So catarrh, we've finally deduced, is a disease of the head. But you've got to get one of these to cure it, and unfortunately they stopped making them in 1932.

This is one of those marvelous Victorian orgasm-machines that I wish they still made. It beat the hell out of having your doctor shove his hand up your skirt, a common therapeutic treatment of the day. The ad even mentions hysteria, a catch-all term which basically meant "horny" (thus the need for one's doctor to feel one up and produce "paroxysm"). I think I'd rather have my paroxysms on a real horse, but if you don't have the space or the oats and hay, this might just do the trick. Whatever that is.

I don't understand this thing - looks like he has some sort of beehive on his head, or an underwater device, except that it's made out of felt. I've seen fabric cocoons that you can wrap around yourself, but this - is that a fire extinguisher or an oxygen tank sitting beside him? What are all those gizmos and egg-slicer thingies on his desk? I don't know if I want to get too deeply involved.

And your hair would smell just great!

This has the largest cringe-factor - no, wait. That one is coming next. But when you see the little naked baby under a sun lamp, you just die a little bit inside. If you want your kid to Stay Brown Th' Year Round, this is the way to go - until Child Protection finds out about it.

And I am truly sorry for this one, but I had to include it for the sake of historical accuracy. A long, long time ago I posted instructions for prostate massage, not because I was interested but because it read like a translation of a translation of some indecipherable foreign language (I won't say "tongue"), and thus was rendered virtually incomprehensible. This thing gives a whole new meaning to one of my favorite expressions, "Sit on this and rotate". It is obviously a dildo, one which needs to be well-lubricated for use: "Note especially those little vent holes in the nozzle through which the unguent inserted in the chamber below may be forced out by turning the knurled cap."

I cannot say another word about this.

Drano cleans and opens drains - and other things

This is so similar to those jaw-dropping "douche with Lysol" ads that at first I thought. . . oh, surely not! But it's a "not". Still, it isn't much of a stretch, is it? The husband has that same look of cold contempt, as if he is (justifiably!) about to leave her forever, while she broods over what her sin might have been THIS time. If the Drano doesn't work on her drain, she could always use it for something else. After all, the Lysol killed "germs" and everything else in its path, so might a drain cleaner work even better? But her husband might be in for a nasty surprise during those intimate moments.

Lifelike in every detail: vintage advertisements

These ads are from a simpler, yet stranger time, a time when people must have said to themselves, "Oh surely not." People were much more likely to take things literally, advertising in particular.

The text that goes with this blowup doll is pretty incredible.

"Made of soft, smooth, pliable vinyl. Judy looks and feels amazingly lifelike. INFLATABLE - just add air and instantly you have a Life-Size beauty.

GUARANTEE:  This is the ULTRA deluxe model, there is no other inflatable doll as LIFE-LIKE as Judy. You must be 100% delighted or your money refunded.

"I'm Judy, the Life-Size inflatable London doll! You can dress me up for any occasion. Take me riding, or to a party, boating or swimming (I float!). Around the house I'll be the ideal burglar deterrent; prowlers will see that someone is home - me. Just let your imagination go and you will see that I can be the most exciting thing ever invented for party gags. Your (sic) bound to find hundreds of exciting and unusual uses for me."

And so on and frickin' so on, as if blow-up dolls were nothing but flotation devices or burglar deterrents, as if they weren't used for "other" purposes, purposes we can't even name here because this is a Family Blog! And I can't even picture going riding with her, even if you could get her legs apart.

This is, uh, er, just not something we'd see today, though Moms in desperate circumstances are still known to put Coca Cola in baby bottles (not to mention a shot of Red Bull in the Mountain Dew - but that's reserved for child beauty pageants.)

This is from a time when men could be in song-and-dance teams and not seem gay (or supposedly not), when Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby could mince around and pretend to be girls, when men sang in two different languages (I think they were called Sandler and Young) on Ed Sullivan. It's a weird dynamic, because being gay was surely more frowned-upon than it is now. So what the frickin' hell is going on here? What is this guy trying to do exactly? It seems inappropriate to me to WANT to lift up five guys with your penis. You'd have to have the woody of all time, and this was long before Viagra.

Just the idea of a one-reptile circus is intriguing, but it must have  involved a serious suspension of disbelief. I assume all the rest of the pieces were made of plastic, but some toymaking genius must have thought, hmmmm, SOMETHING should be alive here, some component, and it can't be too big. The text is as follows:

"Now - for the first time ever - you can have a real live circus of your own. Just dozens of fine toys, each wonderful in itself, make up this circus set for "The Greatest Show on Earth". You and your friends can have hours of fun setting up the props for the circus, placing the Ringmaster, clowns, performing animals and wild animal cages for the many exciting acts. You can even put on a real live trained animal act with the live performing chameleon who will walk a tightrope, swing on a trapeze and change color right before your eyes from bright green to brown and back again.

"Chameleons are real fun. They love to perform. You'll laugh with delight as they run with delicate balance along the tightrope or swing on the trapeze. They are harmless, clean and no trouble at all to keep as pets. Your friends will really gape with surprise when they see him riding on your shoulder. Your parents will be charmed with this small, clean pet. You'll love him." Etc. etc.

My personal experience with this "clean, harmless pet" came when I bought one with my allowance and attempted to hide it from my mother. It was a difficult matter because I didn't know where to keep him. Since my older brother had a clarinet case with a green velvet lining, I thought that might be the ideal place, since he'd come out of there bright green. It didn't work out too well when my brother went to band practice. Then my mother discovered a brown paper sack in the refrigerator. It was full of live meal worms, which is the only thing chameleons will eat. She screamed and threw the bag on the floor and stomped on it, then threw the whole mess in the garbage. The chameleon soon died, solving my problem. Later I was to learn that these things aren't even real chameleons, but anoles, a cheaper, less-vivid version who barely change color at all.

But maybe they can walk a tightrope, swing on a trapeze. Maybe, as the ad claims, you can walk them down the street on a leash. Who knows? "Can I have one, Mom, can I, can I, huh?"


http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

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

Sex in a can (or, the Secret of Married Love)

After yesterday's extremely depressing fiction, which I only left up because I am sure nobody will want to read it, let's once again return to the land of Ha, Ha, Ha.

Every once in a while I dig one of these up: magazine ads that, while they seemed unremarkable then, now strike us as either ludicrous or downright dangerous.  Many of them originally appeared in vintage comic books - OK, vintage NOW, but then they were brand new, and pretty hot stuff, let me tell you.

As a kid, I wanted to send away for "100 Dolls for $1", "Grog Grows Own Tail", onion gum ("tastes like. . . like. . . onions! It's too funny!"), and the little monkey who sat in a teacup and plaintively asked, "Will you give me a home?" I never had enough saved up to send away for anything, I didn't have American money, plus for some reason I thought my parents wouldn't like me doing it (in particular the monkey).

But these ads still hold power and sway over me. Some of these go much farther back than the early '60s versions I saw when we stayed at the cottage in the summer and my brother and I read the Jimmy Olsen Annual.

Jimmy Olsen was nearly as potent as the sand, the lapping lake, the bullfrogs, and all the magic of being let off the leash for a couple of weeks every year. We consumed him eagerly, along with burnt marshmallows and enormous porterhouse steaks eaten with practically no vegetables.

I remember going to the back of the comic book first. Strange child, I was. "Look at this. Onion gum. I'm going to get it."

There are so many of these ads, hundreds, thousands, that I finally had to pick a general category: Health and Wellbeing. These include some very ancient remedies that would probably send you to the morgue if you actually tried them.

 

 

What startles me is that nobody saw anything wrong with this.

 

 

 

Why does he have a giant shrimp behind his head (or is that the cure)?

 

Three guesses who this steroid-inflated hunk is. (Hint: he had an illegitimate child with his maid, and his initials are M. U. D.)

I'm happy for them. (But what's the Lard Information Council?)

 

 #1 Cure for obesity:  cigarettes!

There's a disgusting story - sorry, I just have to tell you this - claiming that opera superstar Maria Callas discovered this painless reducing method and lost a ton of weight, but one day when she was sitting in the bathtub, something green and slimy began to "emerge". That's all I want to tell you.

.

 

 

 

 

Ball cozy. Purpose unknown.

                                                                

 

Note they call it "periodic pain", which must have something to do with the Periodic Table of Elements. There's a version of this ad still on TV: the "poor Sue!" one, where she's out gleefully shopping her period away. The product is now called Midex or Midexatron or something, but it's probably the same stuff.

That bulge??

 

Oh, THAT bulge.

 

 

 

And here it is, that mysterious secret of marital happiness. It appears to come in a spray can and only costs 98 cents. A lot cheaper than a divorce.