Comic Book Ads / Scams
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
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From the 40s through the 80s, it was common for comic books to advertise all sorts of amazing items. Gags, magic tricks, and novelty items filled the pages and fascinated young readers. But the ad copy and illustrations were often fraudulent at best and hilarious in retrospect. I take a look at the history behind some of the more obvious scams that were advertised in comics.
I never bought the x-ray glasses, I just didn’t trust myself with that much power
No man should have that much power
Theyve destroyed many a marriage with their unholy power
It’s for the best. If you’d bought them your money would’ve gone to fund hate groups (no seriously): www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/the-terrible-secret-of-sea-monkeys-53130938/
I always thought that I'd forget to take them off and fall down the stairs or something
Absolutel power corrupts absolutely
Interesting story about the Count Dante scam: He played a major part in the chicago dojo wars where he ended up killing a guy and they all had fights with actual bladed weapons and other crazy shit. I highly recommend looking into it as its an insane real life story that you would not expect from some comic book ad. Dudes a Lunatic
"How are the Soviets getting so many nuclear subs?"
Marvel:
I got the ghost. I was so excited waiting for it to come, and when it turned out to be a garbage bag, balloon, and string, it was hilarious. Of course it didn't work like a kite like it said in the directions. My stepbrother bought Sea Monkeys. They looked like bugs. He loved them but his mother hated them and flushed them down the toilet.
I actually bought the 'Atomic Sub'. (I was 6, sue me)
When it arrived, my father laughed long and hard at me as he helped me assemble it. It lasted a week before the morning dew finally killed it. The Missile launched once. The Torpedo never launched. The 'control panel' actually lit up (thanks to a D cell battery) and I salvaged the wires and flashlight bulbs for future projects after the sub died... Never saw them again. I suspect my mom tossed them out. The Periscope outlasted the Sub by months.
The Joke was on the manufacturer though. Only 14 years later I stepped onboard a real atomic sub for my first Navy Command, where I discovered substantially less cardboard was used in the construction.
Nevertheless, this all brought great memories of our childhood.
I had just posted before reading this about my laughing father and Sea Monkeys turned fish food
@Aussie Cockatoo It had to. The sub was fake but mail fraud is real.
And now we know The Rest of the Story.
Amazing story! Go Navy (my dad was in the Navy)!
I was also thralled by the ads in old comics when I was a boy. Does anyone remember the ad that wanted you to sell "Grit" magazine for them?
Yea...I filled it out and sold grit to like two old people...Grit actually sent me a stack of newspapers and they were real...I was supposed to send the money back to them after selling them, but I only sold two and realized it was more fun to play after school than have a job. I wish I would have kept a copy or two..And I never got sued...LOL
Yeah I remember those. You could earn prizes the best ones being a bicycle and I think a stereo system. Lots of sports equipment and stuff so it seemed cool. Never knew anyone who actually answered the ad and got prizes though.
What was that? I never saw a copy.
It always amazed me that Johnson & Smith never got sued out of existence.
I remember that company's ads. I bought a rubber thingy from them that was supposed to make you look bald. That was almost 50 years ago.
@@sunsparkle8443 - Yeah, I remember getting my parents to buy me all kinds of useless crap from them.
@@sunsparkle8443 - Yeah, I remember getting my parents to buy me all kinds of useless crap from them.
In the #1 issue of Futurama Fry buys those sea monkeys. Because theydidn't do anything he dumped them in atomic waste and they grew to gargantuan size.
brine shrimp
Just like in martin mystery.
😂😂I remember that.Funny episode.
There’s a Superman club in Superman Squate
"Polaris Nuclear Sub, only for $6.98!"
Cold war powers: Write that down! Write that down!
Now I'm imaging KGB spies trying to order one of these...
"Hitler just got bad press" - Gee, I wonder what he could have done to deserve that.
I think he yelled a bit much for the public's taste
@@creamcannon825he was a little bit unpolite
As a kid the only toy store my parents every took me too, had a whole rack of the novelty/joke toys and I got the money maker toy full well knowing it was a prank.
I loved that thing, I would load it to do the trick where a dollar would become a five dollar bill and show any relative that came over that it worked, but then the next one to pop out would be a blank paper so when they put their dollar in, they would get a scrap of paper and I would run away and try to keep their dollar.
As an avid comic book reader in the 60's and 70's, I remember all of these ads. What a trip down memory lane.
Getting scammed by the "7-foot ghost with REAL glow-in-the-dark eyes that really FLIES" taught me that there are adults who would gladly steal money from gullible children and other adults would let them.
That was a very astute observation my good man... and f****** hilarious!
It appears that’s still the case it’s just with Video game companies with micro transactions
A valuable lesson to learn!
Yep
I also bought that and was sadly disappointed. It included--or maybe it was a separate ad, but I don't think so--some skeleton hands that allegedly crawled out of your shirt pocket. Those turned out to be some little flat plastic skeleton arms and hands that basically clipped onto your pocket and didn't move or anything.
I was enticed by the army men toys. Never bought them though. Thank you for covering this. Now I can rest easy. Thank you Chris. I felt the same way. I never bought any of these, but I was curious. This was a public service.
Had some friends who bought some, and I was never tempted again. Lol.
My dad said he would help me pay for art school. When he asked me where I wanted to go, I showed him the ad for the Joe Kubert school in the back of a comic book. He said I’m not sending you to a school that has an ad right next to the X-ray glasses. Lol
8 months later I was going to the kubert school.
How was the Kubert art school?
Seth Leoric it was a great experience, graduated in 97, so luckily I got to have Joe as a teacher. I never made a name for myself in comics but was able to make a living as an artist. It was great being around so many people with like interest.
Do you got the X-ray glasses tho?
those kubert adds were fun, so I always wondered if people actually went to that school
now that I have seen someone who did, I can rest in peace
@@jopica30 Many well known comic artists went to the Kubert art schools and worked for comic
i WAS A KID IN THE 60'S AND FELL FOR THIS STUFF.
Same here!👋😂👍
Same
Been watching Leave It To Beaver on METV & the Boys would order this stuff! My FAVORITE is prob the alligator/crocodile & they named him Captain Jack & ended up giving him to Edgar Buchanan who played the ACTUAL Captain Jack & owned an Alligator Farm in town🤣😫
Bull
You should have bought their hearing aides!!
The Calvin and Hobbes run that has him waiting for his propeller beanie really captured the excitement and let-down of these products.
Ren and Stimpy had a try, too. Angry Beavers, eh?
Chocolate frosted sugar bombs? Or were they sugar frosted chocolate bombs?
"I don't eat cereal unless it turns the milk pink"
I've been wearing one of those beanies when out and about since the Kung Flu started. I'm 63, high risk and have not caught the flu. Science be damned, wear a beanie!!
@@paulhare662: Excellent choice to encourage social distancing!
Although not comic related, the Little Orphan Annie decoder ring featured in A CHRISTMAS STORY is another brilliant example.
I remember these ads in the back of Boy’s Life magazine ( The official magazine of the Boy Scouts of America) back in the 80s. Interesting that an organization devoted to teaching boys the concepts of honesty, trustworthiness and integrity would allow scam advertisements like that.
Interesting fact: my mate's dad used to work for an authority that made lists of what was illegal to ship, things like drugs etc.
He added kryptonite to it. His boss argued with him about it, but his point was that it killed superman.
In the end, they compromised and red kryptonite was allowed to be shipped.
To this day, green kryptonite is illegal to ship.
Donh ship stuff that will kill superman, only the stuff that will make him angry lol
Somehow this comes as no surprise.
This brings me back. Remember the adamantium gum that used to come in baseball card packs?
😂😂😂.And YEARS later when you look at your cards...STILL smelled like that gum.lol
Scams for kids just moved. They don't disappeared. What else are microtransactions, gambling and loot boxes in videogames?
Good point
Online targeted ads
Still, at least you're getting what is advertised, even if it's a BS business model. If lootboxes were like comic book ads, I'd pay money for "5 lootboxes", and I'd get a box in the mail with 5 printed pictures of skins that I could tape to my monitor to pretend my character was wearing it.
Microtransactions and lootboxes are more like cereal box toy rackets, when they still had those. You could collect 5 different GI Joes in Frosted Flakes, but its random so you have to buy like 15 boxes to get all 5. Or, have to buy a ton of boxes for UPC codes to get the toy mailed.
Surprise mechanics obviously.
These days instead of advertising in comic books they advertise online, social media and youtube etc. For example them mobile game ads you get on youtube, a lot of which are aimed at younger children, are very misleading.
They show some good graphics, open world type game with multiple choices etc.... and in reality when you download its just some candy crush type rip-off.
One of my fondest comic memories was dreaming of buying the armies of Roman soldiers. I once phoned the 1 800 number in the add showing all the prizes you could earn for being a paper boy, only to find out, like hundreds of thousands of other young boy readers, that American 1 800 numbers don't work in Canada!
You have disrespected the memory of The Deadliest Man Alive - Count Dante. The Black Dragon Fighting Society will now track you down and use the Dim Mak Death Touch upon you.
They might touch you weirdly at your neck and 59 Years later you will die. It is pure horror.
Din Mok is real. I've mastered It a long time ago, It's aided me in many battles.
@@hayashikato6576 Sure it did sweetheart ; )
Yes! Count freakin' Dante! If anyone doesn't know the story, Super Eyepatch Wolf did an amazing job here. It's fairly long, but I highly recommend jumping down this rabbit hole...
m.ruclips.net/video/gjbSCEhmjJA/видео.html
Ashida Kim himself will carry out the assassination, no doubt.
Love Sea Monkeys!! When I was little I thought they actually looked like the drawing, lol!
Brine shrimp
😂😂😂.Who didn't.
So many of these looked cheesy and fake even to 10-year-old me, but I would have KILLED to get that nuclear sub. Unfortunately, $6.95 in 70's money was just too much (not that my parents would have ever let me throw away my cash for it!). Thanks for the nostalgia trip! Great episode as always - keep up the great work!
I totally loved watching this. I’m a kid from the 60’s and I remember all of these ads.😊👍🏼
You could probably make a whole episode on those insane hostess fruit pie advertisements
@King PeppyXavier: "Cyclops, you couldn't have saved Jean. You know she loved you... i know she loved you".... [dramatic music]
Cyclops: i cant lead the xmen anymore....i can't keep doing this. I cant keep losing everything I loved [pounds fists into desk]
Xavier:.... Scott.....
[momentary sad gloomy pause]
[Xavier pulls out a hostess fruit pie]
Xavier: you still love these dont you?
Cyclops: Hostess Fruitpies?!?! Now THATS something worth fighting for. Hostess makes the best, and with real fruit filling and a cream glazed shell, its so good even magneto would take a break on destroying us for a minute to eat it!
Xavier: You bet! You can find hostess fruit pies at your local grocery or convenience store in all 5 flavors. Hostess Fruit Pies saves the day again!
EPILOUGE In the background, in shadows, Mr Sinister is there watching and scheming "yes..... waitaminute, what the fuck... are they talking about pies?
Back then you could order COD....when I was about 7, I went thru my brothers marvel comic and ordered about 20 things, COD.....my Mom was ssssooooooo mad.....those were the days
I remember that! I ordered a bunch of stuff COD from the ads in the back of a comic but no one was home when the postman tried to deliver it. He left a note on our door that the package could be picked up at the post office. I went to the PO but because I was 10 years old they wouldn't give it to me, you had to be at least 12 yo. So I never got the package and to this day I'm still pissed about that!
I'm surprised this didn't include the "build your own hover craft" one.
I was hoping somebody else remembered that!
It was like a triangle of plywood with 3 vacuum cleaner motors on!
They did a build of that one on Myth Busters
Ikr and the hypnotic swirly thing😂😂
Hah! I forgot about that one.
They talked about that one in diary of a wimpy kid 3
Ah, the memories! I was a child of the 70's and most all of these were aimed my way. My mother used my requests to send away for them as invaluable lessons in critical thinking and ''if it sounds to good to be true....''. I remember wanting the ''amazing x ray vision'' glasses @ 15:54. She pointed to the fifth line of the ad, where it noted ''illusion''. However disillusioned I was by the sellers mendacity (and that they hit on children), she used their schemes to (gently) clue me in to the ways of the world (or at least the US, for having survived hundreds of hours of Saturday morning cereal commercials and Christmas time ad blitzes , I was amazed to learn, decades latter, that in more progressive countries it is ILLEGAL to aim advertising specifically at children!). But hey, I am so old that I remember alcohol and cigarette commercials on television. At least we don't have that, anymore. Now it is all Big Pharma advertising (which is also banned in many other countries). Thanks for the memories! Being a kid in the late 60's early 70's was probably the real golden age- G.I. Joe came about a foot tall, and one could durn near kill the playground bully with any Tonka Toy. The stuff today cannot compare. Liked and subbed.
Wish is essentially the second coming of this except a lot less interesting
... And without a comic book...
I don't think they ever sold glock auto sears in the back of comic books...
Much of the same stuff could be found the BSA’s Boy’s Life magazine
I wanted that 7 foot Frankenstein poster when I was a kid.
I want one as an adult.
I bought one. If your idea of "horrifying" was a very very thin sheet of crappy green plastic then it was worth $1.
Which Kid dosent want a 7 Foot Frankenstein....Poster?
You mean Frankenstein's monster. Unless they're lying about that too
@Frizzurd I did learn to "throw my voice" as the ad says from buying that hunk of plastic gadget and then practicing hours and hours.
Thanks for the belly laughs, back in the 70's I envied the kids in America who could buy submarines and seven foot monsters. Thank you for bringing back happy memories.
I miss the ads. I assume lack of advertising revenue is one reason why modern comic book are so ridiculously expensive. My favorite ads from 1970s comics were the Hostess ones.
The book looks cool, but I really liked your dialog and how you flourished great sarcasm in the adds. I was laughing real good with that spy pen part, imagining my now (grown-up) home with my 8 year old drilling through the walls. Did the sea monkeys and loved them.
The biggest scam in comics is and always has been "FIND OUT THE THRILLING CONCLUSION IN THE NEXT ISSUE"
Now it's "Read a three issue story spread out over six bloated issues so we can sell a trade paperback"
And then the cliffhanger gets solved in a really stupid way on the first page and the rest of the comic is a totally different story.
Today isn't worth it anymore
That's still a thing. Remember the Captain America 'Hail Hydra' controversy from a couple years ago?
@@greenmushroom2587 incredibles 2.
Yesterday's comic book ads, today - Kickstarter campaigns...
And who can forget the a Hostess snack cake ads that were on almost every back cover.
Dont forget the snack ads like the jerky ads that the ec comics artist drew.
Those were fun! Love the fruit pies.
That monkey one is terrifying, imagine a 6in skeleton with skin clawing at your face will screaming its lungs out!
I got the Magic Rocks and they were actually pretty cool. Some kind of crystal growing thing with a salt solution. I was sadly unsuccessful in convincing my parents to let me sell Grit.
I did the "sell Burpee seeds" thing, and sold enough to get a rather good quality large chemistry set. I think the BATF or DEA would kick my door in if I had the same set these days. It's amazing what they let kids play with in the late 60's/early 70's. But then, in the 50's (a bit before my time) they did let kids play with radioactive materials..........
Oh yeah! I had some of those! Kept them in a fishbowl near my window for a long time. Got one of those magnets that could "lift 200lbs," too. That did well until I... uhhh... went fishing with it. It kinda fell apart after that.
@@faelwolf1177
I discovered some National Rifle Association 'American Rifleman' magazines from about 1960-1962. In the advertisements was a full page ad for a Boys' Anti-Tank Rifle, priced at $57.00, shipped to your home, in the mail, a complete anti-tank rifle in, IIRC, 0.55 caliber. That is a lot of risk and responsibility and yet I do not recall reading about tragic incidents in that time. Maybe people at that time had more respect.
Yes,
I'll be dipped in buttermilk! Jenny, I haven't thought about those stinkin' "crystals" for 58 years. The instant I read your comment - SHIM-SHA-LA-BIM! - Magic! The image of my jar of affordable prestidigitation popped into my head. In my case the colorful miniature spires actually were stinkin'; they sat on my desk for so long they started to slowly emit a stench that grew so loud my mom threw them away one day while I was at school. Nostalgia envelops me. Thanks.
The photo of what the rocks were going to grow into showed a miniature wonderland / grotto...the actual things "grew" into small jagged shapes while lying on the bottom of whatever glass container you put them in. And the chemical you had to put them into (mixed with water) was poisonous to boot.
After bugging my mother she finally gave in a bought me the X-Ray Specs. $1 wasted? Not really. The teenage girls next door would constantly pick on me and even steal my toys. I went outside and put on these glasses and when they seen the words, X-Ray Specs at the top, they ran in all different directions. I laughed so hard. Here am I 12 years old and getting my revenge. My Hypno Coin was 3D lenticular plastic that looked like the spiral would spin if you moved it a certain way.
American comics were fairly rare here in Ireland in the 1970s, so while everything about them was exciting, the ads in particular were a glimpse into a world that seemed very remote and different and fascinating, which made them even more enticing! Aside from the actual products -- silent dog whistles, Grit, magic soap powder, see-behind glasses -- the ads mentioned strange, incomprehensible concepts like C.O.D. and Zip codes, and they spelled "cheque" the easy way, and often they promised we could get their products by Sending No Money Now! Well, I sent them no money lots of times... never received a thing.
I never thought the ads were serious or real but a part of the comic itself.
Are you really going to make me watch a twenty-five minute video past 1:30 AM, Chris?
Update: I regret nothing
Hell, I watching this at 3:40am!
@RockManLP guess he was doing his own scam
I ordered some of this stuff LMAO, I remember my Dick Tracy spy camera, it actually worked!!
As a kid growing up in early sixties Sydney Australia, the ads fascinated me, being able to own a real monkey was amazing. I did read an article about a man who as a kid actually did get a live monkey. The ads were as entertaining as the comics themselves.
When I was about 10 or 12 in the mid seventies I ordered a Frank Frazetta portfolio advertised in Savage Sword of Conan for $20. Frank's portfolios were selling for $100. I received a genuinely good amalgamation of several of his portfolios on high quality paper. The next month Marvel ran an apology to Frank as it turned out to be a bootleg he received nothing for. It advised us buyers that the FBI had busted the saler and would be coming after us if we didn't return it! Several of those prints hang framed in my home today. Marvel is saleing reprints in book form now of Savage Sword and claims that they include entire issues. NOT TRUE. Savage Sword always had two or three stories and a portfolio or some bonus. The reprint books only have the featured Conan story and letters to editor as Marvel never bothered to secure the rights to a lot of the material. So the bootleg was better and more honest deal than the current Marvel reprints!
Cool info! Did the Frazetta portfolio have the ladies in 'em? Or just cool guys lookin' cool?
I totally bought the plastic army men in the mid-70’s, and I was legitimately excited when they arrived. Worth every penny to nine-year-old me, no matter how thin they were.
I did exactly the same! Was disappointed at first, but still had fun with them.
Oh yeah, my twin brother and I bought those back in the early Sixties. Big disappointment. Later that year got the 3 dimension ones at a department store along with vehicles to put them in. Never got Sea Monkeys though, bummer!
as a kid i paid 1,000 lire (in italy, nowadays 50 cents) for 100 photos of animals, at the end of the day it was a good deal
I got the Roman Legion, yeah they were thin but still had fun with them. That was about 1962
I was totally disappointed with all of it...Do you remember the tanks?
...am I the only one who still wants that FREE hovercraft that Boy's Life always talked about?
seeing ads in older comics always gets my goat, its some of the funniest shit ive ever seen
I bought the money maker and remember playing with it for 10 min. I cut blank paper the size of real money and what came out was a blank piece of paper the size of a real money. Another kid disappointed
Everyone knows these ads only work in The CREEPSHOW Universe...
I got the book safe. It was pretty good. You could set your own combination, and it blended in well on a bookshelf. Kept my pocket money there.
I loved my sea monkeys when I was a kid. My sister and I both ordered some and couldn't wait for them to arrive. I was initially disappointed but ended up loving them all the same lol. I might have to get some for my son one of these days 😂
Great vid!! I remember ALL of these ads. They were mainly Johnson Smith Co. I was attracted by the low price. My dad and I would order a bunch of stuff and were always disappointed. I remember him writing a check for $5 or $10. We’d order all this stuff. I was around 8. I bought that book as well! Great to actually see what ALL these items actually were. Seems like a lifetime ago and on another planet!!
A type of ad which caught my attention in the '60s and '70s was the self-employed opportunities. Two companies in particular ran ads for years. First was _Grit,_ a weekly newspaper they wanted to get kids to sell door to door. Second was seed packets, like flowers and vegetable bushes. Again, the opportunity was for kids to sell these door to door. I don't remember the company (or companies?) that ran the seed ads. Sadly, I never tried either of these opportunities. Some go-getter kids probably did earn enough to buy themselves a bicycle, etc.
It was Burpee seeds. At least that was the brand name of the seed packets I received, pretty sure it was the same company running the ads, or their distributor. They were legit, I earned a nice chemistry set by selling seeds one summer back in 1970 if I recall the year correctly. and yeah, I had to hustle to get my prize, but to me it was well worth it, we didn't have much disposable income in those days. We were too rural to try to sell papers, but it did make seeds an easier sell. Her husband might be planting 200 acres of corn, but she still wanted flowers for the garden, after all. :)
I remember those Grit ads.The funny thing is,i never actually a Grit newspaper until maybe 10 years a go.
I used to sell shit for Olympia
I tried to sell Grit and seeds. I don't remember if anyone ever bought a subscription to Grit, but I know I did sell some seeds. I guess I bought the seeds outright, but it's been too many years to remember details. I have recently seen a couple of issues of Grit at a Doctors office.
I used to see the Grit pitch in Boy's Life Magazine.
Excellent trip down memory lane. I remember being just a fascinated with the ads as the comics and got the sea monkeys and the spy camera. The "spy" camera was supposedly a camera, it was all plastic and fit in the palm of my hand as a kid. It was preloaded with film as far as I remember which could be developed by absolutely no one as I later found out. I wish I would have kept it, lol.
God I remember the ads for shit like x-ray glasses and sea monkeys when digging through my dad’s old comic collection. I honestly remember a lot of the ads more than the comics themselves lol
NateNintendo I loved the ads...the best part of the comics.
I remember being absolutely intrigued and dubious about the sea monkeys, which my brothers bought.
Adults are no less impressionable when it comes to inventive marketing. The problem is that we have allot more money to give away.
Count Dante has to be the most insane story I've ever heard of.
THE BEST
He was a real black belt under Robert Trias, a respected American karate master. He earned it at a time when sport karate was a blood-and-guts sport practiced mostly be ex-servicemen. But Dante (real name, John Keehan) was also a real-life asshole. He did a lot of other scams, like walking a live bull down a busy street in Chicago, promising that he would kill it with a karate punch at a tournament he was promoting. (He never did.) He also worked as a bouncer at the Chicago Playboy Club. He often went to work dressed in leotards and a cape hoping that someone would make fun of him so he could have an excuse to beat up that person.
You can still buy his book on Amazon for $40+ Canadian
The man had a pet lion, fought in the Chicago dojo wars, tried to bomb a rival school too.
Don't forget his disciples, Ashida Kim and Frank Dux!
I used to think it might be cool to join the Rosicrucians
Couldn't wait til I was old enenough to leave home so I could do that
Yeah! The Rosicruians! They were in all the comics. Whatever happened to them, and why on Earth would a Medievil Religious Order have an interest in children?
@@paulrichards2365 I read a post that someone made somewhere about how he was and still is a member of the Roscicrucians
Something about what he said led me to believe that they're alive and well on the coast of Sonoma County CA
Some people acknowledged that there's some validity to it
Just no more comic book ads
1970ies: Scam ads in comic books advertising X-Ray glasses (to see through clothes)
2010s: Scam Apps in the App Store claiming to give your phone X-Ray abilities (to see though clothes)
Some things never change
They Just evolved
When I was a kid back in the 60s and was deep into comic books, I cut grass, washed cars and did what I had to do to buy these gadgets. I got every stinking one of them and though they were mostly junk, I was the cool kid because I had them
For my 11th birthday I asked for a "how to draw comics" art instruction book from an ad. Several months later it finally arrived. Wasn't the best step by step instructional guide like "draw comics the marvel way", but I did sketch the images from sight and not really follow the directions. Years later in my 20's, I went back to it and was actually able to grasp the text and what it was really trying to explain. It really helped me get back in to drawing and develop some real fundamentals. And in a real way, the concept of technically visualizing things I wanted to create really helped when I worked making haunted houses for a large company, and even in my work now in custom carpentry.
Older Japanese magazines were full of stuff like this too.
Funny to think of the strange things youd find in those.
@Frizzurd you can buy live octopus from a market, it’s very common to eat them that way. No need for a novelty product lol
I bought a hermit crab out of the comics when I was a kid - took a couple weeks to get to me and when dad brought it home from the post office, he walked through the door and tossed the box across the room to me. I was sure it was going to be dead when I opened the box, but the little guy was ok and made a great pet - had him for quite a few years...
The fitness ad was also parodied in the tf2 comics. I believe it was a sniper vs spy comic and it even redraws some panaels with tf2 characters
Need to be sure to thank my parents for never letting me order anything from my comic books when I was a kid.
When I was reading my dad’s old comics, I’d see these ads, and go “pssssh, of course this stuff isn’t real, how many poor saps fell for these?... they aren’t real right? I wish I had that thing...”
My dad got the monkey, he named him Mikey and had him for years. XD
It says something that even though I’ve never purchased a single comic book, I knew exactly what two advertisements those were in the thumbnail. Advertising is a super power. A dark one.
Ah but remember it was a different time back then. I'm 65 and remember all of this.
If anyone out there still wants to read through weird sales ads like those we used to in the comic books, request a catalog from “American Science and Surplus” . I love those guys. They have a completely different take on sales. lol.
I, for one, am thankful to have been too poor to have wasted money on these kinds of gimmicks as a youngling.
Oh lord...Harold von Braunhut's actress wife was Yolanda Signorelli! She's probably distantly related to me.
Love this Chris! For the record I bought the money maker, spy camera, seamonkeys, (I actually bought seamonkeys on three different occasions) The 100 two dimensional army men, joy buzzer, magic kit- n more!
And that little boy grew up to be...P.T. Barnum.
I seem to remember a mail in scam where you send them a dollar and they send you back a genuine copper bas relief of Abraham Lincoln. You gave them a dollar, they sent back a shiny new penny.
I ordered those thin little soldiers as a child and I was very surprised. I wasn't upset though because they were much cheaper than the soldiers you could buy in a store and you pretty much got the quality that you paid for.
Those ads for whole armies of Roman soldiers,or Civil War ones,and so on, let my imagination expand to a backyard battlefield transformed.There is no way what you actually were to get could match that.
I remember being fascinated by these ads in the 60's. We LOVED them! I don't know anyone who ever bought anything from them...but we all read them.😂
The fly in the plastic ice cube and the rubber vomit were my favorites.
Wait, *comic book stores have DANCERS?*
Grand opening?
Yep, grab your X-ray glasses and let's go.
Good looking ones too
The man responsible for those bodybuilding ads, born Angelo Siciliano, was better known by his pro name of Charles Atlas, and he was "Ah-nuhld" before "Ah-nuhld" was "Ah-nuhld."
The workout regimen he popularized, "dynamic tension," is still in existence; many of its exercises are also called "isometric" exercises.
Moreover, the story told in the comic was, with changes, Mr. Atlas's own true one; he genuinely DID weigh 97 pounds and actually HAD a scrawny build before he began training, and he DID have a bully kick sand into his face at a beach, which WAS what motivated him to begin training.
That may be true, but I doubt he got that strong based off 12 bodyweight exercises. And I doubt that manual talked about diet either.
Actually bought and received the “soldiers” who were indeed flat as paper, and complete crap. Wow, I was disappointed. I never had the coin for the masks for sale in Famous Monsters of Film-land, they were some serious $$ back then. It would be fascinating to see what people actually got who shelled out the money for those amazing looking monster masks and fake hands etc. Awesome episode.
Why does your intro say co-mick tropes?
I love the weird ads in old comics. Hell, I love old comics. Excelsior!
@Frizzurd Nuff Said, lol
Me and my friend had big plans for those x-ray glasses we were going to take em down to the community pool like a couple of little perverts and the chicks would have no idea
I ordered a fetal shark. Actually got it too. It was pretty cool.
I bought the "Footlocker" full of army men. It was a tiny plastic box full of plastic silhouettes of army men. And thus did my education regarding vulture capitalism begin.
these ads are one of the reasons why slabbing books bothers me so. Letters and editorial pages too, of course.
Growing up in Bakersfield California...back in the 80's.
We had a Comic book shop And a magic shop...right around the corner from my house!!
2010 Hendricks ln...
It was really cool having those cool stores so close to my house. I would go there every Single day!!😅😅
Normal People: there is no way to get 25 minutes of content out of old comic ads
Chris: Hold my beer
To be honest, i also didnt believe that this episode would come so entertaining when a saw the 25 minute mark
Hold my knock off Mountain Dew
SO I was thinking how much damage I would do to people if i wore actual X ray glasses, and then I realized, wait, I'm WEARING X ray producing device, what's it doing to MEEEEEe?
The Team Fortress 2 promo comic for when they released the Jarate item makes much more sense now, it's a parody of that Charles Atlas ad.
When I was a kid I bought the sneezing powder (used it on my sister and myself), a potato gun (tested on my sister), the giant monster, which was a cheap, stupid poster, and the spy scope, which was useless as a telescope, but you could take it apart and use part of it as a great mini-microscope that worked quite well!
A Living Monkey or an Nuclear Submarine?
DONT FORCE ME TO CHOOSE!!!!!
My plan is to train a whole army of those living monkeys, get a whole fleet of those nuclear submarines and rule the word Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!
Always wondered about the giant fishing tackle package with three rod and reel sets and two tackle boxes. Even if they were pretty poor quality, it would have been hard for them to not be worth $12.95....
My father in law got the monkey. His mom made the company take it back and they did.
The Moneymaker is literally stolen from a Laurel and Hardy movie XD
They may have stolen the idea themselves from a con man named Victor Lustig. He ran that scam for real, selling boxes for thousands of dollars (in the early 20th century, so that's probably hundreds of thousands today) to people he had convinced that it actually worked. He also sold the Eiffel Tower. Twice.
someotherguyyouknow MYSTERY BISCUITS
The Johnson/Smith catalog.
😂That intro.....In the late 70s when I first bought comics, I remember these ads. Being a UK fan, years later I always wondered how the hell they got away with this for so long. They were obviously con merchants peddling potentially dangerous and pervy stuff. To kids. Plus, being a kid at the time, I thought these ads were for American children only (what the hell is 'zip'!!? I know what it is now!) even though Marvel and DC comics were sold over here. This topic was touched upon on another channel but this is just as entertaining. Great synopsis. UK fan.✌
Excuse me. The Charles Atlas course was 13 weekly lessons that proceeded over your lifetime. By week 8 (2 months) you were in excellent condition and by week 12 you were done except for week 13 wich continued along with weeks 1, 2, and 13. Week 3 was just dietary instruction. It works and yes I still do it 54 years later. It works.