Handsome fighting men

This post is a rarity - a page of a WWII-vintage magazine with *two* mad ads in it; about handsome fighting men.

The piece on the left, "A mighty good friend to have around", exhorts the little known fact that gargling with this mouthwash twice a day is as good as... wait !

Why is that guy smiling like that for? A friend indeed in a great adventure?

"WWII magazine", 1945
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The piece on the right is no less camp. The last image on the bottom is pure gold, with G.I. Joe driving his jeep thorough the battlefields of Europe, and complaining about his parched, cracked lips.

Now you know: vanity wins wars.

Black meets White

Long before Michael Jackson did the racially wrong change -or was it a skin disease?- from black to not-quite-white, there was plenty of ads like this one,

"Skin tone cream", 1959
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A quick check on Wikipedia for the Miracle-Action ingredient, Hydroquinone, reveals the sombre reality -products containing it have been banned for several years as potential carcinogens. 


Now you know. Fifty years too late.


Still today in some places, like India, it is socially ok to bleach your skin with hydroquinone. Even if you get cancer later.

The post-war future (I)

I love the late 1940's - lots of post-war optimism and a general feel-good sensation, thanks to all those incredible scientific advances.

Like radar.

"Moving roadmap", 1945
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Many years had to pass until a map was actually shown off the instrument panel, thou. But the intention was good, and ads like this one are pure retro-future.

Spring is in the air

Another lovely anachronism from the golden era of tobacco advertisement.


A refreshing air-conditioned cigarette. And all the weasel-words are there, along with the self-aggrandising and dubious claims, and the empty comparisons.

"Tastes delicious", 1960
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But it cannot be THAT delicious. C'mon, it doesn't taste like chicken!

In Russia, train rides you

What is the message of this ad?

"Newest Russian discovery", 1959
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Self-deprecating irony? Red-scare mongering?

If the copy of the ad reads their railroads are better funded and more extensive than ours, then the masthead is definitely misleading - talk about Cold War politics.

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" Samuel Johnson, 18th century.