Monday, September 15, 2008

Parading Your Legs in Front of Your Father


No wonder this story was suppressed!

McCallum was a company that made stockings, and their advertisements were a series of "suppressed stories," usually involving misunderstandings due to the sheerness of their stockings. In 1929 a leg was somewhat indecent unless it was stocking-clad, as these advertisements point out.

In this case, however, we might get a bit squeamish witnessing a father who is staring at his daughter's legs, for some reason "taking a hand" in the girl's masquerade costume.

All is explained in the text.
Of course she's fully dressed. The old darling just doesn't see well with his reading glasses. But after all, how can you blame him? Fujia 51's are scarcely visible even to younger eyes.
Which begs the question why people wore them at all, but anyway.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe daddy was contemplating the words that Cole Porter would write (or may already have) penned:

"In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
Now, heaven knows, anything goes..."

The ad's amusing, but in a completely different way than the Seuss "Flit" ads.

Adam Thornton said...

I was thinking of that creepy, age-old classic "My Heart Belongs to Daddy."

Anonymous said...

I think I see your point.

Oh, sure - what was that old pro-incest argument - why go out for burgers when you can have steak at home?

Or that backwoods joke: "It don't matter if'n we git deevorced - we's still brother an' sister!"

Except this is done with the expected New Yorker touch and panache.

Okay, let's conclude this uncomfortable subject and move onto...anything else!

Adam Thornton said...

Well, we can ponder what she REALLY meant in the song when she encouraged her lovers to "dine on my fine 'fin and haddie.'"

Mantelli said...

Finnan Haddie is a dish made with smoked haddock. It's named after the fishing village of Finnan (or Findon), Scotland, which used to be famous for its smoked haddock. (They cold-smoked it over peat.) You make Finnan Haddie by poaching the smoked haddock in milk with onions and potatoes. It's generally a breakfast dish, not a dinner one, though.

Adam Thornton said...

Thanks, Mantelli!

Strangely, it IS presented as a dinner dish in the song:

"If I invite a boy some night
to dine on my fine finnan haddie..."

Though maybe the point was that the boy was invited over at night, but was still there in the morning.