Come Out of That Kelly Pool!

Okay, these Womrath's advertisements are lots of fun. From November 29, 1930, this one tells us that reading books is WAY more enjoyable than any of the (then-) current fads, including Kelly pool.

Stop falling through that auction bridge...quit trying to walk into that full-house on your inside straight...don't leave your footprints in that sand-trap. Roll your bones in another alley! Save your quarter...only a fourth of a dollar...for a gamble where you're sure to win...adventure...romance...how detectives get their man-hunts...how the great got that way...Use your two-bits to rent a book from Womrath's...for a week...

Sow Geraniums and Reap Orchids

My impromptu "Weirdest Metaphor" award goes to Madame Nina's geranium cream (New Yorker, November 22, 1930), which confuses a debutante's face with...a map of Manhattan. Really.

When going to bed, she dips a slim finger in the fat glass jar and rubs contents across the map of Manhattan in the mirror, paying particular attention to the bright lights that so easily run to dark circles on the morning after. Incipient crosstown lines are refused police protection. General traffic conditions are improved. And the Great White Way gets a gentle bleach all over.

In the morning, she uses the same specific as a foundation for make-up that looks more natural than little sister's first blush. Rouge--if she follows the revived vogue for it--can never be mistaken for a stop-signal. Powder doesn't skid. And the first aid work begun for the entire facial countryside goes on all day.

 Now you know how to flatter a dame: "Darling, your face...it's like the street map of a huge metropolitan area. Your nostrils: the north and south subway lines. That freckle: city hall..."

Just Revealed! Our New Model

Okay, sure, in the brains of horny consumers you MIGHT find a link between CARS and sex. But MODEMS?

I have previously mentioned the trashy nature of early British computer magazines. This advertisement is from a publication which positioned itself as more respectable than the rest ("Your Spectrum," January 1984), but I guess you can't pick your advertisers. And maybe there IS something sexy about modems that I've never noticed before...it's an acoustic coupler, after all.

Take the Rank Out of Drank

Advertising came into its own during the '20s, having learned that nothing sells a product like fear. I imagine executives sitting around in a plush highrise meeting room somewhere, staring at each other with bug-eyes, saying "How can we scare people into buying all this CRAP?"

Social anxiety always helps. From the November 22, 1930 New Yorker I bring you "The Savoy Cocktail Book," which you'd better buy if you don't want your parties to suck.

Of course, you have a bar in your pent-house, but even that does not insure social success!

Do you find that guests are glad to put their foot on the rail the first time, but seldom return? Do you feel like the girl who was often a bridesmaid but never a bride?

Of course, you have all your liquor analyzed, so you can't blame your bootlegger.

Perhaps the trouble is with you. Perhaps it's the way you mix the cocktails that bars you from the popularity you feel that you deserve.

"Whew!" Said a bunch of advertising executives. "That's done! Now how can we make them frightened of RADIOS..."

Incidentally, "The Savoy Cocktail Book" was "compiled and amplified" by Harry Craddock of London's Savoy bar. As his biography at the bottom of the advertisement says, he was "the man who took the rank out of drank."

What Does It Mean?

I think this picture is very funny. At the very least it makes a stoic ritual look as ridiculous as it probably is.

Caption contest! No prize! What's up with these guys?

Throb of Tom-Tom Cats!

Here's a wonderful advertisement from Womrath's bookstore, intended to convince us that READING about stuff is more exciting that actually EXPERIENCING it. They make a strong case for the joy of delightful puns and alliteration, at least...

Ankles aweigh! All abored the SS. VAN DINE...sailing to darkest Boop-a-Doop...land of mystery and philovances. Star-drenched daze. Sunkist knights. Drone of dramaturgic dromedaries...drowse of drastic dhuhinkies. Lots of good fellahs. Oil-burning cannibals...ready to take pot-luck with missionaries. Pooh yourself! More fun to stay home...

The advertisement mentions fiction, travel, biography, and history, so I suppose the dense wordplay is meant to evoke all those things: the mystery books of Philo Vance, the "darkest Africa" travel literature, Hollywood biographies, and...whatever "dhuhinkies" are.

(The New Yorker, November 15, 1930)

How Long Can Marriage Last...In a Cocktail Setting?

I love the qualification in the Mark Hellinger endorsement: one of the best novels IN ITS CLASS. Just so we're not confusing it with Dostoyevsky or anything.

Here's How to GET RID of Prohibition

As best as I can glean from the pages of The New Yorker, 1930 was the year of:

• Backgammon. All the department stores were selling deluxe sets and offering free lessons and tournaments.
  
• Tom Thumb golf. Suddenly there were courses everywhere. Rather than the low-rent "mini golf" of today, the fad was marketed to the Gay Young Things as an after-club pastime drunkenly played in evening gowns, tuxedos, and high heels. Much ado was made about the damage to the courses caused by high heels.
  
• Maybe this "depression" thing isn't going away?
  
• Even the staunchest defenders of prohibition are getting sick of it. Like, to the point where virtually everybody wants to somehow repeal it.

The most obvious sign of the anti-prohibition fever so far is this advertisement in the October 18, 1930 issue. It sums up everything I've been reading (click for a larger view).


Joseph S. Auerbach seems to have been a moderately well-known lawyer...well-known enough to have been publishing books before and after this one, at least.

The Volstead Act would not be repealed until 1933, so it will be interesting to see if this vocal opposition continues to swell, or if it will simply be viewed as a fait d'accompli in the laps of the lawyers.

Mathematics from Macy's

By extension, if you're wearing the WRONG clothes then games are only half as much fun.

Works Automatically...Won't Burn Toast!

You might remember the spectacular introduction of the Toastmaster back in February of 1929. But holy shit, have you seen the new and improved Toastmaster? These two ladies in fur coats are looking at it right now!


Stop it, ladies! NO WATCHING! Don't watch it! Do something else for a while!

Of the hundreds of thousands who saw the remarkable first model which revolutionized toastmaking in America, not one would have believed it could ever have been improved upon.

Yet--that has been done!

It is even more simple, more amazing, more beautiful!

How has the Toastmaster improved in the last two years? They replaced one of the levers with a "small, new-type indicator," and it comes with "cool-type carrying handles" so you won't burn your pretty-type hands, and it also can't overheat and start your fur coat on fire at the flaming breakfast table! It won't burn your tabletop! It now does two slices at once! It's wonderful!

Ladies and Gentlemen, these ladies and I honestly don't think this toaster can get any better.

They Gave a New Thrill -- That's Why They Got There....So Quickly

During 1930, the cigarette manufacturers continue to aim their advertisements at the Gay Young Things. It was a market that Murad had long courted (by 1930 they were in the midst of a long and tiresome pidgin-French campaign), Lucky Strikes had graduated from flippant "Happy Go-Luckies" to paranoia about weight (a reaction to a candy manufacturer's campaign that told readers to eat candy instead of smoke), and Spud was still hammering the "Smoke a Spud When You're Freaking Out" storyline (after briefly flirting with bogus science).

What about Old Gold? Last time I mentioned them in this blog they were in the midst of a rickety vaudeville promotion, and since then they've continued with the "Not a Cough in a Carload" tagline by hiring John Held Jr. to create his signature Victorian woodcut cartoons (the joke is usually about a male Victorian stereotype being berated for his rough smoker's voice).

But I suspect they felt the need to capture the same flapper audience that the other manufacturers were targeting, so in September 27, 1930 there's a full-page advertisement with a new angle, which I paraphrase as Old Gold is a plucky newcomer who became instantly popular because of its exceptionality, just like This Famous Broadway Star!

I'm sure this is the first in a long line. This time the star is Marilyn Miller:

From her grandmother's cellar...to Ziegfeld's Roof...in just the twinkle of a toe. She really was the "Sally"...of the alley called Broadway.

How to explain the miracle of Marilyn's success?...Nature simply blessed her with a charm all her own.

The real interesting part of the advertisement, however, is the huge picture of Marilyn dancing in a dirty basement.


I've mentioned before that some design elements in The New Yorker reflect a shift from the "modern" 20s to a new 30s style. This is definitely one of them. As an added bonus here's the caption:

"Mar'lyn, chile, shake yo' feet!" Grandmother's kinky-haired old furnaceman was first to educate Marilyn Miller's feet. At those same feet, a few years later, old New York laid its heart.

Ah, the kindly kinky-haired drudge with his native rhythm. There's also a reproduction of the moment when Old Gold's supposedly first arrived in Waikiki, but the quality is so poor I won't bother posting it. Which is a shame because it looks really bizarre.

Fireman, Save My Chop!

Yes, this General Electric advertisement on the back page of the September 20, 1930 New Yorker is...baffling. I can only print it in full.

Don't worry, lady. You'll find that chop as fresh as on the day it roamed the fields of Iowa. Ain't this a General Electric Refrigerator?

Don't ask silly questions, lady. Sure it's a General Electric -- can't you see the Monitor Top? In the Monitor Top, the nonchalant motor of this astonishing Refrigerator is doubtless idling with its feet perched atop its desk--totally oblivious to the muffled epithets of the perspiring fire department.

Lady--in ten or fifteen hours, when the noble fire brigade has succeeded in drenching the entire back cover of the New Yorker with half of Croton Reservoir, these gallant fire-fighters will open the regrigerator door, and--as is the custom of gallant fire-fighters--they'll "take a little peep inside."

They wouldn't blink an eyelash--since this refrigerator is General Electric--if they found a huddle of sleepy penguins roosting on the topmost shelves. And ice cubes frozen solid--with a happy band of baby walri (walruses) frisking in their midst.

No, lady--it takes more than a mere conflagration to fluster a chop in a General Electric Refrigerator. That's one reason why we think you'd like to own one. You don't like your chops flustered--do you?

Besides employing the flippant, slangy tone that I'm increasingly seeing in advertisements of this era, what the hell is the point of all this? Are they saying that GE fridges will keep their contents cool even when the temperature outside is hot? Are they actually implying that said fridge will survive an apartment fire?

Heck, those things WERE built like tanks, but I'd think at least the Monitor Top (whose motor apparently has FEET) would melt into a puddle of toxic goo.

PS: A possible explanation. It's obvious this was written specifically for The New Yorker. Maybe it's a clumsy attempt at exploiting some of the recent themes in the magazine? Several months earlier The New Yorker had printed a long serialized feature about the history of firefighting in New York; the rivalries, the technology, the ubiquitous Croton Reservoir.

I wonder if GE made it a habit to scour the pages of the magazines they advertised in, then write tailor-made copy about whatever they found.

Dr. Seuss and Flit: "Wife Swap"

A "Dr. Seuss in Africa" that doesn't make my skin crawl more than a few feet! The lack of any dialect comedy helps, and also the gleeful cheer of the elephants.

Strangely, elephants are one of the few animals -- including cats and dogs -- which Seuss draws with a reasonable realism. Oh, I know their eyes are too close together and their feet protrude too much, but at least he hasn't put frills and stems all over them.

Dr. Seuss and Flit: "Bugge Fatale"

I don't know about insects eating oatmeal for breakfast -- I suppose they'll eat anything for breakfast, actually -- but I'll say this for Dr. Seuss: he sure knew how to draw a va-va-voom bug!

Dr. Seuss and Flit: "Jewels Me Eye!"

Because I can't think of anything clever or historically-relevant to say about this particular Dr. Seuss cartoon, I'll simply ask: does anybody else have fond memories of Cheech and Chong's "Earache My Eye?"

In response to Dave's timely posting of 25 Horribly Sexist Vintage Ads in the comments, here's an advertisement from Maillard's chocolates.

He didn't mean to let that early morning grouch get the better of him...even if the coffee was cold. And now he's making amends by bringing her a box of Maillard's Chocolats Miniature.

Will this fix things? Will it bring to dinner the entente cordiale? You know it will!

Why does her picture remind me of that guy in "Seven" who'd been strapped to a bed for a year? Must be the raccoon makeup and the crazy-eye look.

"Constipation," Volume II

Fans of yeast will remember that two years ago I printed the words of Parisian Dr. Victor Pauchet, author of that world-famous book "Constipation." That was from the October 16, 1928 issue of The New Yorker.

Lo and behold, here in the August 2, 1930 issue of the very same magazine, we find Dr. Alberto Catalina of Madrid...

...He is the author of an important treatise, "Constipation."

I guess it was a popular title for books at the time. Folks used to be awfully concerned with their bowels, after all.

BONUS FUNNY JOKE

Included here is the testimony of Mrs. Marguerite Falkenburg, who had intestinal trouble until she started eating Fleischman's yeast. Please note the name of her hometown.

Dr. Seuss and Flit: "French Flit"

When I say repeatedly that the early New Yorker magazine didn't usually tackle serious subjects, I was obviously lying, because here is Dr. Seuss referencing the London Naval Treaty.

Okay, okay, the magazine HAD mentioned the treaty in the past, but only in the context of goofy wordplay or in "The Wayward Press," their semi-regular column about what OTHER periodicals were printing. Written by Guy Fawkes, this was a bitchy take-down of New York's newspapers, often criticizing inaccuracies, inconsistencies between papers, yellow journalism, or -- Fawkes' personal beef -- the misleading elevation of minor, trivial occurrences into headline-breaking NEWS!!!

So although The New Yorker never REALLY covered the London Naval Treaty, their treatment of it probably reflected the mood of the people at the time: that it was a blustery piece of diplomacy which never seemed to end and which would ultimately achieve nothing.

I particularly remember Fawkes' article about it, where he took newspapers to task for sending hordes of reporters over to London where they...sat around and did nothing. The conference was so long and clandestine that the London-based reporters would send back stories about the weather or about the niece of some minor figurehead learning to ride a horse, but the papers would trumpet this stuff as NEWS!!!!!!

Anyway, Dr. Seuss doesn't seem to be taking these issues on in his cartoon. He's just drawing funny Frenchmen. Bless him.

Trapping the Bird and Sealing it Up

What the hell is it with olde-timey people and their canned poultry?

You may remember the vacuum-cooked chicken-in-glass of a few days ago...in fact, I bet you've been unable to get the imagined taste of it out of your mouth.

Now, to cleanse your palette, I give you the Hormel jellied whole chicken.


But that's nothing compared to the advertisement on the NEXT page. It's SQUAB! Ready to eat! In tins!


What's "squab?" The advertisement spells it out.

Folks fall out of saddles and leap out of lakes--when you mention this!

NOTICE!!!
to all picayunish appetites!

Your horoscope says...squab. Fifty million Frenchmen say...squab. Don't overlook--have a look.

Okay, so the advertisement doesn't even HINT at the true nature of squab. Is it because they assume the sophisticated readers of The New Yorker already know? Or is it because they don't want sophisticated residents of New York City to realize that they're eating pigeons?

Dr. Seuss and Flit: "Big Top"

I'll certainly give Dr. Seuss this: he hasn't duplicated a theme yet!


Sure it's the oft-spotted John Cleese protagonist, but Dr. Seuss hasn't taken us to the CIRCUS yet, not in this entire long journey through the magical land of Flit.

As an aside, if I am ever told by The New Yorker magazine to stop showcasing their material, I assume it will be because of these advertisements. People sure like to look at them!

PS: ...but not as much as this post from 2007, which scores at least 1/3 of my blog hits during any given week. Either people are cheating on their math homework or they're awfully frustrated with their books of logic puzzles.