1 Boy, kids sure are dumb. The following “miniature dog” ad is a prime example of an advertisement designed to prey upon the relative stupidity (or at least the naïveté) of young kids. First off, nowhere in the ad does it actually say anything about how to get the dog. You “[j]ust mail me your favorite snapshot, print or negative NOW and pay the postman only 19c plus postage when your treasured enlargement arrives and I’ll include the ‘Movietone’ frame at no extra cost” and later, “I’m so anxious to send you a miniature dog that I hope you will send me your name, address and favorite snapshot, right away and get your 20 enlargement coupons to hand out.” In addition, do note the other ad at the bottom of the page—it is for a studio with a different name that has the same address as the studio in the main ad! They really did not think much of their audience. Luckily for easily duped children everywhere, the Federal Trade Commission eventually did shut this ad down for false advertising.
2 Know your audience, advertisers! I don’t know exactly who the people at Fabric Frocks, Inc., thought they were pitching their dress-based pyramid scheme to, but putting ads in comic books was probably not going to get their scam (sorry, valuable service) to their intended audience. Unless their theory was that some mother would be putting her child to bed, and notice the comic open to this page and think to herself, “Hey, I would wear a $10.98 dress if I could get it for less than one cent!”
3 Manipulating Your Parents 101. One of Daisy’s most popular ad types was the kind designed to help a kid manipulate his father into buying him a BB gun. If you thought Ralphie from A Christmas Story knew of ways to get his parents to buy him a BB gun, you have not seen what happens when an entire company gets behind the idea. In this 1958 ad, not only does Daisy thoughtfully print out four separate cutout reminder cards, it even has a system on how to deliver the reminders, starting from two weeks before your birthday. “1st Day: Put Reminder 1 near Mom’s tooth-brush. 2nd Day: Put No. 2 on Dad’s pillow. 3rd Day: Leave No. 3 on Dad’s easy chair secretly before supper. 4th Day: Address an envelope to Dad where he works: print ‘PERSONAL’ near his name: put Reminder 4 in envelope: mail it.” I am sure parents everywhere loved this ad.
4 Truly in the dark? I am going to assume that the folks at the Glow in the Dark Company were, in fact, “in the dark” about the rather phallic shape of their glow-in-dark flashlight-esque product in this comic book ad. Such an assumption allows me to simply be amused by their instructions regarding the device at the end of the ad rather than be creeped out by the instructions that tell you to “Examine it. Let it thrill you. Think of all the fun you can have.”
