Something about sparkplugs brings out the exuberant lunatic in advertising illustrators. Above, exhibit B (exhibit A here ). AC Spark Plugs

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Flaming rocket-ship sparkplug ad

These genuine Hollywood TV Tuffets are not only good for parking your drooling tot in front of the goggle-box, but can also do triple-duty as unsafe car-seats and precarious booster-chairs. Watch out for spiders! Little Miss Muffet - Now you know. [vintage-ads.livejournal.com]

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TV tuffets: you know, for the kids!

From the Aug, 1956 issue of Scientific American , this sweet advertisement for the Univac: “Leading companies throughout the country have learned that Univac has become synonymous with enlightened management. And Univac savings more than justify its use for electronic control of management problems. Find out how typical users have put Univac to work in virtually all types of commercial data-processing. Well be happy to send EL135an informative, 24-page, 4-color book on the Univac System to business executives requesting it on their company letterhead.”

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Univac ad, 1956

This 1966 ad for “beep n’ blink” Bop ‘Em punching bags is interesting: I remember nearly identical ads from the mid-1970s, when I was old enough to pore over the Consumers Distributing catalog and show my folks what I wanted for Christmaskah. Funny to think of an electronic toy whose design and marketing hardly changed over an entire decade.

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Bop ‘em beep-and-blink punching toys

Love this old ad for Zenith’s early remote control, the “Flash Matic,” which let you “shut off long, annoying commercials while picture remains on screen!” (a process that was eventually known as “muting”). I grew up with a Zenith TV that had the next generation of remotes, a little box with a cunning series of ultrasonic tuning-forks inside it that were struck by tiny hammers controlled by pushbuttons on the remote’s face; we used to try to trick the receiver by jingling keys, sneezing, and rolling squeaky-wheeled coffee-tables around to get it to change the channel or up the volume. This ad (and the other one that accompanies it at the link) are quite explicit about the primary use of remotes being to switch off ads — call them the pop-up blocker of their day. It’s no wonder that major rightsholder groups objected to remote controls when they were introduced, it’s easy to imagine the forebear of today’s NAB lobbyists explaining that the mute button was a form of theft, the Boston Strangler of the TV industry.

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Flash Matic Tuning, a device to shut off long, boring commercials

Apple Computers : grossly overpriced since at least 1996. This is Best Buy ad from 1996 (the year some of you were born but the year I lost my virginity . JK JK MOM — I’VE STILL GOT IT). Because it would take me forever to resize the pieces into something decent because of the resolution, you can see the weekly ad in its entirety HERE (not hosted on Geekologie). Some highlights: Warcraft II $20 A CELLULAR FLIP PHONE 4, 8 and 16MB Memory upgrades: $30, $60 and $130 2.5 GB Hard Drive: $300 3.1 GB Hard Drive $400 Damn, we’ve come pretty far in the past 15 years, haven’t we? “Well I certainly have, I don’t know about you , GW.” WHAT THE F*** IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?! “You know, like your mental development.” Oh right, THAT. *trying unsuccessfully to flick booger off finger* A Best Buy Flyer From ‘96 [consumerist] Thanks to MIRV, Geek Squid (I see what you did there!) and Dan, who don’t shop at Best Buy because they’re convinced those sensors that go off if you try walking out the door with something you haven’t pay for give you ball cancer.

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1996 Best Buy Ad: We’ve Come So, SO Far

Paleofuture’s recovered this great Western Digital videophone ad from one of the early rounds of failed video telephony. The ad itself comes from an intriguing-sounding book called The Golden Age of Advertising: The 60s . Be sure to check the whole Paleofuture post for a great potted history of the boom-and-bust videophone efforts over the years. Crossing a telephone with a TV set in 1968

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1960s Western Digital videophone ad

This delightful vintage German contraption will cure your nose erros (Potato Nose, Saddle Nose, Duckbill Nose, Wide Nose, Pointy Nose, Long Nose, Hook Nose and Slant Nose) and give you a “Greco-Roman Normal Form” in short order. All for 7-10 marks! Text: SUCH NOSE ERRORS and similar will be quite significantly improved with the orthopedic nose former “Zello”. The new and improved Model 20 exceeds all others. Double-layered padding clings exactly to the anatomical structure of the nose so that the affected nasal cartilage is normal-shaped in a short time. (Bone deformities are not.) Most warmly recommended by Royal Court Advisor Dr. G. von Eck, M.D. and other medical authorities. 100,000 “Zello” in use. Price 5 Marks, 7 Marks, and 10 Marks and a 10% surcharge for a doctor’s visit. (A model or impression is desired.) Specialist L. M. Baginski, Berlin W. 126, WInterfeldstr. Ouch! Nasenformer “Zello” (Zello Noseformer!)

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Old-timey German nose-error-correcting contraption

This ancient Penril Modems ad features a bored and uncomfortable woman in Barabarella go-go gear hefting an enormous box containing electronics that shrunk down to an integrated component on a motherboard about ten years ago, and all but disappeared into obsolescence in recent years. Penril Modem

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Babrarelloid modem ad, date unknown

According to the copy on this old necktie ad, men who wear sufficiently modernist necktie patterns will find the women in their lives bowing and scraping in terrorized obedience. If you say so. Show Her Its a Mans World

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Neckties that frighten women into terrorized obedience