“Your son can have a lot more fun when you put his pals behind him”? Are you serious, Fruit of the Loom?
Archive for the 'Ads' Category
Fruit of the Loom ‘Funpals’ Ad, 1984
Published May 14, 2014 '80s Decor/Design/Fashion , Ads 4 Comments`Dungeons & Dragons Day’ at the Public Library, 1981 – 1985
Published April 22, 2014 Ads , D&D , Moral Panic , Newspapers 5 Comments
The clippings are from (top to bottom) The Pittsburgh Press (9/15/81), The Pittsburgh Press (11/10/81), New Hampshire’s Nashua Telegraph (3/12/82), Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (5/15/82), Utah’s Deseret News (9/29/83), Florida’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune (7/1/84), and The Milwaukee Journal (7/16/85).
Certainly not an exhaustive list of ongoing D&D events sponsored by public institutions, but the narrative told in just these few cases is interesting enough. (I’ve mentioned D&D in science museums here and here). In the midst of all the nonsense spouted about the game, most adults managed to keep an even head about it. My parents didn’t understand how it worked or why I found it so enthralling, but they trusted me enough to let me play, and, if I felt it was necessary, to stop playing.
That’s what’s changed. It wasn’t the Religious Right that killed all the quality, kid-friendly events and institutions of the ’70s and ’80s (arcades, youth centers, public playgrounds, roller rinks, summer camp, etc.), it was helicopter parents and their distrust (overprotection is a form of distrust) of their own children. If kids aren’t allowed to hang out by themselves with other kids, then all the fun places for kids get shut down, and they’re left thinking Angry Birds and Facebook are as good as it gets.
We need more places—more physical spaces—for kids to inhabit so that they can develop their own communities, languages, ideas, and rules. Otherwise, they’re never going to grow up. And they’re never going to understand what fun really is.
Omni Magazine (October, 1980): L. Sprague de Camp and Dungeons & Dragons
Published April 21, 2014 Ads , Boris Vallejo , D&D , Fantasy Art , Magazines/Zines , Omni 8 Comments
L. Sprague de Camp (1907 – 2000) was a prolific writer and popularizer of the fantasy genre, an engineer by trade, and something of a self-taught history and Classics scholar. (I just read his excellent, still relevant debunking of the Atlantis myth, Lost Continents). He edited the very first heroic fantasy or sword and sorcery anthology called Swords & Sorcery (Pyramid, 1963), which I’ll talk about in a later post. The phrase `heroic fantasy’ was coined by de Camp in 1963 (OED citation here); ‘sword and sorcery’ was coined by Fritz Leiber in 1961 (OED citation here).
His unsentimental grounding of the genre is right on, I think—from a traditional male perspective, anyway:
Heroic fantasy is alive and flourishing. The more complex, cerebral, and restrained the civilization, the more men’s minds return to a dream of earlier times, when issues of good and evil were clear-cut and a man could venture out with his sword, conquer his enemies, and win a kingdom and a beautiful woman. The idea is compelling, even though such an age probably never existed.
Here’s de Camp’s slightly less sexist description from the 1967 Ace edition of Conan:
Such a story combines the color and dash of the historical costume romance with the atavistic supernatural thrills of the weird, occult, or ghost story. When well done, it provides the purest fun of fiction of any kind. It is escape fiction wherein one escapes clear out of the real world into one where all men are strong, all women beautiful, all life adventurous, and all problems simple, and nobody even mentions the income tax or the dropout problem or socialized medicine.
He doesn’t mention D&D, but, to prove the point of his short piece, there’s an ad near the back of the same issue (page 153 of 194).
What’s interesting is that the ad itself wants to be complex and cerebral, and tries to appeal to a more “sophisticated” audience. (The translation is “Play Dungeons & Dragons… Always ahead of the game.”) I’ve been going through a long run of Omni and will post all the D&D ads (and other interesting material). Archive.org has a large catalog of Omni for viewing, but the ads have been left out. That’s to be expected, considering the length of the magazine.
TV Guide Ads for TV Movies: The Day After (1983)
Published March 17, 2014 '80s Movies/TV , Ads , Cold War Flashbacks , TV Guide 14 Comments
What I remember about The Day After is that I had to wait a long time to see the now infamous nuclear attack sequence. I was deeply fascinated by the sight of mushroom clouds—actual test footage and various representations in movies, books, and comics—throughout the ’80s: they were like a dark magic in a world that was tediously ordinary. As an adult, I understand that nothing is more mundane than the willingness of one group of people to annihilate another group of people on a mass scale, and despite global collateral damage.
I thought I’d seen the movie when it premiered, but my mom says she doesn’t remember letting me watch it. I don’t know where else I would have been. It was Sunday night and we had one TV. It’s possible I could have seen it on video a few years later.
The juxtaposition in the promo is pretty damn effective.
‘Loads of Livin’ Room!’: Custom Van Ads (1975 – 1980)
Published February 24, 2014 '70s Decor/Design/Fashion , Ads , Custom Autos 8 Comments
From the GMC ad:
You’re a vanner.
Which all by itself tells us something very important about you: You’re an individualist. A free thinker. And you absolutely abhor the idea of driving what everybody else does.
(Images via eBay)
Mego’s The Greatest American Hero Action Figures (1982)
Published February 13, 2014 Ads , Catalogs , Mego 6 Comments
Ever wonder why Mego went bankrupt? Here you go. According to the Mego Museum, it’s “the last licensed product” the company produced, although only the “Free-Wheeling Convertible Bug” set made it into stores, and in very limited quantities. The 8″ figures are positively frightening. Check out the forehead on Connie Sellecca!
“Kids love him because he’s goofy.” No. No we don’t.
UK Krull Cinema Ads, 1983
Published February 7, 2014 Ads , Krull , Movie Theaters/Marquees 2 Comments
The art is from the UK poster by Josh Kirby. Much brighter and more intriguing than the American version.
(Images via combomphotos/Flickr)
Target and Toys R Us Nintendo Ads, 1986/1988
Published December 13, 2013 Ads , Christmas , Home Consoles , Nintendo , Toy Stores/Toy Aisles/Toy Departments , Video Games 2 Comments
I can’t remember if I got my NES for Christmas ’86, or Christmas ’87. Either way, it was the most my parents ever spent on a single gift. I got a Schwinn Scrambler (red mags—it was beautiful) one Christmas, but I’d been putting payments on the thing for months. I’d sold my old bike to a kid in the neighborhood and used the money as a down—I think it was 20 bucks. My parents sneakily paid the balance, and there it was propped up by the tree in the morning.
Anyway, Atari it isn’t, but the NES is a great system. I put it third behind the 2600 and Intellivision. Favorite games: Tecmo Super Bowl and Xenophobe. Friend J. and I, and his brother, logged many, many hours on the former. And I have a very strong memory of renting Xenophobe from Blockbuster, getting pizza from the neighborhood joint next door, and playing three-player mode throughout the night.
The fact that the NES went up in price between 1986 and 1988 shows how dominant it was at the time. The next system I got—and the first one I bought for myself—was a Sega Genesis in the early ’90s, when Sonic the Hedgehog was bundled with it.
(Images via The Mushroom Kingdom and Fins Vintage Paper and Collectibles/eBay)
Licorice Pizza Ad, 1982
Published December 5, 2013 Ads , Christmas , E.T. , Records (LPs) and Cassettes 2 Comments
Men at Work’s Business as Usual and Michael Jackson’s Thriller are the first two cassettes I bought. Almost every album advertised here is now a classic:
Missing Persons’ debut, Spring Session M (“Walking in L.A.”, “Destination Unknown”); The Clash’s Combat Rock (“Rock the Casbah”)—I bought this one too; Marvin Gaye’s Midnight Love (“Sexual Healing”); Foreigner’s “best of” compilation Records; Culture Club’s debut, Kissing to Be Clever (“I’ll Tumble 4 Ya”, “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?”); Led Zeppelin’s final album, Coda.
I also see Neil Diamond’s Heartlight, which I got (with my dad’s money) my mom for Christmas that year. The title track—inspired by E.T.—is easily one of the worst songs ever recorded.
(Image via The Daily Mirror)
TV Guide Ad: `Elvira Meets The Fall Guy’ (1984)
Published October 22, 2013 '80s Movies/TV , Ads , TV Guide 9 Comments
It’s not false advertising, believe it or not. Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) played herself in a Fall Guy episode called “October the 31st,” which premiered on Halloween, 1984. From what I remember, she and Colt are doing a Halloween special in a haunted mansion owned by a demented old man played by John Carradine. Will they survive the night?
Speaking of Carradine, I just watched him ham it up in another winner called Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966). Think you know the best way to knock down a vampire? Think again.
(Image via Nostalgic Collections/eBay)
2 Warps to Neptune 