Just a few days ago, I was reminiscing about a Raid Ant and Roach Killer store display rack over at Mr. Karswell's place (okay, his blog. Not like I was hanging around his house). We had one of those racks in our basement for years. My father was an A&P grocery store employee from the 1940's through the early 1970's and had brought it home with him at some point, most likely the '60's based on the graphics. I'm not sure why the store would let him take the rack home, but I was a kid and wasn't about to ask any pointed questions. At any rate, we used it for years for storing our bought and home-canned food supplies, which always struck me as odd considering it had previously stored pesticides.
Then yesterday while shopping at an estate sale in Maplewood, Missouri, I found this 1975 Wham-O Frisbee premium tie-in with Raid and Off! I'll admit, the coincidence isn't mind-blowing, but still weird.
The art had changed by 1975 and featured a generic looking bug compared to the cartoon ant, roach and mosquito previously used in their commercials such as this one from 1960 (with the voice talents of Mel Blanc no less)
The 1970's version is shown in this 1982 ad and a similar bug design was used for their commercials well into the 2000's.
Recently, the commercials have combined live-action and computer animation.
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