Thursday, August 7, 2014

Better Homes and Gardens, June 1970

Summer is flying by and school is just around the corner, but there's still time for some last minute summertime activities.  Like a carnival!  Fortunately for you, Better Homes and Gardens has the how-to for hosting your own backyard freakshow.



No?  How about shooting your own old-timey movie.  Just like the Brady's.  All we're missing is Alice doing the Charleston.



Some ideas you will never bring to reality.

And some you could.


Let's get a close up of that

What exactly is going on here?!  I thought this was a family magazine!



"You might even "borrow" the pool of some vacationing friends." Yes, the quotes do in fact imply you should trespass on your neighbor's property while they're out of town.



Ladies' Day or Stagfest.  Your choice.


And now ads.

Who knew waxed milk cartons were such concern at one time.





Here's  Mrs. Concetta Eckel in a more recent picture via classmates.com

Looks like she's given up "Tide" for "Cheer".  Get it?  Because she's holding up a drink? Like she's saying "cheers"?  Hunh?   Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......



"Punch" did no better than their other products "Slap", "Kick" and "Flog".

Given the bad press Acme received over the years by Warner Bros. cartoons, I'm shocked that it was still a viable company by 1970.



That's right, girls.  Get up off your knees and start mopping!



Thank you very much, li'l Sauna Belt.

This ad raises a question.  By 1970, were WWII veterans becoming nostalgic for the food of their service years, back when they called it S.O.S.?

I think everyone in the '70s had one of these.  And nobody used them.

"Artificial cherry flavor" yet they show a cherry balancing on the end of the knife.  Truth in advertising, people!  Truth in advertising!

Oh, the folly of humans.  Kevin's mom will just buy him a bigger loaf of bread and this kid's mom will buy him an even bigger loaf of bread.  Eventually, they'll bake a loaf of bread so big it will destroy the entire world!

Another snack I coveted as a child and never had: canned pudding. Having tasted it as an adult, I wasn't missing anything.  I like the fact that this is actually an ad for Alcoa aluminum and not Snack Pack.

Hmmmm, let's see.  Conch chowder and papaya juice or hot dogs and hamburgers?  I think I know what this kid is eating for supper.

You know the 70's have arrived when you see peel and stick bricks.  And chuck full of asbestos to boot!

This actually isn't a bad idea.  They're actually still made, but not as stylish as this one with the see-through lid.

Never trust a Jello that transforms itself.

I never understood this commercial when I was a kid.  Why were they sticking their hands in *anything* at Madge's?  I recall my mother explaining Madge was a manicurist and you typically soaked your fingernails to soften them.  That still didn't explain why Madge kept bowls of dish soap lying around.  What did she think was going to happen?

The use of dyes in toilet papers was banned in 1987 when it was found to cause cancer in laboratory animals, not to mention, and I quote, "inflammation and itchiness of the rectal area".  Unquote!

And on that note, I'll leave you with some jokes that had them rolling in the aisles in 1970.  Or not.

2 comments:

  1. all i can say about SOS/Cream Chipped Beef was that we ate a lot of it when i was a kid. it was cheap, and it was the recession. what's not to love, anyway? toast, grease, salt... it's the perfect meal!

    you'd think they could come up with some vegetable dyes for toilet paper that wouldn't cause hemmorhoid-like symptoms. i'd totally love to have a choice of colors! they must have come and gone really quickly, because i totally forgot they even existed until this moment.

    fwiw, maybe madge kept bowls of palmolive around to clean her tools. : )

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We never ate chipped beef in our house. My dad wasn't in the service, but he spoke disparagingly of it. And that coming from a man who ate every indigenous critter in the state of Missouri and all organs therein.

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