Remember the comic book ads of the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s? If you were a kid of that era its more than likely you spent time day dreaming about the fabulous prizes that could be yours if you could just sell 10,000 packets of seeds to your family or neighbors, or you imagined the wonderful adventures and conversations that could be had with your friends, the regal Sea Monkeys? Yeah us to.
Well we decided to poke through the long boxes in the Basement of Mystery and find some of the best ads, from the promises of no more sand kicked in our face to the potential of glimpsing the neighbors naughty bits with our x-ray glasses, we give you the best from our collection. Enjoy!
25. Alien Eye!
At one point I gave the Alien Eye serious consideration. I imagined the pure terror of the kids on my block as I unleased this alien terror, a terror solely under my command! I never could quite scrape together the quarters to make this happen though. Probably for the best as I don’t think my seven year old ego could have taken the ridicule I would have received unleashing this poorly made paper puppet on stick. A stick you the purchaser most likely had to supply I might add.
24. Home Projector
Again, focusing on the naughty bits, this ad most assuredly focused my adolescent mind in that direction! Did I think about the the cool Star Wars re-enactments I could show on my projector or the great stunts we could film in the driveway? No, I of course was drawn to the suggestive woman pictured on the screen like a moth to the flame. Kudos to you Mr. Marketer.
23. Hostess Twinkies
Hostess put out a whole series of these gems. Although they usually made little to no sense I guess the kiddos were conditioned to reading comic books and this gave them a little mini-story to enjoy. Now as to this particular episode, doesn’t Green Lantern have a battery light or something similar to what you would find on your cell phone telling him that his ring charge is almost dead? Putting that aside, I like how Green Lantern finds the big fur ball dangerous enough to enter into “mortal combat” with but once the creature is distracted by the wholesome goodness of Hostess Twinkies, he has no problem slinking off and leaving the children to fend for themselves.
22. Hey kids, sell crap!
Good lord, remember these ads?! Sell 5,000 magazine subscriptions to your family, 20,000 seeds to your neighbors or 30,000 jars of salve to the other kids and you could win a $3 transistor radio. I would assume that the Junior Sales Club of American has reformed as some sort of Al Quada offshoot or something these days. Where were the child labor laws in those days? Anyhoo, I include a couple more of these for your shock and amazement…and yes I considered becoming a junior salesman shlocking this crap myself before becoming a full time ninja. I mean, I could have had a banana seat bike for God’s sake!
21. Self Defense: Karate
For awhile there was a deluge of these self-defense style ads, this particular one focusing on Karate. Maybe it was the influence of Chuck Norris or Bruce Lee, maybe the world was getting more dangerous, I don’t know. What I did know was that if it got me swank turtle neck and a girl like that, I was all in.
We’ll bring the the next installment of the funniest comic book ads of all time later in the week. Until then, if you have any favorites you would like to share with the Ninja Nation, either cut and paste them into an e-mail and send them to submissions@comicsninja.comor post them on the Comics Ninja Facebook page.
