The 15 Creepiest Vintage Ads Of All Time

Seriously freaky. One of these ads (#13 "A Girl Around The House") I've seen before in a Women's Studies class as an example of misogyny in advertising.

...really? I'm fairly sure we pumped our own gas when we went to Pendleton. Though we were right by a casino, so maybe that made a difference?

It's been - oh, close to 35 years since I was close to Pendleton. But if you were on a reservation, then you get to pump your own gas. (Or you're outlaws! I'm tellin'!)

Yay India! Every time I get morose about the direction of cultural evolution amongst upright tool-using primates, something like this fans the wee spark of my hope.

I have pictures from back in the '70s when we went to Toronto and I stood on the glass window to look down. Hubby said hell for him would be to see me standing out on that glass balcony, because if anything happened he didn't think he'd be able to force himself out there to get me. Poor Hubby. And this is a man who used to ride on the outside of helicopters on the way to forest fires.

I heard of a book a while ago that tied phobias of this sort to inner ear problems, that the brain associated the inner-ear-caused dizziness with the situation at the time--crowds, closed space, heights, etc--and it cycled into the full-blown phobias. Because Hubby didn't used to be bothered by heights until after a few injuries.

You guys like your cars a lot more than I like mine, I guess. Of course, most of my cars have been engineered by the devil himself, so.

Also, I'm way more concerned about whether there's a) a cupholder, b) a good stereo, and c) an ashtray than anything else, so maybe I deserve them.

The 15 Creepiest Vintage Ads Of All Time

Wow, the Love's BabySoft ad actually made me shudder.

I'm very protective of my car, and gas-station attendants in Oregon are strange animals. They get defensive and confrontational if you get out of your car.

People in the PNW get defensive and strange if you approach them, period. (I kid. With love.) My SF-to-Eugene run is always amusing just on the basis of the gas stations alone. (That, and the possibility of getting flattened by an 18-wheeler whilst 4,213 feet above sea level. Whee!)

Speaking of the wacky OR gas thing, though - what about motorcycles? There ain't no way in hell I'd let an attendant fill up my girl.

Wow, the Love's BabySoft ad actually made me shudder.

Yeah, I think that's the worst one of the 15.

One of these ads (#13 "A Girl Around The House") I've seen before in a Women's Studies class as an example of misogyny in advertising.

Yeah, that's appalling, but I think the postage meter one is worse. I don't even get what they are trying to sell there. And then there's the coffee one.

Yeah, I think that's the worst one of the 15.

Well, that one is pretty awful too. But I still remember an under-age Brooke Shields and the Calvins ad, so that's sadly a bit par for the course.

I should never try to use characters (accidentally) that are part of the quick-edit formatting. Whooops.

I love my EEEgor - VW GTI GLX, black-with-black-leather-interior. Small pointy car for a small pointy person. He goes FAST.

Gas-station attendant puts a mark on my boy, there will be TROUBLE with a capital PAIN.

The Chubbies and Chase & Sanborn are both in my Tasche Advertising books.

And the Love's Baby's Soft is probably from the Pretty Baby era if I had to guess. SERIOUSLY creepy.

Aaaaand, just as I start to get motivated to do something with the day other than sit around the apartment, it's raining again. A sign from a higher power, perhaps?