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[Andrew999]

What's your favourite old comic book ad?

Being Cornish, I used to laugh at the ads for lucky pixies - they were always shown as green in colour when everyone knows the little critters who live beside the dragonfly-infested ponds of Bodmin Moor are red or brown.

My second favourite was X-Ray Spex - I longed to own a pair of those - and I guess my third favourite would have to be the boomerang  advertised (in Titbits I think) with with the strapline 'guaranteed to return when used correctly'

[Mr. Magnificent]

I'm not sure of an absolute favorite, but I wanted the X-Ray specs, the Polaris submarine, and the monster-sized monsters. And I ordered the sea monkeys. They were a disappointment.

[misappear]

I ordered the 100 toy soldiers in their own

[Robb_K]

I ordered the 100 toy soldiers in their own

[misappear]

Oh!  Just remembered.....I bought a comic collection some time ago and in it were 8 consecutive issues of Grit.  I

[The Australian Panther]

Robb,

Are there not toys on sale in 2020 that are just as much garbage? I have thought that if I was in China or say, Vietnam, and making my living working for peanuts in a factory that made these toys for a western market, it wouldn't give me much respect for 'Western' culture. 

My Kellogg's Cornflakes came with plastic cowboys and Indians, which for a while I was obsessed with collecting. How embarrassing!
I also collected cards from Nestles Chocolates to complete the set and glue them into a book on the History of Cars. Never did get all of them. That obsession was made worst because kids at school collected them, and swapped and there was status involved in collecting them all.
I've since managed to find a completed copy in a second-hand shop.
I love reading the ads in the books on this site.
The older the better!

[Robb_K]

Robb,

Are there not toys on sale in 2020 that are just as much garbage? I have thought that if I was in China or say, Vietnam, and making my living working for peanuts in a factory that made these toys for a western market, it wouldn't give me much respect for 'Western' culture. 

My Kellogg's Cornflakes came with plastic cowboys and Indians, which for a while I was obsessed with collecting. How embarrassing!
I also collected cards from Nestles Chocolates to complete the set and glue them into a book on the History of Cars. Never did get all of them. That obsession was made worst because kids at school collected them, and swapped and there was status involved in collecting them all.
I've since managed to find a completed copy in a second-hand shop.
I love reading the ads in the books on this site.
The older the better!

Our Canadian Kelogg's Corn and wheat flakes, Post Toasties, and Quaker Oats cereal boxes had cut-out sports cards on them.  From 1951- 1960, I cut out the hockey cards and collected them.  I also collected the hockey cards that came in packs with chewing gum, From Topps Sports cards, and Parkhurst Hockey and Canadian Football League Cards, as well, between 1951-1960.

[crashryan]

I didn't have much experience with comic book ad toys. I never sent for any. To tell the truth it never occurred to me to try sending for something because deep in my soul I knew Mom wouldn't allow it. So I spent a lot of time wondering about the merchandise. My curiosity was piqued by the Voice Thrower, the X-Ray Specs, the Rocket Ship, and especially the Hypno-Coin. My friend (a fellow comics fan) and I were still a bit young to imagine making women submit. Instead we figured we would hypnotize each other into being strong, brave, and athletic like comic book heroes. We really believed the Coin was irresistible. We even used it in one of our homemade comics: when cornered the hero whipped out a Hypno-Coin and froze the villain in his tracks. I also wondered about the Teacup Chihuahua and the Real Live Monkey. Apparently the last really was a real live monkey!

I played with the 101 Toy Soldiers but I must have got them secondhand because I don't recall feeling cheated as I would have had I believed the advertising. The last comic book promotion I remember puzzling over was Yubiwaza, the One Finger Technique. We were middle-schoolers by then, and we concluded that the Technique involved extending the One Middle Finger, convulsing one's opponent with laughter and making him an easy target.

The one comic book ad that lived up to its hype was the 6-Foot Vampirella Poster. A college friend ordered one, hung it, kept it, and sold it a while back for a couple of hundred dollars.

If you Google the various toys you'll find a wealth of reminiscences from people who were hoodwinked by comics ads. It's worth the effort. Some are very funny.

[Robb_K]

I didn't have much experience with comic book ad toys. I never sent for any. To tell the truth it never occurred to me to try sending for something because deep in my soul I knew Mom wouldn't allow it. So I spent a lot of time wondering about the merchandise. My curiosity was piqued by the Voice Thrower, the X-Ray Specs, the Rocket Ship, and especially the Hypno-Coin. My friend (a fellow comics fan) and I were still a bit young to imagine making women submit. Instead we figured we would hypnotize each other into being strong, brave, and athletic like comic book heroes. We really believed the Coin was irresistible. We even used it in one of our homemade comics: when cornered the hero whipped out a Hypno-Coin and froze the villain in his tracks. I also wondered about the Teacup Chihuahua and the Real Live Monkey. Apparently the last really was a real live monkey!

If you Google the various toys you'll find a wealth of reminiscences from people who were hoodwinked by comics ads. It's worth the effort. Some are very funny. 

One of the 2 adverts I was most curious about were the body building one that showed that musclebound boy, that I thought was a fake photo, for which they took the head of a normal boy, and stuck it atop the musclebound body of an adult man, at least in his mid 20s.  I wondered how a teenaged boy could have built his body up so large in just a year or two (they showed the "before" photo, too.  And I wondered how he could do that with just a pamphlet of charts they sent him, and possibly a small plastic stretching band.

The second had a photo of a geeky-looking 50+ year old businessman, who advertised during the early 1940s, "I can teach you how to get a job in the radio business.", and by 1947 or 1948, the adverts added, "and The TV business."  He sent his customers pamphlets teaching electronics.  So, I wonder if the jobs would be radio and TV repair?  So, apparently, after taking his course, and passing, he'd send them a diploma that stated that they had passed his course.  Then, they could take that with them to show a radio and/or TV repairman that they were a good candidate to be an apprentice in that field.  I wonder how many  clients of his actually got a job from taking that "training"?  His adverts were omnipresent during the 1940s and early 1950s, in almost every US comic book other than Dell's series.

[The Australian Panther]

Some of these ads were drawn by known pulp or comic artists.
The Ad for '132 Roman Soldiers' featured a panorama by Russ Heath, which certainly got my attention at the time, although it was not until much later that I could put a name to the artist.
Cheers     

[Mr. Magnificent]

I'd forgotten about Grit. I tried to sell it. Couldn't get a soul to take it.

[Robb_K]

I'd forgotten about Grit. I tried to sell it. Couldn't get a soul to take it.

I never could believe kids walking around from door-to-door, could succeed in selling any "American Seeds".  I wonder if anyone on this forum had tried that?  But, I guess that offer only applied in USA.  I don't seem to remember that advert being in the Canadian printings.