The 15 Creepiest Vintage Ads Of All Time

Retro Comedy ^ | Wednesday, July 1, 2009

[the_devils_advocate_666]

What do murder, pedophilia, suicide and a baby tiger have in common? They have all been used to sell stuff in these amazingly disturbing vintage ads!

These are real, untouched advertisements from the good old days. It doesn't matter if it's lovely ladies or adorable clowns, somehow these old-time ad wizards found ways to traumatize us while pedaling everyday products.

Enjoy them now, call your therapist later!

15. White Bread Demon
"Bread is swell, but what I'm really excited about is eating jelly made from the blood of the innocent!"


14. French Suicide Sausage
It's enough to make you want to eat Kosher forever.


13. A Girl Around The House
It's nice to have a girl around the house... especially if you are a psychopath serial killer who makes women into rugs!



12. Chubby
Who needs self-esteem when you can have a free fashion book for chubbies? Also, proving that advertising weight representation has always been screwed up, the girl pictured is totally not chubby.


11. Christmas Weapons
The family that guns together, has funs together.



10. Eye patch. Shirt. Baby Tiger.
Sexy?


9. Chase & Sandborn Spanking
She totally deserves it. Seriously, what kind of woman doesn't "store test" for fresher coffee?


8. Fry's Chocolate Nightmare
Nothing wants to make consumers buy chocolate more than 5 faces of a sickly kid looking 5 different shades of miserable.


7. Root Beer Baby!
Mama, please DO NOT give your baby another glass of Root Beer. It is clearly doing something horrible to him. He is terrifying.



6. Locked Out
You better wash out your privates with Lysol, or your husband will install cartoon locks on the door.


5. Pears Soap Disaster
"Pears Soap- now with such a soothing lather, you won't notice that your baby has gotten into a horrible accident!"


4. Postage Meter Murder
"Is it always illegal to kill a woman?" This is a truly important question and makes us want to buy a new postage meter.


3. Shave Yourself
The old man baby's gonna sing karaoke into a razor! Hooray!


2. Baby Soft
JonBenét Ramsey, eat your heart out. (Too soon?) This ad makes us want to scream, gouge out our eyes and then barf.


1. Chocolate Poulain
Drink that cocoa, or this clown will murder you in your sleep.


Special thanks to Weirdomatic, Livejournal & the fabulous Plan 59 !

[Eaker]

However throwing gunner a 6-pack would be like throwing a single hot wing to a bear just coming out of hibernation.

I would throw him a case at a minimum.

We also prefer Winchester #231 ball gunpowder with plenty of fuse over fireworks and none of Dark’s coffee.

[SoftballMominVA]

good info

how about the addition of a Bug Zapper?

[SoftballMominVA]

good info

how about the addition of a Bug Zapper?

[SoftballMominVA]

BTW, you people are sounding like my kind of folks. I’ve seen your fun with fireworks on You Tube

[Eaker]

We have a policy that everyone leaves a get together with all the fingers they brought with them and keep mini-Igloos and ice on hand to insure it is followed.

[Marysecretary]

I don’t think so. I could be wrong but it seems that Finland’s flag is fairly modern and they certainly knew about the swastika and what it meant for our world at the time.

[Cyber Liberty]

That was a bit odd.

[Cyber Liberty]

Yer a spaz.

[SoftballMominVA]

I try

[Tunehead54]

Only post I can safely bump for reference. Nite. ;-)

[Ultra Sonic 007]

I meant that the reason they’re using it now is still similar to the reason they used it before, regardless of how the rest of the Western World views it.

[Cyber Liberty]

You’ve arrived, sweetie. Now you & humblegunner get a room....

:^)

[Richard Kimball]

[Richard Kimball]

I find this one a lot creepier than most of the ads in the article:

[NightOfTheLivingDems]

I like this one where hubby was "down with the grippe." [more likely overseas fighting the Axis] An early feminist approach at saving the baby with Eveready batteries.



I've been long puzzled by Pitney Bowes' "Is it always illegal to kill a woman?"

It may have been a line from a popular movie at that time: late 40's to early 50's. The woman sports an Ike jacket.

Then who can forget George Petty's Ridgid Tool calendar art?

[Richard Kimball]

Hey! You gave me an excuse to post one:

On your battery advertisement, many ads today are just as manipulative, but when you're removed from a particular culture, the manipulation becomes a lot more obvious.

[ansel12]

One night I was watching Johnny Carson and he was having one of those more raucous nights, I was surprised as they got to making a lot of jokes about young (15) girls sexuality.

That was when I put two and two together, being a high school football player and knowing about sports and guys I had been mystified at grown men’s and my stepfather’s fascination with the girls gymnastics Olympics.

For a couple of years I asked guys about things like that and what I learned was that up front they would scoff, but after a couple of drinks if you brought it up casually they were all into the girls gymnastics type thing.

[SkyPilot]

That was creepy!

[SkyPilot]

#52 - oh my gosh.

[Marysecretary]

It just seems so odd they would continue using it knowing what it stood for.