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 !

[Vinnie]

I remember the Hathaway ‘eye patch’ commercials.

Hathaway used the eye patch for yrs.IIRC>

[Palladin]

You naughty person, you!

[SoftballMominVA]

That ad has so many disturbing elements- Dept X? Working towards jeans? Clean work? Boys in every city and town?

And what is up with the bananas?

[SoftballMominVA]

What was up with that eye-patch guy? Was there a subliminal element I just don’t get?

[martin_fierro]

[Hyzenthlay]

Wow, that ‘baby soft’ ad is CREEPY!

And Pears Soap had some other ads that would get an “OMG they REALLY could run that?!?! reactions, although mostly offensive in terms of race.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"...pregnancy test and maxipad ads coming in a close second and third..."

No, the Charmin Bears are the worst. I cringe.

[SoftballMominVA]

That aint’ right

[retrokitten]

Why is the dog smoking a pipe?

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

" This one is absolutely horrific. I can't believe it was ever published. Anywhere."

Have you ever caught a moment of an Our Little Miss pageant? [shudder]

[Vinnie]

I don’t know, maybe macho ex-military, worldly connotation.

OTOH he might not have obeyed his mom when she said, “Put that down, it could put your eye out!”

Or maybe, “That will make you blind!”
:)

[retrokitten]

Yes, those are bad, too.

One thing seems clear, ads have rarely been known for their tact.

As someone else said on he thread, a lot of these are funny because of the, “OMG did they really print that??” factor.

[wardaddy]

It’s not that you have opinions, I am not aware of any freeper women who don’t...it’s just some of the opinions you espoused

It’s just that you are a bit strident and seem attached to believing the modern conventional wisdom...the hear me roar sort of thing

it’s not an either/or sort of proposition...women are not either Virginia Woolfe or June Cleaver

they can be thoughtful and smart and whatnot without being pushy and demanding

I guess there are men who like strident women, having been raised by one I have opted for more subtle women....I confess that. For a southern woman she was hell on wheels with her having to be heard and have her way...only my dad could handle her.

Your comment about barefoot and pregnant usually makes folks here wonder about your other social views and I have found strident women are more often liberal than not.

But who knows, you wouldn’t be here if you were would ya?

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

“Seventeen”

Statutory rape aside (do we still care? Obama’s mom was 17 when she birthed him, wherever that might have been), I gotta agree with the premise of the ad. But then, I’m a “Mary Ann” kind of guy.

[SoftballMominVA]

O...M...G.... there is nothing in this world creepier than a Little Miss Beauty Pageant.

[wardaddy]

I guess there is nothing wrong with spanking your wife — What about the open hand slap to the face? is that okay? What about the push down the stairs for ‘cheekiness’? Is that okay? What about the punch to the gut? Is that okay? Just want to know the parameters.

again not trying to pick on you but look at you're saying....this what social libs do, you take something funny/satirical like spanking your woman(wife)...some like that btw....and you counter with extreme exceptions to bolster your argument

that's silly and disingenuous.....am I to take it Jimmy Cagney should have been charged for squashing the grapefruit in her face?

where did you pick up so much female defensiveness?

you say you've been married 25 years so you are I guess a Boomer or GenX.. abit old to have been throughly indoctrinated

we are all a product of what we've lived and witnesses and been taught, your reflexiveness about this topic hints you must have seen some unpleasantness...if so I'm sorry..truly

like John Riggins told Sandra Day O'Connor whilst he was drunk at a White House dinner in the 80s...."loosen up Sandy"

[SoothingDave]

The age of consent is 16 in most states.

[RichInOC]

Why ask why?

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"O...M...G.... there is nothing in this world creepier than a Little Miss Beauty Pageant."

Harlan Ellison did an essay on the Our Little Miss Pageant back in the '70s, IIRC. Absolutely side-splittingly hilariously on-target. Worth looking for-- I think it was in one of his "Glass Teat" books.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

18 in Kalifornistan, that much I know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_North_America