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 !

[TheOldLady]

Well, you missed an extremely annoying and frenetic part in the end where they all danced in a circle making noises that made me want to vomit.

It made me miss the entirely wholesome Captain Kangaroo.

I may call my lawyer because I feel like suing someone over this. Maybe you, Constitution Day, Jim Robinson, the yoga person, all the children, Rasta Rooster, and the stinkin’ cow.

My brain has been permanently altered.

</cranky old fart>

[Constitution Day]

I can’t believe that was a real show.

[Slings and Arrows]

If I hadn’t posted it, we’d still be thinking it.

[Clemenza]

Unfortunately, my GF has that picture up in her office. Mine has Reagan on the ranch, meaning that our household is probably the only one with Reagan AND Obama picture prominently displayed.

There is a reason I get noxious when I go into her office, and it has nothing to do with her Mac either.

[Darren McCarty]

The worst of all of the ads was that snobbish bitch looking up in the air like that.

The only thing I'm laughing at is the buyers remorse by some of the yuppies who are going to be opening up their pocketbooks now.

[Constitution Day]

LOL!

I will then counter-sue my friend who sent it to me. I feel as though I’ll probably have bad dreams over it tonight.

[Darren McCarty]

Whiskey Cocktails? A real man drinks his whiskey straight up!!!

And I don't want to know what my dad's past was like, just as I'm sure he doesn't want to know some of the things I've done.

[MitchellC]

Geez, whoever made #2 should have been shot.

[Marysecretary]

No, they weren’t funny, but they were from a different time and can be somewhat appreciated as a sign of those times. Today’s ads aren’t much different.

[JRios1968]

Latest undead?

[mylife]

L0L!!!

[TheOldLady]

;-)

[Darren McCarty]

What the hell is that picture? Obama away from Michelle?.....

[Jewbacca]

[backhoe]

RE?

---

Most Gawd-awful joke I've heard recently from my Canadian friends?

---

A baby seal wanders in to a bar, and bellies-up...

Barkeep comes over, says

"Say, we don't see many of your kind in here- whatta ya have?"

Baby Seal:

"Anything- except a Canadian Club on the rocks..."

( ~groan!~ )

[Eaker]

Need yer input here.

[humblegunner]

There are guidelines for disciplining a woman.

Spanking is appropriate at any level though generally considered mild.

Slapping with an open hand is permissable when the woman will not stop yelling and cursing.

Body-slamming is reserved for instances of response to physical assault.

Punching is frowned upon.

[timm22]

the racial engineering is personal choice..fine but do we really have to have it become de riguer in every ad aimed at young folks....does anyone really live like this?

No, but that doesn't necessarily make the trend some kind of plot to change racial attitudes.

More likely, these ads are exploiting preexisting racial attitudes to make them more eye-catching. We take notice when we see a mixed race couple on tv because they are so rare in the real world. For a lot of people, seeing an attractive mixed race couple will provoke at least mild curiosity, and at most an intense excitement. It provokes a sexual response, either positive ("oooh, how exotic!") or negative ("they're taking our women!"). Best of all it's something controversial, but also something that no one can complain about without being suspected of bigotry. The mixed race ads stick in the minds of a lot of potential customers, and that may be enough for some of the advertising agency's clients.

Of course, even if it was some kind of intentional plot it seems pretty harmless. Isn't a world where race doesn't matter more preferable to our own?

[cynwoody]

B-Chan posted:

Here is a brigade flag in current use in the Finnish Air Force:

In both images, the swastika is in a horizontal-vertical orientation. The Nazis rotated theirs 45 degrees.

[HeadOn]

Mike and the Mechanics... Love it.