I recently came into possession of, well, lets say many old comics. A good chunk of these will end up being Christmas gifts, so I’m not going to discuss the comics themselves here. But, as I did once before, let’s look at some of the advertisements for a trip down memory lane 🙂
Here’s one from a 1978 comic, and as far as nostalgia goes this one is high up on the scale:
Very cute, isn’t it. What with the fan club being based on Yavin, and “prices slightly higher outside the solar system”! And, the inclusion of an iron-on transfer gives me another blog idea…
Here’s another period SW advertisement, this time from 1984:
A few Christmas’s ago I believe I gave out some of these kits as gifts? Adverts for model kits are very common in 198X comics by the way. As I said to KLS: “That’s what kids did before video games!”
Or maybe they did this:
So much cringe-worthy content in the above ad. And that’s even before you realize what it is actually for! Go on, read it and weep 🙂
Here’s another in a similar vein, this time from 1989:
Ignoring for a moment how ludicrously verbose this ad is (Was it written by someone on their first day of work?), let’s consider this is for a handheld LCD game in 1989! That’s years after consoles had caught on, and in fact even the same year the Gameboy was released. Hard to believe this was money well spent.
Let’s switch gears, and revisit an ad which I suspect was targeted at girls (based on the comic it was in) from 1978:
OMG! Witchcraft?!?! Go ahead and read it! Amongst other things, this ad claims to teach you telepathy, mind control, ‘inhaling cosmic energy’ and THE ABLILITY TO CONTROL TIME (on page 126, no less). Holy smokes I wish they were still in business because I could make things happen if I had those powers!
Speaking of making things happen, here’s another way to make money, again from 1978:
I really have no comment, except to say that younger readers perhaps don’t understand the appeal of the above ad since they didn’t live through stuff like this:
What’s that you ask? More fanclubs? How about this one:
“Alf’s favourite menu”? The mind boggles…
Oh, here’s an ad for…
… a cardboard box! I wonder how many could they have possibly sold?
The early 1980s are when action figures started in a big way (1977 actually, with Kenner’s 3.75″ Star Wars figures). Of course this led to Masters Of The Universe, and the many knockoffs by other companies. Such as these guys:
They look so much worse than I remember. And yes I do remember ladies and gentleman, and if I ever find my sticker collection I’ll explain all in that post 😉
Speaking of Masters Of The Universe, check this gem out:
I had a rage attack when I saw this one, gibbering on about how there was no way the screenshots could have possibly looked like those obviously painted images on the bottom right. So I did some snooping, and let’s see if I was correct…
I rest my case!
I end with one last ad. In comics of the 80s, it is quite common for ads to contain superheroes, probably to get kids attention even better. This is a classic example of one such ad:
Let’s ignore for a second the fact that Superman apparently can move at sublight speeds and has a computer-brain and consider what is being sold here. A Magic Snake is a piece of plastic that can be folded into 23 trillion shapes and looks about as much fun as, well, reading the comic this was printed in. Even with the assistance of Superman, it’s hard to believe what sort of child would have found this product interesting…
Yes, I’ve had it for 30 years 🙂
Nice round-up. I remember some of these ads *very* well.
ALF’s fave menu would presumably have included cat flesh.
I forgot he ate cats!
Think about that… Would a character that *ate cats* find a place on a children’s TV show these days? I’m doubtful.
Going forward please refer to me only as The Power Lord. Thanks.
Before RS actions that, I suggest a focus group to gauge how the rebranding will impact on the uptake of core blog comments within your target demographic. It’s only fair to the stakeholders.