After reading Jazz's blog about the different generations, I've been thinking about that a lot. I was born in 1961 and realize that I am one of the last people to see the legal swindles. There were ads in the back of comic books ranging from how to bulk up to how to see through women's clothes with x-ray glasses. And the Sea Monkeys. At the county fair, we always had the "Watch the beautiful lady turn into a gorilla. It's Live! And It's Real!"
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Even kids' toys weren't exempt. There was something called "Silly Sand" and it looked fascinating on the TV ads. It was a huge disappointment. It did not work at all like it did in the commercials. It was just glops of colored sand and water. No fancy castles for us.
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In my lifetime, law after law has been passed to "protect the consumer." Are people really that stupid? How will people learn to be wary if they never encounter a big rip-off? It looks like H.G. Wells was right and we are creating the Eloi.
16 comments:
yes, people are that stupid. when i worked at the place i called "paycheck by caveat emptor" people bought plastic fitness equipment off infomercials (still do, i imagine). so they're sitting there at 2 in the morhing, watching these super fit people use a flex thing and say they lost 50 pounds by sitting on their bum watching tv, flexing this thing. how is that believable?
it must've been, though, because a lot of people bought them.
Jammie,
~~But we are a capitalistic society. Do we need to pass laws to protect these idjits? Maybe we should just take their money. But maybe that's not nice. Oooooh,thighmaster?
What? You mean those x-ray glasses didn't work??!?!?!!?!
I still want a pair. I still believe...
Jazz,
~~What? You mean you didn't get a pair? My brother ordered a pair from the back of a comic book. (He was a little lech in the making.) They were funny really.
Captain Corky,
~~I think you can buy them still!
You know.... I bought those friggen sea horses .... AND those xray glasses right out of the comic book. The sea horses never came alive and the glasses never works. Great memories of that era though!
Dave,
~~So you will never be one of the unwary clueless!
I hope my future relations turn out to be Morlocks because I bet Eloi are tasty.
Hey, remember super-elastic bubble plastic? Commercials showed kids actually sitting on giant bubbles, bouncing around the yard on them...when in reality you could blow about a 2-inch bubble if you were lucky. I loved the smell of that stuff tho.
Ticknart,
~~I'm not sure what to say about that!
Gnightgirl,
~~I DO remember that! I also loved the smell of the mimeograph paper from school. I expect that explains a lot about my dysfunctional brain.
I remember when people could buy BB guns on the backs of comic books. And then they could shot their playmates' eyes out.
Who me...?
There's a sucker born every minute. The proof of that is all the spam you get. If it didn't work nobody would send it. If you send a million spam messages and only 1% are clueless you just sold 1000 sea monkeys or xray glasses. ;o) Yes people are really that clueless.
Josie,
~~You shot out someone's eye?
Big Brother,
~~P.T. Barnum was a genius!
Sea Monkeys were the biggest disappointment. They looked like floating lint, but the ad was so cool, you just had to buy 'em!
Scarlet,
~~Weren't they party animals in the ads? Playing musical instruments and stuff? Or did I dream that?
LOL I don't remember them playing instruments, but they definitely had a lot of personality and on TV, they GREW. At home, nothing.
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