Grog Grows his Own Tail!

[CalMeacham]

A minor flood (which destroyed half a box of stored books -- sniff!) foced me to clean up one corner bookcase, and I came across a reprint of this ad. It featured a picture of a dinosaur with a missin tail, and an ad the promised you could actually grow the tail.

I learned early on as a kid that anything that looked too good or too cool to be true invariably wasn't (This made me catch up on some real trends, like the SuperBall, a bit late, but probably saved me a bundle in Kid Cash), so i never ordered Grog (or the X-Ray Specs!, or the Real Two-Man Submarine! or the FottLocker Full of Army Men! Or of Revolutionary War Soldiers! or Grit! Or the Catalogue of Seeds! Although I did write to the Famous Artist's School, but that's another thread....)

Comic art aficionado Scott Shaw! (that's his exclamation point, not mine) evidently [d]did[/i] order Grog, and here's what he has to say:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/oddball/index.cgi?date=2002-07-19

This tiny mail-order ad for “Grog Grows His Own Tail!” (one that I fell for as a kid! Imagine the look on my face when I discovered that this “monster” was a thimble-sized plaster planter that was so small that the first time I tried to water the seed that supposedly would grow into “Grog’s” mighty tail, it washed away! No wonder ol’ ”Grog” was sold by a company calling itself “Ransom Products”!)


(If you go to the site, he reprints the Grog ade)



But I want to know more! Did anyone else ever order this? What the heck was it, really? I mean, what kind of plant and all -- what did it look like? Inquiring Minds
Want to Kno!








Failing that, has anyone ever ordered some item from the back of a comic book/monster magazine/ whatever that turned out to be either really good or a total gyp?

[Knowed Out]

At first, I thought you meant Grog from BC. Grog with a tail would mean that Johnny Hart actually believed in evolution. Grog is a few steps behind the other cavemen on Darwin's scale.

The only thing I can think as far as ordering anything from the back page of comic books was the Sea Monkeys. They swam around, but didn't smoke pipes and play baseball like the ad showed.

[John Carter of Mars]

Failing that, has anyone ever ordered some item from the back of a comic book/monster magazine/ whatever that turned out to be either really good or a total gyp?


*mumble, mumble* Don't ask how I know this but: Uh, the toy soldiers took a very long time to get there, were really tiny, and wouldn'd stand up like toy soldiers should. Maybe the advertizements weren't exactly lies, but the product was not what I'd expected. Very dissappointing. At that point in my life, $3.98 or whatever represented a serious investment, so the memory of getting scammed remains all these years later.

(I can't believe I just admitted falling for that ad...)

[dropzone]

A minor flood (which destroyed half a box of stored books -- sniff!) This is where it gets delicate and I don't do delicate. Cal, you must accept that, likely as not, you were never going to read those books and that those, and all your other books in storage, function more as insulation, both literally for your basement and figuratively for you, than as potential reading material. Take comfort in the knowledge that you have many, MANY more books and you now have room to buy another half a box of them without your wife/SO/mom/ noticing.

[CalMeacham]

This is where it gets delicate and I don't do delicate. Cal, you must accept that, likely as not, you were never going to read those books and that those

How little you know me...





They were all of them read, and frequently re-read. But it'as true I now have more space.....





Too bad they didn't sell bookcases in the backs of comic books. Of course, if they did, they'd be made of cheap cardboard and would fall apart in one day....

[dropzone]

And would be far too small for the books of anybody but a miniaturist.

Now you can read some NEW books. You, I presume, actually remember what you read and rereading a book is not a whole new experience. If you keep rereading stuff it calcifies your brain.

[CalMeacham]

John Carter, look upon what I have found! I always wondered what they really looked like:

http://home.att.net/~1.elliott/comicbooktoysoldierflatsFootlocker.html

[dropzone]

(looking at their helmets) Sacre bleu! Ze are FRENCH!

[John Carter of Mars]

John Carter, look upon what I have found! I always wondered what they really looked like:

http://home.att.net/~1.elliott/comicbooktoysoldierflatsFootlocker.html


That looks like exactly what I ordered! But...when they finally arrived they were much smaller than I had imagined they would be, the soldier's rifles were bent, they were too crooked and mis-shapen to stand up by themselves, the "footlocker" that held 100 pieces was not much bigger than my uncle's Prince Albert tobacco cans, etc.,etc.,etc. Destroyed my faith in mail order for a while.
A few years later I started ordering hard to get 45 rpm records from Randy's Record Shop in Gallatin, Tennessee. Randy's always sent what I ordered by return mail. Once when they didn't have the record I ordered, they wrote back offering to refund my 98 cents or let me make another selection. Randy's Record Shop was a righteous mail order company.