:eek: What in the nine hells is this trying to tell you to do? Grease your kids up so they won’t cry?
I’m so confused…
I’m guessing it’s to prevent chafing at night? Like baby powder, only…lubier?
I’m having a real hard time seeing that as anything but…well, a really bad interpretation.
I’m thinking preventing diaper rash plus a feminist push towards “daddy can change diapers too ya know” but…yeah, that would NEVER get off the drawing board today.
nm… already been asked.
Plus an attempt to make baby care look like MANLY work by throwing in the auto mechanics’ slang verb “lube” for “apply greasy substance to”.
Back in the day when the average ad viewer automatically associated the word “lube” with car engines rather than sexual penetration, that might well have been seen as a clever slogan.
The American Dialect Society discussion has pretty much wrapped up, I think.
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“Butthole” was not offensive in 1947. The modern use of “butthole” to mean “anus” had not yet come into existence (though it was around the corner) and people did not yet make the connection. Apparently people just thought it was an unknown but innocuous term and moved on. If people had thought it were an offensive use, the strip would certainly have been pulled; a strip like this would have been reviewed by literally dozens or even hundreds of editors.
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Nobody knows what the cartoonist meant, other than that it was something in contrast to “prime.” This was not just a nonce use, but the only known example of predicative use of “butthole.” A number of suggestions were aired, but none were thought to be particularly convincing or supported by much evidence.
Yeah, that’s a standard use of Vaseline – prevention & treatment of diaper rash. But jeez, that’s an unfortunate slogan they chose.
All I know is, I’m going to start using this, because my job is kind of butthole, too.
They did all sorts of stuff along these lines back in the day. Here’s a 1944 cover from a Marvel Comics publication: Gay Comics.
Link spoilered because other images around the cover are NSFW in an R-rated sort of way:
“Gay,” “Swish,” and “Blow?” That’s an accidental innuendo trifecta!
If you like bizarre comic book covers with snarky commentary, you could spend all day here. I know I have.
I’m not sure about that. The picture of the kid has a band-aid on his forehead, and the text on the top of the jar on the display calls it, “The first-aid kit in a jar.” Seems like they’re trying to market it as some sort of treatment for minor cuts? Not sure how a jar of lube helps with that.
Wow, Lady Plushbottom got SERVED
Kinda hard to ignore Batman’s Boner. :eek:
The moist lubricant helps keep the sensitive abraded skin of a scrape or other boo-boo from chafing on the bandage or becoming painfully dry or cracked.
Seems possible but unlikely, given that “butt” has meant “buttocks” almost exactly as long as it has meant “keg”. According to the OED, the earliest attested uses for “bung” and both senses of “butt” date from 1440 to 1450.
Well, as you may have guessed, that image has been altered for humorous purposes. The original is much more straightforward.
Y-yeah. You could totally tell it was shopped. Wasn’t fooled for a minute.
Is it possible the Newspaper Google scanned was altered by somebody (a la drawing mustaches on photos)? Or does it show up in other sources?
There are at least two different newspapers that ran the strip with “butthole.” This makes it unlikely that the usage was either vandalism to the scanned copy or vandalism at a specific newspaper when the strip was first run.