I had a pair of X-ray glasses sitting around, so I thought I’d show the effect. Well, technically, these are glasses that make little snowflakes appear around Christmas tree lights, but they do the same thing as some X-ray glasses I sent away for as a kid (from a cereal box, though, not a comic book). The actual effect is a little more impressive in person, but this is the best I could get taping the glasses to the front of my digital camera. You can get an idea of how the illusion works, though.
A downy feather on the lens (compliments of the cockatiel in the photo) has a similar effect, just a little blurrier.
Sam Stone I believe that “200 lb test material” is code for corrugated cardboard.
Just to show you that these things have been going on forever: One of my father-in-law’s chores as a kid was picking and killing potato bugs off the potato plants, a chore that took him hours a day in the summer. He scraped together a dime and sent away for a “Sure-Fire Potato Bug Killer.” It turned out to be two small blocks of wood and the instructions to place potato bug between the blocks and press down firmly. 60 years later he was still pissed about that. I also heard about “work at home” schemes that turned out to be a single sheet of paper bearing the words “Bake pies and sell them to your neighbors.” Very helpful, that.
I always wanted to send away for stuff but never did. My kids sold the Christmas cards, though. They did fairly well.
When I was in college my friend got his hands on a couple pairs of those X-Ray Specs. They were cheap plastic frames and the lenses were cardboard with a red/white spiral on them with a little hole in the middle.
We would go to the bar, put them on and pretend that we could see through girls clothes. All with the exaggerated “Wow, OMG! These are awesome.”
You wouldn’t believe how many girls tried to hide from our view and how many guys would beg “Let me try em, let me try em!” All persuaded by our excellent acting skills.
I ordered one of these when I was a little kid. It turned out to be a balloon with a face, a white plastic garbage bag, and a length of fishing line that you were supposed to string up in a doorframe. You hid off to the side and pulled up and down on the fishing line to make the ghost move.
Very disappointing. I don’t think I ever ordered anything else from a comic book after that.
I do remember being quite indignant, though, about the old “Grit” ads, whose application for salesmen clearly asked, “Are you a boy?” I was very tempted to lie just to see if they caught me, but then it would mean that if they didn’t catch me, I’d have to sell “Grit.” No, thanks.
The porn comic Cherry Poptart by Larry Welz had in issue #2 a hilarious parody of the comic book ads. Items such as the “Disintegrator Ray Blaster” ('turn your friends into smoldering piles of ash! Plutonium not included"); "Home Lobotomy Kit; the “Jackpot” (“this is the pot that all the guys down at the warehouse jack off into”); jalepino douche (when garlic gum isn’t cruel enough); the Dispair Buzzer; and more!
I never had the pleasure of wasting my money on these, but they sure were fascinating and full of possibilities to an 8-year old!
My story concerns the X-ray glasses. What a friggin’ concept. I talked to my dad about this; he looked the ad over and said, “I don’t think so.”
But instead of just nixing it, he sent me down the street to a guy who had an electronic/TV repair/general fixit shop. Well, he didn’t know much about X-rays either, but he took me to see his sister, I think, who worked at the hospital. She hooked me up with an X-ray tech who proceded to give me a tour and explain how X-rays and X-ray machines worked.
Seems you needed to have something receptive on the OTHER side of the beam, not in front of it, and also you needed an X-ray emmitter, which pretty much trashed my ideas and youthful notions as far as these stupid glasses went. Seemed the only thing close to what was being advertised was a flouroscope which was used in some shoe shops, and it required a lot of equipment…she also told me that it was NOT a good idea to be messing with these. I think this was before the warnings on overexposure to X-rays was popular…it was around 1957 or 1958. (kinda prophetic, that one)
Andyway, I came away with not ony an appreciation of how bogus comic books ads were, but I also realized that Superman’s famed X-ray vision was a pile of crap as well. Guess that may have been the start of of my having a jaundiced eye for overblown ads and claims, who knows?
I do have to say that it was one hell of a trip for an 8-year old and I have never, never forgotten that lesson.
My first pre-teen taste of cynicism came when I filled out a form and sent 50 cents to the publishers of Sweet Valley High to get a bunch of cool stuff (posters and stickers and some other stuff). I waited weeks and weeks and no neat stuff ever arrived. All that ever happened was I ended up on their mailing list. Thus began my career as a bitter cynical child.
Don’t worry though, I’m in therapy now and doing better.
In college, my roommate and I saw an ad in the back of Penthouse offering a “sex formula” and rubber penis for $2. We figured the rubber penis could be used in numerous pranks, and the formula was a bonus.
Well the formula was not “chemical” but a list of nice things to do for women in order to make sex more likely. The rubber penis was about 3/4 inch long, but had a hole in the end and could substitute for a pencil eraser.
One quality item advertised in comic books I have to give props to is the classic Whoopee Cusion. Simple, inexpensive, and works exactly as advertised. My brother and I probably got every member of our extended family with one of these babies hidden under a seat cushion. I gave one to my niece when she was around eight, and she and her friends loved it.
When I was about 6 or so, I sent away for play money. The ad showed a big bag with a dollar sign on it, stuffed with coins and stacks of bills with the paper bands holding them together. I thought it would be such a great prop for playing cops and robbers and stuff. When I got it, it was a single, one million dollar bill, printed on only one side. What a gip.
Criminy, they actually send someone to your house? Is that cost efficient? I always assumed they would send you a form letter – “You have great talent and potential, but if you buy our lessons, yada yada yada…”
When I was a wee tyke, I too drew Tippy the Turtle and announced to my mother my intentions on mailing it in and beginning my artistic career. She told me those ads were around when she was a little girl and she had filled one out. A man came to her home to give his sales pitch and my grandparents were not happy campers about it.
So I don’t know if they still send a guy around but they did back in the day, at least.
