Wars, floods, crimes, tsunamis, fires, unemployment high, wages low, Abbotts and Costellos running for office, people are asking qué pasa?
What’s happened to the old days? I have thus researched to see how good those old days were.
No need to adore and worship me for this. Just consider me your faithful servant:
July 1954. Fan mags covering Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum cost 25 cents. Diet cocktail Dropex advertised three bottles for $6. Buy two, get one free.
But Kelpidine chewing gum guaranteed to make you lose five pounds a week for one buck.
Alan Ladd, Farley Granger, 400 movie star photos — $1 postpaid. Hit songs? “Down by the Riverside” and “That’s Amore.” “How To Write Thrilling Love Letters” book, “money back if not delighted,” 98 cents. Free trial for a $2.49 bra.
Ladies blouses — 39 cents; 20 dresses — $3.50. Free extra buttons. Perfume $1.65. “Well-known orchestra leader” Lawrence Welk music lessons promising “no obligation; no salesman will call upon you.” Story on Warners’ new Doris Day, Phil Silvers film “Lucky Me.”
Bandleader Vincent Lopez’s “Shake the Maracas” lunch at the Taft. “Generous” size lipstick, 25 cents.
“Double your money back,” if a $2 Save Your Hair order doesn’t save your hair. Or Page 30’s “triple size” $2 hair remover cream.
Today hospitals are closing. Back then “$50 a week” guarantees as a nurse. “Shapely legs”? Send $1.98. Piano lessons, 2 bucks. “No money” for a stop nail-biting tryout.
Free 10 day trial for a plain wrapped sex volume: how to do it, how to do it better, how to do it again. If, like Big Weiner or Shpritzer Spitzer, you still flunk 10 days later, money’s “refunded at once,” and they ship you a lifetime supply of Ambien.
A “How To Hold Your Husband” manual’s $2 plus postage. Who knows, maybe you save the deuce if you first spring for that trial sex volume.
Upholstery for the back of a car (where you can also do it without benefit of the trial volume) $2.98. Minus the special offer, $3.98. Dry Up Your Pimples Lotion — a quarter.
April 2005 True Story has articles on Garbo, Gable, Valentino, Sinatra, Barbara Stanwyck, Jack Benny, George Burns, Ava Gardner, Mae West.
Forward. Year 2006. Kissproof Face Powder 50 cents; 10 cents more is either for mailing or to keep out the riffraff.
One dime’s test tube of Youth Cream is opposite five pages on “The Gift of Work: When Wives Take To Business, Sometimes “there’s a reason.” Kleenex ad, 200 sheets — 25 cents. B.C. Headache Powder — a dime. Neet Deodorant — also a dime.
If you’re really skunky, the giant size is 50 cents. Arrid’s cheaper by 11 pennies.
Frostilla Hand Lotion 35 cents. Expensive because Good Housekeeping certified and “double your price refunded” if afterward your palms still look like luggage.
Fashion Frocks: Wear a free dress with “the opportunity to earn up to $23 weekly.”
Maybelline products, 35 cents. And when’s the last time you bought some at Duane Reade?
Noxzema’s regular 75-cent jar? A bargain 49 cents. And when’s the last time you bought some at Duane Reade?
Jewelry. “Five-diamond engagement ring — and it should only happen to the future Miss Kim Kardashian — $24.75.” Wristwatch, 17 jewels — $29.75.
Paris fashion shoes — $3. Years go by yet some things never change. Another article on Doing It titled: “What Does American Youth Really Know About Sex?” It’s back to back with 25 cent make-your-own-dress patterns.
However, lipstick’s soared. Coty’s now 50 cents. Stationery — 50 cents a box. Blue Waltz perfume — 10 cents.
A 30-piece silver set for an economy $31.75.
A guarantee that it can go in the washing machine? Another $2,500.
There’s also instruction on household expense: Per your income, clothes for a married couple — 15 percent.
Food, one-fourth of your income. Plus “keep extra free money for cigarettes.”
A reprise of classic earlier issues brings a 1947 Studebaker ad, a nickel Coca Cola, a full Lucky Strike page. A color layout for whatever’s “The new three-window Fordor sedan.”
Scott toilet tissue, a nickel. Listerine, two bits. Judy Garland hustling Lux. Ava Gardner pitching a 27 cent shampoo. Lucille Ball pushing cold cream.
OK?